I keep coming back to this thought: portraiture is supposed to present an image, an idea, a story. But how many stories do we actually live through in a single day? The idea that one photograph can capture a person's identity feels like nonsense to me, because we are so much more complicated than that. Every day I think we hand out different versions of ourselves to different crowds, and to truly know someone all the way down is almost impossible, unless maybe you're their partner. And even then. Even with my partner, I keep a few identities tucked away that they don't know about (especially someone like me, who genuinely loves solitude, being a lone wolf is its own kind of identity).
So it should be impossible, and yet I still find portraits to be one of the most effective tools we have for communicating who we are to people who never even suspected our other sides. That contradiction is exactly what pulls me in.
When I photograph someone, most of what ends up in the frame is how they want to be seen. That's only natural. The identity living in their head is already dictating everything, how they hold their expression, how they dress, what mood they bring into the room. But here's the part I find endlessly fascinating: even with all of that already decided, there's still a little space left for me to step in. A photographer isn't just transcribing what's in front of them. We get to add a bit of our own opinion into how the subject is finally perceived.
That's the beauty of it, really. We aren't copying a person down onto film. We're co-developing an image, one that has to make sense to the subject and to whoever ends up looking at it later. Two readings meeting in the middle.
I think that's why I fell for photography in the first place. Photographers get a say.
