The dictionary definition of a portrait says:

"A likeness of a person, especially one showing the face, that is created by a painter or photographer, for example."

and it is quite true that when we think of the term there is an underlying assumption that the facial features will appear but at a deeper level do they have to? Just as a textual portrait of a person can consist of a mannerism and parts of the body so can a photograph. For example a tattoo, wound or surgical scar says a lot about a person - or at the very least it can affect our underlying assumptions about that person and bring our own prejudices closer to the surface. Within the photography of fetishism this is widely covered but there are other photographers who move above the realm of simple titillation into a more philosophical study of who we are as people.
 
In this section there are the works of a few photographers that I'd like to highlight as their work is particularly profound.

• In Terry Lorant's book entitled 'Reconstructing Aphrodite' the photographs examine women who have undergone reconstruction after breast cancer.
• Eleanor Antin photographed herself over a slimming program.
• Annie Noggle well known for middle aged and older people, particularly her friends and family, also completed a study called 'Face Lift' that examined her own responses to having the operation.
• Anna & Bernhard Blume in 'Das Gluck Ist Ohne Pardon/Joy Knows No Mercy: Polaroids' shows people changed through ornamentation.
• John Coplans has spent long years photographing his own body as it changes over time. The result is like a Medieval drawing book by Leonardo - a dispassionate analysis of increasing human frailty.

• One couple of photographers, Melanie Dunea and Nigel Parry, discussed what was their favorite body parts and then explored the issue with celebrities. This seemingly simple question has surprising results and uncovers realms of self absorption.
• Henry Horenstein in his 2003 book entitled 'Humans' examines different parts of the human body in close up detail. The body when few close up becomes a strange landscape of parts that we all know but are somehow removed from the detail.

The exploration of the interior of the body and how it functions seems a long way from what a traditional portrait is but it is our biological signature - it is the scientific portrait of what we are.