Daily Archives: November 15, 2018

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AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

environmental portraits – photoshoot

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After deciding that I wanted to take pictures of local business owners, first I went into the market and took pictures a green grosser, a butcher, a florist and, a sewing supplies shop owner, a chocolatiere  and a Genuine Jersey product seller.

As you can see the pictures that have the florist in the frame has been damaged, at first I thought that this would be bad but after looking at them closer they just make the photos more unique.

I then left the market and went into a few local businesses that were around the area of the market like a card shop. I also went to a church and found the vicar.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Image analsis

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Alfried Krupp photographed by Arnold Newman in 1963.

 

Emotional response

I like this image because It looks like a photograph that would have an interesting story or meaning behind it. I feel this way due to the almost sinister feel to the image. Lots of things help to create this atmosphere in the image, like for example how the image is quite dark and also how the man in the image is presented. His pose makes me feel that he may be quite evil, or thinking of something dark.

Visual

This image is really interesting visually too due to lots of aspects. Firstly, the long depth of field means that there is a lot going on in the photo, and it also means there is a lot of detail to notice, which means you are engaged for longer. The lighting also makes this photo successful as it is dark and adds to the mysterious feel of the photo, which also makes the figure look even scarier.

Context

The man in this portrait was Alfried Krupp. He was known for using slave labour to make weapons for the Nazis. Krupp contacted Newman for a portrait but later found out he was Jewish, he no longer wanted Newman  to take his photo. Newman insisted that he take the portraits, and showed Krupp his portfolio of images. After seeing his work, Krupp agreed to let Newman take the images. They both then went to one of Krupp’s factories, where Newman made sure to make Krupp look as evil as he possibly could. When Krupp saw the image he was very angry, and Newman said that as a Jew it was his “own little moment of revenge”.

concept

When I first saw this image, I got the sense that the man being photographed looked quite evil just by the techniques used and without knowing any context. Perhaps Newman was trying to create an underlying concept of trusting your initial feelings about things. I think this because Newman made sure he made Krupp looked sinister so we would all get a gut feeling that something wasn’t right about him, and when finding out the context it turned out to be correct.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental portraiture

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As my first experimentation with portraiture didn’t produce many successful outcome I decided to do a 2nd photo shoot in order to get some better photographs. For this photo shoot I plan on taking pictures of my family all out together at a bonfire. I though this would be a good idea as It would be very interesting to capture a family environment dynamic in my images, rather than taking more photographs of people in work environments.

Contact sheet

My most successful outcomes

Analysing my images

Visually, this image is very successful for various reasons. Firstly, both the people are centered in the frame and they’re also both smiling while slightly engaging with the camera. Although they’re not fully looking at the camera, I think the image is still successful as it turned out to be a more candid shot. Another reason why this image is visually pleasing, is because of the emotion in the portrait. It is clear to see that they are both very happy, and their body language shows that they must be very fond of each other.

The technical elements of this image also helped to make It successful. This image was taken with a shutter speed of 1/100 meaning that it wasn’t extremely slow, but still allowing a good enough amount of exposure time for the image not to turn out very dark. I also used flash to take this image as it was dark outside, and I also set the white balance to flash so that the colouring would be accurate. I also used an f/5.6 so that the photo had a shallow depth of field, as I dint want the background to be too distracting.
Visually, I really like this image. In the frame you can see a male and a female with a child on her shoulders. I think that is a successful outcome as all three subjects are engaging well with the camera, and they are all well centered in the frame.

The technical side of the image was a bit more challenging for me as it was difficult to get good quality pictures in the dark while shooting manually. The ISO of this image was quite high, and the shutter speed was quite quick, around 1/250, but i had to be careful not to have it to quick as it would make my image turn out very overexposed. I also made sure to use flash, and to set the white balance to the flash setting also so that colours could be photographed as accurately as possible.

