A Series of Portraits
As I mentioned in my most recent post about Andrew Bush, looking at several photographs of people driving sounds like it could become repetitive. Thankfully, it does not, because Bush manages to keep interest through varied subjects, movement (not necessarily the cars moving, but the photographs themselves seem to have visual movement), and humor with both the drivers expressions and cars as well as Bush’s own captions for the photographs.
I began thinking (again) about series of portraiture that have a strong repetition yet somehow the photographer and the subjects maintain a sense of interest and variety. The first two people I thought of are quite well known and have been extremely successful with their careers.
Nicholas Nixon has photographed his wife and her three sisters (Brown Sisters) annually for decades. Nixon brings attention to what photography does best, it records the surface and physical features of all subjects. The women age before your eyes. Through both their physical features and emotional representation, every sister ages. The series ultimately describes how a family changes as they grow older.
Rineke Dijkstra is most famous for photographing adolescents on former Soviet Union and American beaches. These images were mentioned twice in the recent post on Conscientious called “What makes a great portrait?” Like Nixon’s Brown Sisters, Dijkstra’s portraits are meant to be compared to each other. Through the simple visuals of a full figure in a static frame we can easily ask who looks more awkward, who looks wealthier, what nationality are they? The variety of the subjects makes the series, it is the only changing element in the photographs that is instantly discernible.Of course there are many other photographers that have a successful series of portraits.
Suzanne Opton, in her series titled Soldiers:
Opton seems to have created an iconic look to her soldiers that simultaneously presents them in a vulnerable way. By having the soldiers lay down upon their return from duty there is an interesting sense of both rest and relaxation from the timing and pose, but yet a strain and tension is present from the very same pose. This tension is ever-present in the soldier’s faces and expression. The portraits look and feel innocent and beautiful, with a sadness in them as well.
On another note, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Opton’s soldier portraits is that they were publicly displayed on billboards in the Syracuse area.
Lastly, Jeremy Oversier, a fellow RIT student, photographed every fourth year Fine Art Photography major on a couch in his bedroom. As a series of portraits, the photographs document classmates as visitors as well as the ever-changing condition of the couch and room. It is the seemingly little care given to the background that adds so much interest to the series, as does the variety in sitting posture of recent college students. (If you look at the web gallery here you will find the portrait of me).
If there is room to expand this kind of photography, I believe it is in the effort of the photographer to not only try to capture similarities and differences as noticed through a series, but to also take the series and go somewhere with it. Many of the series mentioned above begin to do this, but they all also seem to fall short. I know the intent in most instance was not to make a story as I have suggested, but it does feel like a logical next step.
Perhaps the point is to build up a climax of a series of portraits with no end in sight. I think this may be why I so throughly enjoy the title “Vector Portraits” because in geometry a vector has a beginning and then it goes on forever. With such a title Andrew Bush implies that his subjects will continue to drive on and on. It is easy for the viewer to imagine the subjects driving on and on the first time they see the portraits. I enjoy how easy it is to connect to the drivers and drive with them. In general, I either want this connection and continuation to occur in more series, or I want a greater progression the in story told through the portraits. I don’t know which is more important right now.
February 8th, 2008 at 7:50 am
wheres the picture of paul?
February 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
You know, I’ve never seen the picture of Paul. Maybe he was too hairy.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Don’t know where you studied geometry, but a vector is an object having a magnitude and a direction. It definitely does not ‘go on for ever’.
As it applies to Andrew Bush’s interesting, unique work ‘Vector Portraits’, it would be just the opposite — the ‘vector’ of the title correctly refers to a defined magnitude (the stopped action captured in the camera’s frame, and the corresponding distance the car traveled) and the concurrent direction of the photographer and the subject.
Your interpretation of the title misses the point of the imagery and supersedes the possibilities of a photograph. With such a title Mr. Bush implies he has made an portrait of someone during an instant of a journey. If one were to ponder, it is just as easy to do so going back as going forward, i.e. ‘driving on and on’. To imagine where the subject ‘was’ as much as where they ‘will be’. But, in a photograph neither is valid. A two-dimensional vector as well as a two-dimensional photographic image, is a representation of reality, nothing more and nothing less. They don’t tell us anything about what happened before or what will happen in the future, much less about what is happening in the photo. I think that is why Mr.Bush called it ‘Vector Portraits’. To look behind or ahead, well, that’s outside the frame, outside the properties of a vector and way outside what a photograph can do.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Thanks Keith, I stand corrected.
I have not taken a geometry class in at least 7 years, and I believe I got the definition of a vector confused with that of a ray.