Identity:
“The fact of being who or what a person or thing is.”
Types of Identity:
gender identity
cultural identity
social identity
political identity
lack of identity
loss of identity
Mood Board:
Identity and Place
All posts by Niah D
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Photo-Montage Experiments Task 3
For my first two photos I decided to recreate pieces in the style of Tyler Spangler. I really enjoyed doing these pieces because I really like Tyler’s style of photography.
1st Photo:
For my first photo, I recreated a photo in this style –
My Photo:
I’m really happy with how this photo came out. The message behind this piece is about how sometimes people feel like their head is in the clouds and how sometimes people don’t pay attention to their surroundings, and has their attention in their own thoughts. I wanted to keep the theme of identity and place present but not too obvious as I want people to interpret this photo in any way they want to.
Step By Step on How I Created This Photo:
Firstly, I made the photo black and white.
I then cut out the image and put it onto a pastel yellow background.
I then got this photo of purple clouds from google images.
I then cut the purple clouds image onto three separate images. I used three different angles of the purple clouds to get three different images of the clouds.
I then pressed windows, then timeline to get the animation window.
Then I clicked create frame animation.
I then clicked make frames from layers to make each layer into a frame.
I then duplicated the three layers and made them last 0.2 seconds long.
2nd Photo:
I also recreated this photo –
My Photo:
I really liked this piece as I like how it turned out. I think I was able to to capture the photographers style very well, but still having elements of my style in it. Even though the model is not in black and white I still like it in colour. Again this photo is open for interpretation and is loosely based off of identity and place.
Step By Step:
For this I basically copied the same steps in the first photo, but instead of the sky I took a picture of a flower from google, changed the colour of it and made it spin around the models head.
3rd Photo:
Even though this photo took me longest and was the most challenging one out of the three, I really like the end result of it. I added noise to the photo and I really like how that looks. Also again this is loosely based off of the theme identity and place.
This photo was inspired by Eugenia Loli’s Photo –
Overall, I’m really happy with how all my photos turned out and I really like working in this style of photography because of the freedom you have with the photos.
Tableau Vivant (Staged Reality)
Tableau Vivant –
“A tableau vivant, French for ‘living picture’, is a static scene containing one or more models. They are stationary, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically lit.”
Guia Besana
“Guia Besana is a self-taught photographer currently living and working in between Paris (France) and Barcelona (Spain). After studies in media and communication in Turin, Italy, in 1994 she becomes a photographer and moves to Paris (France). With a particular attention to women’s issues she travels in different countries and joins Anzenberger Agency in 2005 and the gallery in 2013. Since 2016, she is also represented by 1968 Gallery (London).” http://guiabesana.com/about/
In an interview Besana talked about how her work with tableau vivant was inspired by her pregnancy. She says, “Pregnancy was a key moment because of my reduced mobility. I naturally and instinctively found myself turning my thoughts into staged sets which depicted the reality I was living.” http://www.cortonaonthemove.com/en/interview/interview-guia-besana/
Examples of her work:
Examples of tableau vivant:
My Plan:
Pulp Fiction (1994):
I will be recreating these pictures from the film “Pulp Fiction”.
“Pulp Fiction” is a 1994 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino; it is based on a story by Tarantino and Roger Avary. Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, it tells several stories of criminal Los Angeles. The film’s title refers to the pulp magazines and hard boiled crime novels popular during the mid-20th century, known for their graphic violence and punchy dialogue.
The meaning behind these photos are the outcomes and affects of drug abuse and crimes. I want to show how badly these things effect people and how deadly drugs and crime can be, especially for younger people. Younger audiences are being easily influenced into taking drugs and committing crimes, so I want to show them what will end up happening if they continue this behaviour.
My model for these photos will be my friend Charlotte because she has short hair. I will be editing her hair to make it black and give her a fringe. if i can’t manage to give her a fringe I will just leave her hair as it is, but still edit it black. I will be taking these photos at a friends house because it is the best place to do it because the layout is similar to the pictures. For the cigarette and the gun I will be using a toy gun and a theater cigarette, and I will get most of the props from around my own home.
Scene for nose bleed picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDMJSg0a5u0
Contact Sheet:
Green – Yes
Orange – Maybe
Red – No
Final Photos (Unedited):
Final Images (Edited):
I really like how these photos turned out I think I was able to recreate the original photos very well and I was also able to convey the message I wanted to convey.
Photo-Montage, Constructed Paper Task 1
“Photo montage is the process and 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 that a final image may appear as a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not use film, is realized today through image-editing software. This latter technique is referred to by professionals as “compositing”, and in casual usage is often called “photo shopping” (from the name of the popular software system). A composite of related photographs to extend a view of a single scene or subject would not be labeled as a montage.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomontage
Examples of Early – 20th Century Photo Montage:
Studio Portraits and Lighting Techniques
Why do we use studio lighting? – I think we use studio lighting because the lighting can create different effects and make the photo look different and unique.
What is the difference between 1-2-3 point lighting and what does each technique provide / solve? – One is the key light, two is the fill light and three is the back light. The key light provides the technique of Chiaroscuro, adding the back light dims the effect of Chiaroscuro and then adding the fill light removes all shadows.
Example:
What is fill lighting? – Fill light is used to reduce the contrast of a scene to match the dynamic range of the recording media and record the same amount of detail typically seen by eye in average lighting and considered normal.
