Vulnerability, A Prerequisite For ‘Great’ Portraiture

So, I was scrolling through ‘The Gram’ (Instagram) and I came across this image by datbeuuu photography and the sheer vulnerability expressed in the image had me thinking about the entire idea of portraits and what they represent.

I watched this video awhile by YouTube Educator Sean Tucker and the way he spoke about portraits changed my idea about creating portraits. The ability to capture the essence of a human in a single photograph is what distinguishes great portraits from good portraits. Yes, You can pose a person and create an outstanding image but when you genuinely create an image that captures a person’s essence image; where you look at and it seemingly draws you in and it feels like you’re staring into a person’s soul… that’s the idea behind portraiture.

Are all images supposed to tell stories? Definitely not but great images always tell a story. A story that is universally understood without the need for captions or the photographer explaining. Great images evoke emotions and personally, I believe to achieve these kinds of images, both photographer and model/subject need to be emotionally present, to create these genuine frames of art.

Below is the video that talks about Portraits in a very enlightening fashion by Sean Tucker.

You can find more of datbeuuu’s work on Instagram here.