Portrait

image copyright ed watts 2009.

I take a lot of portraits, many of which are part of a series or broader project. However, every now and again I take a portrait that is simply a portrait and yet it holds me and makes me question the way I define my work. My work, often typologies, become conceptual documents which may now be typical to what we are told constitutes an 'art' photograph. Its portraits like this that makes me question this very notion. Looking back at art over the centuries, the past masters of painting would be commissioned to create portraits of the significant and wealthy. As time past these paintings aged and became desirable, displayed, bought and sold in the art market, often regardless of 'who' the portrait may be depicting. So I guess this is the point to this post, in a couple of hundred years will portraits that photographers are taking today, possibly the simplest of editorial portrait commissions, will these be the for sale within a futuristic gallery somewhere ready to be bought and hung in pride of place in someones futuristic home?

Anyway that may be a terribly written rant that doesn't make any sense to anyone, but the point I was getting at is can I just create work as 'art' that is made merely 'because'? devoid of concept?

To answer my own question, YES