Capturing the Soul: Photographic Portraiture Before the Smartphone Era – The New York Times

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Capturing the Soul: Photographic Portraiture Before the Smartphone Era

From F.B.I. posters to commissioned family photos, portraits have long revealed how people wanted to be presented, and sometimes how they didn’t.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/lens/photographic-portraiture-before-smartphone.html

But a new exhibit at the International Center of Photography shows that bokeh is hardly a good portrait’s greatest asset. The ad implies that anyone with the right smartphone can make a quality portrait, rendering a visit to a local photo studio obsolete. But, as is evident in the exhibit “Your Mirror: Portraits from the I.C.P. Collection,” there is a common motivation.