I just read something interesting.
It was a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article about Abraham Lincoln, America's 16th president, and the legacy he left (April 2015, "LINCOLN: Looking For His Legacy Today"), As NG does so well, it was full of fascinating photographs.
Lincoln understood the power of the portrait, and he had many of them done throughout his political career. The article featured many of them.
And it got me thinking about the legacies people leave behind today.
It is a face handsome and homely, sorrowful and mirthful, penetrating and opaque. Amid the contradictions stamped into nearly a half trillion pennies is one truth: Abraham’s face is unforgettable. But it is a visage that we, 156 years after his death, will never truly know. Lincoln’s personal secretary, John G. Nicolay, described “the long gamut of expression from grave to gay, and back again from the rollicking jollity of laughter to that serious, far-away look that with prophetic intuitions beheld the awful panorama of war, and hear the cry of oppression and suffering."
Perhaps this is why Nicolay wrote:
“There are many pictures of Lincoln; there is no portrait of him.”
Humour offered the president a brief respite from the pressures of his embattled administration. “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day,” said Lincoln, “if I did not laugh, I should die.”
But we never see images of Lincoln laughing. We only see the gravity of his time. This was punctuated by the rudimentary stage of photography of the day. Furthermore, most portraits were confined to the studio where all elements could be controlled.
How Times Have Changed
In today’s digital age, there are over 300 million photos uploaded to Facebook every day. Never in history have our daily lives been so documented in real time. And our entire palette of emotions and activities are shared.
Thanks to today’s cameras, we can capture a subject’s personality and story far more conveniently. We can create images in locations under a variety of conditions that best reflect who is being photographed.
The word “portrait” means “to portray.” That’s what still drives my business today. In today’s age of visual awareness, my clients are choosing to preserve their heritage and lifestyles in portraits that serve as decorative focal points in their homes and offices; portraits that serve as both a tasteful reflection of their individualized decorating style and a tribute to the ones they love.
Knowing the weight Lincoln placed on the powerful role portraits played in his political career, I was eager to find a photograph of his family. Sadly, I learned Lincoln never took a photo with his entire family or one alone with his wife.
I was so disappointed. What an opportunity never realized.
How will history remember you?
Experience has proven Jack Handey's quote to be humorously true:
“The face of a child can say it all,
especially the mouth part of the face.”
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