For my second shoot my aim is to be capturing portraiture images, this is similar to my first shoot but it is important to plan so that i have a clear idea of the differences i need to focus on to create the different sets of images. My first shoot focuses on environmental portraits, capturing the natural sense of community and the individuals going about their daily lives. My second shoot is different to that because i will be focusing on formal portraits. The aim of my shoot is to capture slightly planned portraits. For this shoot i will be manipulating where the individuals are standing, hoping to get a relatively plain background so all focus is on the individual. Their environment will not be included as i want all eyes focus on the subject and for people to have to read the clothing, facial expressions and stance to understand certain individuals stories.
Influential artists such as Gideon Mendel had a huge impact on me for me to decide to experiment with this style of formal portraiture which ive never really done before. Im hoping that the neutral background and straight faced pose will great a strong image with powerful message behind it. To further these images and push myself i want to try and speak to the individuals i have photographed and find out their name and age and a bit about there background as the community often dress and present themselfs well but live a very hard life.
| Genre | · Formal Portrait, Photojournalism |
| Concept | · Show the way the local community represent themselves in a presentable way even though they may actually be dealing with severe poverty. This strong message will be conveyed through formal full length body portraits.
· The formal images will tell the message of who they are from just looking at them and then deeper information that I will try to find out will tell us more about them and create personalised images which highlight the community life in African culture. |
| Subject | · Aim to photograph a wide range of ages – however children being the main focus as I will be surrounded by them for the majority of trip
· Children – standing against a neutral coloured background so they are easily visible as the subject and nothing detracts from the image · Adult portraits may be stood in front of a door or house wall so that it gives a tiny bit of background but not much.
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| Composition | Framing – Framing in this image is crucial the neutral background will act as a frame around the individual. If the background is all one colour it will make the subject stand out a lot more. Aim to have and equal and straight framing to make the images more formalised.
Rule of Thirds – Break the rule of thirds. Have the individual standing in the centre of the frame as they are going to be conceptual images. This will help to create an equal framing and the focal point to be the individual
Angle – Mainly eye level images to keep the photos formal but also experiment with low angles where the subject is looking down on the individual.
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| Lighting and colour | Lighting – Not a focus in this shoot, just need to make sure the direction of light is cominf from behind me, illuminating there face making sure they don’t have shadows on them and that all facial features are clear and focused.
Colour – I would aim to have individuals with interesting coloured clothes as this would make them stand out however also have individuals with plain clothes as this can represent the simplicity of their lifestyles |
Contact sheet
Again doing the same filtering technique as i had done with shoot one. i went through all of the images selecting the best formal portraits out of all the 2000 images i had captured. I think that i was a bit less successful in terms of producing good outcomes as i don’t have as many strong formal portraits as i did with environmental portraits. I think that this may of been because they were more staged. I had to position the individuals in front of a plain background and then stand and take a picture of them. This was not what i had initially thought of my images looking like. Nonetheless i continued to experiment so that i could compare the different styles of portraiture. I found whilst taking these image however i got to know the individual better because i would be having more contact with them through asking them to stand a certain way or in front of a specific background, i think that this aspect therefore enriched my projects and my knowledge of what its like working with third world countries as a photography project