Try to determine the best shot in these circumstances becomes very complicated. It is subjective, emotional, and fluid. It will differ from one day to the next. It may differ 40 times on the same day. What exactly drives me to select a given photo is something I am intrigued by, because honestly it is not something I understand very well, in spite of a great deal of effort to try, but, in effect, I’ll do my best to explore this topic fully right now.

While I don’t necessarily intend to cover the topic of work flow, as it has been addressed elsewhere already, the fact is that it also is somewhat important to consider, so I’ve included here a screen shot of what my (twin) monitors are showing when I’m selecting.

Thank you to Brett, for making this post possible.

For my particular photo organization, I use Aperture, which has served me well, and I’ve talked about it on this blog before. It’s a great tool for sorting/rating/organizing, and generally just not-losing thousands of photos. That being said, any program you have that will allow you to view multiple photos simultaneously should be sufficient.

Moving past the simple work flow issues, things get much more complicated. At this point the photos I select are largely hinged on the mood I’m in. Had a long day and feel exhausted? Sure, I’ll pick the photo where it looks like the subject was pushing rocks up a hill all day. Feeling a little goofy or hyper? Sure, I’ll probably pick this one:

But let’s assume for the time being that we’re straying away from gimmicky photos. If we’re really addressing the beauty of photos, then we are really confronting the complexity of the human form, especially via expression.

This is where things start to get quite personal, and I know a number of photographers will not agree with my opinions on portraiture. I believe that the more subtle an expression becomes, the more complex it becomes. A straight face often shows more of a person than a smile they choose to show for the sake of a photo. One is forced, a mask, and the other is not. While there are certainly many uses and applications for portraiture, I believe that generally a good rule is that the photo is not necessarily meant to make the subject appear “beautiful”, at least not in a superficial sense. Far better to appear a interesting, than to appear physically attractive. In my opinion, appearing interesting will make you attractive to the viewers, even if the subject wishes they had smiled, worn their hair differently, or otherwise.

This is one of the main variances in my shooting method between now and when I first began the 366 Portrait Project. When I first began, after I’d do a studio shoot I’d often upload the images immediately and showed them how they turned out. But what I most often found is that the shots I liked best (and, to viewers who did not know the subjects) were rarely well received (at least immediately) by the subject. Now when I shoot, I often tell subjects that nobody likes a straight-faced picture of themselves, but everyone else will.

Again, not to suggest that there is no place for smiles, warm feelings, or humor. If you browse the project, you will quickly see that I do not hold those traits against a photo. Merely I wish to suggest that if they are there, the dynamic must not always be simple. If a person is happy, the viewer should think about why. Thus generating interest.

The three photos shown above were from a very brief shoot I did of my boss earlier today. They are totally unprocessed and unedited, except to be bounced down to jpegs for upload here. All three images are expressions I find interesting; none would make for a particularly awful portrait. In many ways, this is where the photographer (or editor, photo director, client, etc.) gets to decide how to present a subject. If the photo is intended to stand alone, the selection will often (and should often) vary to a great degree from what you might select if it is to accompany text or a greater selection of photos.

For example, if you were selecting one of these portraits for use in an article about a sly young business owner, you would most likely select the first photo. However, an article discussing whether Mac users are overly-proud of their products, you might select the third.

However, in this context, I was selecting a photo to be used only for itself. And as such, I deliberately chose to go with the photo that was the least clear in its intent. This middle photo does not seem to have any predisposition in it. It is a complicated expression, although you have to look for it to see it. You can’t look at the photo and immediately identify what the subject is experiencing or feeling. You can’t immediately tell how his day, much less his year has gone. Difficult or easy? It’s a topic for discussion. I recently realized the profoundness of this sentiment when I was told recently by somebody close to me that when looking at my portraits, it is difficult to choose an emotion that is represented. In trying to decide, a viewer may scan through dozens of emotions to try to understand what is being said.

And often, every one of those emotions applies.

Happy viewing.

Anyway, I was commenting over at another website on how a New Year becomes strange to me. For you hordes of readers scattered throughout the various corners of this box-shaped world (the next crisis to follow global warming), the New Year is representative of a great many things. New love, new jobs, new goals for old habits, or new habits for old goals. For most, a new year is about what could be in the coming year.

