mood board of types of portraits
Portraiture can be done in several different ways. Its important to pick the type that’s most appropriate according to what your responding to. Below is a mood board showing different styles of portraiture suitable for different occasions.
Arnold Newman:
Born in Manhattan (3rd March – 1918), Newman grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey and later moved to Miami Beach, Florida. In 1936, he studied painting and drawing at the University of Miami. Unable to afford continuing after two years, he moved to Philadelphia to work for a studio, making 49-cent portraits in 1938. Newman then returned to Florida in 1942 to manage a portrait studio in West Palm Beach. Three years later, he opened his own business in Miami.
Arnold Newman is often associated with being the first photographer to use “environmental portraiture”, in which Arnold placed the subject in a carefully controlled setting to capture the essence of the individual’s life or work.
Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with visual elements representing their professions and personalities (such as tools in a workshop or instruments in a musicians studio). Using a large-format camera and tripod, he worked to record every detail of a scene to create an in depth and accurate image of the subject’s life.
“You don’t take pictures with your camera. You take pictures with your mind and your heart.” -Arnold Newman
Mood Board:
Selected Image:
Georgia O’Keeffe, Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, 1968
Gelatin silver print; printed c.1968
9 1/8 X 13 1/2 inches
Technical:
Visual:
Contextual:
Conceptual:
Georgia O’Keeffe:
Georgia O’Keeffe (born 15th November 1887) first traveled to New Mexico in 1929 and moved there permanently in 1949, following the death of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Although she achieved early success as a painter living in the East, the landscape of the desert gave O’Keeffe her greatest inspiration.
She often painted familiar subjects such as flowers, buildings, and objects found on walks around her remote home. She did so in a unique way, often transforming common items into colourful pieces of art, focusing heavily on line and form within her work. By the late 1940s O’Keeffe was one of the best-known and original artists in America.
Some of O’Keeffe’s Work:
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.
By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience.
Contact sheets:
In the images I took, I aimed to get the subjects in their natural environments, doing what they normally do. I got someone driving, someone painting, and another doing their school work. These are all usual tasks which the subjects in the pictures take on in their daily lives.
Chosen best edited images:
I chose these images because I feel they best represent the idea of environmental portraits out of all the images I took. As you can see in the two images I chose, one is of someone driving and the other is of someone doing their work, both being tasks they do in their daily lives. The fact that they’re turned away from the camera and seem immersed in their tasks adds a bit of reality to it.
Environmental Portraits:
An environmental portrait is a portrait composed in the subject’s usual environment, such as their home or workplace, and usually highlights the subject’s life/lifestyle/occupation and surroundings.
By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it better displays their character, and therefore portrays the their personality through their interests and usual setting, instead of just a likeness of their physical features. By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it also allows the subject to be more at ease and comfortable as it is something that is safe to them and they are used to. This allows the subject to be more likely to express themselves easily and accurately, as opposed to in a studio or posed setting, which can be an intimidating and artificial experience, taking away from the elements of a realistic image.
Mood Board:
Video/Page Links Below:
https://petapixel.com/2016/04/07/8-tips-making-better-environmental-portraits-natural-light/
Aleatoric Photography:
Aleatoric photography is the incorporation of chance into the process of taking a photograph. The word comes from the Latin word ‘alea’, which means the rolling of dice. “Aleatory” should not be confused with improvisation as it relies purely on chance instead of quick thinking.
One example of aleatoric photography would be smoke photography. Relying heavily on randomness to give it its spark. Photographing smoke is easy although it takes multiple shots for the shapes and swirls of the smoke to look the way the photographer might like. It also depends on what else may be in the photo and how the smoke reacts with the other subjects in the image.
Mood Board:
My Response:
Best Images:
What is environmental portraiture?
An environmental portrait is a portrait taken of a person or people in a situation that they live in and a place that says something about who they are. It is often a place of work, rest or play. Images which are quite natural, yet a little staged by the subject making eye contact with the camera. They are making a connection with the camera.
Mood Board:
This mood board displays the general sense of what environmental portraiture is. They all follow a general theme by being staged and the subject making eye contact with the camera. There is a sense of place with the people being in their work, there is a sense of connection by the photographer letting us into the life of the person.
Fibonacci Spiral:
While the rule of thirds is the most widely known composition rule, there’s another principal that plays a big role in composing images with that wow factor; the golden ratio. While its basis does lie in math and numbers, the golden ratio is really about what the human eye sees, and composing an image that immediately demands attention. This photo also follows the Fibonacci spiral, it follows the composition which makes this a very effective and balanced image.
The golden ratio is actually a number. It’s found by taking a line (or sometimes another shape) and dividing it into two parts. When a line or shape is divided into two parts based on the golden ratio, it will be divided in such a way that, if you divided the length of the longest section by the length of the smallest section, it would be equal to the original length of the shape divided by the longest section.