What is spill lighting? – Spill light is the light that illuminates surfaces beyond the area intended to be illuminated.
What is Chiaroscuro ? Show examples + your own experiments – Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures.
My example: 
Natural Lighting:
- intensity of the light – Intensity is the brightness level of light and it brightens up your subject. For both natural light and studio light, you can modify the light source to change the intensity.
- direction of the light – The placement and width of shadows in a photograph is created by the angle between the camera and the light source. The width of the shadows increases as the direction of the light moves from the camera out to the side.
- temperature of the light and white balance – f the light in the image was Tungsten (3000K) or Daylight (5500K) they would post produce with a white balance of 2800K or 5300K respectively. Any temperature setting lower than the color temperature of the light in a scene, will yield a more blue or “cooler” image
- Using reflectors (silver / gold) – In flat lighting, a reflector can add interest or drama to the shot. Some photographers use reflectors as hair lights outdoors. Many reflectors have a black side that can be used to block out light instead of to reflect it. Reflectors are also great for bouncing a flash when there’s nothing around to bounce off of
For this project I took some models around school and posed them where there was a lot of light, so near a door or window. My white balance was on tungsten and I had quite a small aperture.
Contact Sheet:
Red – No
Orange – Maybe
Green – Yes
Final Outcomes (Unedited):
I really like the outcomes of these unedited photos but I wanted to edit them a little to bit to enhance the photos.
Best Photo:
I chose this photo for my best image because it looks the sharpest and shows my camera skills the best.
Studio Lighting:
Rankin (John Rankin Waddell) – 
John Rankin Waddell (born 1966), also known under his working name Rankin, is a British portrait and fashion photographer and director.
Best known as the founder of Dazed and Confused magazine (along with Jefferson Hack), and for his photography of models including Kate Moss and Heidi Klum, 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. In 2011 Rankin started the biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine, Hunger and launched Rankin Film to produce and direct his own commercial and editorial film work.
Examples of his photography:
Contact Sheets:
Red – No
Orange – Maybe
Green – Yes
My Response (Final Outcomes Unedited):
For some of these photos I used coloured gels to get the red and green colour you see in the photos. I also used one light on the side to create the Chiaroscuro effect. I also used two lights with a trigger flash on the camera to create full body photos.
Best Photo:
I think this is my best image because the chiaroscuro looks really effective and the image is very sharp and well exposed. It also has a really good white balance.
Flash Photography:
As I didn’t take many with flash, I only have a few good photos. I used two studio lights and a trigger flash on my camera to get these images. I hope next time I can take more photos with flash as I liked the outcome of these few photos. Most of the images were too over exposed as I was adjusting the settings and testing out the trigger flash.
Contact Sheet:
Best Image:
I chose this photo because it has better exposure and looks sharper and better than the other photo I took.
Conclusion:
Overall I am very happy with how these three best images turned out. I think it shows my camera skills very well and shows that I can work a camera well also. I really like studio photography as I want to look further into fashion photography so this really helped with what I would like to do in the future.
Street Photography Blog 1
Street Photography
“Street photography, also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and candid photography, it is usually subtle with most street photography being candid in nature and some candid photography being classifiable as street photography. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic.” – Wikipedia
Mood Board:
Bill Owens:
“Bill Owens was born in San Jose, CA September 25, 1938. Bill with his cameras is known as the foremost chronicler of Suburbia, made famous with the publication of his book by that name in 1972.
In 1983 after working several years as a photojournalist, publishing a series of books and producing two children Bill began his brewing career. He established Buffalo Bill’s, one of the nation’s first Brew Pubs which he operated until he sold it in 1994.
From 1993 to 1995 Bill published BEER the magazine. Moved by the spirits Bill went on to found The American Distilling Institute (ADI), the oldest and largest organization of small batch, independently owned distillers in the United States which he continues to lead and cultivate.
Astonishingly, all the while Bill has continued to make, exhibit and sell his photographs.” From http://www.billowens.com/about
Examples of his photos:
Contact Sheets:
Red – No
Orange – Maybe
Green – Yes
Final Outcomes (Unedited):
I really liked how these photos came out, but they definitely needed editing as I thought it was bring the photo more to life, and I would also be able to crop my photos to get a closer view of the person.
Final Outcomes (Edited):
I really like how these edited photos came out. I prefer the photos when they are in black and white because the photo looks much better and I think it gives it more personality. Overall I really like street photography and will probably revisit this type of portrait photography.
Arnold Newman – Portrait Analysis
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 .
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.
Portraits, Environmental Portraits – Homework 1
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:
Arnold Newman
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:
Mary Ellen Mark
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:
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.
Portrait – Mood-Board
What is Contemporary Portrait Photography?
Contemporary photography could be described as a photograph from our own time, compared to an image from a much earlier period. A relevant definition of the word contemporary is: “happening in the same period of time… or in the style of the present or recent times…”
Mood Boards
Paper Photography
For this homework I took photos of pieces of paper that I had modified to make to make it look different and abstract.
Red = NO
Orange = MAYBE
Green = YES
My Favourite Images (Unedited):
I really like how these photos look so I decided to edit them in Photoshop. On every photo I pressed the keys Ctrl, Alt L to get the levels tool. Then I put a photo filter on, then I lowered the vibrancy and saturation a bit.
My Favourite Images (Edited):
I am really pleased with how this turned out and I really like the look of the paper in these photos. I might use this technique again but it wasn’t my favourite technique to do.