This blog post is about the photo shoot i carried out in the streets of town in St. Helier Jersey. The focus of this shoot was portrait photography and i was aiming to capture a natural essence of everyday life in the town through the view of the camera without having staged or positioned photos.
Definition of 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. Therefore here it is worthy to note that the kind of street photography our project is focused on is portraits. I chose to go for a more candid approach to collecting these photos and therefore as we are collecting portraits, all my finished pieces contain people in them.
Difficulties:
One difficult aspect of this portrait shoot was the fact that some public members may not like their picture being taken. Therefore i used this theme of being unnoticed in a lot of the photos i took with a minimal amount of disruption to the public that i could use for example not having flash turned on or using the zoom to collect close up features instead of getting in peoples faces, or way.
Contact sheet with best images:
Here is a contact sheet with my best images from the portrait shoot.
My favourite image edit:
I edited this image because i find its the most focused and intricate portrait I collected of a person. It shows an elder gentleman with a cap on walking by and is effective because of its simplicity and the unusual angle it was taken from. It has a look of double exposure however, its is just the levels of color turned up and down
Using artificial lighting can create very unique photographs. The light also allows you to experiment with..
Size and shape of light
Distance from subject ( creating hard/ soft light)
Angles and direction
Filtered light
Reflectors and diffuses
Key lighting, full lighting, back lighting, 3 point lighting
Soft- boxes, umbrella lights, spot lights and floodlights
Chiaroscuro and Rembrandt lighting
Example of studio lighting..
not my images
Why studio lighting is used
By using studio lighting we are able to have full control with the lighting unlike you would with natural lighting which ensures were going to get a better final outcome.When doing studio photography the artificial lighting that is used is very important. Using artificial lighting allows the focal point of the image to be a lot clearer. It is also very important due to it adding temperature to the photo making the image seem more cheerful/ sad depending on the type of temperature used. During studio photography there are four different types of lighting which are used, as well as three ways these lighting can be used.
Types of studio lighting
Flat light- When you have your light source facing directly at the front of your subject, meaning your subject is well lit and you are unable to see any shadow along their face.
Split light- A type of side lighting as it hits your subject from the side, leaving half of the subject being lit and the other half in shadow.
Back light- Light that comes from the back and behind your subject to create semi-silhouettes which let the light be in the frame a little which creates a contrast.
Flash light- Flash units offer a range of possibilities in both low and high lighting scenarios. The types of flash we will explore will be..
Ways these lights can be presented
One point lighting– A single one point lighting looks two dimensional or flat, this rarely hits people straight on, so it creates shadowing.
Two point lighting- Two point lighting is good to use when you want people to stand out in 3D as it adds dimensionality. There is potential for shadowing if the model turns their head in a opposite direction.
Three point lighting- The three point lighting technique is a standard method used in visual media such as videos. It is simple but versatile system which forms the basics. If you have 2 lights, one is the key and the other is either the fill or the back light.
Exploring studio photographers
John Rankin
John Rankin is a well known British photographer who takes images of celebrities in a studio. His work appeared in his own magazine which he used to promote his images as well as appearing in Vogue.
This is an image which was apart of Rankin’s destroy series. This was when he would take images of celebrities in the costume and the makeup they wanted with a desire to capture celebrities emotions and personalities through the costumes etc.. Once he did the photo shoot he would let the model draw on the image in order to express their personality.
When first looking at this image, i am drawn into the drawn on large mouth as well as the models eyes being so stern when looking directly into the camera lense which could mean the models emotional state could be very stern and she may be shocked about something. The use of the plain black background supports this idea of feeling stern as the black represents blankness like she doesn’t know what to do. The body pained black as well could also be considered that something is trapping her due to her blending in with everything around her.
The lighting used to take this image seems to be a one point lighting which has been set up directly in front of the model due to there being no other lighting shown in the photo except for on her face. The ISO used to take this image is likely to very low due to there being no noice within the image, as well as the shutter speed being fast as it is compleatly in focus. There is a large depth of field used in this image due to the models face being the only part of the image which is fully viable which also suggests the model does not want to be seen. In this example of Rankin’s work we can see that the original lips have been copied and extra 3 times adding a sense of confusion to the image as the tongue in the middle of the teeth could also suggest she is trying to think of an evil plan. This could be due to some emotional trauma. This photograph is presents in colour which eliminates the tonal regions and contrasts in the image.
