Emie in the Truck, Rockport, Maine, 2008. Photo by Cig Harvey
So I spent a good part of yesterday on an extended web-surfing odyssey looking at the work of a great many contemporary portraitists to see if their subjects are typically smiling or not. (Fascinating how such a seemingly trivial, offhand post can lead to such an involved discussion.) And the evidence is overwhelming: among important portrait photographers in almost any genre (art photography, editorial photography, etc.), smiling subjects are very much the exception rather than the rule. The average seems to be maybe one smile for every ten portraits, at least on the basis of what I saw yesterday. So it's not an historical thing at all: most serious portraits (again, no pun intended) are unsmiling ones.
I was going to put together a post consisting of twelve example portraits by a dozen contemporary portrait photographers as a demonstration of this, but halfway through I thought, "what's the use? It won't prove anything to anyone." You could just as easily pick twelve smiling portraits. Neither proves anything. So I gave that up.
But along the way (the guiding motto of the Web being: one thing leads to another), I discovered Cig Harvey, a name I'd never encountered before.
Those in love with bright colors will love her.
She has a book out
Mike
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She is excellent. Both her and Ctein have been to the Mpls Photo Center in recent years and I've had the pleasure of seeing both of their work in person.
Excellent stuff.
Posted by: SeanG | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 02:05 PM
What about Philippe Halsman? He'd at least beat the average I would think. Sure, it's hard not to smile when you're jumping for a portrait, but even among his non-jumping subjects, a kind of quiet introspective smile doesn't seem like a rare thing.
Posted by: robert e | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 02:50 PM
She doesn't seem to have an archive of past work on her website, but her series The Impossible Tasks is well worth googling for. Great Stuff.
Posted by: struan | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 03:17 PM
What a very pleasant surprise! And how admirably cohesive her work is. Thoroughly enjoyed it - while it is not at all what I make or would wish to make myself, enabling me all the more to enjoy it in total freedom.
Posted by: Hans Muus | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 04:11 PM
Lovely image, on several levels; made more interesting and unusual by having three different samples of one colour (red) and no other colour; the back of the truck, the rear lights and the little girl's pink face.
Posted by: David Paterson | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 04:56 PM
Wish I had had some sort of deep analysis critique for this shot. I'll just say I love it. Simple is good.
Posted by: MJFerron | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 09:27 PM
Interestingly, your still version of the picture looks more interesting and clearer than the moving one at her site.
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Tuesday, 24 September 2013 at 11:57 PM
David- her moving images are simply beautiful. What a great way to honour the essence of a photo. I wish I could do the same. I hope she makes a bundle. She deserves it.
Posted by: Bruce | Wednesday, 25 September 2013 at 03:59 AM
Excellent. Move over Cindy Sherman !
The 10 minute video on her website is a good insight into the artistic mindset. I appreciate the aesthetic nature of things but I'm no artist; more a documentary style photographer.
Posted by: Sven W | Wednesday, 25 September 2013 at 07:42 AM
I was introduced to Ms. Harvey's work a few years ago by Joyce Tenneson, a reasonably famous portraitist who displays very few smiles in her subjects!
Posted by: dale | Wednesday, 25 September 2013 at 08:44 AM
I was introduced to her through a B&H Video early this year. Worth watching!
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G30N28gX6Yc
Posted by: Chris Exum | Wednesday, 25 September 2013 at 12:34 PM
I have had the pleasure of hearing her speak at a ASMP sponsored lecture at the wonderful Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester MA. She is an English transplant living in Main. She is funny, endearing and very honest. Her commercial success seems to have taken her a bit by surprise as she was tending more towards fine art.
Posted by: Steve Nason | Thursday, 26 September 2013 at 07:42 AM