Portrait With Natural Lighting

In this photograph I used natural lighting. This allowed me to position the model so that the light was directly in her face and so that the shadows on her face are minimised. I used a shallow depth of field in this photograph so that the background was blurred out whilst the model was in focus. I used a shutter speed of 1/100 to capture a clear image of the model. I used a low/medium ISO of 400 to capture a light image whilst keeping noise minimalised.

The colours in this image are quite saturated and they bring the portrait to life – especially the contrast between the colourful wall and the stone wall. There is not a massive tonal range in this image as there is no pure black or pure white. There is a slight 3D effect to the image as the background has been blurred with a shallow depth of field. I placed the subject in the centre of the image to divide the colourful wall and the plain wall to make the image appear more appealing.

This photo was taken next to a mural in town, it was taken during my street photography homework assignment and takes inspiration from Vivian Maier in the sense that the photo is fairly close up and the model is conscious that the photo is being taken.

I used this photo to separate the colourful and the bland. This photo shows very well the mixture of environments and styles in town – in this photo it shows the mixture of the two, broken into two only by the model.

Portrait With Artificial Lighting

In this photograph, artificial lighting was used to create it in a dark and dramatic manner. I set up the environment to use chiaroscuro in the photograph, I did this by drawing a black curtain over the backdrop and then using one spotlight to put light on one side of the models face to cast shadows across the other side. I used a deep depth of field to keep all of the photograph in focus. I used a relatively slow shutter speed (1/10) to allow more light to enter the lens from the dark environment along with a low ISO to create a photograph with minimal noise.

I increased the saturation of the image to give it a warm undertone that will blend in with the black background. There is not a wide tonal range in this photograph as the majority of the image is dark. It has a 3D effect as the model appears to emerge from the background. The eye is straight away lead to the models face due to the contrast with the background, especially the brightest part on the forehead.

This photograph incorporates chiaroscuro which is a an oil painting technique (more modernly a photography technique) that developed during the Renaissance period. It uses strong tonal contrasts between light and dark for a dramatic effect. Some artists best known for developing the technique are Leonardo Da Vinci and Caravaggio.

My aim whilst creating this photograph was to capture an image in the style of Rankin’s chiaroscuro photographs whilst creating a more gradual fade of the model to the background. I took multiple photos using this technique to capture one where the light falls just right on the face with a more gradual fade and a highlighted spot on the face.

Portrait With Flash

In this photograph I used flash light from the top of my camera to distribute light evenly across the subjects face. This reduced the shadows on the subjects face and exposed her features such as her eyes to the camera more. I set up a red head light on the side to create a soft light across the subject and to illuminate the environment better. It also created a sharp shadow in the background for dramatic effect. I used a deep depth of field to keep the whole image sharp and in focus. I also used a quick shutter speed of 1/60 to ensure that the image was sharp and none of it was blurred. I used an ISO of 400 in this image to allow enough the image to be bright enough whilst keeping the noise minimised. I also had someone holding a reflector with a golden foil over it to create a warm undertone to the image.

There is a warm undertone to the image along with the saturated colour of the jacket with the whiteness of the background. There is not a massive tonal range in this photograph – it is mostly light apart from the black top. There is a slight 3D effect in the photograph because of the shadow behind the model casted by the flash. I placed the subject slightly off the centre of the image so that the shadow would be in the centre of the image.

This photograph was taken in the studio whilst I was trying out a range of techniques with light. I experimented with the flash light, the red head light, the spot light, the rig light and different gel filters and backgrounds. This allowed me to find how to capture the ideal image with flash on.

I took inspiration for this image from Annie Leibovits work, who focuses on contemporary studio photography and street photography. I took inspiration from her more plain photoshoots in which it is simply the subject with no props, I will be looking into creating more creative portraits next week.