Len Metcalf 25/12/15 Len Metcalf 25/12/15

A fantastic illustration of how a portrait photographer puts themselves into their portraiture.

This is a fantastic illustration of how information about our clients is interpreted and placed into images.. Besides my mate Chris Meridith is one of the photographers in it.

Len Metcalf 29/5/14 Len Metcalf 29/5/14

Portrait locations

Where do you like to shoot your portraits Len?

Lady Medusa poses against an historic wall in Windsor during a Len's School shoot. © Leonard Metcalf 2013

Len, if you were shooting some portraits, where would you shoot?

Dear Mike,

I try to find inspiration from the person.

I like to go to their favourite park, building, or to their favoured type of building (old, new, shiny, glass, etc)..

I love to use historic buildings, like the old hospital at Nielsen Park that NPWS uses as offices. (you would need a licence to do work there with a model - see the NPWS website for more information)

Sometimes I go totally natural with some, others a combination and some just industrial places.

If it is a commercial shoot I take 3 - 4 hours and do three or four locations. Each location gets a clothing change. Saving the best till last. For when they are relaxed I will probably get the best shots at the end. Though this hasn't always been the case.

I am looking for open shade to work in. Usually. If there is none (there always is some), I shoot with the sun behind the person and let their heads create their own.

Working in one spot often gives me inspiration for the next. Trying to find what works for them. So I have a list of possibles in my mind, all close by, so I can dip into my bag of possible locations and choose the next one based on my current feelings.

One vehicle so I can take them around.

In some instances they drive me to their favourite spots.

A rambling answer I know, but I hope it helps.

Kindest regards,

Len

Len Metcalf 14/2/14 Len Metcalf 14/2/14

Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus is interesting to study as she was a master of putting herself into her portraits...

Diane Arbus's photographs are more about her inner psychological workings than her subjects. She reportedly manipulated the subjects until she found the look she was looking for. The account by Germaine Greer is telling of a deeper and more wide spread approach that she used. She would put her feelings into the images. She would manipulate, intimidate and coerce the subjects until she got what she wanted. Perhaps not in all her photographs, but she clearly used this technique on a large number of her subjects. For a detailed account of her inner workings I would recommend the book Emergency in Slow Motion: The inner life of Diane Arbus by William Schultz

In his book Schultz refers to this particular shoot with Germaine Greer and in her own words we can hear her side of the shoot.

"She set up no lights, just pulled out her Rolleiflex, which was half as big as she was, checked the aperture and the exposure, and tested the flash. Then she asked me to lie on the bed, flat on my back on the shabby counterpane. I did as I was told. Clutching the camera she climbed on to the bed and straddled me, moving up until she was kneeling with a knee on both sides of my chest. She held the Rolleiflex at waist height with the lens right in my face. She bent her head to look through the viewfinder on top of the camera, and waited.

In her viewfinder I must have looked like a guppy or like one of the unfortunate babies into whose faces Arbus used to poke her lens so that their snotty tear-stained features filled her picture frame (eg, A Child Crying, NJ, 1967). I knew that at that distance anybody's face would have more pores than features. I was wearing no make-up and hadn't even had time to wash my face or comb my hair.

Pinned on the bed by her small body with the big camera in my face, I felt my claustrophobia kick in; my heart-rate accelerated and I began to wheeze. I understood that as soon as I exhibited any signs of distress, she would have her picture. She would have got behind the public persona of Life cover-girl Germaine Greer, the "sexy feminist that men like". I concentrated on breathing deeply and slowly, and keeping my face blank. If it was humanly possible I would stop my very pupils from dilating. Immobilised between her knees I denied her, for hour after hour. Arbus waited me out. Nothing would happen for minutes on end, until I sighed, or frowned, and then the flash would pop. After an eternity she climbed off me, put the camera back in her bag and buggered off."

Germaine Greer - The Guardian 8th October 2005 - Read the full article by Germaine Greer here

In portraiture do you think it is ok to put your own agenda into the image of your subjects. If there is a line between manipulating the subject and not, where is it for you?