The Art of Portrait Photography

Portraiture is one of the most fascinating genres across all forms of art, and plays an integral role in the medium of photography. But what are the concepts and motivations behind it? Far beyond simply capturing a person’s likeness, a good portrait photographer will reveal aspects of someone’s personality that might even surprise the protagonists themselves. 

“Photography is a medium of formidable contradictions. It is both ridiculously easy and almost impossibly difficult,” Edward Steichen (1879 –1973) once wrote. “It is easy because its technical rudiments can readily be mastered by anyone with a few simple instructions. It is difficult because, while the artist working in any other medium begins with a blank surface and gradually brings his conception into being, the photographer is the only imagemaker who begins with the picture completed. His emotions, his knowledge, and his native talent are brought into focus and fixed beyond recall the moment the shutter of his camera has closed.”

The portraits featured at the Noir Blanche Gallery show iconic figures from the world of art, music and culture – including Salvador Dalì, Joseph Beuys, Günter Uecker, Mick Jagger, Madonna, Markus Lüpertz or Yoko Ono – as seen through the lens of acclaimed photographers such as Monika Baumgartl, Walter Schels, Werner Bokelberg, Michael Dannenmann, Alexander Basta and Clay Perry (a.o.).