Portrait Photography - I'm Looking at You

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

When you have that gaze amidst all the other things that are going on, it doesn't just draw you in. You're also kind of as the viewer exposed. The picture smile is something like a lax intimacy. It's a mask. Our smiles are often masks. They're the way that we present ourselves to the outside world. We think we're doing it consciously because we don't want to be observed.

When everyone is carrying a camera in their pocket, what raises the act of taking pictures to the level of fine art photography? Jessica Todd Harper, the award-winning portrait photographer, says that it's equal parts mindset and technique--and lots of setting the stage to seize that perfect light. Listen as Harper speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her desire to capture the complexity of life in a single image, why family relationships and home life are her chosen subjects, and the integral role beauty plays in her images, despite its diminished status in art today.