Portraiture - A Forgotten Art
Derek Smith • 20 August 2022
George Hammond
Photo By: Studio Photographer
Foster Mother
Photo By: Studio Photographer
A Woman and Two Children
Photo By: Studio Photographer
Fleur
Photo by: Derek Smith
As 21st century photographers, have we forgotten the art of portraiture?
Wander around any stately house, or indeed any art gallery, and you will find many portrait paintings, always posed with fine details, usually posed against a dark background, looking fairly solemn, and very often with symbols of their power, prestige, or their achievements in life. As an example, think of Sir Francis Drake, he circumnavigated the world, so his portrait illustrates the point by posing him with a hand resting on a globe of the world.
Fast forward to the late 19th century, and early 20th century when photography became available, initially more affluent members of the public paid to have a professional photographic portrait taken, usually posed in the photographers studio. Professional photography progressed, becoming more accessible, and more affordable, with photographic studios opening in every town. More people were able to be photographed, again posed, and in a studio, often the photo was printed onto a post card, for posting on to friends, and relatives. This is the time when we began to see our own ancestors immortalised in the photographic medium, grandfathers in uniform before going to war, aunts, and uncles, mothers, fathers all professionally photographed, printed, and prized.
With the advent of the Brownie box camera, and film in rolls, photography became available to the masses, and everyone was in a photograph somewhere. With mobile phones we are now the most photographed generation that has ever lived. With the ubiquity of images all around us do we prize, and cherish those images, as we once did, or have those images become just a part of the tapestry of our lives, fleeting, and disposable?
As hobbyist photographers how do we feel about taking portraits? Portraiture is certainly one of the least popular genres in competitions, and poorly represented. Personally I find a certain satisfaction in creating a portrait, the choice of natural or artificial lighting, the pose itself, and being able to show the character of the subject, and I enjoy that interaction between me, the photographer, and the model.
Photographed here firstly is a portrait of my great-grandfather, George Hammond, he was a senior London Fire Brigade officer stationed at Bow, he had been presented with medals for bravery in rescuing 2 people from a burning building in Stoke Newington, he is pictured in full dress uniform so perhaps the photo was taken during the awards ceremony. Secondly, from my late father-in-laws collection, a post card image from the early twentieth century, on the reverse of the card is the photographers name, and address, and in pencil the words "foster mother". Thirdly another early twentieth century posed photo, again from my late father-in-laws collection, the pose with the two children, and the costumes of the children, and the woman are very dated by modern standards. Lastly is a portrait of a model Fleur, whom I've worked with before, taken on location sorely in natural light.
Louth Photographic Society
I was scrolling through the archives yesterday, and found these "Still Life" images. Still Life is an interesting photographic genre that requires good lighting, and compositional skills, but the results can be amazing. Here are four images of the genre, "Breakfast" showing cereal falling into a bowl, "Four Candles" (no not the ones from the Two Ronnies sketch), the moody "Decaying Tulip", and the simple but effective monochrome "Opener". Perhaps these images might give you some inspiration.
I joined the NELPS outing at Chambers Farm Woods on Wednesday. The NELPS visit to Chamber Farm wood and butterfly garden was well attended, with several members from NELPS, Grimsby, Dunholme and Louth, kind thanks to all that came, although it was very hot the butterfly garden, being rather full and slightly unkept did not let us down with butterflies, two less common were seen, a Comma butterfly and a humming bird moth, with loads of very lively common blue butterflies. Most of the insects in the butterfly garden were highly active, and by the time an insect was spotted, it was off!! I managed to just about get an image of the Comma butterfly, and nobody stood a chance with the humming bird moth, it was too fast. The dragonfly was more accommodating remaining fairly still posing for us. The next NELPS outing will be to the Peoples Park in Grimsby on Wednesday 19th, I'm busy on that day, but I will be attending the meeting at the Sandtoft Trolleybus Museum on Wednesday 26th. Many thanks to NELPS for organising these outings, it was a thoroughly pleasurable morning.
A visit to Whitby for a sunset picture didn't quite go to plan. Unknown to me today is the last day of the Whitby Regatta. Whitby in the summer is usually busy, but today it rivaled Time Square in New York. My planned shoot of the East Pier was a non-starter because for tonight only there's a fun fair along West Pier where I planned to shoot from. I had to re-think and resort to plan b, which was also a non-starter because the East Pier was closed as it was packed with fireworks. Plan c was OK though and I got an image I'm pleased with.
