Somewhere Greta Garbo is quoted as saying that she would
never be photographed as herself, only as a character she
was playing. ---Richard Knoppow
April 23, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick,
Very few people have the ability or skill to fully avoid being
photographed 'as themselves'. I have no doubt Garbo was one of
them.
More recently there was the portrait of Nancy and Ronald Reagan made by
Richard Avedon. Two more produced and controlled countenances could never
be found. Nor, frankly, two more surgically modified ones. But they lived
in a world where everything, even portraiture, can be a contest. Who
could go up against Avedon with an actor's visage? Avedon simply included
their figures down to their affectionately coupled hands. Aged hands;
belied faces.
I think of peoples' desire to hide from the onlooker as the wearing of a
mask. This is hardly a novel notion, but I also see the mask as very
precariously fastened in nearly all cases. In fact, the mask is more or
less flickering; it goes on and off very, very quickly. This is the main
reason I feel I need a motor-driven camera ? to keep up with the
unbelievable speed of human _expression_. Many people strive to keep the
mask in place, but unless they are well trained, they cannot sustain it.
It is extremely rare to find a person who can keep the mask consistently
in place. Marlon Brando, Henry Kissinger, people like that could do it.
Except for people on this level, it is always possible to find a moment
now and then to trip the shutter and find the true visage. Take ten rolls
of film, a hundred and twenty exposures, and with luck two 'real'
portraits will result. That's because the real moments, unmasked, that
is, are like flashes between the masks. The portraitist must not only
recognize them somehow, but get the shutter open at just the right
moment. That's a pretty hard co-ordination to achieve. It's a bit like
hai-alai with light. I never think of it as 'capturing'. People sometimes
use the _expression_ 'getting your ducks in a row' ? making a photograph
demands getting your eye, brain, camera, and light in a row.
Out of the hundred or so exposures, maybe ten or twenty will be saleable.
Perhaps they could be termed 'competent'. They are necessary to give
clients something to be tempted by, to spend money on. As far as my own
aims go, I'm only doing it for the real ones, the ones or twos. The
assembled ones or twos from each session yield one or two out of a
hundred, and if I live long enough there might be a body of work.
regards,
--le
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Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
voice: 416-686-0326
email: portrait@xxxxxxxxxxxx
net:
www.heylloyd.com
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