I wrote about portraiture today. I have a love/hate relationship with portraiture and that's probably why I'm not so good at it. Sure...I can get a likeness, and even some people like the end result. But, I have yet to capture an essence of the person. "Dennis" comes close (trouble is I never asked him to open the jacket and show the gun on his belt - there's the edge that I'm missing). But, the rest posted so far are just that...likenesses that don't go to the depth of a person as they present themselves to the world.
Maybe this is not a big failing, but it sure does reflect the way many people work with me in other aspects of life. Often people react to me as the photographer and feel the need to pose and present the "best" parts of their character. And, when I try to go deeper than that I stop short and so do they. So, portraiture is an art form all to itself. Like I have said in "The Limits" section, I want to go beyond just straight representation in images to the inner meaning of the subject or the interplay of the colors or intensity of the black and white.
Maybe that's too ambitious. But, I'll move in that direction with an attempt to work with a World War II veteran who lives in my building. Let's see where that takes us.
RPW