Portrait series
Portrait photography today: a fling or an affair?
It is fashionable to lament about the fate of intimacy in the current age of Facebook friendships with hundreds and thousands, whose faces you barely know but whose habits and point of views are announced to you daily and with fervor. And yet it is an addictive social engagement. And since the old saying about seeing something once being better than hearing about it hundred times holds true, the stream of casually taken photographs becomes the essential part of that involvement with others.
So what is the fate and function ( or perhaps function and fate) of a portrait photography in this world of "now you see me, see me, see me, again, a better me, a funny me, a sad me, a sexy me, and most importantly , me whose existence is confirmed for a moment by you seeing Me" ....And what separates it from the multitude of images populating the private files and social networks?
It seems that the core difference lies with the a man (or a woman) behind the camera.
It is the intention, capacity and desire to establish an intimate relationship with the "sitter" , a relationship that is anything but casual, that distinguishes the traditional photographic portrait making . It is the attempt to address what is beneath the surface, what is the history and the hopes of the subject that separates that process from indiscriminate picture taking that serves as a substitute rather than expression of intimacy.
It is fashionable to lament about the fate of intimacy in the current age of Facebook friendships with hundreds and thousands, whose faces you barely know but whose habits and point of views are announced to you daily and with fervor. And yet it is an addictive social engagement. And since the old saying about seeing something once being better than hearing about it hundred times holds true, the stream of casually taken photographs becomes the essential part of that involvement with others.
So what is the fate and function ( or perhaps function and fate) of a portrait photography in this world of "now you see me, see me, see me, again, a better me, a funny me, a sad me, a sexy me, and most importantly , me whose existence is confirmed for a moment by you seeing Me" ....And what separates it from the multitude of images populating the private files and social networks?
It seems that the core difference lies with the a man (or a woman) behind the camera.
It is the intention, capacity and desire to establish an intimate relationship with the "sitter" , a relationship that is anything but casual, that distinguishes the traditional photographic portrait making . It is the attempt to address what is beneath the surface, what is the history and the hopes of the subject that separates that process from indiscriminate picture taking that serves as a substitute rather than expression of intimacy.
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