A while back I wrote about seeing some old George Hurrell portraits of movie stars from the 30's, 40's and 50's while visiting Long Beach in October. I realized when I came back that I just didn't have the lights or sets/studio to duplicate his work, but I still learned a little about maybe elongating poses and having the model/subject look off to evoke a sense of thought beyond just having their picture taken. This isn't a real thought really, but an action of a thought. It works well with actors who are used to playing a role. It is interesting to play with this in the studio as it is so far removed from journalism. In journalism we capture moments of thought un-manipulated--or at least thats the goal. In the studio, its much like being on stage. We're going for a look of the person, a style of a persona and if we're lucky we also capture something real within the expression that takes it beyond the pose or the style and actually touches on who the person is inside. Its the hardest part of portraiture. Hard because of the difficulty of getting someone that comfortable to be themselves inside an environment that is not their own. And tough, because the culture of the family studio photograph is such that we don't want to capture our inner self, but are content simply capturing what we look like on the surface. This is why department store photo studios exist and thrive. They're not out to create a unique work of art, something that touches deep into the personalities or life of the subject, they are to get a likeness and hopefully a pleasant expression, nothing more. Harmony and I got into photography for reason far beyond just recording a likeness. We seek to capture the beauty of the soul of a person within their expression and body language and gestures. We're not content to simply to snap a picture and be done, collect the $20 and move on to the next. We love photography too much for that. Photograph by Richard Sayer