Styles of Photography: Potraiture

Portraiture

Earliest photos were often portraits as it made it easier to capture a family compared to an artist painting a picture.

In the 1840's the invention of the daguerreotype camera meant that having your portrait done became something accessible to everyone, not just to the rich.

In 1849, 100,000 daguerreotype portraits were taken in Paris alone.

In 1854, Andre Diseri patented the carte-de-visite, and it meant that one photo could be copied and have several negatives.

Portraiture became useful to artists as someone would then paint a photo instead of a person sitting there for hours.

"When I began my career, photography was hardly considered an art, or a photographer an artist. It had its own battle to fight and win, but it was to achieve victory by virtue of its own merits, by the unique subtlety of its tonal range and its capacity to explore and exploit the infinite gradation of luminosity, rather than by imitating the technique of the draughtsman" - Alvin Langdon Coburn.

Early photographic portraits relied heavily on the conventions of the painted portrait.

From the 1930's to the late 1960's, portraiture took on a more theatrical approach with exaggerated to costumes and dramatic lighting.