Portraiture emerged as one of the most prominent genres of depictive media early in the history of the visual arts, and tacit or explicit rules, conventions, and cultural expectations have always influenced the ways in which artists approached the genre. Photography is no exception; numerous different and characteristic styles of portraiture have emerged throughout the history of the medium. Today, we live in an exciting new era for portraiture. There has never been a time in human history when so many portraits and self-portraits were produced day after day as in the era of digital technologies. Photographers have responded to these cultural, social, and technological changes by reinterpreting the age-old genre of portraiture in countless creative ways. We usually assume that faces are necessary components of portraiture. However, we may learn just as much about the character, personality, identity, or presence of a person by looking at images that depict other parts of their bodies, gestures, clothing, objects, surroundings, or places associated with them. Not focusing on the face may open up new dimensions of interpretation, while traditional portraits may continue to reveal the complexity of personality through expression, pose, light, setting, and photographic style. The theme is broadly construed: from traditional fine art portraits to selfies, from facial portraits to images that portray personality through the body, objects, spaces, traces, or symbolic associations.
