Richard N Tucker

Richard N Tucker ARPS

What is a portrait?

The portraits shown here were created for the planned studio portrait workshop in Zurich last October. Starting with an interesting face the lighting was systematically altered using single and double flash with diffuser umbrella's; LED panel lights of different sizes.

Away from the workshop context the portraits, with changes of lighting and costume, provide different information and raise other questions. Different viewers have given different titles to each image, the clothing often leading to suggestions of Eastern Europe, or the Western States. But what are we looking at when we see a portrait? Is it a good representation of the person? The last picture in the series shows the subject in a more usual setting, as he spends months in the Sahara in that vehicle, taking photographs. He is the retired Managing Director of an international industrial search engine company based in Zug. More of a Swiss bean counter than a Persian philosopher.

So, what is a portrait? Is it simply a photograph of an object, that happens to be a human? Or are we trying to explore the inner character? And how do we know when we have got it? There are many famous portraits that have expressed something profound about the person shown and their known background, but a photograph does not necessarily show us the “real” person. There is a continuing debate to join.