#Portraits photography series

If the person brought to justice closely resembled the photograph stapled to a file, they must have had a prior record. A law enforcement officer, Bertillon introduced photography as a way of identifying repeat offenders: until then, criminals had been able to provide a false identity and thwart the investigation. These changes were initiated by Alphonse Bertillon (1853вЂ“1914), the father of anthropometry, or the study of the measurements of the human body, and forensic identification. Starting in the 1880s, photography was enlisted in the service of the police in an effort to standardize criminal records and make them more efficient. Photography quickly gained popularity by performing a mechanical reduction of reality in order to record it, proving that the human body could be reproduced by perfectly scaling down its proportions. In terms of photography, identification is thus firmly rooted in rational sciences dominant in the late nineteenth century which aimed to establish unassailable laws derived from objectively measurable data. However, in this sense identity is not a reference to the distinct personality of an individual, or cultural, social, or spiritual identification, but specifically to an administrative form of ID that depends on objective facts. Identification means confirming an identity. The primary function of the portrait is also the most obvious: identification. The science of the face: PortraitsВ in the service of identification One thing is certain, however: in its own way, the photographic portrait tells the story of the modern subject since the invention of photography 180 years ago. From the most basic function (identification) to the most sensitive (recording emotion), to its ability to idealize the model or raise public awareness, the photographic portrait adapts to a wide range of forms and uses. If we confine ourselves to the representation of the human face, the most relevant way of approaching portraiture is to classify it in terms of the function we assign to it. Similarly, one often hears about вЂњportraits of a countryвЂќ or вЂњportraits of a regionвЂќ in the context of photographic campaigns that aim to document a given territory and its cultural, topographic, etc., characteristics.

#Portraits photography series

For example, the American documentary photographer Walker EvansвЂ™s series on vernacular architecture of his country was called вЂњportraits of houses,вЂќ since the buildings seemed to be вЂњlookingвЂќ straight at the camera. Thus, the term вЂњportrait,вЂќ in photographic parlance, could apply to any subject. The concept of the portrait is closely tied to the concept of personal identity and photography itself arises from the possibility of identical reproduction, as it is taken for granted that the photograph will faithfully replicate reality. Writing a history of the photographic portrait amounts to writing a history of photography itself. AvedonвЂ™s photographs-like those of his peers-embody the endless possibilities for representing a human face.

In AvedonвЂ™s work we find the muse of a famous couturier next to a victim of a Napalm attack during the battle of Saigon a Texas farmer next to the British painter Francis Bacon portraits of people going about their daily work in public spaces next to those taken in psychiatric institutions. One need only review the career of the American photographer Richard Avedon to get a sense of that diversity. Some portraits cross categories and lend themselves to various purposes, while others convey the assurance of evidence, such as ID photos.

Its forms and applications feed into each other, constantly instigating renewed invention. In photography, portraiture is a constantly evolving genre.