I made this portrait recently while photographing with models at Silo City in Buffalo with friends. We had two dancers/models — Shelby and Lulu — join us for part of three days. I liked this image of Lulu immediately, but a conversation about it afterward helped me understand more clearly why I liked it and helped me come to understand something important about portraiture.

During the day we spent together, I became very aware of Lulu’s presence. She was genuine and direct, completely comfortable with her physical body and, just as importantly, with her emotional presence. There was nothing affected about the way she moved or presented herself. She simply seemed comfortable being who she was.

That’s what I saw in her before I ever saw it in the photograph.

When I made this image, she wasn’t really posing. Her body was turned away from me and she simply turned her head and looked at me.

But “looked at me” doesn’t quite describe it.

She saw me. And in that instant I saw her.

That distinction between looking and seeing has stayed with me.

Later, as I worked with the image, I became increasingly aware that many of the things I’d experienced in her company were somehow present in the photograph. There’s a directness in her eyes and an ease in the way she inhabits her body. Her tattoos aren’t props or accessories that I’ve arranged to tell us something about her. They’re just part of her. Nothing in the photograph feels as though she’s performing for the camera.

When I got home from the trip, I shared the portrait with a friend and what she said about the picture surprised me.

Without knowing anything about this model or the circumstances in which I’d made the photograph, my friend responded to many of the same qualities I had seen during the week. She described Lulu as having “presence,” “confidence,” and “directness.” Most interestingly, she said the image felt less like “a picture of an attractive woman and more like a portrait of a particular person.” I've given that comment a lot of thought. 

I should probably clarify something. I don’t think a photograph can tell us objectively who another person is. Partly because we bring our own experiences, assumptions and interpretations to every photograph we see. So, I don’t believe that a portrait somehow reveals a person’s character in any absolute sense.

But when my friend looked at this portrait something real and honest was communicated.

Someone who knew nothing about this woman perceived qualities remarkably similar to those I had experienced while spending time with her. That's made me think about what happened before I pressed the shutter.

We talk a lot about how to make portraits.

• Where should the light come from?
• Where should the subject stand?
• How should the head be turned?
• What should the hands do?
• Which lens should we use?
• How should we crop?
• What background?

And on and on. And all of those things can matter.

But maybe there’s another more elusive thing that’s harder to learn but even more important than gear, lighting and technique: recognizing someone.

I wasn’t trying to make our model look confident or authentic, strong or comfortable in her own skin. I hadn’t decided what I wanted the photograph to say about her and then directed her until she gave me that photograph with "that look." No, I had already seen those qualities in her.

Maybe a photographer’s role is to recognize the moment when a person’s essence becomes visible.

Portraiture then becomes less about imposing something on the person in front of the camera and more about paying attention to them. When we watch, listen and spend time with a subject we become sensitive to gestures, expressions and the way someone occupies a space.

There’s another lesson here for me as well. When I first began working with the image, I was thinking about the photograph itself: composition, tonal relationships, the brightness of the shoulder, the separation of the black hair and clothing from the black background, and those extraordinary eyes. Those refinements helped the finished photograph, but none of them created the things I value most about it. Those things were already there and my editing just needed to stay out of their way.

In today’s world when we have extraordinary tools for changing photographs, keeping my editing out of the way is something I want to be more thoughtful about. With today's tools we can alter expressions, smooth skin, reshape bodies, and manufacture light. We can make almost anyone look almost any way we want.

But that’s very different from seeing someone.

Maybe that’s one of the distinctions between a photograph of a person and a portrait of a person. While a photograph can show us what someone looks like, a good portrait can sometimes give us a glimpse of what it feels like to be in their presence.

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