Journal
What a face holds
Close portraits in available light, and why I stopped asking people to relax.
( Published )
( Category )
Portraits
( Reading time )
4 min read
Bare Skin started as a lens test and turned into two winters of portraits. The idea never changed: get close enough to see pores and freckles, use only the light in the room, and keep the retouching to dust on the sensor.
Close portraits make people nervous. The camera is a hand’s width from their face, and there is nowhere to hide.
Don’t ask for calm
Telling someone to relax is the fastest way to make them tense. I talk about anything else, keep shooting while they answer, and wait for the moment they forget the lens is there. It usually arrives around frame two hundred.
The light is whatever the room gives: a window, a lamp, a white wall bouncing the sun. I move the person, never the light.
What stays in the edit
Freckles, a stray hair, the red around an eye after a long day. Most beauty retouching removes exactly the things that make a face readable. I keep them, and after the first surprise the sitters usually thank me for it.
— Nora Steinmann, Zürich
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