Portraits

Rating:
Summary: Remember beauty?
Review: A disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer; my opinion is only one of an amateur who likes looking at photos.

Remember beauty? When photography began, portrait photography was primarily about showing people at their best. Old American Civil War photographs show proud soldiers in their uniforms about to go to war, or serious young couples about to be separated. Today we seem to live in an age of realism, when photographs of people are considered "better" or more "honest" if you can see their pores and blackhead scars. I'm not saying realism, in itself, is bad; a realistic portrait of a person can tell you more about that person's life than an entire article could (Mary Ellen Mark's photos of the homeless, for example). But portrait photography in general, and celebrity photography in particular, seems to have lost something in this shying away from beauty. Today celebrity portraits either go for shock value (see any David LaChapelle photograph) or play the Look-how-naked-I-am-Pay-attention-to-me game (see almost any Rolling Stone or Maxim magazine cover). David Seidner, whose photos often appeared in Harpers & Queen magazine, takes the opposite track: he creates pictures of people, fully clothed, in gorgeous settings. If you follow pop culture and are use to seeing photos of celebrities wearing old T-shirts and a pair of faded jeans, the pictures in "Portraits" are almost breathtaking to see: lush, sumptuous, extravagant. Most of the pictures in "Portraits" came from a photo essay Seidner did commemorating the recent John Singer Sargent exhibition. Seidner contacted descendants of people who posed for Sargent's paintings, dressed them up in the style of Sargent's time, and took photos of them in the Sargent style (pictures of Samantha and Serena Boardman, Lord Glenconner, and Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni fall into this category). The other photographs in "Portraits" consist of people in formalwear (Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece in his British military uniform, the Miller sisters in haute couture dresses). The result is a book of stunning loveliness. It contains the single best photograph of the great Jessye Norman I've ever seen in my entire life. The Helena Bonham Carter picture was choosen for the millennial exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, as one of the hundred great photographs of the century. The only bad part of looking at "Portraits" is the reminder that Mr. Seidner is no longer with us. The world is a poorer place for losing this man who sees beauty in it.

Rating:
Summary: The Master
Review: David Seidner had few rivals. His photography is so beautiful, it seems to have a quality that makes you want to consume it slowly, like good wine or a beautiful meal. (Feel free to insert your own metaphor pertaining to something you would like to consume slowly.) He achieved a lighting technique that is particularly notable, as it is so perfect, and the axis of many of his images.

"Potraits" is the perhaps the greatest achievement in his career, cut short by death not too long after they were completed. He worked for a great deal of time on this project, and anyone purchasing this book should be aware that he was in the grip of terrible illness while shooting, but still managed to realize his vision.

If you're not familiar with the photos, they're based on the famed society portraits of John Singer Sergeant using mostly relatives of those subjects, and one or two models. (Such as the luminous Bernadette Jerkowsi doing a superb Josephine/Odalisque on the cover, and inside.)

This book is a reminder and document of the doggedness of a passionate artist: we should all have such determination. David Seidner is sorely missed.

Rating:
Summary: Portraits by David Seidner
Review: David Seidner's portrait photography is elegant, lavish andexceptionally wonderful. With their hedonistic overstones andsumptuous beauty, they always stand on sphere of their own. Impossible to do them justice, the work must be seen.

In this extraordinary and beautiful new book, Seidner's work pays homage to the great portrait painters of the early nineteenth-century. Fusing history and stylish antiquarianism with a contemporary sensibility, Seidner creates a distinctive and remarkable array of images. Modern day actors, actresses, aristocrats and others who fill the social pages, don the costumes and postures of their earlier counterparts. Counterparts who were painted by artists such as Ingres, Boldini and Americans, John Singer Sargent and John Singleton Copley.

With models such as Jessye Norman, Helena Bonham Carter (this photograph was selected as one of the top 100 photographs of the century by the National Portrait Gallery in London), Lord Glenconner, Princess Alexandra von Furstenburg, Edwina Hicks, and India Hicks, David Seidner captures the present in the past and the past in the present. The photographs assume at once both history painting and portrait.

Extraordinarily beautiful, these images feel different from any other photographs by Seidner. With 40 colour photographs, hand tipped-in plates, Portraits is a book for giving and for fans of David Seidner's work.

Rating:
Summary: This book has to be seen to be believed!
Review: Mr. Seidner's portraits are niether simple documentations nor pretentious blurry art photos. His visions of his subjects are elegantly caught on film as if film were a painter's canvas --carefully conceived and classically composed. He is the "Hans Holbein" of portrait photography. Simply beautiful!

Rating:
Summary: This book has to be seen to be believed!
Review: Mr. Seidner's portraits are niether simple documentations nor pretentious blurry art photos. His visions of his subjects are elegantly caught on film as if film were a painter's canvas --carefully conceived and classically composed. He is the "Hans Holbein" of portrait photography. Simply beautiful!