Plan
In this photo shoot that i will be conducting, i will use the inside of the schools photography studio as my location. I am going to mostly be using a black background, however there will also sometimes be white. The lighting will mainly be used by the soft box. For my camera setting is will be in a manual focus with my shutter speed on 1/100 and my ISO being around 400. I will also use the ‘ tungsten’ white balance. When taking my images i will be looking at the different lighting techniques which were mentioned earlier on. The editing of the images at the end will be very simple.
Contact sheets
When doing this photo shoot i used the ‘ Chiaroscuro lighting’ technique where there was a light on one point of the models face and the other side being left dark.
Best outcomes
I think this image is one of my best outcomes due to the clear shadowing on the left hand side of the models face which shows there is a Chiaroscuro lighting technique being used.
I also think this is one of my best outcomes, again due to the darker shadowing on the left hand side of the models faces. I also really like how there is a small blue effect all over the image due to a transparent blue sheet which was placed over the only light source by an assistant.
This is a photo sheet of the whole shoot, the green markings show that I will use the photo, yellow means i might use it. Blue lines mean that I will crop the photo along the lines.I used two point lighting for this photo, the blue light from the left creates attractive shadows, and the warm white light from the right helps make the skin appear more tanned and makes the whole photo look more real, instead of looking staged.This photo has been edited to appear brighter and more grainy, this has been done by adjusting the saturation, gamma correction etc.Here Layla is playing the guitar, her placement creates a show which is offset to the right which makes the image more powerful. It is also composed of neutral tones which complement the simplicity of the acoustic guitar.In this photo Layla’s hand gestures create emaciated shadows across her face. The only light source is a soft box which helps create bold shadows.For this photo I decided to experiment with blur. The photo came out blurry so I decided to blur the rest of it more so that the centre of the image looks sharper in contrast with them.This is structurally my favourite photo as the middle is empty. The right side is really dark which diverts the attention away from the middle which is the weakest part of a photo.
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. The images captured when taking photos in the street are immediate and happen often quite quickly no member of the public stands there and stages this out therefore all images happen by fate.
For me there are a few ways of interpreting the way someone takes photos under the theme of ‘Street Photography’ In these examples some of the images were taken a long time ago. For street photographers they have seen,through images,changes in clothes, appearance and just the way individuals have interacted with one another for the past hundred years or so.
There are many artists that are linked to street photography here are just some examples:
Bruce Gilden
Henri – cartier Bresson
Garry Winogrand
Weegee
Robert Doisneau
Vivian Maier
These are some quotes that photographers have said or wrote whilst out and about photographing the streets and whats inside it.
“Photographers mistake the emotion they feel while taking the photo as a judgment that the photograph is good.” – Garry Winogrand
“I love the people I photograph. I men they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images I live with them”- Bruce Gilden
“Don’t wait. the time will never just be right” – Napoleon Hill
Below is a video on some more examples of street photography :
Portrait photography or portraiture in photography is a photograph of a person or group of people that captures the personality of the subject by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. A portrait picture might be artistic, or it might be clinical, as part of a medical study.
These images are not mine they are from the internet (from google images)
Every one of these images:
formal
informal
candidate
High angle
Low angle
Headshot
futuristic
high key
colour
black and white
half body
Full body
natural
posed
Environmental Portraits
Arnold Newman
This is an example of an environmental portrait.
The lighting and exposure of the images is quite low however it highlights the focus on to the man who is wearing white. As shown in the image the man is engaging with the camera, unlike street photography where the person being photographed usually isn’t aware environmental portraits is the opposite and encourages the person to be looking at the image.
Arnold Newman began taking images that were based around on who the person actually is. For this man it looks like his background is something along the lines of being a musician so therefore he’s trying to capture part of his identity. This captures the idea of environmental as its trying to portray the idea that this what they do day to day.
WHO – when going out to do street photography, the subjects of the images are always random by passers on the street, people going about their daily business .
WHAT – the main objective of the photoshoot was to capture snap shots of people’s regular daily lives.
WHEN – the images would be taken during late afternoon, and as it is late autumn, this is the time of day when the sun hits from quite a low angle.
WHERE -the images would be taken all around st.helier.
WHY – to document the different types of people that we encounter in our everyday lives, from young to old, rich and poor, we would capture everyone.
