The Person Behind the Title
We have a habit of introducing people by what they do.
She's a surgeon.
He's a CEO.
She's an attorney.
He's the managing director.
Sometimes we know their qualifications, their achievements and the organisations they lead before we know very much about them at all.
And without quite meaning to, we begin to see the title before we see the person.
What a title tells us
A title can tell us a great deal.
It may speak of years of study.
Of responsibility.
Of difficult decisions.
Of experience earned over decades.
It may tell us something about the demands of a person's working life.
But it cannot tell us whether they are shy.
Whether they have a wonderful laugh.
Whether they are gentle, impatient, thoughtful or unexpectedly funny.
It cannot tell us how they listen.
Or what happens to their face when they stop thinking about how they ought to look.
There is always more to a person than the work they do.
The person who arrives
People often arrive for a professional portrait with an idea of how they should look.
Serious enough.
Approachable enough.
Confident enough.
Sometimes they bring photographs of other people whose professional image they admire.
I understand that.
A professional portrait has a purpose. It needs to represent someone in a world where appearance can influence a first impression.
But I am not particularly interested in making everyone look like an executive.
I am interested in photographing the executive who arrives.
There is a difference.
One person may be naturally reserved.
Another has an extraordinary warmth.
Someone else has a stillness that makes you pay attention.
None of these qualities needs correcting to fit a job title.
They are part of the person doing the job.
When everyone begins to look the same
Corporate photography can become an exercise in sameness.
Similar poses.
Similar expressions.
Similar instructions to look confident, friendly or authoritative.
And while consistency matters when photographing a team, it should never come at the expense of individuality.
A team should look like a team.
But the people within it should remain recognisably themselves.
The same is true of an individual professional portrait.
The photograph may appear beside a biography, an article, a company announcement or a list of directors.
The title will be written there.
The qualifications will be written there.
The photograph doesn't need to repeat what the words have already told us.
It has the opportunity to tell us something else.
What remains when the title changes
People change jobs.
They are promoted.
They start businesses.
They retire.
Some leave professions that once occupied most of their lives.
The titles change, sometimes many times.
But the person who carried those titles was there all along.
I think about this when I photograph people who have spent decades building careers.
The photograph may be commissioned for a particular professional purpose.
But years later, it may mean something quite different.
It may become the photograph their family keeps.
Not because of the position they held.
But because of the person they recognise.
The person behind the title
I have photographed people since 2005.
And one of the things that continues to interest me is how little a title prepares me for the person who walks through my studio door.
I may know their name.
I may know what they do.
I may even know something about their reputation.
But I don't know how they will look at me.
How they will respond to being photographed.
What will make them laugh.
Or which small expression will suddenly make me recognise the person I want to photograph.
That is the part I still look forward to.
Because the title may explain why someone came to be photographed.
It has never been enough to tell me who they are.
Ready when you are →
JOHANNESBURG PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHER
One Moment. One Portrait. Forever
© 2005–2026 Bridget Corke Photography
Blairgowrie · Johannesburg · South Africa
International Master's in Portrait Photography
One of only two in Africa.