Vanity Fair

Caption: Philip Johnson wearing the PPG Building (costume designed and constructed by Joseph Hutchins, Works N. Y.), by Josef Astor, 1996, publ. July 1996.
Credit: Josef Astor

Caption: Augustus John, by Malcolm Arbuthnot, 1920 publ. February 1920.
Credit: Courtesy Condé Nast Archive

To gauge a persons personality from a photograph is difficult I believe. What is captured in a brief moment can not represent there whole being with all of it's complex layers. Even photographs of people in real life situations (not arranged portraiture) gives us no real further insight into their character - A picture of an heroic firefighter saving someone from a burning building may portray the man as being brave - but it doesn't show you that when he gets home he kicks the cat across the room and slams a bottle of whisky. What I think that you can see (sometimes) in a portrait, is how seriously someone takes themselves (see above portraits). Some people never smile for the camera - this maybe through vanity or maybe they always want to be taken seriously. I like people who don't take themselves too seriously - therefore if i had to choose some people, whom I didn't know, to hang with, from a selection of photos - I would probably choose the ones who were smiling or doing something silly in their photo.

Compared to their contemporary counterparts the photographs from the earlier era could be identified by their size - being smaller, and most of them were simple head and shoulder shots.
Some of the contemporary portraits were enormous - the giant Margaret Thatcher shot is the stuff of nightmares. I also had a sense that in a lot of the contemporary shots the subjects wanted to be portrayed as being "cool" even slightly above being beautiful - this is where the photographer comes in to help make this image, by arranging that carefully constructed "hey i didn't know there was going to be a camera here - I'm this cool everyday" look. Maybe I'm being too cynical. I've never really liked the celebrity elite - overpaid, over idolised and they get a loud public voice to boot.

In conclusion, i don't feel that there is much "truth' in most portraits, but especially not celebrity portraits. It is in their vested interests to portray a certain image. A real truth would be the smile on a three year olds face looking at the camera their mother is holding for granny's Christmas photo.