My favourite images

For my final portraits I took inspiration from Johnathan Ducruix’s work titled “Metamorphosis” in which he uses photoshop to manipulate the human body to show how flexible and fascinating the human body is and what it is capable of. I liked the mystery in Ducruix’s work and the uneasy viewing it has so I tried to replicate this in my photographs.

A similarity in our photographs is the lack of facial features and the mystery and uneasiness. The mystery in Ducruix’s photograph is recreated in this by the lack of context, the photograph tells nothing to the viewer – it leaves them confused and intrigued but also uneasy, This uneasiness was created by removing the facial features and placing the models in the centre of the photograph. This uneasiness was also created in Ducruix’s photographs from how unnatural and physically impossible the photograph was.

The difference in the photographs are the settings – Ducruix’s photograph is lit with quite a high exposure and uses natural tones. The high exposure and bright lighting takes away from the effect of the photograph so in my photograph I decided to use some chiaroscuro to add the the mystery and to create more contrast and shadows. I also put the photograph in black and white to create a more dramatic image.

Inspiration for my final images

For my final images I want to alter my portraits in the style of motion portraiture as I think it symbolizes a loss of identity. The blurred portrait represents the loss of identity and possibly the unseen lifestyles people live. Whereas, the portrait thats focused represents their real identity and whats seen in their life.

Rosanna Jones

Stella Consonni

Youth

I chose to compose my image like this because I felt that it reflects Youth now.  I played with hue and saturation to play with the colours in the photo.  

http://www.zunlee.com/streetportraits
file:///H:/Downloads/Street-Photography_2%20(2).webp
Zun Lee is an award-winning Canadian photographer, below I have included some photos from his street portraiture project. "I can’t explain nor predict what exactly I’m looking for or who I'll be drawn to as I roam the streets. It’s any combination of their personality, their energy, their appearance, etc. but subconsciously I know it’s deeper than that – and my subjects often know that, too. It doesn’t matter whether they last a few seconds or several minutes, the encounters I experience share a common theme: Strangers will open up to me as if to say “I don't have a clue who you are but I trust you”. And that’s invariably a two-way street: I have to give up my own secrets in order to receive theirs. In reality, the people I photograph are therefore neither random, nor strangers. I find I gravitate towards them for a reason: The portraits often have an undercurrent of self-discovery and identity exploration, and so they're every bit about myself as they are about the subject" - Zun Lee talking about his street portraiture.

Bruce Gilden (born 1946 in Brooklyn, New York) is a street photographer. He is best known for his candid close-up photographs of people on the streets of New York City, using a flashgun. Fascinated with people on the street and the idea of visual spontaneity, his work is characterized by his use of flash photography. He has worked in black and white most of his life, but he began shooting in color and digital when he was introduced to the Leica S camera as part of Magnum’s Postcards From America project. Gilden has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1998. His first major project was of people at Coney Island. He has photographed people on the streets of New York, Japan's yakuza mobsters, homeless people, prostitutes, and members of bike gangs between 1995 and 2000. According to Gilden, he was fascinated by the duality and double lives of the individuals he photographed.Bruce Gilden has continued to focus on strong characters and to apply Robert Capa’s mantra to his own work: “if the picture isn’t good enough, you aren’t close enough”.

Images by Bruce Gilden

My response

Tommy Ingberg

Tommy Ingberg is a photographer and visual artist, born 1980 in Sweden. He works with photography and digital image editing, creating minimalistic and self-reflecting surreal photo montages dealing with human nature, feelings and thoughts.

Tommy leaves the interpretation of his work up to the viewer but says, “For me, surrealism is about trying to explain something abstract like a feeling or a thought, expressing the subconscious with a picture. For my work I use my own inner life, thoughts and feelings as seeds to my pictures. In that sense the work is very personal, almost like a visual diary. Despite this subjectiveness in the process I hope that the work can engage the viewer in her or his own terms. I want the viewers to produce their own questions and answers when looking at the pictures, my own interpretations are really irrelevant in this context. “

Tommy Ingbergs main focus are people and the atmosphere/feeling that relates to the them. He portrays these feelings through his work by focusing on mainly on dark, saddening and depressing moods to reflect this idea of loss of identity. The running theme throughout Tommy Ingbergs pictures are that they are all in black and white which to me suggests a sense of depression and sadness. I chose to study Tommy Ingbergs work because not only does he create extraordinary surreal illusions but the deep meanings and stories which are told through his pictures really influenced me.

 The Photographers Photos

Photo Analysis

I like this photo due to the emotion and story it creates and tells us. The photo clearly tells us that a person wants to escape the place in which they live in however there is something stopping them. The lighting helps to create this sense of imprisonment. The dark clouds are in front of the man as if he is heading into a darker place and putting himself into a bad situation and the bright clouds which suggest goodness are behind him indicating he is drifting away from what’s good in his life. This photo uses the technique of leading lines within the rope leading us up the body to the balloons which is trying to pull the man away from his life on earth. This photo is in black and white which I think helps to add to the dark and depressing atmosphere.

Photoshoot Plan

Genre /  Artist – Surrealism, Tommy Ingberg

Concept –  Loss of identity

Location – Street, beach, cliff paths

Props – Top hat, suit, models

Shot type – Portrait

Lighting – Natural

Settings – Portrait/landscape

Contact Sheet

My Edits

Favorite Edit

I believe this edit has turned out the most effective out of all my Tommy Ingberg inspired images. I think this is mostly due to the composition and use of leading lines to draw attention to the main subject in the distance. The road is used to lead the viewer through the picture as if they are on the journey that the model, at the end of the road, has taken in life. The road is clearly darker towards the start and then lighter as we progress further down it. I have deliberately created this effect to symbolize how the models life has or will improve despite the bad place in which he currently is in. This lighter part of the road is highly contrasted with the model himself as his is giving off a stressed or frustrated feeling. This use of contrast can be associated with the difference in the persons life from now to then. All the three images which were used to construct this final edit consisted of different light intensities and colors. I think I achieved a well balanced lighting across the three images to ensure all the three elements of the picture look similar. I think an improvement to this image would be to align it to be more symmetrical as i have noticed that the white markings in the road are not  quite in the middle.