I've never been that interested in portrait photography, which is strange because I'm very interested in people, and how they look, and photography.

I think portrait photography struck me as stagey, artificial. And difficult. I knew intuitively that making a good portrait, really capturing the character of someone in a portrait, required a technique beyond me, my camera, camera strap, roll of film.

I love the shutter button. Sure, there's a decisive moment involved in any good portrait. But there's also a studio, or careful lighting, considered background; an approach to the subject, perhaps involving a little research, a prop, certainly involving some thought about how to represent the subject. And rapport. My god, the rapport. Little tricks to get the subject to relax, to draw them out, to let them shine. So much planning! So much work!

That's why all but three of these portraits (#4, #5 and #8) are really candids that work as portraits, not portraits proper. Even portraits #4 and #8 were not conceived as portraits. Yes, they were staged, but as part of projects with goals other than "let me make a portait of you."

It's interesting to me that most of these 'portraits' date from so long ago. Among all of the tens of thousands of photographs I've shot in the 48 years since 1971 —most of them since 2002 thanks (and no thanks) to digital photography— why don't I have some more recent candid-portraits? I'm sure I do. Somewhere.

I think this is an archival problem. Because I haven't pursued and valued portraits in my work, I haven't flagged them in my digital photo library. They lie buried. The first eight photos here, however, were printed; and having become physical objects, were thrown into a file folder, and moved repeatedly between abodes, and noticed from time to time, until being re-photographed and posted here.

Jeff, December 2019