HOW – I used my regular DSLR camera for this photoshoot, taking advantage of the natural, bright lighting during that day.
MOST SUCCESFUL IMAGE:
TECHNICAL –
As street photography means capturing images of people on the street going about their daily activities, I was forced to use quite a fast shutter speed. Many of the people I captured were moving quickly so the images were prone to motion blur. The lighting during that time of day was also quite direct p, often glaring into the lense and creating overexposed images, therefore to combat this I used a sun hood. In terms of aperature, I switched the f stop depending on the environment I was in. I used a higher f stop for when I was inside the market to increase the amount of light entering the camera and used a smaller f stop when in natural lighting was present.
VISUAL –
Firstly the colors in this image are very monotone, with the suit of the man and the surrounding environment being a cool grey. The bright yellow tie the man is wearing provides a very distinct focal point to which the eye is immediately drawn to. Furthermore, the central positioning of the man in the foreground means that he is the subject to stand out the most. Although I was attempting to capture people going about their everyday business, the subject in the image made direct eye contact with the camera. This instead of being a bystanders perspective, has become more personal, as the man is now making a direct connection with the viewer. The simple suit that the man is wearing works well to draw most, if not all the attention to the tie and the face of the man ,accentuating the eye contact he is making with the camera and the viewer. The repeating pattern on the ground is disturbed by the presence of the man. The horizontal lines going across the ground are opposed by the straight stature of the man. The light in this image is very well balanced, with the highlights and shadows working together to create a well lit image.
CONCEPTUAL/CONTEXTUAL-
Street photography is a way of walking through a space while being constantly aware of momentary changes in light. It is a discipline and constant awareness of how one can arrange and frame compositional elements in advance of a yet-to-be-seen sequence of events that may or may not happen: for example, when out seeking images, some photographers prefer the shady side of the street and will walk along a curb to utilize the vanishing perspective lines of the sidewalk merging with the adjacent buildings.
Street photography is about being open to the endless possibility of what might make an interesting photograph; arguing couples, balletic pedestrian movement, uncanny and witty juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated subject matter. Street photography is about spontaneity: the choreography of synchronizing an impulsive emotional or cerebral response that may transpire over the course of milliseconds with making a photographic exposure. And street photography is so often about not knowing what a good photograph will look like, yet trusting the desire and impulse to pick up the camera, frame the scene, and rely upon intuition to recognize the moment where form and content are at an apex.
RULE OF THIRDS:
This image also follows the rule of thirds. When the image is split into 3 separate segments, the man ends up being in the center segment. This is significant as this means that he becomes the focal point of the image is the man, even more notably, when the same segment is cut again into 3 parts, the bright and notable yellow tie of the man is central in the image.
There are many different types of lighting that create many different types of images and can cause different feelings towards an image. These include:
Intensity of the light
Direction of the light
Temperature of the light and white balance
Using reflectors (silver / gold)
Studio lighting
Natural lighting
Flat light:
Flat light is very different from soft and hard light, flat lighting causes the minimum contrasts in an image/scene.This means there is pretty much no significant contrast between the highlights and shadows of that particular image.
Split light:
Split lighting is simply the use of one light angled at 90 degrees from the subject you are photographing and placed a bit higher that their eye level. Leaving one half of the face exposed to the light and other in shadow.
Back light:
Back lighting is basically the main light shining in from behind the subject, pretty much so that the back light is some what facing onward towards the camera.
Natural lighting:
Natural lighting is the most basic type of lighting and refers to mainly light produced from the sun. In other words ambient light (meaning the available light in an environment) can be considered as natural light as it is photographer’s lighting equipment. This usually indicates natural lighting from outside that lights up a room through a window. There are three different types of natural lighting they include:
Intensity of light
Direction of light
Temperature of the light
Studio lighting:
Studio light is essential for most photographers and allows photographers to create natural lighting effects in a variety of situations that the photographer controls. This helps us change and alter things:
Filter lighting
Distance from subject to create hard / soft light
Angles and directions
reflectors and diffuses
By using studio lighting it allows a large range of equipment to be used, for example, soft-boxes, umbrella lights, spot lights and floodlights.
Why use this particular lighting?
Studio lighting allows the photographer to have full control of the image being created, and can help us imitate almost all types of lighting with the right equipment.
