Photography in Context: The Mugshot

Research using library book stock

While the mugshot was used for police and prison records in the 19^th century, contemporary photographers often use this portraiture style as tool for visual communication. Although its initial use is still in place as a crucial tool of objective identification of the individual and record keeping, it is also used for creative exploration of ideas, featuring the human face.

Whether it is for record keeping or conceptual image making, the characteristics are the same. It is objective and observant; attention is often drawn to the eyes. The compositions are often repeated and controlled by the photographer according to different concepts. Lighting and colours are standarised as well as the photographed people; in many cases their personalities are removed. Mugshots are typically studio portraits or as Alex Kayser describes his own work ‘physiognomy studies rather than portraits”.

On a classic mugshot series everybody seems equal and not more than a face and its features.

Contemporary photographers have different approaches and even though their images work within the theme of mugshot, there are examples where the viewers are allowed to see behind the face and the intense gaze.

In Bettina von Zwehl’s projects sitters were directed and asked to carry out certain tasks, and the photographer captured their spontaneous feelings and emotions.

“Her subjects wear the same clothes, wearing the same faces, adopt the same poses, face the same lighting conditions. They carry out the tasks she set them; to fall asleep, sit in darkness and silence, to hold their breath, to exercise. She documents reactions.”
Leader, D. (2007) Bettina von Zwehl. Primal Scene Photography. Brighton. Photoworks. p.24

In an interview with Charlotte Cotton she says: ”I continue to be fascinated by what appears and disappears in people’s facial expressions if they let go of their photographic ‘mask’.“
Cotton, C. (2007) Bettina von Zwehl. Interview. Brighton. Photoworks. p.71

In a way her balanced compositions are like experimental studies, presented by intense and aesthetic images.

Her ‘Profiles I’ series broadens the scope of the classic mugshot.

Bettina von Zwehl
Profiles I

The images are arranged in pairs, facing each other yet in separate pictures, looking at each other yet also gazing into the empty non-space between the frames. These portraits make direct reference to the wedding portraits of Frederico da Montefeltro by Piero della Francesca, a painting commissioned by the husband after the death of his wife.

Piero della Francesca

Portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino (c.1470)

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

In each of the pairs the profile is perfectly positioned. The absence of eye contact with the viewer, but the same time linking the two people through their eye contact between the pages is created by the photographer.
Lowry, J. (2007) Bettina von Zwehl. Symptoms, Signs and Surfaces. Brighton. Photoworks. p.41

Rineke Dijkstra’s work is another example of new interpretation of portrayal of human beings. Many of her compositions are mugshots, simply posed images. Her models are calm and reserved; young mothers posing shortly after giving birth, children and young people on the beach or standing by a tree, toreros after bullfight, legionnaire dressed in different uniform on each shot, in various stages of his military career, and a child asylum seeker photographed at irregular intervals. Some of these sitters’ portraits taken after an important event, a difficult action but the faces remain mute.

“The two closely cropped photographic busts of “Tia”, the first taken shortly after the birth of her child and the other five month later, show subtle yet impressive changes in her facial expression, a yardstick of the strength and energy that Tia gained in just half a year. The impression of exhaustion, of inner emaciation in the first picture gives way to that of a revitalized, restrained yet radiant woman in the second.”
Stahel, U. (2004) Portraits. Afterwords "After the climax" as a focal element in Rineke Dijkstra's portrait photography. New York. Schirmer/Mosel and D.A.P. p.150

Rineke Dijkstra
Tia
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 23 1994 14 November 1994

Suzanne Opton’s collections of soldier portraits are striking images of currently serving soldiers and veterans. These are photos of human beings whose lives have been on the line daily and they were willing to share their intimacy with the viewer. Suzanne Opton keeps the uniformity within the shots but placing the model into a different, unusual posture.

The series of American soldiers were displayed on billboards in 8 cities in the United States in 2008-2010 and caused controversy at the time. The faces are still; some stare directly at the viewer and some stare away as if they were dead.

“These American soldiers volunteered to be photographed, but had photographer Suzanne Opton posed them conventionally, or upright, their psychological defenses would have been engaged. As it is, she has successfully disarmed them. Suddenly these young men, trained to kill, seem heartbreakingly vulnerable and defenceless…”
Ewing, W.A. (2006) FACE The New Photographic Portrait. London. Thames & Hudson. p.43

Suzanne Opton
Soldier: Conklin 2005
Soldier: Claxton 2004

Suzanne Opton
Soldier: Jefferson 2005
Soldier: Birkholz 2004

In his project 'Heads', Alex Kayser photographed people from every walk of life. The portraits presented in a manner of classic mugshot, similar to classic police records using tight frames, plain background and uniformed composition. The carefully chosen 184 faces then compiled in a well-presented, black and white book, a catalogue of human physiognomy. His sitters share the same neutral expression; similar look and we look at these headshots as analytic studies.

As we turn the pages and a new face stares at us from every page, we compare different people with the same expression. We notice the differences, in the same time we sense their link to each other. They emerge into one group photo, into one face. In a way this collection reduces everyone to the same creature, a face with two eyes, a nose and a mouth.

In Alex Kayser’s words: “…184 times the same picture. Only the faces change.”
Kayser, A (1985) Heads, A Conversation with Lyn Mandelbaum and Alan Axelrod. New York. Abberville Press Inc pg.9

Alex Kayser
Stephen Jashijan
New York City:
artist and performer

Alex Kayser
Dean Johnson
New York City:
poet and performance artist;
works at various Lower-East-Side nightclubs,
including Pyramid and Save the Robots