It would seem unlikely, at this late date, for there to be something noteworthy about a book of portraiture, one of the seemingly most degraded of visual art forms. After all, if you can have it done for about $20 at the mall, or $3 in one of those booths, it’s probably not something that’s in any danger of injuring itself on art’s cutting edge. And yet, here are two new photography books that, if they don’t exactly redefine the art of the portrait, at least come at it from odd angles.

British-born, Toronto-dwelling Nigel Dickson has won a wall-full of awards for his work in magazines such as Rolling Stone, Details, Saturday Night, and Toronto Life (whose outgoing editor, John Macfarlane, contributes a terse-yet-affectionate introduction to Stand Still). Dickson’s subjects include musicians, actors, writers, media luminaries, political leaders, the San Diego Chicken, and, occasionally, Dickson’s own family. Some of the photos have become iconic – Dickson’s shadowy portrait of an annoyed-looking Paul Martin was famously used against the man in election campaign attack ads.

Almost all of the photos exude a wry sense of humour, though occasionally the humour tips over into merely wacky – as in the shot of Adrienne Clarkson in oversized glasses (above left) – which is likely a consequence of the fact that many of the photos were originally used to illustrate articles.

The juxtaposition of the photos often contains some less-than-subtle humorous or editorial content, the spread with the Archbishop of Toronto facing a shot of the Ku Klux Klan’s Grand Wizard in full regalia being by far the cheekiest. Publishing types, however, may get a chuckle from a shot of a stern-looking Louise Dennys opposite a shot of a hairy-chested man licking his bare armpit.

The actual photos in Deborah Chesher’s Everybody I Shot Is Dead are not nearly as noteworthy as Dickson’s, but that’s not the point: Chesher, a former rock photographer from Vancouver (now living in California), has put together a collection of shots from her concert days, under the brilliantly simple and slightly mischievous theme that all of her subjects are now dead. Some died famously, as in T. Rex’s car-crumpling Marc Bolan (above right) or Led Zeppelin’s vomit-aspirating drummer John Bonham, some merely of old age, as in blues godfather John Lee Hooker.

Most of the photos are the kind of mid-riff shot that is the standard for concert photography, and most were taken during the early to mid-1970s, the boom era for musician death-by-misadventure. The best pics are those taken backstage, which show a more relaxed and candid side of these infamous longhairs. The best parts of the book are Chesher’s accompanying anecdotes. My own favourite is the tale of her brief tenure as road manager/pill carrier for legendary folk-blues guitarist and eccentric John Fahey.

What both books demonstrate is that, as long as you’ve got dead rock stars or hairy men licking their armpits around, no art form can truly be called obsolete.