The Uncomfortable Portrait

“A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.”— Edward Steichen

This is not an essay about portraits. 

I am two months into my annual retreat in the woods. I have photographed everything around me, trees, sunrises, the lake, the trails, the Airstream, pretty much everything that catches my eye. I have, indeed, photographed a lot of this stuff in previous seasons. Yet the urge to photograph is strong so I shoot the same thing again and again. 

I am a photographer who prefers to be on the move. That's when my eye seems sharpest and my interest keenest. Sitting still, photographically speaking, is challenging, to be honest. I suspect that I am not alone in this, always hungry for new photographic material but settling for more of the same. This year, as I mentioned in a previous post, I am trying to stay active photographically while in the woods. As I state above, I started out photographing much of what I'd previously turned my lens on. But I was growing frustrated at what was becoming a redundant photographic exercise. Then it occurred to me that I did, indeed, have fresh photographic material at hand: people.

I confess that portrait photography makes me uncomfortable. I do not like staging people, telling them to lift their chin, or square their shoulders. I'm more of a street photographer, photographing people without their knowledge. Yet, a quick review of my portfolio reveals that I have done a lot of portrait work, both as personal projects and assignments. So, that is the direction I have turned for the rest of the summer.

There are a handful of points I'm trying to make here. First, I want to stress, as I've done previously, that we are surrounded by subjects to photograph. That is our practice. Flowers, trees, streets, buildings, and yes, people--the possibilities are endless, constrained only by a lack of imagination. And secondly, turning into creative discomfort is often difficult but frequently rewarding. It affords one personal growth and often leads the way into fresh thinking and seeing. And lastly, beware the pigeon hole. I am a landscape photographer, a portrait photographer, a street photographer, a nature photographer, and so on. Every time you put yourself into a category you are removing yourself from an opportunity to explore other ways of expression. It is comfortable to regard yourself as one thing or another, but we don't do this to be comfortable. If there is one universal rule in all the creative expressions it is the rule of discomfort. The musician crossing the stage to begin a performance might feel intense discomfort, but that is where the art begins. 

If I were giving a workshop your assignment would be to go out and photograph something you've never photographed before. 

Thanks for reading. You can find me at Doug Bruns Photography. Please forward this post to anyone you think might be interested.