More portrait practise

Today during the workshop I told Mike Downing about my previous ideas for my portrait pieces of my boyfriend, he gave me some critical advice discussing the semantics of the word ‘portrait’, and how portraits are usually created with the intention of direct eye contact with the camera. He also discussed the ways in which photos can be taken in an outdoor setting; changing the aperture and light balance depending on the subject and natural lighting. Also using Av when taking outdoor portraits maybe more beneficial and less complicated (in the long run). What I took from this is that although I am proud of my previous portrait pictures, they don’t really suit the brief very well and I think they’re too personal to be professional portrait photos.
In order to change this, I went around Lincoln and took photos of friends from my workshop and strangers (with their consent). Here are some of the images I captured:
Strangers:

My personal favourites were the elderly lady because she was so sweet and humbled that I took her photo, she said I could call her the Ancient Lady. I also love the smoker photo because I told her to just smoke and she was moving all around when I was taking her photo and not actually looking at the camera until this shot. I like it because you can see the movement and the slight spiral of smoke in the photo, I also like how her hair contrasts with the background.
I actually quite liked the fact that people allowed me to take their photos with very little question and it seemed to make them happier when I asked them and showed them the final image.

Friends:

I had fun messing around with the settings so I ended up getting blue lighting for the final photo, which I thought was a nice touch. The photo of Connor looking away according to Mike wouldn’t class as a portrait and I think that’s true, but I just thought the photo was nice and due to the white almost clear background you could almost get away with saying that it was shot in the studio. The photos of Emily are possibly my favourites as we were messing around doing ‘natural’ poses and overly posed shots and I think they came out the best. I also like how the backgrounds differ and compliment nicely.

Self portraits:

Mike Downing took the first photo and it’s the only portrait I have in landscape, which is something I need to improve and change when I next take photos. Jessica Wrightson took the other photo of me and I quite like how you can see the red glow of the train crossing. I don’t know if I would call these photos ‘selfies’, but I think they’re pretty okay. I may like to take photos in a studio setting to see how the pictures counteract.

Portraits practise

“Portrait photography is photographing a person or group of people that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person’s face” [1]

Cecil Beaton specialised in fashion and portraiture photography and is regarded as the “greatest fashion photographer of his time”. Some of his most well known photographs are of icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Twiggy. He is a great example of fashion photography due to his portraits of famous women e.g. Audrey Hepburn taken in a “sophisticated” manner. The inspiration behind his work was supposedly postcards he viewed as a child of famous actresses at the time, in particular Lily Elsie.
His work focuses on the beauty and form of the women herself while using relevant props and backgrounds, which is something I also intend to do when we are allowed in the studio. Here are some examples of his work:

Another example of traditional portraiture is Annie Leibovitz, she is renowned for her Vanity Fair and Rolling Stones covers. She was the woman who photographed John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the 1981 Rolling Stones cover.

Within the Angelina Jolie photograph it is clear that she strives in black and white photography. Her style appears very minimalist which is achieved due to the fact the background and her shirt are black so that the focus is completely on Angelina. It may also be because of the lighting, but seeing as I haven’t done the workshop yet I don’t know which type of light creates that kind of effect. A lot of the facial expressions appear neutral, which is something I can replicate when taking my own photos.

For this brief we were told to take three separate images; a self portrait, a family member or friend and a stranger. They didn’t all need to be shot in the studio or under professional settings (it just may look better).

I’ll have to look through some self portraits another time to get a decent one, but for friends and family members I took photos of my brother outside of the cathedral grounds;

I haven’t edited the photos yet, but I think these could be a decent beginning.

I also took photos of my boyfriend, but I focused more on the lighting; so the fairy lights in the photo tend to be more dominant which I like.

I edited these photos and used them because I wanted to show an array of lighting. I personally however, don’t think the black and white photo is very good due to the noise of the photo giving it a weird sad ambience. I do like the first two though and I think I will continue to edit my other photos of him accordingly. I may also invest in a tripod if I wanted to focus more on the lighting aspect of the photos as I want to get the highest quality photo I can, with little blur.

For a self portrait I quite like this one I took when I was with my family:

I took this in an antique shop and you can see my brother in the background, I think the photo is cute but it may not be suited for this brief as I want to try and make my photos look professional.

Industry vs Culture Still Life

Here are some examples of my final few pieces with the triptychs:

PicMonkey Collage

I don’t really like this one as there is too many contrasting colours like the blues and oranges. The central image is also burry so I won’t continue with this piece.

I then looked at including the banana within the piece because I think it’s a very interesting picture and it makes the pictures stand out. My issues with this collection is that the end image appears out of focus and slightly darker than the first image.

