I've been thinking a lot about the portrait I did for
James M Barrett.
James is working quite prolifically at the moment, producing a steady stream of portraits, despite the amount of time and effort each one takes to produce, from the original shoot through James's exacting picture editing - which having seen him work a little appears to be a mix of instinct and painstaking attention to detail - through to the considerable amount of post-production he applies to create his unique images: a kind of photographic digital alchemy of which I can only begin to speculate.
Two or three new images appear each week and I'm fascinated to see each one, especially if it is someone I know or am aware of. Inevitably it makes me think about where I fit into his growing body of work. I feel very fortunate to be one of his models at all. He has included several models in the series - or people who model among other things at least - but most of his sitters are notables from London gay society and the arts (if there's a difference). I am surrounded in his galleries by DJs, writers, artists, photographers, academics and various other remarkable people. I know that some of his sitters are 'ordinary' like me, some of them, as I say, people who model. I feel very honoured to be in their company, to have been accepted by James as a subject and to have worked with him to produce an image that I believe deserves its place in the series.
My other thought as I look at James's work is the things that his careful direction, skilful photography and technical expertise bring to the images. James is an artist. He paints with light and cameras and digital processing. He doesn't use photoshop to create a great image out of a good or poor one. His standards are exacting from start to finish. He takes an extraordinary photograph and then uses post-production to transform it into something transcendent. It's not about correction or fakery or tidying up. It's part of an artistic process.
Two remarkable things appear in James's portraits it seems to me. Firstly, his portraits are never just an image of the person - a photographic representation of them. They are not necessarily even especially flattering. Like a painter, James has the ability to create a portrait that reveals something of the personality of the sitter in a startlingly complex way. I take a lot of slightly mean-looking photographs - something to do with the way my face sits when I'm trying to show a neutral expression - but in James's portrait of me there is an intensity, a darkness, a sadness and a kind of uncertain confidence that I don't expect to show on the outside. I was shocked when I first saw it. It looks more like me than I do from the outside. It reveals hidden things.
I have spent some time learning how to express some kind of emotion in photographs. Typically, I started doing photographic work that required little more than physical participation, emotional neutrality. I hope I have made a start in moving beyond that. I know I have in James's portrait.
The other extraordinary thing about James's portraits is to do with the eyes. I couldn't possibly explain how he does it technically, although he does seem to leave people's natural eye colour showing through the colour treatments that he applies to his work. I see a lot of really good photography and I've been lucky enough to work with some really good photographers but if you look at a James Barrett portrait you get the strange sensation that not only are you looking at a beautiful and revealing photographic portrait but that the person is looking back at you. James's somehow captures the person's spirit or essence (I'm not a religious man, at all) within the photograph. This is quite extraordinary.
For all these reasons - let alone the fact that he is a handsome, charming and intelligent man and a true artist - I think this portrait is the most significant piece of work I have been involved in as a lone individual.
I recommend that you have a look at the complete series of James' portraits:
James M Barrett
