Reading this article on portrait lenses, by Andy Westlake, has brought me back to a personal bugbear about portraits and in particular what makes an ideal portrait lens. In Andy’s defence he does reference that he is talking about tight head and shoulder shots, but it seems to me (through his article, the comments it generated and in general on photographic based forums) that the prevailing wisdom is that this is what makes a portrait…it is the lens and the tight crop. The focal range that is needed for portraits seems to be trotted out like some constantly repeated Mantra, even with some photographers denying that the size of the sensor/film has any impact on your lens choice! This Mantra is then passed on from person to person without any thought or personal experimentation. It seems as if it has been codified into one of those unshakeable  erroneous photo Laws/Rules.

All too often on forums and websites it seems that people trot out this list of lenses as if that alone is what makes the portrait. It’s not the gear that makes a portrait, it is how you (as the photographer and subsequently the viewer) interact with the subject, the connection (or lack of) that is evident in the image, this is what is important. One way to look at it is the quote from Capa: “If your pictures are not good enough, you are not close enough”. Yes, Capa was primarily a war photographer, but as a theory and admonition it still stands, ultimately his shots were portraits (many of them classically so) they also carry a lot of emotion and context from the situation and his proximity to them and it. He was not saying use a longer lens to get a closer shot, but to get physically closer, get involved with your subject. If you are too far from your subject you lose the personal interaction that proximity brings, using long lenses does that it can make it hard to get that interaction with your subject.

The Taylor Wessing Portrait Competition is a good place to look. This is one of the most famous and widely entered portrait competitions, judged by critics, curators and photographers alike. It is interesting to look at the images in this years crop of short listed entrants and try and deconstruct the lenses (and formats) they used. Looking at them there are quite a few that are not taken with the classic lens collection that you’d use for portraits, and there are certainly very few tight and bright headshots.

People need to switch their thinking, instead of asking “what lens do I use for portraits” they should think about the image that they want to make. What do you want from your sitter? What is the look, style and connection/emotion that you want to portray? These are the questions that people need to ask, not look for a blanket description that is some kind of Holy Grail of portraiture. These questions are not easily answered by others; they are not black and white/hard and fast rules that can be followed easily. Consequently they will rarely be answered in forums or magazine technique articles that look to give you dry but easily quantifiable answers in: 20 ways to improve your photography. Can they do one on: 20 ways to improve your thinking?

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