Ben
If you only know me through this blog, you may think that my only subject is the landscape. If so, today may be a surprise for you. My interest in photography began with the landscape, but then I turned to portraits for more than 15 years. I have always loved landscape photography and felt like I could express myself better there than with other subject matter, but I had a family to feed and portraiture and wedding photography is what made that possible. I still do a fair amount of portraiture, but my own personal work is almost always landscape.
You will notice, if you study my portrait work that I believe that simple is better. I feel that way about landscapes and portraits. It is my way of seeing the world. By simplifying a portrait, I am able to more readily make the subject known. It is always about the subject and never about the background. Whether in the studio of outdoors on location, the subject and lighting always take precedence over the background. If the first 2 are good, the background will be fine. Many times I see portraits that are really all about the location, the scene or the background, and the subject just happens to be there. This way of thinking and designing a portrait is backwards. It may be a great scenic image, but when the main subject takes a back seat to the background then it has lost its power. I would rather have nothing in the background than something that overpowers what I am trying to show.
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