I've been up to RSPB Bempton Cliffs this week, and have taken some excellent photographs, the weather was fine, and the lighting was less harsh than usual. This pair were on the cliff top, obviously well established, and saw off this interloper trying to muscle in on their space, those beaks look very vicious. I hope that everyone else is having a productive summer break.
For club interaction, we are invited to these NELPS photo shoots. So lets start this club interaction, NELPS are now on there summer break, but it does not stop there. The NELPS club president has put together some outdoor photo shoots:- Lincoln 5th Aug meet at the Cathedral 11am Not forgetting the photo exhibition by Lincoln Camera Club in the Usher Gallery! Chambers Farm Wood & Butterfly Farm 12th Aug meet at 10am. Peoples Park Grimsby 19th Aug meet at 10am. Trolley Bus Museum Sandtoft 26th Aug meet at 10am Cadwell Park 10th Aug motorbikes, 24th Aug cars and both are track days so free to get in.
Sutton & Trusthorpe Camera Club have their annual Exhibition at the Meridale Hall, Sutton on Sea, on 29th / 30th August. Drink and a Home-made cake only £3!
I’ve lost my photographic “mojo”, that desire to go out and take impactful photographs. That creative spark has gone, vanished, will it ever return? Writers talk of a “writers block”, when they just sit in front of a blank page, and can’t think of anything else to write, I’m the same, still out with my camera, but just not creating anything meaningful. Some of this I suppose is due to the fact that I’ve almost stopped my genre of model photography, we had the Studio evening, and other than that I’ve only had 2 model shoots this year. So what is my photography genre now? I know that I’m not a bird photographer, I haven’t got the patience to sit in a bird hide for hours with a long lens, waiting for the right bird shot to appear. Landscape, possibly, but I look at the work of some of our members, and YouTube videos, and don’t know whether I can achieve as good a standard in my work? I do enjoy macro photography, but again do my photos reach a good standard? One way forward is to look at our Societies annual project, this year it’s “water” one photo a month depicting water. Then of course there are the planned photo competitions for the rest of the year, those subjects could inspire me to go out and take some images. Anyway, that’s me, enjoy the rest of the summer, and if any of our members could share a photo, with a line or two of text I will be very happy to post on this blog.
Good Morning All Last week we had a very good evening at Kirkby Gravel Pits, it was a warm sunny evening and there was wildlife about to photograph. There were Dragonflies about, but all flying, but we did manage to photograph some Damselflies and grasshoppers etc. We then called at the local pub in Kirkby on Bain for refreshments. There were only 7 of us, if you have other ideas for outings please let me know and I will look into them for next year. Derek has also done a blog on the evening. Louth did make it through to the LPA Battle finals coming fifth overall, the final is on the 18 th October at Nettleham village hall. That was the last event before the summer break, so we now have a break before returning in September. I won't be doing any newsletters unless there is something to report. If you do anything interesting over the break you can always send Derek a blog for our website. There are things you can do over the break, the monthly project of water, preparing for the PDI competition in September, with the categories of "Objects in the Air" and "Open". In September our first meeting back will have members speaking on the topic "15 minutes on what you have done over the summer", you may want to prepare something for this. Have a good summer, Graham
Lincoln Camera Club are holding an exhibition at the Usher Gallery, Lincoln. Commencing July 30th to November 1st.
This was our last outing before the summer break, on this occasion several of us met up at Kirkby Gravel Pits nature reserve for an evening of photography. The evening weather was perfect for photography, and we ambled around the reserve stopping to take some macro photography where opportunities arose. We did see a couple of butterflies, and I managed to take this image of a red admiral. As we walked along the paths, several grasshoppers could be glimpsed in the dry grass, they are very difficult to photograph as they are tiny, and agile, but I captured this one while I was laying down in the grass, at eye level, a lot of patience is needed to capture a quality image. In the brambles damselflies could be seen, one took off straight into a spiders web, luckily Graham was able to release it. On the water a heron, and egret could be observed across the water. It was an excellent evening of photography, as well as a social meetup, these outings are ideal for newcomers to photography to learn camera skills.
