Rusty Background Make for Rustic Portraits

A few years ago I co-ran a photography tour to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica. One of our excursions was to the abandoned Hektor Whaling Station at Port Foster, by the shores of Whalers Bay, on Deception Island in Antarctica.

This photo features tour participant, David Campbell, who had been photographing inside the interior of an old boiler at during a snowstorm.

I remember entering the space to find shelter as much as through any need to explore what was inside this old shell.

But once out of the wind I realized the potential this gritty, rusty background offered for portraits.

I immediately went about photographing David and his camera, all rugged up against the rather extreme weather we were experiencing at the time.

It’s not a pretty picture. But it’s interesting, authentic and documentary in nature.

Since this trip David has gone on to travel to Spitsbergen in the Arctic, in search of polar bears, and to Alaska to photograph the Northern Lights.

Portrait Photography in the Snow

This photo features tour participant Ken, experiencing some of the foul weather that had been served up to us that day.

The tour was divided, primarily, between three different interest groups:

• photographers

• kayakers

• scuba divers

There were also more general tourists and, I think I'm right to say, that Ken and his wife Jan fell into that group.

It's a Snapshot and, Sometimes, that’s Enough

In the case of the photo of Ken I was as warm as toast. Clearly Ken wasn't, and that influenced the way I went about making the picture.

Ken looked really cold and, being from Australia, I just couldn't get past the fact that his glasses were covered in ice.

I made the photo as a simple record of the location and of Ken’s experience of it, at the particular moment in time. It’s a snapshot, but there’s still value in it as a documentary and, for me, fun picture.

That whole notion of the eyes being a window to the soul is such a beautiful concept that underpins the success of many great portraits.

As much as anything else this picture is the antithesis of that concept. And that's one of the reasons why I made it.

Ken was a patient model, which I appreciated, though I’m not sure if he enjoyed the process as much as I did.

Photograph The People That Inhabit Your World

These portraits were made more for the guys I photographed, rather than for me. They’re certainly not what I’d refer to as portfolio images. They’re simple snapshots, but there’s merit in that due to the purpose these pictures serve.

We photographers often feature in too few photos so, where I can, I try to make some beautiful photos of my friends and peers when were out and about photographing together.

While my preference is to make beautiful, life affirming images there are times when the conditions I’m working under make that exceptionally difficult to achieve.

Sometimes the best option is to take a different approach and opt for visually interesting photos that may not, necessarily, produce a particularly flattering likeness of the person being photographed.

That might mean more character driven portraits or photos that are as much about the weather and/or the surrounding environment as they are about the person being photographed.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

After all, these kinds of photos may well be the ones that best describe the most memorable moments of a trip. They may also elicit the most enthusiastic comments from friends and family.

There’s nothing wrong with making straight documentary images that record, for posterity, the following:

• Where we’ve been

• What we’re doing

• Who we were with at the time

After all, it’s not everyday your photography causes you to travel to Antarctica.

The Value of Snapshot Photography

There is value in the snapshot. Sometimes that value becomes evident overtime.

After all photos are time capsules that hold in trust memories of how we looked, where we went and the things we did in years gone by.

Photos are important as they document our life’s journey.

On one level our photos serve a documentary purpose and, some would say, that there’s no need for those photos to explore any deeper meanings, metaphors or messages.

It's not the way I prefer to work or, for that matter, live. But it's okay to make those kind of basic record photos, every now and again.

They function as a visual record of important moments and events that we’ve witnessed during our lives.

It’s not necessarily art we’re making, but it’s certainly history that’s being recorded.

Snapshots allow us to see how friends and family members looked back in days gone by.

It can be great fun to look back, with a bit of a giggle, at these photos. But that’s not to dismiss the value some of your snapshot photography will have in years to come.

Some of these visual memories may become critically important over time. For example I’ve only ever seen a small handful of photos of my grandparents.

I sure wish there were more as it would give me a better understanding of who they were and the life they lived.

Photography as Art

Photography, as art, isn’t so much about simply recording what we see in front of our camera’s lenses.

Art is about intent, meaning and exploring what those subjects or scenes suggest about ourselves, the world in which we live and the Human Condition.

Glenn Guy, Travel Photography Guru