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AO1 Develop Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Homework, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Portraits

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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:

 

Contact sheet
Contact sheet

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:

 

Driving
Doing work

 

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.

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

Environmental Portraiture – Post 1 (What is Environmental Portraiture)

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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/

 

Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Portraits – Class Shoot

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Environmental Portraits

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.

Here are some examples of environmental portraits:

This is a small gallery of photos I took whilst going around the school to find some people in their environments. Some were harder than others to photograph as there was no natural lighting or it was too exposed but overall I think a few photos turned out quite well after adjusting camera settings or how the people in the pictures were posing e.g if they made eye contact or not and their positioning.

A Few Successful Photos:

   I edited a few of them to be darker because the photo was too exposed and edited others to be cooler toned rather than yellow toned.

Unit 2 Portrait

Alfried Krupp – Arnold Newman

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Alfried Krupp – Arnold Newman

Saturday, July 6, 1963: Portrait of Alfried Krupp, Essen, Germany.

“By exaggerating or minimizing his subjects’ surroundings, [Arnold Newman] crafted impressionistic gems… that suggested his sitters’ personalities” wrote TIME magazine.

Above is an iconic environmental portrait  taken by Arnold Newman, (a Jewish photographer) in 1963. Alfried Krupp was a Nazi war criminal notorious for allegedly using slave labor in his factories (which can be seen in the background of this image.) Krupp contacted the famous Newman for a portrait in 1963. After finding out that Newman was a Jew, Krupp refused to let him make the photograph.

Newman insisted to have Krupp look at his portfolio before making a final decision and after seeing Newman’s portfolio Krupp accepted. So on July 6, 1963, the industrialist and the auteur went into a derelict factory in Essen which belonged to Krupp, where Newman decided to make Krupp look as evil as possible under the eerie demonic lighting of the factory.

This portrait was taken using a wide angle lens, there is a strong sense of perspective, the lighting is almost demonic with green tinge which make the subject appear very sinister. Krupp is presented as being very smug and almost proud of his actions, this is seen through his posing: his hands being placed together and his smile, his position of being above and in front of the factory also suggests this.

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 2 Portrait

4. Street Photography

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Street photography is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places.

Street Photography is a sub-genre of photojournalism…

Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. The concept of the “flaneur” or people watcher is often referred to…as is the candid portrait.
Henri Cartier-Bresson

Blog Post 1 : Define, describe and explain street photography.

And what is a candid photograph?

Include images, moodboards, hyperlinks to relevant articles and URLs and add a video or two on street photography…

  • Add quotes about street photography
  • add THRESHOLD CONCEPT # 7

Blog Post 2 :

Henri Cartier – Bresson and

“The Decisive Moment”

Create a blog post / case study about HenriCartier-Bresson that includes…

  • Brief biography
  • Mood-board of key images
  • Select one image and apply Technical | Visual | Contextual | Conceptual analysis
  • His contribution to MAGNUM Photo Agency
  • Add any other relevant research / insights

Then Compare and Contrast Cartier- Bresson to one (or more) of the following street photographers…

  • William Klein
  • Diane Arbus
  • Vivian Maier
  • Robert Frank
  • Bruce Gilden
  • Martin Parr
  • Saul Leiter
  • William Eggleston
  • Gordon Parks
  • John Bulmer
  • Trent Parke
  • Garry Winogrand
  • Raghubir Singh
  • Lee Friedlander
  • Joel Meyerowitz
  • Tony Ray-Jones
  • Bill Owens

Discuss in detail the differences / similarities / intentions / outcomes and of course the photographer’s technical and visual approach.

Bill Owens
William Klein

Technique : Taking street photographs

  • Be more aggressive
  • Get more involved (talk to people)
  • Stay with the subject matter (be patient)
  • Take simpler pictures
  • See if everything in background relates to subject matter
  • Vary compositions and angles more
  • Be more aware of composition
  • Don’t take boring pictures!
  • Get in closer (use 50mm lens or less)
  • Watch camera shake (shoot 250 sec or above)
  • Don’t shoot too much!!!
  • Not all eye level : try holding the camera at waist level
  • No middle distance

Article on Trent Parke’s Techniques

CLICK HERE

Article On Japanese Street Photography below

https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/tokyo-street-photographer-mikiko-hara/

Bruce Gilden

 

‘What do artists do all day?’ – Dougie Wallace, Featured on BBC. from Wren Agency on Vimeo.

Think | Answer | Discuss

  • What are you expecting to see / encounter on your photo-shoot?
  • How do you think you will deal / cope with your expectations?
  • Can you devise a photo-shoot plan for street photography?
  • What would include / exclude in your plan?

Suitable locations to position yourself…

  • airport
  • school
  • bus station
  • cafe
  • restaurant
  • street corners
  • road crossings
  • shopping centres
  • supermarkets
  • markets
  • harbour terminal
  • school

 

 

 

 

AO1 Develop Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Portraits – Action Plan

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Who:  I decided that I will take images of shopkeepers at their counters at various shops/ stalls.

Where: I will be visiting the market in town as well as the fish market.

Why: I believe that the best environmental portraits show the subjects livelihood and small factors in these images can show how they feel about their jobs and lives as a whole. I also believe that the lighting in these areas will create some good opportunities for photos, especially the fluorescent lighting in the fish market, the lighting is a very cold tone there and will help compliment pink skin tones.

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

Environmental Portraits – image analysis

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Image result for arnold newman alfred krupp

Emotional

This portrait provides me with a sense of intimidation and lack of authority. Yet I do think it is a very impressive photo with a message behind it. I like the contrast between the dark area at the front and the light area at the back, which adds great amount of depth. although the photo is busy, I can’t get away from the fact that the man (Krupp) is the focal point, his stern looking face is hard to move away from.

Visual

There is a clear foreground and background which are emphasized by the change in light. In the foreground there is a Caucasian man aged around 65, wearing a suit, with his hands joint together and his chins resting on top, he has little to no emotion on his face, the dark areas around his eyes create a demonic silhouette. In the background it’s light which is flooding in via the windows on the ceiling, below there are trains of different colours and sizes. The warehouse behind him seems eerily quiet and dingy, there doesn’t seem to be an areas of interested in terms of beauty.

Technical

Their is a clear leading eye in this photo, from the man your eye is lead by the symmetry of the windows, this also represents pattern and order within the photo, this creates a large depth of field. The exposure is very well down and is correctly balanced between the dark and light areas. In the background Newman has used natural lighting, whereas to highlight Krupp’s face it appears he has used natural lighting this is indicated by the shadowing on some parts and glowing light on other parts of him, his light may have occurred via an office lamp. Krupp’s direct eye contact with the camera has a big impact making it much more personal and its as if hes staring you down creating more and more intimidation.

Conceptual

The photo was taken by Arnold Newman, a Jewish photographer in 1963. Alfred Krupp was hesitant at first to have his photo taken by Newman but he eventually came round to the idea and thus this photo was taken. Krupp in World War II held much power as he took over his fathers company which he then used as a place to assign Jewish prisoners at the time to work there under slave labour to create Nazi weapons. Krupp’s background story is clearly represented in the photo by Newman and the fact that he was Jewish emphasizes his intentions even further. He made Krupp to look like a demonic figure with the lighting, expression and body language to expose the injustice of the Jews and how much evil people in the time of the war exploited them and such horrific factories. As well as that the rule of thirds also create a sense of structure, which symbolises the the strict regime of the Nazi’s and how they locked up Jews in tight uniform concentration camps similar to how Krupp forced them to work in rows in his factories for hours on end.