The identity of a person is the characteristics they have that distinguish them from others. One’s identity can be influenced by many factors such as place, belonging, environment or upbringing. Identity can be explored through multiple forms, especially through photography, and many photographers have expressed their identity through their work.

Types of identity

Gender identity: how a person sees themselves. Only the individual can determine their own gender identity. Many people have a gender identity of a man or woman, but some people do not. People who do not identify as a man or a woman may identify as both genders, neither, between genders, or not gendered at all.

Cultural identity: the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is part of a person’s self conception and self perception and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture.

Social identity: how we identify ourselves in relation to others according to what we have in common.

Geographical identity: An individual or group’s sense of attachment to the country, region, city or village in which they live.

Political identity: a specific political party affiliation or partisan identity. Political identity can be shaped by race. Another possible factor that shapes political identity can be economic class.

Lack of / loss of identity: People who have no idea who they are or what they believe in. Sometimes they say that they simply feel non existent

Antonio Mora is a creative art director since 1995 and is gradually gravitating towards the more artistic area of his profession. His work which are personal and evocative, are meant to trigger intense feelings. His inspiration comes from the portraits themselves. He uses his imagination to bring an image to life to create a moment between sleep and consciousness. He says that his work is inspired by the belief that “art is made to disturb the conscience”. He has been developing an extensive collection of portraits in which dream worlds are superimposed with reality. Antonio usually blends humans and nature into surreal artworks. Having mastered the technique of digital collage using various tools such as filters, hues, saturation and gradients of opacity, his creative process results in unified textures and the merging of the photographs. He works with images he finds through the internet, magazines and blogs and fuses them together with his photo manipulation techniques. His seamless way of mixing various concepts together creates a mind tricking illusion for the viewer.

Visual: This is a portrait that consists of the natural and unnatural world. The woman’s face has been slightly revealed, creating a mysterious effect to the image. If you look closely you can see cracks in the photo which makes it seem like the image is ageing and about to peel off.  Around the head area you can see arches which appears to be a bridge that has been copied and pasted several times. On the left hand side you can see a cluster of leaves resting in the corner. The reflection of the leaves and the arches can also be seen in the image, seamlessly blending into the woman’s face. You can also see that the smallest arch and its reflection has created a circle which has been replaced for the real eye that has been erased.  Antonio Mora has placed multiple pictures on top of one another and then lowered the opacity to blend all the images together.

Composition: The focal point in this image is where the eye is supposed to be. The arches have decreased in size the further out it is which captures the viewers attention and makes their eyes follow through the endless tunnel. The contrast in colours is interesting since the lower half is dark and gloomy while the upper half has a tranquil effect through the nature and peaceful landscape.

Opinion: I like how the artist has used nature to replace a large amount of the woman’s face. I think this image is telling us a story about a young woman who is broken which is represented by the cracks. She has a lot going on in her head which is represented by the several arches that circle around her. She appears to be envious which can be seen through the colour imagery of green depicted through the leaves and their reflection.

Photo montage is the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Sometimes the resulting composite image is photographed so the final image appears to be a photographic print. This method can also be done through image editing software.

History

Historically, photo montage has been used to make political statements and gained popularity in the early 20th Century. It was first used as a technique by the Dadaists in 1915 in their protest against the first World War. It was later adopted by the surrealists who exploited the possibilities photo montage offered by using free association to bring together different images, to reflect the workings of the unconscious mind. Photo montage was also used by various pop artists in the mid 20th Century. Pop art was a reaction to abstract expressionism and was similar to DADA. Many pop art images and constructions tackled popular consumerism, advertising, branding and marketing techniques. Pop art also explored political concerns such as war and gender roles.

Tableau Vivant, French for living picture, is used to describe a painting or photograph in which characters are arranged for picturesque or dramatic effect and appear completely unaware of the existence of the viewer. It  is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costumes, carefully posed, with props and scenery, and may be theatrically lit.

