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Monday, September 5, 2016

Rapport/Empathy

Kirk Tuck is on a roll lately. I wonder if I took a few weeks off, would I suddenly get smart? That sounds cool. Anyways, he's got a nice piece on the business of portraiture up, in which he makes the point that basically his primary deliverable is a good experience for the customer. That is surely true.

I'm going to take this short note, though, to remind us all that what he's talking about also makes the work better. Part of the reason Kirk's portraits are so good is that he is at pains to deliver that excellent customer experience, in a genuine way. The sitter is happy, engaged, Kirk is happy, engaged. They're connecting as personalities, as people. That's one of the baselines for excellent portraiture.

There's a lot less dialog with a bridge, or a mountain, but the idea is the same, Connection, emotional involvement, genuine and specific delight and interest on the part of the artist makes the work better.

If you're just generically happy to be shooting this person, this mountain, this tree, the work might be OK. If you're genuinely happy to be shooting not just some person, some tree, but this specific person, this specific tree, at this specific time, right here and now, the work can be a lot better. Love the person, love the tree, love the mountain!

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