Portraits have been around since the beginning of time, that we can record, they have always been around and have represented different things as time has progressed, the main thing that has been represented about portraits has been power, the person that was having an image made of them was seen as powerful.
The first piece of portraiture to be found was in 1365 BC, when Egyptian Pharoh Akhenaten carved a picture of him and his wife into stone. But even further than that some portraits have been found in cave drawings, the oldest art style to be found.
Portraiture changed massively when the camera was invented because it meant that people could take pictures of people when the photographer was ready, not when the subject was ready. This gave way more control to the photographer and meant that once the photographer took the image that was it, it had been taken and it could be seen by everyone. Portraits before the camera had been controlled by the subject, this meant that the subject could always look the way they wanted, whether it was to look powerful or rich they could choose. But when the camera was created people could see the rich and famous as they were when they were not in front of a camera.
Tony Vaccaro was a good example of this because he would take pictures of the famous and the rich but he would pretend that the camera was not working and then he would take the picture once the subject had relaxed and stopped trying to look good for the camera. His work was based on taking pictures of people when they are being themselves, when they least expect it meaning that the images were of the famous and rich when they were being relaxed. A lot of Tony Vaccaro's work is based on this strategy and he has a lot of images that has used this.
Tony Vaccaro called this waiting for the decisive moment, this is what he did before he took a picture. This made his work unique and therefore made his images different because he captured the rich and the popular for who they really are and what what they seem to be, not who they are making themselves out to be.
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