Evaluation

Overall I think this photoshoot was for more successful compared to my last one. This time I made sure to direct people more in order to capture the images I wanted, instead of just photographing them naturally. This meant that I had more images where the models were interacting with the camera, making the photographs more successful. I also think that the quality of the images were far better too. Although at the beginning it was very hard to shoot good quality images in the darkness while using manual settings, through trial and error I was able to find suitable settings to get me good quality images. I made sure to use a flash, and a fairly quick shutter speed of around 1/250, making sure that it wasn’t much slower or quicker so my images wouldn’t be blurry or underexposed, I also had my aperture set at around f/5 as I didn’t wanted to get a fairly long depth of field so that the surrounding environment could be seen in order to give the photos a bit more character and context, as I think that’s what truly makes an image appealing and interesting. However, next time I will experiment using a higher aperture as I think some images would also look nice with a shallow depth of field as it would mean that there would be more focus on the people as they would be the main focus of the photograph.

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Henri cartier-bresson

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Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography. He pioneered the genre of street photography and viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. He was also one of the founding members of Magnum photos in 1947. Working in black and white, his photographs seem to distill the chaos life into something pure. His refusal to either crop or manipulate his image feel provocative and refreshing and allows the modern viewer to see things exactly as they were.

In early 1947, Cartier Bresson, with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger founded Magnum photos. Magnum was a cooperative picture agency owned by its members. The team split photo assignments among the members. Cartier-Bresson would be assigned to cover India and China. He achieved international recognition for his coverage of Gandhi’s  funeral in India in 1948 and the last stage of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.

Children playing in ruins, Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1933

This photograph was taken in Sevilla a couple of years before the Spanish civil war. The image depicts young children socialising in ruins. The children are clearly in poverty judging by their clothing, dirt on their bodies and footwear. The fact that children are playing  in times of war (1930), it could be the photographer trying to convey war as just children playing games, which as a former soldier he is entitled to believe. Almost all of the children seem to be looking at the camera in a rather suspicious and disturbed manner which may be because of the unsafe environment they live in. Tension can be seen through the children’s faces which could also be what he is trying to convey to the rest of the world. He is showing what effect violence is having on innocent children through this photograph.

AO1 Develop Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 2 Portrait

Tableux Vivants – Action Plan

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Who: I will be photographing myself.

What: I will recreate a typical classroom scene featuring myself as the various subjects throughout the photo.

Where: I will be using any available classroom preferably with available natural lighting somewhere in the image.

Why: Since I am only photographing myself, I am able to more accurately create the image I want since I wont have to direct any other subjects, and also if I don’t like how I look in any particular position I only have to retake one image and don’ t have to reset everyone in the image. I also believe that the lighting in the scene will create some interesting challenges such as blending various types of lighting as well as blending shadows from various sources of light and subjects.

Unit 2 Portrait

Arnold Newman – Portrait Analysis

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Arnold Newman

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.

This is a photo of Alfried Krupp taken in 1963 for Newsweek .

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g Arnold Newman – Alfried Krupp 1963

Emotional Response:

My first thought when I saw this image was that Krupp looked like he was scheming or plotting something. The picture gave me a very creepy and eerie vibe to it, as Krupp looks very sinister and evil. I also like how the background almost frames him. Also, the way he stares directly at the camera gives a sense that he has power, as it looks like he is looking down on us. Krupp is wearing a suit which shows his wealth and power, which creates a sinister feel again. The feeling of him being in a clean and well made suit against to the derelict and abandoned behind it also shows a contrast of rich and poor. That contrast gives off a feeling of Krupp showing that he is better and richer than everybody else.

Technical Response:

The picture is in colour so it shows more of the derelict and dirty factory, which also shows more texture in the photo. In the photo it appears that Krupp is being framed by the walls, which shows the difference between the background and him. The photo has a high aperture and a large depth of field, and the lighting is dark and dim, which also correlates to the darkness of the abandoned factory.

Contextual Response:

Newman overall idea for this photo was to portray Krupp as an evil and corrupt person for his environmental series in 1963, as he was transporting weapons and materials during the second world war to the Nazis and also using slave labor in his factories during the Nazi reign, and he had been imprisoned after World War II for his central role in Hitler’s war machine.

