Would you say, in terms of being likely being an accurate likeness, is this photograph on par with a portrait? If a portrait is a 10, and the shittiest fuzziest picture is 0, where does it rank? The photograph came from a thumb sized ID photo circa 1970. By “portrait quality” I mean in terms of detail (IE wrinkles, etc - like the sort of detail you see in official photographs of Presidents and such)? Without knowing the person, would you say it would make for a good likeness?
Are you asking if the photo has the look of a (painted) portrait? Because the two are very different things. Unless the painter is very skilled, a portrait will generally be LESS accurate than a photo.
I’d give it a 5 at best. It’s quite soft in focus, poorly lit, and has lots of extraneous noise.
It would probably work as a passport photo, but would be unacceptable from a school yearbook photographer. So, it’s a functional representation of a specific person, but below basic professional quality. (Bad light. Not sharp.)
You could call it a 5, but that’s pretty meaningless without describing all the levels from 0 thru 10.
As a likeness it would rate above the standard of all but the most exacting of “photo-realistic” paintings.
As a photo, it sucks.
As a useful likeness for the purpose of identification, I’d say it’s fine.
It’s not portrait quality. It’s “this person died/committed a crime and this is the only picture we can find to put in the obituary/newspaper story” quality.
Agree with others. Not a good portrait. It looks like an old passport photo or a blown up corner from a photo that had many other people in it (more likely, since the grain is so heavy).
Key issues:
The photo was taken with camera-mounted flash, likely being held in portrait mode with the flash off to the photographer’s left (i.e. camera rotated 90 degrees, top-mounted flash is now on left). Or it was a P&S camera.
The use of camera flash is indicated by the hotspots on the cheeks, nose, and chin. The off-to-the-left part is indicated by the thin shadow behind the man’s head on the right.
The backdrop is terrible.
The focus looks like a P&S camera.
There is no sharpness, likely from the graininess of the film.
This was not taken with a pro lens.
A good portrait would be a two or three light setup, with diffuse light coming from both sides, one stronger than the other, and no harsh shadows or hotspots.
At a minimum, the flash problem can be avoided by adjusting its power and placing it directly above the camera instead of to the side (this is what wedding photographers do with those fancy flash brackets)
Also, a good portrait would use a sharp lens and high quality film stock.
Like a 4, or 5. It looks like a photo for an identification card or passport.
It’s a 3. It looks like a passport photo or other ID, and not a particularly good one. It’s rather grainy, probably a result of using cheap film or faster film than necessary. I get a sense of this person from the photo, so in that way it may capture a likeness, but it’s not posed well; you can tell it’s a mouth-only smile, a dead giveaway for a poor pose (a good portrait photographer knows how to get a natural smile or other pose from a subject). Lighting looks like a single front-on flash, so you have a lot of highlights on the person’s face from the flash, and a harsh shadow. He’s very close to the background, and the background itself is a pukey color.
This is not a good definition of “portrait quality.” Many high-quality portraits of famous people who are older use diffusion to soften wrinkles and take out detail. For example, look at the high-quality portrait of this actress on the right side of her home page. High-quality portrait photography but detail has been deliberately smoothed. You can Google any celebrity’s home page to see similar portraits.
Portrait photographers worry about backgrounds, lighting, catchlights in the eyes, all sort of things that are not evident in your photo.
If this is your main question, then the answer is “yes”.
If that guy was my uncle who I only see once a year, and the photo is 30 years old, I would be able to say “hey, that’s my uncle!.. the way he looked back when I was a kid and he took me to Disneyland.”.
But if your main quesition is “Is this a quality portrait”?–then the answer is no, for the reasons explained in the other posts.
Mug shot quality or maybe just a little better; say 11 o’clock news.
For comparison, take a look at an actual portrait photograph from the same era. Notice the portrait is much more carefully lit, the focus is sharper, there’s real variation in the skin tones, even individual hairs (and Nixon’s famous five o’clock shadow) are more distinct.
A 0 photograph would be like:
You can sort of make out the features, but despite being shot from a relatively close distance, it’s lacking in detail (especially on the face)
A 10 would be this:
or, B/W, like:
I like #1 and #4, though these are clearly from a different era.
They are all better than the first one, though #2 is the weakest IMHO.
They were all done with better equipment than the first one, at a time when one sat for a photograph. But they still look like passport photos.
The most important thing in any portrait is the eyes, and #4 especially has good eyes. Also, notice the soft shadows and the fact that the face has depth.
Well, here’s the thing: Are passport-type photos enough to give one a clear idea of what the person looked like in life? These were Driver License photos BTW. Here in NYC if you had a Chauffer License, you had to go to a studio and have your photo taken, and then the photo was affixed to the license. It wasn’t done at the DMV like later on.
#1 was taken in 1951, and #4 was taken in 1966. I think the final photo has the most depth to it, but that’s just me. The final photograph was taken around April or May 1975 and is actually the last photograph of my grandfather alive.
I like #1 the best - the hint of a smile, the softness in his expression, the hat - he looks the most friendly in that picture.
What are your goals for the picture?
Just preserving the man’s legacy. My uncle handed off all my grandfather’s earthly possessions to me. He died in 1975; I never met him. Because he died when my sisters are so young, they don’t regard him as our grandfather, and my cousin who was only other living grandchild when he died was only a year old. Because of his affair and their split up in 1967, my grandma has sort of made him Damnatio memoriae in our family. My mother idealized the man my entire life, and as the holder of all his earthly possessions (even down to the wallet he had when he died), and with a great curiosity about the man, I feel protective of his legacy and memory, and I want to have him represented in our family in the best possible way, so trying to think of the best photo from those bunch to sum him up (for a family tree type project)
Now that I’ve read more of your posts I have a better idea what you’re looking for. You are not looking for high-quality portraits, like how I evaluated your photo. You are looking for archive-quality records. All the above are very good archive record photos that do a good job of capturing the subject.
You can clean them up for sure… it won’t be the same quality as a modern day portrait, but still better.
Here’s an example attempt…
