My submissions for my portrait pieces are as follows:
Stranger:
Friend:
and self portrait:
portraits
Portraits Workshop
On friday we got to experiment in the photography studio with lighting, props and cameras. I took this time to try and find the right lighting to maybe get a really good shot for my final portrait piece; this meant adjusting with various lights to different angles for interesting shots. (My favourite was the snoot, because the light was easy to angle and it was called a ‘snoot’). After a certain amount of time Mike let us mess around with the gels for the lights, this was great as Emily and I took turns in shooting in blue and red light as they were contrasting shades.
Here is a slightly underexposed photo of Emily which I think really suits my brief and I think it’s a really interesting shot. The flower looks slightly out of focus and maybe I could draw more light onto Emily’s face, but overall I quite like the photo.
These are some examples of the photos we took with red and blue lighting with the gels. As you can see the photo of Emily is very dark and the photo of me is very bright which outlines Emily’s skills and my skills with photography and how we depict each photo visually. My take was deliberately darker with a higher aperture because I wanted a more mysterious feel to my photos whereas Emily wanted a lighter, happier photo of me (which didn’t really happen because I wasn’t smiling when this photo was taken, which is what Emily wanted, but I liked the light contrast in this photo). It also shows that my weakness lies in shooting in portrait as Emily’s photo has my full torso in it, whereas my photo contains a big gap above Emily’s head which is all background.
With this task I found it difficult to shoot with darker backgrounds; the photos looked great, just the lighting was tricky to get right for each shot.
From Mike’s critique’s last week I tried to shoot more in portrait to get myself out of my comfort zone. I quite like these photos as they show I can use lighting to my advantage and my portraits are getting better.
My favourite photo of the shoot was this one taken by Melissa, it doesn’t quite work for the brief for the portraits, but nevertheless, I really like the lighting gradient and Daniel’s expression.
Overall, I found the workshop really helpful and I think I may used one of my studio portraits in my final brief.
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.