people ~ nothing hidden here

the wife on the wall ~ (embiggenable)

at the bar ~ (embiggenable)

Ann Marie ~(embiggenable)

the artist ~ (embiggenable)

Today is the deadline for submissions for consideration in the intimate Portraits juried exhibition. My intention was to submit just 1 picture, the wife on the wall (in situ), but, since the fee was $35US for up to 5 pictures, I submitted a few more.

As I previously wrote, I really don't believe that, as the jurist Joyce Tenneson wrote ..."A true portrait can never hide the inner life of its subject." Following on from that statement, Tenneson wrote that she was seeking "portraits that go beneath the surface to reveal aspects of the subject that usually remain hidden."

Label me a thick skulled doubter but I believe that a photograph can only capture a moment in time. Although some things might be intuited from the instigative properties of a photograph, the only thing that can be reasonably discerned about a pictured person is what he/she has allowed and manifested to be made visible at the time of the picture's making. Anything else is speculative conjecture.

Case in point ... Edward Steichen's portrait of J. P. Morgan about which Steichen commented ...

Over the years people have referred to the insight into Morgan's real character that I showed by photographing him with a dagger in his hand. But this was their own fanciful interpretation of Morgan's hand firmly grasping the arm of the chair.

It should be understood that none of the preceeding is meant to state that a portrait can not tap into universal human characteristics - anger, fear, sadness, compassion, arrogance, joy, et al. On display in Morgan's portrait are a steely-eyed stare and forceful grip on the arm of a chair from which it could be correctly deduced that the man possessed an imposing, agressive, ruthless and powerful presence. However, those characteristics were not something that Morgan kept hidden. He forcefully projected those characteristics throughout his life - nothing "hidden" there.

All of that written, I did not feel that I had any portraits/pictures of people which revealed anything "hidden" about a person. So, I made my choices based upon selecting pictures in which a person projected a "presence" (which I captured). A presence which engages a viewer and causes them to think that they might like to get to know more about the person depicted.

Whether or not that trope "works" for the juror remains to be seen.