Flash:
Flash units offer a range of possibilities in both low and high lighting scenarios:
fill-in flash flash “bouncing”
TTL / speedlight flash
remote / infra-red flash (studio lighting)
fast + slow synch flash
light painting c/w slow shutter speeds
What is the difference between 1-2-3 point lighting and what does each technique provide?
Point lightning 1:
Point lighting is the most common and can sometimes be accidental for example when taking a photos outside with the sun shinning- this is a prime example of one point light this can be proven to mainly natural images/light. However one point lighting could lead to a rather dramatic image being produced, with the light being focused on one section/area/or the whole subject.
Point lightning 2:
Although not as popular 2 point lighting can also be proved to be extremely beneficial as the lighting allows the main subject to stand out much more, creating a stronger 3D image as the two point lighting creates much stronger shadows leading to more dimensional angles throughout.
Point lightning 3:
The goal of three point lighting is to create the illusion of a three-dimensional subject in a two-dimensional image. whilst removing background shadow produced by the subject/ clashing lights. this is proven an extremely popular technique commonly used.
Natural light is like which comes from the sun. In most cases natural light is used to take a range of photos. However, there are different types of natural light and in order to capture a good image you have to take into consideration..
The intensity of the light
The direction of the light
The temperature of the light and white balance
If u]you should use reflectors
High key/ low key lighting
Front/ side/ back lighting
Shadows/ silhouettes
Example of Natural lighting.. (NOT MY IMAGES)
Case study (not my image)
When first looking at this image, i was immediately drawn into the smiling girl who is directly looking into the camera lense. The blurred greenery around the model is implying that this little girl is in a park and could of just been playing. By putting both together, the reason that the girl is smiling could be that she is enjoying where she is. The photographer has used a narrow depth of field so that all the focus is on the girl which leaves the girls background story of her smiling open for debate. The image is perfectly focused which means a fast shutter speed has been used in order to take the image. The natural light source is found to be on the left hand side of the image which we can tell from the shadowing on the girls right hand side of the face which could have been fixed with a reflector to get an even amount of sunlight on the face. From this case study i have learnt that in using a reflector will be very helpful in order to decrease the chance of shadowing on the models face. I have also noticed that a good outdoor portrait should be in colour.
Natural Lighting photo shoot (contact sheets)
Best outcomes
These portrait photos were taken in ‘natural’ sunlight, either that being outside or directly in front of a window. I used a reflector when needed which decreased the shadowing on the models face.
Technical response
When taking this natural lighting portrait I used the manual focus setting so I was able to adjust the ISO setting to 300 and the shutter speed to 1/250 so my image didn’t turn out under or over exposed. I used the ‘daylight’ white balance due to being in an outdoor location, this setting also ensured the picture had the right colouring.
Technical response
When taking both of these portrait images I used the manual focus setting on my camera so that I could adjust the ISO setting to 400 and the shutter speed to 1/250 to ensure that the images weren’t too under or over exposed. I also used the ‘daylight’ white balance setting so that the colour balance was correct. This image was also taken inside however directly in front of a very large window which let in a lot of daylight.
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.
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.
The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed. Where it is common in studio portraiture and even in location candid photography to shoot using a shallow depth of field, thereby throwing the background out of focus, the background in environmental portraiture is an integral part of the image. Indeed, small apertures and great depth of field are commonly used in this type of photography.
Here are some examples of environmental portraits.
Flash is a very good technique to use when taking portraits as it helps to add more light to the picture and it can be used in both light and dark locations.
Types of flash
Bounce flash– This is when you point the flash in a different direction, rather than directly at your subject, in order for the light to soften before it hits your subject. It’s typically bounced at an angle, at something like a wall or a ceiling.
Fill-in flash– This is a technique that’s used to brighten up shadowed areas. This is usually used when the background is a lot brighter that the actual subject, and using this will make your subject appear well lit and not underexposed compared to the background.
Speed light flash -This is also known as a hot shoe flash. This is a flash that is inserted onto the top part of the camera and is triggered then the cameras shutter takes an image.
Contact sheets
Best Outcomes
Technical analysis
This image was taken on a Canon EOS 1300 D with a standard lens. The camera setting was on portrait mode with a white balance of ‘flash’. The shutter speed for this image was on 1/250.
Visual analysis
We can see that this image has been taken at night due to the dark backgrounds. The flash has allowed for the models face to be lit up as well as the surrounding of the trees.
My favourite image edit:
