The Portrait

Similarities & Differences Between Portraits in the Early Days and Today

Portraits in the early days were mostly taken of people and groups. Many times, they were used by aristocrats to demonstrate their higher social status, or those that have just entered the upper class to demonstrate their newly achieved title of “high society”. Many different types of portraits were used to create various moods and feels to the image, depending on who the portrait was being taken for. For example, the “Silhouette” type of portrait was a quick, cheap and easy type of portrait created so that photographers could produce many more portraits throughout the year to be sold in order to sustain their lifestyle.

Today, portraits are not just taken of people or to demonstrate a certain level of social status. Because of technology, portraits are affordable to almost anybody. Now portraits can portray any number of things, including people, places, events, animals, plants, or anything a lens can capture. Also, a portrait can be captured instantly, while in the earlier days of photography, a portrait would take time to produce and was often a painstaking process. Many materials, chemicals, and expertise were required to produce something lacking color and substance. Now, high resolution and colourful portraits can be produced in a very short period of time.

Portraits were more often produced in the early days to create a source of income for photographers. All though this is still practiced today, portraits are now often produced by people for their own personal memories and collections.

Portraits today also serve different purposes. They are not always as self serving as they were in the early days. Now portraits can be used to inform, entertain, sell and advertise. Portraits, and photography as a whole has found great utility in modern society.

Photographer & Subject: Past VS Present

In the early days of photography, the photographer was often a professional who was an expert in a certain type of photography (as different techniques existed). The subject was often a person or a group of people have a portrait taken to mark their entrance in to an upper level of social class. Photographers were also hired to take portraits of people at various events, such as balls and festive gatherings. Photographers were often professional experts and subjects were often high-society aristocrats.

Today, all though professional photographers still exist and are still experts in their profession; practically anybody can pick up a camera and create a beautiful portrait. This is all due to advanced technology in the field of photography. The subject these days is more diverse, as it can be practically anything. Portraits exist of people, places, buildings, animals, plants, and limitless other objects and events.

Technology: Past VS Present

Technology has greatly changed photography and the portrait over the past couple of hundred years. In the past, various types of papers, lighting affects, and chemicals were needed to take a portrait and to create a very specific type of look. It was almost impossible to take the same portrait twice, as it took such a long time to product a portrait with the technology available hundreds of years ago.

Today, a portrait can be created with a small digital camera, a computer, and can be completely paperless. Portraits can be created in any lighting condition, and the same portrait can be easily digitally duplicated in a matter of seconds. With technology today, portraits can be made to look ultra-realistic and almost alive, or they can have added effects to create a certain mood or message. Photo manipulation has also been made capable to even the least experienced of photographers.