Conceptual Response:

The most evident message in this photo is that you are made to believe that Krupp is scheming something evil and cruel. You could also interpret as Krupp is the owner of the derelict factory behind him and Krupp is trying to show that he is bigger and better than the abandoned building behind him.

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 2 ESA, Unit 2 Portrait

Street photography

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Last week I went into town and did an urban photo shoot, these are my best images which I have slightly edited (added filters,cropped etc.).

The sunlight in this photo creates a bold outline around the people in the photo. This creates strong shapes and therefore makes the photo as a whole pop more. The bright part of the photo is down the middle, the rest is predominantly shadows and dark areas. This gives the photo a focus point (the middle). The photo is also split into thirds (left, middle, right), the structure prompts the viewer to focus on the man on the left, down the road in the middle, and the tree trunk on the right.

I particularily like the strong shadows and ligh highlights of this photo. Because it was taken near the ‘golden hour’ the sun was low which created these elongated shadows. It also gave a nice outline/shine to people on the street as there wasn’t any cloud cover.

This is a photo of a market trader, I have chosen it because of the contrast between the man and the products for sale behind him. I have cropped it so that the strongest points of the photo (in terms of structure) are visible. It’s just a pleasant photo to look at because: the bright colours which the photo is composed of are naturally attractive to the human eye. The products are stacked symmetrically, this both pleases the eye as well as gives the photo structure. Finally, the trader is smiling and appears very open to conversation, this makes the photo pleasing to look at because seeing other people smiling has been proven to lift your mood and change brain chemistry.

I like this photo because its very simple, it shows the daily commute of people whilst keeping their anonymity. Although it is a simple photo it isn’t boring, this is due to the shadows caused by the sunset, which give the photo structure, the angle at which the photo was taken, and the texture/shapes of the trousers near the centre of the photo. Another aspect of this photo that I like is that both people in the photo are only visible from waist down, it gives a different perspective to the world as it differs from standard photos of whole people taken at head-height.

This is a very similar image to one further back in this post. It doesn’t have the same effect as there are more elements without strong shapes but I have kept it in because it captures the work environment and daily tasks of these market traders.

This is my favourite image out of the whole shoot, it has the right exposure, vibrance, structure, and it captures the work environment as a whole. This photo has a warm white balance, this makes it more relaxing to look at as warm lighting as it feels more natural than cold lighting. The photo also has a variety if colours thanks to the products on display out front. There is also a lot of structure and symetry throughout the photo, the bottles on display and crisp packet boxes for example.

 

AO3 Record Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Portraits, Environmental Portraits – Homework 1

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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”.

Here a some examples of environmental portraits:
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https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7091/6924775578_d8a5a1533f_b.jpg
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http://121clicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/prateek_dubey_04.jpg
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https://agc.creativelive.com/agc/201805-BROUILLETTEENVIRONMENT/180330_environmentalportraits_celiaherrera_digitalweb_1600x900_final.jpg

 

Arnold Newman

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http://arnoldnewman.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/frontispiz_newman.jpg

Biography of Arnold Newman on http://arnoldnewman.com/biography

“Arnold Newman was born March 3, 1918 in New York City.  He was raised and attended schools in Atlantic City, N.J. and Miami Beach, FL. He studied art under a scholarship at the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL from 1936 to 1938. He died in New York City on June 6, 2006. Generally acknowledged as the pioneer of the environmental portrait, he is also known for his still life and abstract photography, and he is considered as one of the most influential photographers of the 20th Century.

