The Brief

Do some research into historic photographic portraiture.

Select one portrait to really study in depth. Write a maximum of 500 words about this portrait, but don’t merely ‘describe’ what you see. The idea behind this exercise is to encourage you to be more reflective in your written work (see Introduction), which means trying to elaborate upon the feelings and emotions evoked whilst viewing an image, perhaps developing a more imaginative investment for the image.

The portrait can be any of your choice, but try to choose a historic practitioner of note. This will make your research much easier, as the practitioner’s works will have been collected internationally by galleries and museums and written about extensively. Read what has already been written about your chosen practitioner’s archive, paying particular attention to what historians and other academics have highlighted in their texts.

To help with the writing, you might also want to use a model developed by Jo Spence and Rosy Martin in relation to helping dissect the image at a more forensic level, this includes:

The Physical Description:​ Consider the human subject within the photograph, then start with a forensic description, moving towards taking up the position of the sitter. Visualise yourself as the sitter in order to bring out the feelings associated with the photograph.

The Context of Production: C​ onsider the photographs context in terms of when, where, how, by whom and why the photograph was taken.

The Context of Convention: ​Place the photograph into context in terms of the technologies used, aesthetics employed, photographic conventions used.

The Currency:​ Consider the photographs currency within its context of reception, who or what was the photograph made for? Who owns it now and where is it kept? Who saw it then and who sees it now?

Post your thoughts in your learning log or blog.

Introduction

For this exercise, I chose the portrait ‘The Roaring Lion’, by Yousef Karsh in 1941:

The portrait is Karsh’s most famous, that of Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. He is dressed in a three-pieced suit with his trademark bow-tie and is seated in what appears a formal office setting, with wood panelling in the background. He is lit by a single light that emphasises his face and although some spills onto his hands and the background, there is little definition of the rest of his figure placed in dark shadow. Churchill’s expression is a direct gaze into the camera with a gruff, grumpy appearance.

At the time Churchill was visiting the cabinet chambers of the parliament of Ottawa, as a guest of the Prime Minister [2]. Karsh had been invited to listen to Churchill speaking but in a opportunistic way, set up his camera and lighting in speaker’s chambers the night before he was introduced to him. When Karsh switched on his continuous studio light it took Churchill by surprise as he hadn’t been told about the portrait. However, he duly sat for it. Karsh asked politely that he remove his trademark cigar, which was refused. Karsh then decided to grab the cigar from him.

“By the time I got back the four feet to my camera, he looked at me so beligerently that he could have devoured me. I clicked and this is the picture”

Yousef Karsh, recreating his most famous picture on 60 Minutes with Morley Safer, c1977 [2]

“You can even make a roaring lion stand still for a photograph”

Sir Winston Churchill to Yousef Karsh after the shoot was finished [2].

This image of Churchill is instantly recognisable, most likely because of the many years of documentary about him that has followed. When it was shot, the war was in its relative infancy, which is almost confirmed by the fact that he was across the Atlantic in Canada to begin with. Karsh’s formal setting provides Churchill with the statesman-like presence, but the use of a large format camera, with its higher degree of separation between in and out of focus areas, means that the background is a texture but not a distraction from the subject. The shallow depth of field also means that his hands are also not the first thing we look at as they too are soft. The single key light used on Churchill’s face draw us into his expression which is one that we now associate with his personalty. Karsh admitted that once this shot was done, Churchill invited him to take another portrait. In that one, we see a more relaxed man whose demeanour is staged for the photographer. The first image is the most famous and now hangs in the same speaker’s chambers. In 2017, Karsh’s portrait was immortalised in the public conscience when it was selected for the new polymer 5 pound note [3]. I believe this to be because of the way that Karsh managed to capture the entire essence of Churchill through one provocative act and the subsequent opening of the shutter.

References

[1] Karsh Y, 1941, ‘The Roaring Lion’, Yousef Karsh.org website, https://karsh.org/overview/#0

[2] Karsh Y, c1977, ’60 Minutes with Morley Safer: Churchill’, Yousef Karsh.org website, https://karsh.org/videos/60-minutes-with-morley-safer-churchill/

[3] Unknown, 2017, ‘£5 Note’, The Bank of England, https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/5-pound-note