Issued:
November 5, 2025

Promotors:
Janneke Wesseling
Bart Verschaffel
Florian Cramer

Available at:
Leiden University Repository

What do we ‘actually’ see in a photographic portrait? While it is widely understood that portraits are not truthful representations of a person, this insight is often suspended when looking at one. The long history of photography as a means of identification may play a role in this suspension of disbelief. Portraits are still easily taken as reflections of reality, and the fact that they are social constructions tends to disappear from view.

This research project begins with the social situation in which a portrait is made. Photographer, sitter, and anticipated spectators – physically absent yet influential – each play a role in this process. Through an interplay between practice and theory, Judith van IJken explores what these three participants want and do. From this emerges the concept of the “situative portrait”: an approach to portrait photography that emphasizes the context of creation and the network of actions and interactions from which the image arises.

‘The Situative Portrait’ is about the interpretation of photographic portraits – what can and cannot be seen in them. In an age of AI and surveillance, where faces are reduced to data, the situative portrait is an exercise in resistance, a reminder that critical engagement with images is essential.