Eclipse: What is a Portrait?
On April 8th, I had the pleasure of experiencing a total solar eclipse. I typically don't bring my camera to events; I like to be present and experience things as they are. Even when I travel and intend to make photographs, I experience the place first. I guess in a way, I am "scouting" it before I bring my camera and see it through many layers of glass. I feel experiencing a place or event before photographing it is respectful and gives me a better understanding of how to photograph it appropriately.
The eclipse was different. The hype leading up to it made it feel like it could be the end or the beginning of something. My daughter's school was cancelled for the day, the eclipse came up in yoga class, and there were signs by the highway warning of extreme traffic and wild interruptions on eclipse day; it was different. So, if the world was going to end, I planned on going out doing the thing I love.
The majority of my work is portraiture, so as I set up my tripod at an opening at the top of my street, I started to consider how I was going to create a portrait of the moon in full shadow and the sun in all of its glory and how I am going to make it my own. As the moon crept along the sun, I started to consider what a portrait is. Webster defines it in many practical ways, such as the physical dimensions and orientation of a piece of art or a person's likeness, typically a face painted, photographed or sculpted. But as everything grew darker, I felt those definitions didn't do portraits justice.
So, what is a portrait? To me, a portrait is a fraction of a second in time, the reflection of a subject through an artist's eye, visually revealing something of the subject. A good portrait quietly says something about the subject that gives the viewer something to consider. Regardless of the philosophy behind a portrait, a portrait couldn't exist without some level of inspiration and intent by the creator. As I was taking photographs of the sun and the moon, I realized that my portraits of the eclipse would be my own because the images are the eclipse reflected through me.
A couple of weeks later, I was at the Art Gallery of Ontario flipping through a book on Georgia O'Keeffe's life and works and came across a portrait series by Alfred Stieglitz of Georgia O'Keeffe. The pieces Portrait of Georgia, No.2 & No.3 are black-and-white images of sunlight spilling over the edges of big fluffy clouds, these images instantly reminding me of my eclipse work. The title of the work implied it was Georgia O'Keeffe, but the images were abstract portraits of the sky. I'd like to think that what Stieglitz saw in the sky at that moment reminded him of Georgia, or she was next to him, and the sky was a part of their story in that moment. Regardless of the situation or intent, it was definitely playing with the idea of a portrait, and I took great comfort in knowing that the exploration, contemplation and evolving definition of a portrait had been going on well before I picked up a camera and will continue long after I put my camera down.
For me, the eclipse wasn't the end of the world but the beginning of a deeper exploration of what a portrait is, and I would love to know what a portrait is to you.
