 Darron Spohn
(K=781) - Comment Date 2/17/1999
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These are a few things you can look for, and I'm sure other people will add to this list.
Start with symmetry People with symmetrically balanced features look better in photos than people with unbalanced features. High cheekbones, large eyes and strong jawlines also help. Smooth skin helps too, as blemishes tend to get exaggerated on film. Filters can help here, but it is better to start with an excellent original than try to compensate artificially.
Stay away from models with receding chins, small deep set eyes and crooked noses.
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 tom meyer
(K=2752) - Comment Date 2/17/1999
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Unless you're illustrating Loan Sharks...
I don't know what makes a subject photogenic...but I know it when I see it...t
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 steve
(K=1127) - Comment Date 2/17/1999
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Do the people have to be beautiful, or interesting?
"Start with symmetry. People with symmetrically balanced features look better in photos than people with unbalanced features"
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 Patricia Lee
(K=336) - Comment Date 2/18/1999
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"faces...that the camera loves"
It may be more a function of people "loving" the camera than the other way around. The people I consider photogenic are the ones who allow something special about themselves to show despite the fact that a camera is there, not because of it.
(Glad I prefer photographing landscape and nature...)
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 Gerry Siegel
(K=927) - Comment Date 2/18/1999
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For the thinking photographer(everybody here but of cours), I'd say not anything as simple as Mademoiselle/Vogue drop-dead-conventionally stunning. (Those are to hang clothes.) Not even symmetrical, asymmetrical, big head, big boobs or anything as simple as that, I dare say. For me,Alan, it is an aura of mystery and allure in the face (and mostly the face I think) that makes one want to stare longer, look deeper, wonder what's going on behind the eyes. Just what has Kate Moss,for instance, got that is "different?" The facial features are individually unremarkable, but together they hit with a powerful jolt. My thoughts from an island where the faces are a real melange of races and cultures. And boy are they ever interesting.
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 Darron Spohn
(K=781) - Comment Date 2/19/1999
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After reading the responses below mine, I looked up "photogenic" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and found this definitation: "suitable for being photographed."
Lyle is definitely photogenic under this definition. I was confusing beauty with suitability for being photographed. I like Patricia's answer the best. People who love the camera are photogenic.
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 Gerry Siegel
(K=927) - Comment Date 2/19/1999
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Except that Patricia's answer begs the question, in my opinion,-sorry Pat, if that sounds like I reject your try. But your answer,if its the best we can come up with, sorta closes off Alan's thread, doesn't it? "They photograph well because they project something that says I like to be photographed?" Something missing. Tell us, friends Patricia and Darren, what do you see in the "photogenic" human subject that displays or projects to you that he/she/it likes to be photographed or loves the camera (or similar nebbish catchprases)? How does that something draw a response in more than mom and the boyfriend. What is/are the universal attribute(s). I think maybe that is what Alan is digging for. What are the attributes for YOU at least, and are they individual to everyone ,or is there a common thread of qualities that make a human worth photographic attention. No cop-outs. By that, I mean ponder some more. I don't think *my* answer is all that profound but I tried. If you say photogenic is the quality projected by Lyle Lovett, whoever he is, I will feel I just jumped off a carousel. Like saying photogenia is a quality that is intense, indefinable, cross culturally stimulating, and demonstrated by the great faces from John Barrymore to Drew Barrymore. Or an abstract quality that is undefinable but instantly recognizable. (I knows it when I sees it.) Horsehockey! And please don't rupture an artery on this definition thing. But do let's see if we can come up with something more. What if we were doing a manual for casting agents we send to scout out subjects for our lenswork? What might we say, I wonder...Aloha, your friend in pondering, Gerry
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/19/1999
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When I think of photogenic I do not particularly think of human faces, as seems to be the trend in the posts above. Not that I've got an answer, just a proposal for a different direction of thinking: in my view photogenic refers to a coincidence of objects, people, beings, weather, light, from a certain angle of view on the field at a certain moment which generates more and a different meaning than if the picture had not been taken/made (pooh...).
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 Gerry Siegel
(K=927) - Comment Date 2/20/1999
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I'll go with that expanded notion, Lot, as long as you include the interaction of the "duffer" behind the camera and the chemistry of the relationship, subject and imagemaker. Another thought creeps in, and forgive the crude segue. If we limit this to faces just for now-which is all I can juggle for the moment- I think there is a time and mood dimension. An example: the bride's winsome charm shows because of the glow of the event. And the more mature person just home from a grinding workweek may still wear the "mask" that covers individuality. (I see Patricia's comment in that light.) Young children, being more open, are more photogenic in that sense. But that does not always hold either. Some suffering subjects (who may have an impacted wisdom tooth for all I know) still photograph beautifully all the time. They somehow transform for the camera. Maybe its that transformation quality or ability that counts. Is a puzzlement.
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 Lot
(K=1558) - Comment Date 2/21/1999
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I agree with you Gerry that photogenicity of people is more than the mood they convey. I clearly recognize the fact that people can show much better on a photography than they do in reality. I do not know if the camera triggers something in them that comes at work when the shutter goes of. It's just a talent I think. In the description I give above the talent seems to be seated more in the photographer.
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 Steve Bingham
(K=384) - Comment Date 2/22/1999
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I have seen some really beautiful pictures of some really ugly people. So are they still unphotogenic? Hmmm. There in lies the rub. Something you should think about.
Are you looking for a photogenic female model? Like for Playboy? Or are you simply looking to make beautiful pictures? The later takes much practice. The first is easier. Big wide set eyes. High cheekbone. Good looking hairdo. Symmetrical face. Full lips. Perfect complection. Straight and smallish nose. No receding chin. No receding hair. God, I'm getting sick. I just described my grand daughter's Barbie doll.
Most people don't see all these things, thank God, because they are looking at the "person", personality and all. Most photographers who photograph beautiful women pick up on these features pretty quickly.
Steve
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 John A. Benigno
(K=94) - Comment Date 4/26/1999
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When I was in graduate school studying Theatre, we had the actor Stacy Keach as a guest speaker. A student asked him what was the difference between acting on stage and in films. His answer was simple, but effective. He said that in films you have to make love to the camera.
I think what he meant was that an actor has to be comfortable with himself to expose his personality and character freely to the camera. Perhaps, this comfort and confindence is what makes a good portrait subject.
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