Fifty Minutes – Photographic Portraits of Horacio Etchegoyen
and the late André Green

Dan Welldon

Click here to see: Welldon Photos

Being brought up by a very hard-working psychoanalyst perhaps it was natural that I should embark on a photographic project seeking to capture the essence of analytic space in a visual framework.

I wanted to capture the spaces in a true and honest way – that’s to say, without moving anything at all in the room and with minimal retouching or alterations. I wanted the space to speak for itself, so there was no artificial lighting used, only what lights would normally be on in the room or whatever natural light might be coming in through any windows. This in itself taught me much about analysts. 

I soon came to realize that analysts are able to sit so perfectly still that even using a shutter speed running into many seconds I could still pretty much be sure of a sharp shot. In framing the image I used a wide-angle lens which would capture both the analyst but also much of the room and the elements in the room without distorting the space. I wanted the analyst to be a part of the space rather than to dominate the space as they would in a portrait in the true sense of the word. I wanted the portrait to be as much about these other elements, such as the furniture, or books or rugs, as about the physical presence of the analyst, but to me it was vitally important to have this presence.

Equally important to me was the absence of the patient, the empty couch or chair, which gives the viewer the physical space and emotional freedom to imagine. The photographs are taken on a large-format camera, which is the type of camera that you have to disappear under large cloth in order to see the image that you are taking – and even then it is an image which is upside down and back to front that you are seeing on the ground glass. It isn’t a snatched shot which is done and dusted in a few seconds. It is a large unwieldy camera which requires a sturdy tripod. Each time the big camera comes out of its case it has to be put together carefully. Each sheet of film has to be carefully handled so that it isn’t exposed to light other than when it is inserted into the camera and ready to expose.

At the end of the portrait session I leave each analyst with the Polaroid, which I ask them to respond to in a couple of sentences. This response from each analyst is an important part of the process for me, which I see as a dialogue. This whole process ends up taking pretty much exactly 50 minutes.

Ultimately I wanted the viewer to see the space exactly as they would see it if they were a fly on the wall in the middle of the session, with the exception of the absence of the patient. To this end I asked each analyst not to look into the camera but to look where they might normally look during a session, so that the experience of looking at the portrait isn’t a confrontational one, but rather it is an experience that you can be drawn into.

Dan Welldon is a British professional photographer. Both images are © Dan Welldon