Portraiture:
The Pleasure of Knowing People

by Len Bernstein

I had thought a good photographic portrait was the result of technical knowledge, intuition and luck, and if the gods of silver gelatin were smiling down on you, they all came together at the moment you released the shutter. But I was puzzled--how did one reveal the sitter's personality, or even recognize it? I acquired technique, but the essence of a person wasn't as clear cut as f8 at 250. And so I waited patiently for that fleeting, meaningful expression, and so often it eluded me.

Then, in 1975, I began my study of Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by the great American poet and critic Eli Siegel--and I learned to ask:  Am I really interested in knowing another person deeply? Do I think their thoughts and feelings can add to me, make me more of an individual? As I hope to elicit an emotion in someone, do I hope to respect that person more or less? At the time, I couldn't answer "yes" to these questions. For example,  I only half-listened when others spoke, as I was thinking about something more important--what I had to say.  This conceit didn't change just because I put on my photographer's hat. While I was usually more attentive looking at someone through the viewfinder, I was photographing under a handicap, because if you aren't sure the depths of people are worth exploring, they're not likely to show them to you; and if they do, that decisive moment can easily pass you by unnoticed!

In my first Aesthetic Realism consultation, I learned that everyone has an attitude to the whole world which shows in the way we see people. I had been married to Harriet for just 10 months when I was asked by the consultation trio The Kindest Art: "If you have to give your attention to something else, as a photographer, what does it take your attention away from for a while?"  I answered, "From myself."

Consultants:  Would you say you have that question with your wife--that is, if you give your thought to her for 15 minutes, those 15 minutes you can't give to yourself?

Len Bernstein:  Yes, that makes sense.

Consultants:  Now, do you think it's possible to feel that as you are giving your thought to something else, that you are taking care of yourself?

The Kindest Art was teaching me I could express myself through being fair to what is not myself, and this is what I was deeply hoping for as artist, in marriage, and simply as human being--and as I studied this, a rift in me began to heal. In the days and weeks that followed, I was more excited than ever about photography, and began to have proud emotions wanting to know and be affected by Harriet. It was shortly after this consultation that I made this photograph of her.

I remember looking into her eyes and feeling so lucky we were learning how to have a good effect on each other.

The symmetrical composition and the even distribution of light and dark upon her features makes for serenity. But there is also the motion of thought and feeling within her, which we see through her expression, keen and friendly. The lively, dark strands emerging from her bound hair are important; just imagine the photograph without them--see how it gets too placid? I think they comment on, give outward form to, the dynamic self within.

Eli Siegel explained beauty and why it moves us when he stated  "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." Surface and depth are opposites crucial to any portrait. The camera shows the surface of things, and a good photographer uses surface with the hope to be fair to a person’s depths. But the enemy of art is the common feeling that the depths of people and things aren't worth knowing, and this, Mr. Siegel explained, is contempt, which makes for the ordinary pain of domestic life, and the worst aspects of humanity.

Once, I felt the key to individuality and a confident personality was feeling separate and superior--how wrong I was.

This young boy is clearly an individual, standing out sharply against a vague, complex background. Yet, he is nestled by his surroundings: a white flower curves toward him on the right, and the bright geometry of counter-tops touches him at various points. His expression is self-assured and trusting, and he does not seem at odds with his environment, which includes books and people--rather, his relation to it makes for a sense of largeness, emphasizes what we see as the boy's strength of character.

When I read these magnificently kind sentences by Eli Siegel I knew I would never see people in the same way again. They are from one of a series of lectures he gave in 1951 on H.G. Wells' The Outline of History:

[T]he very great technician, Nature, while working in a space of not more than twenty-five inches or so--that is, the human face--has come to have so many faces, feminine and masculine, child and adult. They are all different. We can assume that every Paleolithic face was different, also Neolithic, also Roman face, Chinese face, Greek face, Mesopotamian face; and just how it's done is remarkable. Any person trying to imagine five hundred faces will find it very hard, but somehow Nature has been able to have a tremendous variety, an inconceivable variety, in that field--which has to do with the relation of variety and oneness.

Len Bernstein's photographs are in private and public collections including The Baltimore Museum of Art, and Bibliothèque nationale de France (viewable at www.LenBernstein.com) For more information about the thrilling relation of art and the self, visit www.AestheticRealism.org.