Useful videos about environmental portraiture:
Emotional response: My response to first seeing the photo was that the man in the foreground is quite intimidating and mysterious. There are big differences between light levels, saturation, and contrast within the photo. The man is wearing a suit which shows that he is quite an important person as suits were more expensive than today.
Visual: The man in the middle looks around 75-80 years old, he is lent forward with his hands together (with his fingers intertwined) and is resting his chin on them. The man is less lit than the background which gives a sense of cruelty and mystery about him. He is also in the stereotypical villain pose which makes him more easily associated with being a bad person.
The background also has a lot of contrast, this helps distinguish the trains from the production lines and makes the whole photo more attractive to the eye as it is more colourful.
Technical: The windows at the top let in more light into the photo as well as giving it more structure as they consist of strong lines. As they windows get further away they appear smaller which draws the eye into the centre of the photo.
The photo is symetrical through the middle, This balance makes it more attractive as people instinctively prefer symetrical objects/things.
The photo was taken with a shorter exposure. This was probably done to avoid overexposing the background; which is more lit than the foreground. This results in the foreground being darker, which works for this photo as it makes the man look more sinister (which was the intent).
Conceptual: The subject of the photo was Alfred Krupp. He was made to look as sinister as possible in this photo because the photographer (Arnold Newman) was Jewish and Alfred Krupp was a nazi, so this photo was Arnold’s ‘bit of revenge’.
The image below was taken by Arnold Newman, of Alfried Krupp in 1963. This photograph is one of Newman’s well known images due to hidden message and ideas that can be taken from this environmental portrait.
I have annotated this photograph in order to show how Newman has used leading lines, to move viewers eyes around the frame. As well as the use of the rule of thirds within this image.
Emotional Response
When I first looked at this image my eyes where immediately drawn to the mysterious man located in the center of the frame. He is an ‘old white man’ which can be seen through his grey hair and wrinkles on his skin. He is giving direct eye contact with the camera and has his head looking slightly down whilst doing this, creating a sinister and mysterious look. It makes us question what he is doing and why. His hands are joined together and place underneath his chin, resting on the hands. Due to this it also adds to the idea that the subject is up to no good. Krupp is found in a suit, showing his high status during the time. He is found sat at a working train station which seems to run down. This makes us question why Krupp is at the train station
Technical Response
The image is presented in color which allows rust/dirt in the station to be more visible. Moreover, it almost makes the picture come to life and allow us to create more ideas about the man in our mind. The background is busy, which informs us that it is a busy train station. The use of leading lines is presented by the ceiling lights. It is used to help direct the viewers eyes around the frame of the photograph, taking in all the details helping us to form an opinion and concept about the image. The man seems to be framed by the walls, which shows segregation between Krupp and what is happening behind him. It also reminds us the status that he is and presents the idea that he is the reason for why what is happening behind him is happening. The clear formal elements which are presented through this image is line, through the trains and ceiling/building structure. Texture can be seen through the rust and different objects which are found within the train station. The depth of field found in this image is large as well as the aperture is high, as nothing seems to be completely out of focus in the image. However, there is a sharper focus on Krupp, which suggests his importance to the setting and situation. The lighting found within the station is quite dark and the image is under exposed which shows how run down and bad the environment of the station was. However, Krupp is lit up also illuminating his importance compared to the station. The image seems to have used a quick shatter speed as no intended blur can be found within the image. In addition, a little noise can be found due to the lighting suggesting that the ISO is likely to be slightly be high but not too high.
Contextual Response
Newman wanted to capture Krupp as a part of his environmental series in 1963. Krupp was an industrialist. However, Krupp was found to be transporting weapons and materials during the second world war. In contrast, Newman was Jewish and did not agree with the same viewpoints as Krupp. Newman still wanted to capture Krupp and managed to persuade him through his portfolios. When capturing the images of Krupp, Newman attempted to portray Krupp as an evil person. This can clearly be seen through the image above.
Conceptual Response
The intended message trying to be presented in this photograph is that there is a man located in this run down train station, who can potentially be the owner of the company. Due to his facial expressions and positioning it makes it seem that he is up to no good and is planning something evil. Many more interpretations can be made about this image, however I believe that this is the most prominent.
Emotional portraits:
These portraits seem to show some kind of emotional provocation, eg. fear, anger.
The face is slightly distorted yet in all of these images through the use of reflections, focused face with frosted backdrop or objects hindering full view of the face.
Neon Light Portraits:
These images all show lights and reflections of light creating a fresh and pastel feel.
The sharpness and contrast of the images with the highlighted areas create beautiful cool toned compositions.
UV Paint Portraits:
Extremely vivid and vibrant colours of the UV paints contrasted by the dark tones of the skin.
The colours in the images connote some sense of psychedelic experience.