Eyes! Eyes!

A portrait is nothing without eyes! They don't have to be looking at the camera, but it helps...

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 15, 2000

Answers

Well, yes, it's a fine picture, but is it a portrait? (it's eye-ronic, I wanted to see some good eye-contact pictures, and now everyone's going to post their dont-look-at-me pictures...)

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 15, 2000.

Not everyone is as contrary as I am; maybe you'll get what you're looking for. Hell, I'll even post an "eye shot" for ya. . .

Is my previous photo a portrait? I think so. It may not show what her face looks like, but I believe it reveals something about her.

-- Mike Dixon (burmashave@compuserve.com), September 15, 2000.

Nice shot, and much stronger than the other shot you posted here. However, I'm not sure about the eyes comment either. And what if they're closed and blurry?

Pucker, Copyright 2000 Jeff Spirer

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), September 15, 2000.

portraits

To most people, I don't think that your image of the girl with closed eyes counts as a "portrait". We can split philosophical hairs all day but by convention, it ain't a portrait. Now an environmental portrait or snapshot, I can live with, and yes eyes can be closed and funny faces made but the back of a head with arms closed around it, no. James

-- james (james_mickelson@hotmail.com), September 16, 2000.

Well, focused is preferable to blurry.... open is preferable to closed, I guess after 30 years of looking at pictures you reach some personal conclusions, the one I've reached in this case I guess is that portraits without eye-emphasis don't do much for me.... they can be cute, they can be arty, but still:

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace Robes loosley flowing, hair as free Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Ben Johnson

found that somewhere.....

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 15, 2000.

Let me try that again:

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace

Robes loosley flowing, hair as free

Such sweet neglect more taketh me,

Than all the adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 15, 2000.

excellent. honest and direct. the image successfully communicates something about the subject.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), September 16, 2000.

in response to mike dixon's "eyes": in my view, that's by far the best work you have shown since i have been involved with this forum. really impressive treatment of this individual: the wonderful, large eyes, looming from a high key environment.

-- wayne harrison (wayno@netmcr.com), September 16, 2000.

I very much like this entire thread. The visual and written arts here nicely reflect my perceptions of the personalities of their creators. Wow, thanks.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@alaska.net), September 16, 2000.

...A..

-- Altaf Shaikh (bshaikh@nyc.rr.com), September 17, 2000.

Re: India- Once again, hell of a picture, but even lightening my monitor I still can't see the eyes....

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 18, 2000.

two more for the mix... which one do you choose? I never show one, without the other. Usually full frame with the black film edge line, but these were scanned from prints bigger than my scanner bed.

-- tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com), September 18, 2000.

My only question is, how important are the eyes when you are taking a portrait of a blind person?

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), September 18, 2000.

Ref a blind person: as important as anyone else's. Ref Tom Meyers duo, you know which one I prefer. What the closed eyes "tell me about the person" are the same as the head-in-the-arms one up there, that she needs a nap. Funny thing about these "eye-demos" of Mike and Toms, maybe the models are really too young for the eyes to say anything- but I dont hear them talking past "am I pretty or what?" That's not so much the case on Tom's "here's another.." I was really pleased with Shawns response to my "street energy" post- "she has the eyes of a poet" thank you Shawn, mission accomplished. Here's another one of my favorite subjects- Boston musicians in the wild. This is Geoff Muldaur last summer with daughters Clare and Jeani doing backup, and that's Maria in the shadows.... eyes, anyone?

You people with memories can get more at

http://www.chrisyeager.com/z/eric_VS/eric.html

Nice ranting with you all-

cy

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 18, 2000.

Long day; long, long day...

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 18, 2000.

You know Altaf, if you want to start a new thread the thing to do is use the "Ask a Question" button at the front of the forum.... for the life of me I can't see what this has to do with eyes in portraits...

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 18, 2000.

"A portrait is nothing without eyes!" The images refute that particular statement. A portrait is not a simple depiction of eyes and photographs are not simple recordings of light rays onto cellulose. The sum total of a portrait is that it tells you something about the person in the photograph. Take a real close look at the last picture I posted and tell me it tells you about that person. A photograph of a person with eyes and no emotion is a headshot and a bad one at that. (this is NOT referring to your image just a general statement)

Portraits are about people (duh), emotions, passions, something other than a transient recording of "hey you look here". Portratists should be pasionate people sharing their view and interest in other human beings not the equivalent of a computer pushing the shutter whenever anything is in focus and properly metered. I can show you a thousand silly photographs that claim to be portraits which are nothing more than trivial recordings of reflected light onto 5 cent cellulose.

If I unintentionally intruded onto your thread and or direction you wanted your thread to go, I will start another new one later on.

Best Regards,

-- Altaf Shaikh (bshaikh@nyc.rr.com), September 19, 2000.

OK, fair enough. Call me dense but i needed the words to make the connection. I think these would range into the description of "environmental portraits" where the subject's surroundings or posessions (or lack of) would do the talking. There are totally valid all though it still viscerally bothers me when the eyes are in shadow. Maybe that's just a personal thing...

I stand up and applaud your differentiating between a portrait and a headshot- thats exactly what I was talking about up there when i said "Ok there are eyes but what's in them?" This eyes rule has been broken with great success many times- I think of Weston's "Galvan Shooting" or Avedon's Marian Anderson... (think I got these right) If you think you should never begin a sentence with "but" you'll never be a great writer. But those back-of-the-head hair-in-the-face shadowed-out blurry-eyed "portraits" still drive me nuts-

Thanks for your comments- see you in the new thread-

-- Chris Yeager (cyeager@ix.netcom.com), September 19, 2000.

Well the best info I've gleaned from this thread is that Geof and Maria are back together and performing. What a great voice that guy has... "Someone to Love" on Paul Butterfield's "Better Days" alblum (with the big, gold harmonica on the cover) is some of the best big band blues ever recorded.

And as far as this concept of essential eyes in a portrait, I think it's restrictive and counter productive.

Altaf hits the nail on the head "A photograph of a person with eyes and no emotion is a headshot and a bad one at that"...

As for Altaf's photo, while most eloquent (as he is), it does not fit the way I think of a portrait. Portraits generally allow the subject some conscious influence over their appearance, specifically for the photograph... a deliberate effort to create an image of what they look like. This photograph looks like it was made from a distance, spontaneously, with no collaboration between subject and photographer. And by way of unsolicited criticism, I'd crop out that woman whose looking the other way. She contributes nothing but a distraction. Then you'd have an insightful and revealing image... t

-- tom meyer (twm@mindsping.com), September 19, 2000.

From my artistic statement: "Never ascribe to artistic vision that which can adequately be explained by incompetence."

-- Struan Gray (struan.gray@sljus.lu.se), September 19, 2000.

Tom, I always thought Butterfield peaked with East-West, that goofy mix of blues, rock, and the title song, a masterpiece of pseudo- eastern (mixing up Indian and Middle Eastern styles) pseudo- psychedelia that reflected everything that there was to know about the music scene in the late 60s.

OK, enough about music. I like photos that don't have eyes. I like photos that have eyes. I don't think it makes a lot of difference in terms of a good portrait. I had the tough guy with sunglasses here a while back, and no-one made a remark about not seeing the eyes (well I think I'm right, I'm too lazy to check), but I know in that photo, seeing the eyes was unnecessary.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), September 19, 2000.