Background to this Series
In the early days of the Covid pandemic I came across a tutorial by Chris Knight called "Finding Rembrandt." The tutorial inspired me to learn more about the Dutch Masters. I was attracted to the dramatic high contrast paintings and decided to photograph a series in that style. Because of Covid, I had only one model at first, my husband. As time passed (and I purchased a high-quality air purifier for my small studio), I photographed other people I came across in my life – friends, relatives, relatives of friends – until I had the start of my own “Dutch Masters” series. Some of the images are taken directly from well-known paintings, such as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and Van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man in a Red Turban. Others were inspired by portraits from that period, including a few from artists outside the Netherlands, but of the same general era.
When I reflect upon my passion for portrait photography, in part it’s a reaction to the fact that today’s generation will have no lasting physical photographs; their pictures are all on their phones. Prior to the introduction of photography, if an individual wanted a portrait it had to be painted. The painting resulting from this expensive and time consuming endeavor signified the wealth and importance of the sitter. Portraits were meant to last generations. When early portrait photography enabled the middle classes to have their own portraits of themselves, they were considered valuable and were cherished. Today, with the invention of smart phones which serve as cameras, young people take literally hundreds of “selfies,” none of which are seen as valuable or are cherished beyond a “like” on social media. As someone for whom photography matters, I care about portraits. I want them to last a lifetime, to produce an emotional connection in the viewer. Therefore, by creating portraits that recall paintings of a long-ago era – in this case, the Dutch Golden Age – in my mind, I’m creating portraits that matter.