Collage

Finally I think I have decided on my complete piece. I really like how these photos contrast and how the lighting drags you immediately to the first image and then the complete piece. I also like how the photos are in full as opposed to cropped like they are in the photos above. I like how the consistency is broken up by the banana and how this could be interpreted in a multitude of ways. The darker images appear more brooding and mysterious and are then juxtaposed by a brighter image on a different background; I really like this as the whole piece appears chaotic and yet at the same time almost calming.

Still life basic ideas

Another point that I didn’t mention was that the images have to be based on Industry Vs Culture (whilst still being Still Life of course). So, with that in mind and based on my research and my inspiration from Stephanie Gonot and Irving Penn, here are some examples of Still Art that I took:

I feel like these images could represent Industry Vs Culture due to the symbolism of the pieces. The eggs represent the culture and the chess pieces represent industry. In my images, the chess pieces are in the eggs, this could be argued that the industry is dominating the culture (in this example agriculture). The eggs are more or less destroyed by the chess pieces and that could be argued as the over-growing power of industry and capitalism.
I haven’t yet edited these images and I feel like the background is possibly too textured as it clashes with the blue print of the plate in the final images. I also feel like these images are pretty odd and most people won’t understand what the message is; I wanted to create something unique but I don’t want the message to get lost.

I also took this image in my kitchen; the banana is balanced on the hob. I really like this photo as the darkness of the hob contrasts with the brightness of the banana. I also like how out of place the red lipstick is; I would like to somehow incorporate this image within my orange photos of eggs and chess pieces. I think this describes Industry vs Culture because the lipstick is representative of women and the banana is typically an innuendo and a phallic image. Industry vs Culture therefore is how the Industry has sexulised both the representation of females and how cultural society is combatting that by destroying the phallic imagery.

I have a lot of mixed ideas about this project.

Still Life

“Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects.” [1] From this wikipedia article quote, it can be understood that still life photography are images of objects that don’t move, examples of this would include objects like flowers and food. Still life photography allows the photographer to have complete and utter control when taking a photo, as the artist can arrange how to the composition is arranged and altered. Unlike portraiture, the equipment needed to take a still life photo is a lot less due to how big or small the objects are.

One of the most famous photographers of still life photography is Irving Penn.

Penn’s still life compositions were “sparse and highly organized”. They were mainly abstract collections of food. Penn’s photographs are composed with a great attention to detail, which is something I would like to incorporate within my own pieces. Something I would like to focus on is black and white imagery and how to create images that reflect well in black and white. Penn is renowned for his black and white prints. This is due to the fact that due to their deep contrast, it gives the image a clean, crisp look.

Here is some of his artwork:

I really like his still life based on food because they look so out of place and unusual. When making my own still life I think I would like to create something similar. Food is something I feel like I would like to incorporate because it can be easily shaped and altered to make something more unique, much like Penn’s artwork. However, I want to make the images a lot more brighter and colourful as his images are quite dark and dull, especially the one of the apple and the brie.

I would preferably like to incorporate food as it would be unusual to see in still life items like Capri Suns, pancakes, cookies and such when the basis for still life tends to focus more on the traditional aspect. Like for example in Penn’s work he focus on vegetables, meats and cheeses. I would like to create a modern take on this artwork.

When exploring the modern take on traditional still life photography I discovered Stephanie Gonot.

I originally found her because she did a shoot for a website called Nasty Gal:

I really love how vibrant the images are and how the pieces have been arranged. I like how the pink contrasts with the black and greys and by doing this it highlights the gold in the shoe. Whilst I was researching her, I found that she also took photos of food in the non traditional sense.

Here are some more examples of her work:

I really like the pastel backgrounds and lighting she has included. The use of the sweet products in the first images makes it look like the series has a theme for each photo i.e. sweets, however the contrasting use of meat and grapefruits make the picture more in depth due to the different textures. From this I would like to base some of my work on her art style.

Within this brief, we have to present the photos in a triptych.

What is a Triptych?

A triptych is one image that incorporates three other images, often relating in at least one particular way. It is typical for each image to be combined to show multiple viewpoints of the same place or to present images within a certain theme. (ephotozine, (2015). Within this style, you can have creative control of how they are presented for example, they could be diagonal or horizontal.

This is a triptych by a blogger called Melinda Anderson. I really love how she’s chosen to set the colours in a sort of serpia setting and how detailed the photos are. I also like how they’re sort of the same picture, but from different angles.

This was created by Nicholas Grundy and I like it because the only thing that connects these photos are the different textures of the photos. I also like the use of blue within each photograph.

Scarlett McHale Photography

Month: February 2016