This is a mood-board displaying examples of different types of portraiture. Including: self portraits, low/high angle portraits, low/high contrast portraits, historic and futuristic portraits and candid/studio portraits.
Daily Archives: November 1, 2018
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Rule Of Thirds
For some of my environmental portraits some were more successful than others and I can show this with the way that they fit into the rule of thirds.
Below shows one of my more successful images for environmental portraits you can see that the figure is towards the left-centre segments this fits well with the rule of thirds.
Below again shows one of my less successful images, the subject is directly in the centre of the photograph which isn’t as successful in the terms of the rule of thirds. The below image can be still seen as successful as an environmental portrait however it is let down in its strength with the rule of thirds.
Environmental Portraits
Environmental Portraits
An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography.
The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed. The details that convey the message from the surroundings can often be quite small and still be significant. The key seems to be in the symbolism expressed by various elements in the background; for instance, a baseball cap may not tell you much about your subject (unless he or she is a baseball player), but a chef’s hat gives you a lot more detail about who he is and what he does.
Jim Cornfield – ‘Telling a Story with Environmental Portraits’ – https://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/telling-a-story-with-environmental-portraiture/
Arnold Newman
“There are many things that are very false about photography when it is accepted without question. You must recognize and interpret it as you would any other art form, and then maybe it is a little more than real.” – Arnold Newman
Arnold Newman (1918-2006) was an American photographer known for his environmental portraits or artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life photographs.
Newman is often credited with being the first photographer to use so-called environmental portraiture, in which the photographer places the subject in a carefully controlled setting to capture the essence of the individual’s life and work. Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with representative visual elements showing their professions and personalities. A musician for instance might be photographed in their recording studio or on stage, a Senator or other politician in their office or a representative building. Using a large-format camera and tripod, he worked to record every detail of a scene.
The photograph below shows one of Arnold Newman’s works, we can see he has his subject clearly engaging with the camera and how they are surrounded by something that represents them and it has been clearly composed of how they are sitting and where they have been placed in the frame which is something I will aim to do in my own photoshoot with inspiration from Arnold Newman.
My Own Responses
For these photoshoots I went out and captured people in their working environments, this enabled me to have them surrounded by things that may represent their life and their work such as Arnold Newman did.
These are two contact sheet of my own experiments and photographs I have taken under the name of environmental portraits. I went out and photographed people in their work place or their environments, I had some people posed more naturally by having them carry on with what they were doing but also having them try look towards the camera slightly to engage with it there and some more unnatural by having them fully engage with the camera by getting them to look directly at the lens. Some photographs came out better than others as some are too over-exposed or under-exposed and others are not completely in focus however there were some photographs which I feel turned out successful and some which I feel would be good to experiment with with turning them black and white from being influenced by people such as Mary-Ellen Mark and Arnold Newman.
This shows how I began to sort through and pick out which photographs would work for experiments with things such as placing into black and white and as good photographs and which would not be so successful or useful.
Edits and Outcomes
For the editing of the photographs I kept it simple by only adjusting the photos into black and white or maybe adjusting the brightness to help with the transition into black and white such as Arnold Newman’s photographs were. I have chosen what I feel to be my 5 best outcomes of this photoshoot as it shows my subjects engaging with the camera and the photographs are clear and work well. Below is the edited and unedited versions of my photographs.
A brief History of Portraits
Historical Purpose of Portraits
A portrait is a representation and the showing of a particular person. A self portrait is a portrait done by the artist of them self.
Portraits can be dated back to the Ancient Egyptians from about 5,000 years ago where they began to be used and created.
Before photography was introduced, portraits were painted, sculpted or drawn as this was the only way to record the way that someone looked. Portraits were used to record people in history as well as represent someone’s wealth, status or beauty.
Historically, portrait paintings have primarily memorialized the rich and powerful. Over time, however, it became more common for middle-class patrons to commission portraits of their families and colleagues. Today, portraits are still commissioned by governments, corporations, groups, clubs, and individuals.
Renaissance Turn of Portraits
The Renaissance marked a turning point in the history of portraiture. Portraits—both painted and sculpted—were given an important role in Renaissance society and valued as objects, and as depictions of earthly success and status.
1800’s Photography
The invention of photography can be credited to Louis Daguerre, who first introduced the concept to the French Academy of Sciences in 1839. That same year, Robert Cornelius produced what is considered the first photographic self-portrait.
In addition to portraits of famous people and family members, portrait photography became a way to preserve history. 90 Native American delegates visited Washington D.C. in 1857 to conduct treaty and trade negotiations. While they were there, they were photographed by Samuel Cohner and Julian Vannerson.
Camera’s For Everyone (1900 – 1984)
Photography became more common when the Eastman Kodak Company introduced the Kodak No. 1 camera in 1888. Kodak made photography easier for everyone by doing the developing and sending the reloaded camera and developed prints back to the customer. These cameras made photography more accessible to the general public. Their 1900 Brownie Box camera was the first mass market camera. The turn of the century also embraced photography as an art form.
Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession
This time period also introduced Alfred Stieglitz, one of the first people to become famous for making photography an art form. In 1902, he and a group of friends founded the Photo-Secession movement. This movement sought to make photography less commercial and more of an art form.
Photojournalism and the picture story vs Documentary (long-form) photography
Photojournalism really started to take shape when photographers could easily transport cameras into war zones. The “Golden Age of Photojournalism” is often considered to be roughly the 1930s through the 1950s. It was made possible by the development of the compact commercial 35mm Lecia camera in 1925, and the first flash bulbs between 1927 and 1930, which allowed the journalist true flexibility in taking pictures.
Yet photojournalism is not just about war or photographers working the beat for a local newspaper. It’s much more than that. Photojournalism tells a story and it often does so in a single photograph. They evoke a feeling, whether its astonishment, empathy, sadness, or joy.
That is the mark of photojournalism; to capture that single moment in time and give viewers the sense that they’re part of it.
Documentary Photography
The turn of the century continued to use portrait photography for documentary uses. In 1906 Lewis Hine was hired to document the conditions that child labor workers had to deal with in different factories throughout the U.S. His photographs were used to help pass child labor reforms, like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which banned oppressive child labor.
In 1914, the U.S. State Department began requiring photographs on all passports.
The stock market crash in 1929 led to the next round of documentary portraiture. In 1935, photographers were hired to document what was going on in the farmlands of America. The Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration, wanted to see through photographs how the farmers were living. The New Deal offered several programs for artists and photographers, such as the Works Progress Administration. People hired for the WPA documented life throughout America. One famous WPA photographer was Dorothea Lange, who profiled the plight of farmers in America.
Environmental Photography
Environmental photography is a type of portraiture that requires people to be in an environment that they’re used to or work in. Its used to illuminate the life of the person.
This is a selection of some of my favorite images that I have taken for environmental photography. A lot of the images turned out very dark so if I were to edit them I would make them a brighter tone.
This is one of my favorite images I have taken. This image displays the person in one of their usual work environments in an ICT department in a school. It captures her in a neutral way and shows some parts of what she does such as the security camera footage seen at the right hand side of the image. I have increased the brightness in this image because it came out too dark due to the lighting in the room being very dim.
This image shows the person organizing books in a library in a school. It captures some of the things she does while working at the school which can be seen from the hand placement. I have also edited this image to increase the exposure and the brightness so that the person in the foreground stands out more and isn’t completely in the shade.