It’s hard for me to view it this way. A year is less about what could be, than about what already has been. My memory is flawed, somehow. On any given day, I will not remember anything past a year and a half or two ago. It isn’t an exact science; I couldn’t cross days off a calendar or anything, but it’s a pretty reliable generality. I don’t have a childhood, really, and for that matter I basically didn’t even go to high school or college.

This is a curious phenomena for a photographer. People have suggested that I try journaling, or looking through old photos. I’ve tried both, to no avail. The photos, in particular, are a strange feeling. Thousands upon thousands of photos are stacked up in my image library from the past 4 or 5 years. Past a point, they just fade into obscurity. It’s almost as if I were blind, and regained my sight. Sure, I took all those photos, but they were taken in places I’ve never seen. Images of faces I don’t recognize.

This is not to say I don’t remember anything. I can tell you pi to the 25-odd digits from memory, and the square root of pi to the 10th digit. I learned those somewhere around 10th grade, and haven’t really refreshed them since, but they’re still accurate. But remembering facts doesn’t make for much of a childhood, much less a life.

Which is unfortunate, since I’ve had an eventful life. I’ve been to foreign countries, had great friends, been in love, succeeded at things I didn’t know existed, failed at things I did.

I have lived a thousand lifetimes.

I think that’s all I’ll say about the issue for today. Enjoy your various parties, galas, keggers, naps, etc. that will be going on for the New Year. Make good choices, even if your friends don’t. Keep it real, everyone.

p.s. I’m going to Costa Rica in two weeks.

As you can tell by the lack of updates, I haven’t been shooting much. My personal life has been pretty chaotic, and although I think it has leveled out somewhat I can never tell, and my professional one has been… not stagnant, because I’ve been working, but it’s all been working on video projects for work, and consequently hasn’t resulted in much to be shown here. Perhaps when this next one is done I’ll share it with you though.

It’s a somewhat strange time of year in the blogging world. Everyone is getting very excited with Christmas fast approaching. You see lots of wishlists and photos of snow and “Christmas cheer” and so on, but I’m not really feeling it. I’m sure as a kid Christmas was fantastic, but I don’t really remember being a kid, so the nostalgia is lost on me, which I’m pretty sure it mostly why people still like Christmas anyway. How’s that for cynical?

I suppose one could pull the religion card and tell me to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, but I don’t really care about my own birthday, or anyone else’s even if it falls within the immediate vicinity of the time of this writing, so I’m not sure what the hype about a birthday for Jesus is. I mean I do, but I don’t. We don’t even eat cake for his birthday.

Worse is that while it would be best to celebrate that part, second best to celebrate the commercialism of it all, I find myself not even really asking for anything for Christmas this year. I mean, sure I’d love a new digital camera but I can’t very well point out that the cheapest thing on my list there would come to roughly $3,000. And let’s face it, neither relative nor reader is going to throw down that kind of cash for me.

So yeah, I’m finding myself quite uninspired for the time being. However, my brothers Andrew and Adam will be in town this weekend, here from Boston and Baltimore respectively, so perhaps I’ll have to bring them down to the couch and get some shots of them.

So anyway, tomorrow, the 15th, the family is going to Austin for the day to celebrate with my Dad’s side of the family. All well and good, and it’ll be over before I know it, but I always get really anxious at big family things. I’m sure I’ll take some photos there too, so you’ll likely see those tomorrow or the next day.

Anyway, I’m just rambling on. If you want to get me a gift, you all know where to find me.

This last photo is one of the few candid 5-star portraits I’ve made recently. I made one of Liz a few posts back, but since then it has been a few months at least since I made a candid portrait that deserved the much-coveted 5-star approval in my library. Of the roughly 10,000 photos that have the specific “portrait” keyword (I have a tremendous backlog of photos that need keywording), only 119 of them have 5 stars assigned to them. They are in entirety photos that I would be satisfied to be remembered by. Naturally I have preferences even within those. A number of months ago I tried paring down my 5-star collections to my 10 favorite photos, and the task was agonizing. At any rate, in the near future perhaps I’ll put together some kind of proper collection of 5-star images, but for now, enjoy the man in the glass.