Portrait Photography ~ A definition

Portrait photography or portraiture is the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people (a group portrait), in which the face and expression is predominant. The objective is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is the person's face, although the entire body and the background may be included. A portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the camera.
Unlike many other photography styles, the subjects of portrait photography are often non-professional models. Family portraits commemorating special occasions, such as graduations or weddings, may be professionally produced or may be vernacular and are most often intended for private viewing rather than for public exhibition.
However, many portraits are created for public display ranging from fine art portraiture, to commercial portraiture such as might be used to illustrate a company's annual report, to promotional portraiture such a might be found on a book jacket showing the author of the book. (source - Wikipedia)



Photographic portraiture quickly replaced portrait painting in popularity, although the very rich and aristocracy would still use an artist to paint their likeness as a means of proving status and wealth, for ordinary people at least, a studio portrait was accessible and affordable, and studios were opened in almost every town and city in the western world, often dealing with hundreds of photographic plates a day.  Ordinary citizens could have their likeness taken at reasonable cost, although this was usually in front of a standard background and the sitter placed, looking rather stiff and dour, in a fixed position.

As camera equipment evolved and pictures could be captured with shorter exposure times, photographers became more creative and adventurous, taking their cameras out into the field capturing scenes from all over the world, as well as people in everyday life, going about their usual business and leisure pursuits.


Roger Fenton, an early pioneer of photography 'in the field' and the founder and first secretary in 1853 of the Photographic Society, becoming Royal Photographic Society under the patronage of Prince Albert.

The 'photographic van' used by Roger Fenton on his travels.