Physiognomy and various musings

Do you think you can know a person just by looking at their face? Of course you do. "Looks can be deceiving" really just means that we think that looks are not deceiving most of the time. And when looks do fool someone, our first assumption is to blame the duped party for not paying better attention.

I'm sure most of you have heard of that scientific study about how beautiful people get better jobs?

“When someone is viewed as attractive, they are often assumed to have a number of positive social traits and greater intelligence,” say Carl Senior and Michael J.R. Butler, authors of the study. “This is known as the ‘halo effect’ and it has previously been shown to affect the outcome of job interviews.”

As if we didn't already know.

I think one of the reasons that portraits are so fascinating is that we, the viewers, are biologically programmed to read a face. Call it "first impressions" when it happens quickly, "or "physiognomy" when it's an object of study, but either way, we are mapping out a face to create a narrative.

I looked at some physiognomy site just for fun. Dataface was among the most informative. Another site used digital physiognomy to analyze the personalities of the 2008 presidential candidates (Obama rates 17% in hostility and McCain gets 94%—ouch!). I also perused an astrology site that gives the physiognomy of men and of women. I didn't fare well.

When we take a person's portrait, we are co-authoring a story. In the case of professional portraits, the client and the photographer enter into a negotiation. Sometimes, the client expresses the terms verbally ("I don't like my profile," "Don't do anything that makes me look too old...or too young," etc.) and sometimes the message is in the expression itself. My favorite photo of a client is not necessarily the one that gets ordered. The reason? It's not telling the story they're after. People paying for their portraits usually want a work of fiction—romantic, heroic, nostalgic, something they value. For the client, we use good lighting, we retouch, and we craft our fiction with the highest possible degree of verisimilitude. In my personal projects, I get to tell a different story, one that can embrace realism. Wrinkles? Yes, please. Distinguishing marks? Quirky features? Absolutely. Now that's an interesting story. Interesting, as long as I don't have to star in it.

Photo Booth Face

The "Photo Booth" grid from my first Monthly Special.

My very first "Monthly Special" was a simple grid project. The example I used was a grid showing the son of a friend of mine. We played the "Photo Booth" game against a simple black backdrop. Most kids today (at least in America) have probably never used an actual photo booth, but Mac users might have played around with the Photo Booth application.

In this particular case, the family had a new iMac and the kids liked to take crazy photos of themselves using the built in camera and the Photo Booth app. Inspired by that game, I had each kid do a series of faces like they would in a photo booth. At first, it was easy to get different expressions, but when their own inspiration was lacking I just had to call of key words or scenarios. You have to practice piano. *click* Your girlfriend just called. *click* Your sister took all of your Halloween candy. *click* etc. Within just a few minutes, you wind up with a wide variety of expressions—theatrical ones, mind you, but ones that represent individual personality nonetheless.

This is a great way to explore the infinite variety of the human face, and not just for kids. Try it with one of your friends or a family member. Once you've collected a few dozen expressions, you can collage them however you like. Do individual prints as a framed series, do a triptych, do a massive grid. Whatever suits your style. The important thing is to use a blank background to keep the focus on the face. And have fun.

February Monthly Special: The Face

(If you're a long time reader, you've seen the above portrait as part of a face grid)

The iconic film director John Ford once said that there is no greater landscape than the human face. Or at least that's what I heard quoted by one of the directors at the Sundance Film Festival last week. I googled it but ended up on the Oscar Wilde quote, "A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face is her work of fiction." Not quite what I intended.

When considering this month's theme, I kept coming back to the human face because:

1. I am one post away from doing a complete portrait retouch workflow tutorial
2. I gave my students a portrait assignment and was surprised at how many people downplayed the human face
3. The fact that interesting faces can be found anywhere has been of great consolation when I'm not in a photogenic city.
4. A simple close-up is one of my favorite styles of portrait.

I have always loved an extreme close-up.

It's so easy to get preoccupied with clothing, environment, experimental angles, effects, colors and so on, that the actual face can become an afterthought. And then there's that problem of the mask—that smiling "say cheese" face that people make. Any parent knows that at some point in early childhood, you start to see the fake smile, like this:
It can be cute for one photo, but when you kid starts doing it in every photo it can drive you crazy. And then what do you do? If you're like most people, you start coaching them to smile "normally" and you battle of the smiles ends up reinforcing the idea that there is one certain expression suitable for every portrait.

Here are two shots of Eva prior to the "say cheese" smile:

Does this mean that by age three we are doomed to less realistic portraits? Of course not. But we might have to work for them a little harder.

This month we're going to focus on the face. Just the face. Naturally, I'll do the portrait retouch workflow I've been promising, but even more important than Photoshop tutorials will be ideas for getting simple and interesting portraits that bring out personality, that explore, in the purported words of John Ford, "the landscape of the human face."

Don't be shy. Share your favorite portraits by posting on your blog and linking back here (as explained in my FAQ page) sometime this month.