I have always believed that truly great portraits are created through the eyes. What I mean is that the viewer of the subject is drawn into the portrait through the eyes of the subject and whatever the subject is thinking, comes right out of their eyes. Case in point is Matthew, the young man in this portrait. His mother had been after me for months to shoot his senior portrait and wanted me to call him to set up the appointment. Every time I called, he said, “I can’t, I’m too busy.” I never hard sell my services, and if the customer doesn’t want to do it, well; my motto is “Your Life. Your Way.” I finally just told him, “that’s ok, just tell your mom we couldn’t get it worked out.” He paused and then said, “she won’t’ be too happy with me, will she?” I just listened and waited. Then he said, “Ok this Saturday.”
All throughout the session he had this “I really don’t want to be here” look on his face. That does not make for great art, let alone a mother who has very specific expectations. So I ran the winder up full speed and just started shooting, hoping something good would come of it all. What I learned was that shooting fast does not make a bit of difference, brilliant deduction – right? All that resulted was more of the same look on his face, just posed differently. The eyes were still saying the same thing, “Get me outa here before I DIE of boredom.” At one point I even thought of using a hand puppet like do for taking portraits of little children. This works great whey they can’t seem to keep an attention span for more than six seconds. On second thought I realized this was probably not such a great idea.
Then, I just stopped and looked at him for what must have been over a minute. He finally couldn’t stand it any longer and said, “What, I’m doing the best I can.” I said, “I know Matthew, but this isn’t for you it’s for your mother.” That’s when the mood changed and we began to talk about his life and what he was going thru at school and at home. Then the eyes changed and I captured what I believe to be the essence of Matthew. His mom was happy too. All in all, I made a new friend and learned a great lesson; all the techno-gadgets in the world can’t change what’s going on inside. It takes someone who cares and gets involved and is able to tailor the approach to the individual. Thanks Matthew.
