Re: O.T. RE: Sharp plane of focus

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005, dan@haygoods.org wrote:

> JC> There is not a woman alive that wants her
> JC> portrait taken with a normal lens!
>
> JS> ...when a person is seriously gorgeous...there's no point in..."soft focus."
>
> But the comment was not about what the photographer should do when photographing
> a portrait; it was what the sitter would want. While the phrase "not a woman
> alive" is a bit hyperbolic, most people like to look their best in a portrait,
> even if the photographer would prefer to dwell on pores, blackheads, facial
> hair, and acne scars.

I see no profit to Dan or the list, & least of all to myself & 2006, in an
attempt to correct the misassumptions, spin, distortions, false
syllogisms, and ruffled feathers of Dan's "reply,"... but being especially
interested in the photo representation of women, especially the
subdivision as seen by men, and now subdivision of the subdivision as
*theorized* by men, I do a service to humankind, art & photography, in
observing that any person (no matter who JC is -- what comes to mind for
those initials, especially in this season, is Jesus Christ) is that any
man, mortal or immortal, who knows what ANY woman wouldn't want, is wasted
on mere photo philosophy. He could be much more usefully employed as, say,
director of marketing for the Gap, having its troubles of late.

But aside from hyperbole, the question that comes to mind is -- do women
have more blackheads & acne scars, etc., than, say, men? If not, do MEN,
dead or alive, want them shown in *their* portraits? Ie, are they less
vain than women? But the whole business is based on a false premise anyway
-- that it requires a special soft focus lens to avoid these. IME, an
ordinary 85 mm lens is fine, as for that matter is my dopey little Canon 5
megapixel.

There's also the fact that I don't offhand think of any of the women I
know whose faces show the above mentioned blemishes, at least when seen in
the flesh at normal distance -- and they haven't shown in the many
photographs I've made of women (tho when I was a student and made a shot
of a colleague that I found particularly flattering, I was surprised that
she saw TWO layers of rings under her eyes. Would "soft focus" have cut
them out???) My most recent foray onto this apparently treacherous
territory was a series of head shots last month for a stage actress aged
40+ to send to producers... she said they wanted to see exactly what she
looked like. Meanwhile, AFAIK, all these women are "alive" -- at least
when last I saw them.

In any event, most folks at any time like to be flattered in a portrait,
but said blanket rule for women wouldn't work even if it weren't so
patronizing.

Judy
Received on Mon Jan 2 15:53:03 2006