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.