In the photograph below, I was trying to focus on the whole meaning of my photographs, like a journey of my life showing the environments I surround myself in. This is represented by the fact they were taken in a mirror in the car. One can also faintly make out that the beach is what’s in the foreground, meaning we’ve stopped to take time at the beach, however I didn’t want to capture it that simply so I thought I’d try and experiment with things such as reflection and composition.
The photographs below were inspired mainly by the photographer Ivan Troyanovsky. This shoot was different for me as I used the natural lighting of the sun, rather than using artificial flash lighting, which I tended to use on my last project looking back at Helmut Newton. This makes the way you photograph completely different, as with flash you can photograph wherever as it’s going to be well lighten with high contrasts, however with natural lighting you must think about the positioning of the model before shooting, whether you will get a silhouette or too much shadow etc.
An example of the use of lighting is shown below, where the photograph is being shot towards the light, whereas in all the others i’ve shot with my back to the sun, this is because after taking this photograph, I didn’t think the high exposure on the right hand side worked that well.
In this photograph I tried to capture the emotions behind the subject. I wanted to try and and create a natural image where in which the facial expressions of the model involved were not forced or provoked by the camera. The photograph features split organic lighting, which enhances and emphasizes the facial features consequently bringing out the smile.
I have attempted to capture the two images below as a set as they work effectively as a pair. Both photographs tell a natural narrative, as the subject can be seen identifying the presence of a camera and producing a reaction. The composition is reliant upon a low-angle perspective which works successfully due the way it captures the subjects relaxed body language whilst simultaneously incorporating the background and landscape. This enables the viewer to establish a connection between the model and surrounding environment, hence generating an atmospheric aesthetic.
The most visually pleasing component of this image is the distortion of color tones which produces a vintage, relaxed aesthetic. This is very similar to the way Jeurgen Teller edits her photographs.
In the triptych below the composition works well, as the rock-face and the chem-trail are parallel to one another which creates a frame around the model and the landscape.
I then edited the photographs in black&white, for experimentation purposes. Personally I think distortion of color tones which produced a vintage feel were better than just the black and white, as the black and white took away from the landscape aspect of the photograph, which I believe is an important component for the images from this shoot.
Typically in portraits having ones eyes closed doesn’t work, however I believe the eyes being closed links nicely with this image, as he looks very relaxed and to say he is hanging off a cliff face shows the attitude he has to the environment he is surrounding himself in.
