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

Henri Cartier-Bresson

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Henri Cartier-Bresson was a french photographer associated with the humanist movement. He was born in Seine Et Marne, France on August 22nd 1908. He was the oldest of 5 children and the son of a wealthy textiles manufacturer.

He started off taking photos on a Kodak Brownie camera while on holidays with his family. He then went on to experiment with a 3×4 Inch view camera.

in 1929, He met an american by the name of harry Crosby, who gifted Cartier with his first camera. The two lived together as Friends and frequently took photos of their home in le moulin de solei. in 1931, Crosby committed suicide.

Cartier then went on to live in Africa before returning to France where he purchased a Leica camera with a 50mm lens. He decided to take to street photography and painted all shiny parts of the camera black in order to remain anonymous.

Key Images

Here are some key images from Cartiers work

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Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare

 

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Hyeres, France, 1932

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Ireland-1952

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France 1972

Analysis

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I have chosen the “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare due to its very intriguing nature. The photo has been taken after heavy rain and the rain is perfectly reflecting the running man and his surroundings, making it look like he is floating. The photo has been taken in natural lighting during the day .

The image is quite bright  due to the reflective puddle and the sky. The man pictured is most likely rushing for the train, hinted at by the blur.

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Street Photography

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What is Street Photography?

Street Photography is a sub genre of photo-journalism focusing on portraits taken in an urban environment, mainly telling the story of the subjects. The photos are of a candid nature, meaning the subject is unprepared for the photo,and in some cases, unknowing, meaning they are pictured in their everyday form and arent influenced by the camera being pointed at them.

Mood Board

Shooting

For my shoot, I took to the local town and set about capturing various people in every day situations. I thought about potentially telling their story through a photo, as well as any context based upon the surroundings and the subjects apperaance. Here is a contact  sheet of my selected images.,

Final Images

Here are my final images chosen from the whole shoot

Head and shoulders of a labourer with the background desaturated and the only colour being his HI-Viz

Same subject and technique as before, but holding a cone A different worker with lowered exposure and same method as first two

Two politicians or office workers

Coffee Break

 Market places + faces

Cowboy hat in the rain

Dylan, taken with flash when greeting me

 

My Favourite Image

Here is my favourite image from the whole shoot. It is of a worker in his HI-Viz jacket and I decided to completely satire his surroundings apart from his jacket due to the luminous nature of it and the contrast when compared to black and white. I took the photo as the day I chose to carry the shoot out on was quite a dark and muggy day, so his Hi-Viz really stood out in the dismal surroundings.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Portrait Unit Introduction

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What is Portrait Photography?

Portrait photography consists of photos taken of a person or group to convey a message associated with the person or to capture a certain mood. Portraits can serve multiple purposes, such as present a person, tell a story or to capture imagination.

Portrait photography stems from the late 19th century portrait painters whom painted many great monarchs and dukes. With the arrival of new technology such as cameras, The lengthy process of a painting session was cut short and the door then opened for more creativity.

Three Point Lighting

Three point lighting is a photographic technique that utilises 3 different lights to help capture and portray the subject. The diagram below explains this in more depth.

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Here are some examples of 3 Point Lighting

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Natural Lighting

Natural lighting involves making the most of the light available in the shooting environment. This can be using direct sunlight, Street lights or light through a filter such as a curtain or blinds.

Here are some natural lighting examples.

Image result for natural lighting portrait photography

Image result for natural lighting portrait photography

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is a photographic technique that involves using a wide contrast between dark and bright. this affect is usually achieved  by utilising a light on one side of the subject and leaving the other side in darkness. This effect is demonstrated in the images below#

Image result for ChiaroscuroImage result for rankinImage result for rankin

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Final Abstract Project

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Mood Board

For my final piece of work on the abstract unit, I wanted to explore urban abstract environments and image manipulation techniques such as hue altering and double exposure effects.

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Image result for abstract colour photography street

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Image Selection

Below Is a contact sheet with all of my original image choices on. From here you can note the images I have chosen to develop into my final piece, as well as the ones that didnt make the cut. All are already edited as this contact sheet helped me decide upon my final outcome.

Here are my Final images as selected by process of elimination via the above contact sheet.

In this picture, I simply altered the hue of the environment and isolated the person and duplictated them and altered the opacity of each layer gradually to give off a “ghost” effect.

With this image, I simply duplicated the layer and altered the layer opacity and changed the hue to a colour that would match the shoes, Giving this image a  sort of 3D glasses effect.

This Image was just a basic hue filter applied to make all of the rust on the metal work of the building pink. it is a different perspective of a scene people often Ignore on a daily basis.

This image is a skyline scene featuring a crane and the top of a town house. I have lowered the vibrance and exposure to give the image a dark, yet minimalistic feel to it. the hue was also altered to give off an even darker effect.