Newman began his career in photography in 1938 working at chain portrait studios in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and West Palm Beach, and immediately began working in abstract and documentary photography on his own. In June of 1941, Beaumont Newhall of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Alfred Stieglitz “discovered” him, and he was given an exhibit with Ben Rose at the A.D. Gallery in September. There he began working on experimental portraiture, developing an approach that is widely influential in portrait photography today. In June of 1942, he returned home to Miami Beach, FL because of the war. In 1945 his Philadelphia Museum of Art one-man exhibit, “Artists Look Like This,” attracted nationwide attention.  Well established, he moved to New York in 1946 and opened his studio and became a member of the American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP.) Newman’s new approach to portraiture began its influence through key publications in America and abroad.  Exhibits and purchases of his work by major museums quickly followed. In 1949, he married Augusta Rubenstein, and they had two sons, Eric, born 1950, and David, 1952. His wife died in 2009. They are survived by their two sons and four grandchildren.”

Examples of his photography:

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Arnold Newman Erhard Weyhe 1948
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Norman Mailer by Arnold Newman
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Arnold Newman. Georgia O’Keeffe, Ghost Ranch, Near Abiquiu, NM, 2 August 1968

Mary Ellen Mark

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https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2015/05/maryellenmarkheader.jpg

Mary Ellen Mark

“Mary Ellen Mark was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were “away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes”. – Wikipedia

Examples of her photography:

Edward Simmons, Halloween, South Bronx H.E.L.P. Shelter, New York, , 1993
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“Rat” and Mike with a gun, Seattle, Washington, 1983
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“Hippopotamus and Performer,” Madras, India, 1989
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© Mary Ellen Mark

My Plan

For my photo shoot I plan to take photos of my friends, teachers and peers in their every day environment, so at school doing what they normally do. This photo shoot will take place at school. I will put these photos into black and white as I think it will make the photos stand out a bit more. I will use natural lighting and the portrait mode on my canon camera. I will design my photos like this as I want to show what happens in peers and teachers school lives.

Contact Sheets

Red – No

Orange – Maybe

Green – Yes

Final Photos (Unedited)

I really like how these turned out originally but I edited them into black and white for the final outcomes.

Final Photos (Edited)

I’m really pleased with the final outcomes of these edited photos and I will revisit this style of photography.

AO2 Explore Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 2 Portrait

Paul M. Smith Case Study – Tableaux

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Paul M. Smith is a photographer who’s photography mostly consists of an unconventional interpretation of tableaux vivants as his images depict modern scenes with Paul Playing the part of every subject in the photo. A lot of his photography explores the idea of ‘lad culture’. His images feature several frames merged together carefully so it appears that Paul is in several places in the image at once, This is likely done using a tripod and remote in order to avoid any movement to camera, this creates a seamless transition between the images which in some cases, one of his photos will contain as many as 8 frames in a single image. He often pushes the boundaries of what is possible with this type of photography, often featuring interaction between the subjects in the photos, which will often look awkward and it is difficult to be spacially aware of subjects that of course, aren’t actually there however if done correctly can make the images much more convincing. The image below is an example of this, you can see 6 subjects very close together overlapping in different areas, with some of the subjects even touching in areas.

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There isn’t much technically special with these images as they are made to look like a typical photo to document a memory etc. This helps to make the image look even more convincing. It is taken using very flat lighting (likely using a flash) to help hide any seems between the images and there are visible drop shadows interacting with the various subjects in the photo likely added in post processing in a program such as photo-shop.

Image result for Paul M smithImage result for Paul M smith

Uncategorized

Street Photography

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Street photography is a category of photography that is not pre-planned or prepared and relies on chance encounters with people in public places as they go about their days. For this Photo shoot I went to Kings street in town and also visited liberty wharf/square, the market and Royal square. I chose these visitor hot spots as they are very popular with the public but also is a place where people act very naturally and can interact with the public.

I really liked doing this photo shoot as it allowed me to experience the bustling streets of St .Helier at times where I wouldn’t usually be able to experience that atmosphere. But during this photo shoot I felt a little bit guilty due to me photographing people when they were unaware that I was doing so, it felt like I wasn’t respecting their privacy and exposing them.

I was really happy with the outcome of some of my photographs as I got to see and now show how everyday people, whether it be tourists, young mum’s, people on their lunch break or people who work in the market serving others. But like every photo shoot I had some photos in there that I didn’t like as I was either too far away or there wasn’t a person in focus or the actual camera shot.