cheerful grandpa standing proudly in front
of a natural landscape, smiling heartily
with a wide-brimmed hat tipped ever-so-
gently to the side. When I showed it to
him, he grinned and asked me if he could
make it his Facebook profile picture.
Photography isn’t always about capturing
stark reality, especially when shooting a
portrait.
When I was considering how I wanted to
start this month’s column, I thought about
what I wanted the “take away” to be, or
the most important piece of advice I could
offer to budding portrait photographers. I
wondered if I should start by listing all the
tips I’ve learned over the years about
properly positioning a subject, about
capturing light at different times of day, or
about finding somebody’s more flattering
side. But I decided to tell the story of one
Take #1
. The photo, which I’ve come to
love, is hilarious but inaccurate. For one
thing, the shadows on his face make him
look even more rugged than he already is.
His squinting eyes and open-mouthed
smile don’t evoke a man who loves his
work; rather he looks weathered and
exhausted from 50-odd years of hard labor.
Had you never met Mr. Cini, you might
see this picture and walk away with a very
different feeling about what it’s like to live
on the tiny island of Gozo and run a
highly-profitable salt business with your
kids and grandkids.
We started laughing when I turned the
camera around and showed Mr. Cini his
awkward portrait. “Can we try that again?”
he asked. “I’m afraid that photo will scare
people away from my salt.”
Take #2
. This photo is more like it. A
Last year, I took a photo
o f a ma n who c a l l s
himself the “Salt Man of
G o z o . ” H e ’ s a n
80-something man with a
wrinkly face and a set of teeth that have
never seen a dentist. He also happens to
run the most profitable salt-harvesting
business in the Maltese islands. The day
we visited the salt flats, I asked him if I
could take his portrait. He positioned
himself in front of a glistening mound of
freshly-combed salt, lifted up his head so I
could see his eyes under the wide brim of
his straw hat, bared his teeth, and squinted
as the sun passed through the clouds.
L
TheArt of
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Photographing
BY KRISTIN WINET ILLUSTRATIONS BY I YING YEH
22
enVoyage
Perspectives