Examples Of Tableau Vivant Photographs

The sitting room and the related photograph, the dining room, are the result of a project Jones began in 1996 with three teenage girls. She has photographed them in two of their parental homes. The images are carefully set up, the furniture was often rearranged and studio lights were used to enhance the staged atmosphere. The girls belong to wealthy upper-middle class families and their homes are ornamented with symbols of wealth and status. However, in Jones photographs they appear uncomfortable and bored despite their comfortable background.

A sudden gust of wind  is a large colour photograph displayed in a light box. It shows a flat landscape in which four foreground figures are frozen as they are reacting to a sudden gust of wind. It is based on a woodcut called ‘Travellers caught in a sudden breeze at Ejiri’ (1832) from a famous portfolio called ‘The thirty-six views of fuji’, by the Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai. The result of the photograph taken by Jeff wall is a tableau which appears staged in the manner of a classical painting.

David Lachapelle’s series of ‘Jesus is my homeboy’ is one of the most popular reinterpretations of the last supper in modern art. The image shows Jesus with 13 modern day people in a living room setting sitting around a table. the people in this photograph are not holding the same positions as the ones from the original painting but it is still obvious that this is the famous painting the last supper since they are sitting around the table reacting to Jesus.

When taking pictures, being able to determine the intensity, colour and direction of light will help you to know how to position your subject and which camera setting to use.

Intensity of the light

The intensity of light is a measure of its harshness or brightness and determines how much light is present in a scene. It can be referred to as the quantity of light. You can estimate how intense light is based on the balance between shadows and highlights. This distinction between highlight and shadow is called contrast. Light is mostly intense at noon when the sun is directly overhead; This means that the contrast is high. On the other hand, light and contrast are less intense early in the morning or evening. Direct intense light can be harsh. You often find these conditions on bright sunny days. Harsh light intensifies the contrast between light and shadows which can result in unflattering images. When using diffused less intense light, contrast is lower and the light is more flattering. When the sun is shining brightly overhead there are a few things you can do to diffuse the lighting:

• Find some cover as shade can be a great diffuser. Photograph your subject under the cover. When working in shade make sure the subject is evenly covered by the shade.
• If there is no shade in your area you can diffuse the light with a scrim. You place the scrim between your subject and the light source.
• Overcast days are good for natural light portrait photography because the cloud cover acts as a natural diffuser
• If you are taking images inside and are relying on a window as your light source, move your subject away from the window to lessen the intensity of the light

Direction of the light

Depending on the time of day, the direction of light changes due to the sun’s movement. Knowing where the light is coming will help you know where to position your subject to get the best images. Try positioning your subject with the sun behind them instead of having the sunlight shine directly into the face to light up their features. The backlight this provides will cast nice highlights around the hair.

Temperature of the light and white balance

Colour temperature is the various shades of colour that are produced by different light sources. It is measured on the kelvin scale, from the cooler blue tinged end of the spectrum to the warmer, reddish coloured end. Colour temperature changes throughout the day, depending on the time and the amount of cloud cover. At dawn the sky appears light blue, at sunset the sky appears orange, and at dusk the sky appears violet blue. Our eyes naturally adjust to changes in the colour of light to keep colours looking the same in various lighting situations. Since our cameras don’t do that white balance is important.

John Rankin Waddell, also known under his working name Rankin, is a British portrait and fashion photographer and director. He is best known as the founder of Dazed and Confused magazine and for his photography of models including Kate Moss and Heidi Klum, and celebrities such as Madonna and David Bowie and his portrait of Elizabeth II. His work has appeared in magazines such as GQ, Vogue and Marie Claire. It was while doing an accountancy degree at Brighton Polytechnic that he picked up a camera and began to investigate and practise. When realising that this was what he really wanted to do, he abandoned the degree course and went back to A-levels to study photography. Taking a degree in photography at the London College of Printing, he met Jefferson Hack and together they founded Dazed & Confused, a ground breaking monthly style magazine which documented the Brit Pop and Britart movements of the time. Rankin describes his style as having no style. He doesn’t use a specific type of lighting and doesn’t use the same way of shooting all the time. When he is photographing a subject, whether they are models, celebrities or regular people he always talks constantly to the person in front of the lens. He does this to get a reaction so he can capture something about their personality; every person will have a different reaction. Rankin says portraiture for him is all about making a connection with his subjects.