Arnold Newman

November 3, 2018 Kristin F Leave a comment

Arnold Newman was an american photographer that was born in 1918 and that died in 2006. Newman is often credited with being one of the first to experiment with environmental portraiture, in which the subject is put into a controlled setting to carefully show their life and their work. Newman was also a photography teacher.

Arnold Newman | Portrait of Alfred Krupp | 1963

Newman took this image in 1963. It is an image of Alfred Krupp. The image makes Alfred look menacing and intimidating. This is done due a few different things. Firstly, it is done through the pose and how Alfred is sitting. By having Alfred leaning forward slightly with his fingers interlocked and below his chin makes him seem very evil and as though he has power over you. Furthermore, contrast is used between the background and the foreground with a lot brighter colours in the background than the foreground. The fact that the darker part is in the foreground with Alfred makes the person viewing the image notice that he isn’t a very normal person, along with being quite ominous.

This portrait seems to have heavily used natural lighting. It seems to have used this kind of lighting to light up the background of the image. This is used to help create the contrast between the foreground and the background. From the light in the background you can tell that Newman wouldn’t have really been able to use a very low shutter speed as the background, especially at the top of the image would appear a lot brighter than it does. Other than using natural light, Newman likely would have used some sort of lamps to shine onto the sides of Alfred’s body. The use of these lamp would distinguish the outline of his suit instead of his body appearing a lot darker in colour. In this image, the colours in the foreground appear as though they have been altered to add even more contrast between the foreground and background, while the colours behind Alfred, in the background seem to be a lot less vibrant and instead are more bland and lighter. This may have been done to highlight the evil personality that Newman sees in Alfred.

This image shows a few different visual techniques. Firstly, Newman shows use of different tones throughout the image. This can be seen especially well in the foreground as the tone of the colours are a lot darker at the bottom rather than at the top. By using tone Newman has been able to show highlight a lot of detail in the texture of the metals in the foreground. Secondly, Newman has placed Alfred in an angle where repeating patterns are shown behind him, this can be seen with the natural light coming from the windows in the roof in the background and the natural light coming from the windows in the back wall. Thirdly, Newman has placed Alfred in front of a window. This window turns what could just be a flat surface, creates form in the image with a large 3D open space in the background.

Contextually, this image taken in 1963, created by Arnold Newman shows Alfred Krupp in front of a factory that he owned. When Alfred found out that Newman was Jewish he did not want him to take his portrait as he was a Nazi during the war. Though he did no longer want Arnold to take his picture, he eventually changed his mind and let him do it. The factory Alfred owned shown in the image behind him used slave labour from concentration camps to manufacture… . Due to these things that Newman found out about Alfred, he decided to try and take a portrait image of him acting evil, which is why he had him leaning forward with is fingers interlocked below his chin with a dark area around him in the foreground. Alfred was not happy with how Newman displayed him, though Newman was very happy and thought of it as him getting a small amount of revenge for the Jews.

Environmental Portraits

November 2, 2018 Leah B Leave a comment

ENVIRONMENTAL

/ɪnvʌɪrənˈmɛnt(ə)l,ɛnvʌɪrənˈmɛnt(ə)l/

adjective

1.

relating to the natural world and the impact of human activity on its condition.

PORTRAIT
/ˈpɔːtrət,ˈpɔːtreɪt/
noun

1.

a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, especially one depicting only the face or head and shoulders.

What do environmental portraits do?
– they give context to the subject you’re photographing
– they give points of interest to shots (something you need to watch as you don’t want to distract from your subject too much)
– they help your subject relax
– they often give the viewer of your shots real insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject

Unit 2 Portrait

Approaches To Portraiture Mood-Board

November 1, 2018 Aimee L Leave a comment

This is a mood-board displaying examples of different types of portraiture. Including: self portraits, low/high angle portraits, low/high contrast portraits, historic and futuristic portraits and candid/studio portraits.

AO3 Record Ideas

Rule Of Thirds

November 1, 2018 Lillie M Leave a comment

For some of my environmental portraits some were more successful than others and I can show this with the way that they fit into the rule of thirds.

Below shows one of my more successful images for environmental portraits you can see that the figure is towards the left-centre segments this fits well with the rule of thirds.

Below again shows one of my less successful images, the subject is directly in the centre of the photograph which isn’t as successful in the terms of the rule of thirds. The below image can be still seen as successful as an environmental portrait however it is let down in its strength with the rule of thirds.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Homework, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Portraits

November 1, 2018 Lillie M Leave a comment

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.

