For Photographers

Still life photography is making pictures of inanimate subjects. Portrait photography is the opposite; it’s about making pictures of animated subjects. Yet the photo techniques of the two are the same.

What separates still life photography from portrait photography is that the former is still while the latter should have (e)motion.

A still life is about the photograph but a portrait is about the subject.

In a still life, the photographer is visibly important. But in a portrait, the photographer should be invisible.

It took me a long time to understand this.

A portrait photographer’s primary job is to make their subject feel good about themselves. Sure, you also have to do flattering photos. But if the subject doesn’t feel confident about themselves, they won’t like the photo results.

Why wouldn’t they like the finished pictures? They might think their nose is too big, their jaw is crooked, their eyes uneven, their hair not right, their smile not good enough, or any of a hundred other things.

People don’t see themselves the same way as other people do. This is partly due to lateralization of emotion: a photograph shows the real us and not the reversed mirror reflection that we’re used to.

It’s also due to expectation and hope. We expect to look as young as we feel. We hope to look like a movie star. We expect to look better than average. We hope no one can see our flaws.
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