This photo is of a drainpipe on the outside wall of a warehouse. I have decided to include white elements in order to create a minimalist effect. This is the only photo that I haven’t edited or altered using digital tools, This image came about as a result of low exposure on my camera.

AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Clare Rae gallery visit

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Clare Rae

Clare Rae is an Australian photographer who has recently done a Photo shoot in Jersey based on the work of Claude Cahun, A local photographer who lived on the island during the 1940s and 1950s. The photo shoot explored both Rae and Cahuns love of nature and their position within it in terms of  the association of the female body with the natural environment

The shoot itself was taken in rural spots around the Island, with many easily identifiable coastal scenes throughout the piece of work. Gorse bushes and lichen strung rocks play an important part in the shoot. The images are essentially of a self portraiture nature as they highlight the individuals association with their environment and tell a story

Here are a few pictures of the visit

A large amount of images, all themed on coastal fauna and the artists association with them. The images were taken at various locations around the island such as Le Hocq, Grosnez castle and Beauport headland.

This image is a particular favourite of mine due to the abstract nature of the image. The image depicts rae, Placing one arm through a hole in a piece of old ruin and hiding behind it

In this image, Cahun is seen with a Nazi eagle badge in her mouth. This can be seen as representative of the local environment at the time of the shoot due to the Nazi occupation of Jersey, Which lasted from late 1939 until may 1945.

Each Picture tells a different story, yet all explore the unique association both artists have with their natural environment

 

 

AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 1 Abstract

Focus and Depth of field

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Focus

Focus is defined as having or producing clear visual definition. The lens on a camera aids focus by directing the light into the desired position. Here are some diagrams below that better explain this feature

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Depth of Field

Depth of field in the distance between the furthest object to the lens and the closest object. This technique is used to create high definition images that either focus on the foreground subject or the background subject as seen in the example images

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Image result for depth of field

 

AO2 Explore Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 1 Abstract

Double Exposure

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Double Exposure involves the overlay of an image over the top of an existing one, while being able to see both the overlay and original.

In order to achieve this you can use two techniques:

Camera:

Most cameras come with a double exposure mode, allowing for two or more photos to be taken over the top of each other within the camera itself.

Photoshop:

By duplicating or adding in another layer over the top of the existing image and altering the opacity then moving the image to create the effects demonstrated below.

For this experiment, I decided to alter the hue of separate layers in some instances to give off a trippy effect


AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 1 Abstract

Homework 5: Abstract Colour and Texture

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Julian Schulze

Julian Schulze is a Berlin born and based minimalist Photographer who chooses to focus on geometric abstractions and minimalist compositions with high contrast and wide ranges of colour. His work is very expansive and eye catching ,consisting of architectural features of cityscape environments

His work ranges from everyday scenes taken from different perspectives to mind blowing pieces that play with your perception and that can really make you question what it is you are looking at.

Below are some examples of his work

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Image result for julian schulze

Image result for julian schulze

Image result for julian schulze

I have decided to use Schulze as my inspiration due to his portrayal  of colour and shape in his works, as well as his ability to truly capture the imagination of his Audience.

Shooting

For my Julian Schulze inspired shoot, I decided to go to my local town area and identify buildings and scenes that I thought matched this criteria in terms of colour shape and texture. I photographed high rise office blocks and items in the street to try and truly emulate this style

Contact Sheets

Here are my contact sheets for this project

Final Image Selection

An old CD Hung up outside a shop to scare birds off of the fresh fruit. whole background has been lowered in vibrance and the CD isolated and adjusted

Black and white garage doors, no alerting needed

Open sign outside a restaurant with red LED’s. Red border around the outside to supplement the colour

Black and white desaturated street corner

Illuminated office blocks

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 1 Abstract

Layer Mask Experiment

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Intro

Layer Masking is a process that involves creating a layer of color over an existing image and removing parts of the new layer to have certain parts of the photo visible.

Method

I loaded up Photoshop and selected my Image I wished to edit

I then went to Layer-New Fill layer-Solid color and selected a colour from the image that would accent the image and layer and applied it and removed sections of the layer

Here are a few final edits

Instead of using circles, I chose to focus mainly on squares and rectangles in order to isolate different parts of an image to highlight them or to create a nice visual effect.

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas

Keld Helmer Petersen Threshold Experimentation

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Experimenting with the idea of threshold adjustment to create pieces with extreme contrast and maximal blacks and whites. I decided to focus on the idea of cameras for my original inspiration for the photos due to their complex looks and various opportunities for black and white adjustments.

Here are the photos pre and post edit

Here are the final edits

I really like the almost cartoonish effect I have achieved with each photo having its own unique characteristics.

I took a photo through a lens of an outdoor environment and really liked the idea of the lens flipping the image.

Here is a glass triangular prism resting on top of a semi circular prism in a mirror. I chose to adjust the threshold to a point so that it only realistically gives an outline of the shapes.

Up close of a camera lens, using depth of field and threshold adjustment to create a defined effect.