Of all the forms of photography I try to practice, I think portraiture is my favorite. There is a powerful challenge to the idea of trying to capture someone’s soul in a photograph. I know some people whose portrait I am just on fire to take – Kelly, Ed and Carol Gulley, and now, our friend Susan Popper, a new resident of our special little town.

And then, I know many people I would not dream of doing a portrait of. I often wonder what the quality is that draws me to a portrait.

What goes into a portrait? A portrait lens  helps, my favorite is the Canon 85 mm, it  has a special quality of light and detail and warmth to it. It is big heavy lens and it rarely fails me.

I have known Susan for awhile and I wonder why I am drawn to taking her portrait. As I learn to know and understand Susan, I am beginning to understand what makes a good portrait.

First, I have to like the subject. I can’t really take decent portraits of people I don’t know or care about. There is an intimacy between the portrait taker and the subject, each reacts to the other, and I like Susan, and she likes and trusts me, or at least is beginning to.

That really matters. If I like the subject, the subject likes and trusts me,  I usually get a portrait that works for me.

Susan is happy right now, she is coming out of an awful period, and I wanted to catch her happiness. But how do you do that? People are so stiff when a camera is pointed at them. She has a radiant spirit, and any portrait that doesn’t capture that is a failure.

There are other issues. Susan has written about obesity and struggled with it for much of her life, and I worried that she would be sensitive to the way I took her portrait. But Susan has a quality that often makes for a good portrait – she is a strong woman, she is proud of her self and basically says to the photographer, “go head, do your thing.”

She does not much care how she looks or how her body is presented, it is her body and her life, and there it is. That is unusual, something the photographer picks right up on. With Susan, I am free to take the photo I want.

I learned a lot about strong woman when I started taking photos of Kelly Nolan at the Bog, she had that same way of looking into the camera without a need for prepping or primping. She liked herself just the way she was. I like to take pictures of strong women.

Maria is a strong woman, every portrait of hers is a study in character and vulnerability. She never really likes to be photographed, but she doesn’t mind being photographed well.

Susan sometimes projects a grumpy and aloof demeanor, it was how she protected herself from abuse and cruelty for many years. But the truth is, she is loving and sweet and inherently social. The mask was just that, a veneer.

How to show this. It’s very easy to get Susan to smile, she has a quick and ready sense of humor. So I told an off color joke or two, or said something mildly surprising and off color. I knew that would get a laugh out of her, and it did.

Then, there was her strange little dog Sally, a tiny, shy and odd dog she loves dearly, Sally was her companion while Susan hid from the world, they are quite attached to one another. I’ve never seen Susan hold Sally, and I suggested she pick her up, I knew it would bring out the loving soul close to the surface.

She lit up just holding Sally.

And then I asked her to stand beneath one of her photographs, she is a creative, emerging as a very gifted photographer, she just opened an Etsy shop for her photography, she calls it Susan Unframed (I would have called it Susan Resurrected).

So I added three elements to the portrait taking, none of them evident to anyone in the room but me, and perhaps, Susan. One, the joke,  two the dog, three the photo above her head. In a way she was standing up for herself, her photographer, her creativity. And then I had the right lens, it helped me in a dark room.

And in a sense, what makes a good portrait is the same thing that makes a good friend – time, love and trust.

I also put her by the staircase, which added lines and dimension to the picture. You do have to think about portraits, they give back just what they are given.

I think Susan will be a regular subject for me in the new life she is building. I like strong women, she has a great back story, it is exciting to see her true self emerge.

This is why I love portraits I think, you have to think about them, and like what you are seeing through the viewfinder.