The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed. The details that convey the message from the surroundings can often be quite small and still be significant. The key seems to be in the symbolism expressed by various elements in the background; for instance, a baseball cap may not tell you much about your subject (unless he or she is a baseball player), but a chef’s hat gives you a lot more detail about who he is and what he does.

Jim Cornfield – ‘Telling a Story with Environmental Portraits’ – https://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/camera-technique/telling-a-story-with-environmental-portraiture/

Arnold Newman

“There are many things that are very false about photography when it is accepted without question. You must recognize and interpret it as you would any other art form, and then maybe it is a little more than real.” – Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman (1918-2006) was an American photographer known for his environmental portraits or artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life photographs.

Newman is often credited with being the first photographer to use so-called environmental portraiture, in which the photographer places the subject in a carefully controlled setting to capture the essence of the individual’s life and work. Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with representative visual elements showing their professions and personalities. A musician for instance might be photographed in their recording studio or on stage, a Senator or other politician in their office or a representative building. Using a large-format camera and tripod, he worked to record every detail of a scene.

The photograph below shows one of Arnold Newman’s works, we can see he has his subject clearly engaging with the camera and how they are surrounded by something that represents them and it has been clearly composed of how they are sitting and where they have been placed in the frame which is something I will aim to do in my own photoshoot with inspiration from Arnold Newman.

My Own Responses

For these photoshoots I went out and captured people in their working environments, this enabled me to have them surrounded by things that may represent their life and their work such as Arnold Newman did.

These are two contact sheet of my own experiments and photographs I have taken under the name of environmental portraits. I went out and photographed people in their work place or their environments, I had some people posed more naturally by having them carry on with what they were doing but also having them try look towards the camera slightly to engage with it there and some more unnatural by having them fully engage with the camera by getting them to look directly at the lens. Some photographs came out better than others as some are too over-exposed or under-exposed and others are not completely in focus however there were some photographs which I feel turned out successful and some which I feel would be good to experiment with with turning them black and white from being influenced by people such as Mary-Ellen Mark and Arnold Newman.

This shows how I began to sort through and pick out which photographs would work for experiments with things such as placing into black and white and as good photographs and which would not be so successful or useful.

Edits and Outcomes

For the editing of the photographs I kept it simple by only adjusting the photos into black and white or maybe adjusting the brightness to help with the transition into black and white such as Arnold Newman’s photographs were. I have chosen what I feel to be my 5 best outcomes of this photoshoot as it shows my subjects engaging with the camera and the photographs are clear and work well. Below is the edited and unedited versions of my photographs.

Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 2 Portrait

A brief History of Portraits

November 1, 2018 Lillie M Leave a comment

Historical Purpose of Portraits

A portrait is a representation and the showing of a particular person. A self portrait is a portrait done by the artist of them self.

Portraits can be dated back to the Ancient Egyptians from about 5,000 years ago where they began to be used and created.

Before photography was introduced, portraits were painted, sculpted or drawn as this was the only way to record the way that someone looked. Portraits were used to record people in history as well as represent someone’s wealth, status or beauty.

Historically, portrait paintings have primarily memorialized the rich and powerful. Over time, however, it became more common for middle-class patrons to commission portraits of their families and colleagues. Today, portraits are still commissioned by governments, corporations, groups, clubs, and individuals.

faiyum mummy portrait of a young man Munich

Renaissance Turn of Portraits

The Renaissance marked a turning point in the history of portraiture. Portraits—both painted and sculpted—were given an important role in Renaissance society and valued as objects, and as depictions of earthly success and status.

Godfrey Kneller | Samuel Sandy | 1720 Renaissance Era

1800’s Photography

The invention of photography can be credited to Louis Daguerre, who first introduced the concept to the French Academy of Sciences in 1839. That same year, Robert Cornelius produced what is considered the first photographic self-portrait.

In addition to portraits of famous people and family members, portrait photography became a way to preserve history. 90 Native American delegates visited Washington D.C. in 1857 to conduct treaty and trade negotiations. While they were there, they were photographed by Samuel Cohner and Julian Vannerson.

Camera’s For Everyone (1900 – 1984)

Photography became more common when the Eastman Kodak Company introduced the Kodak No. 1 camera in 1888. Kodak made photography easier for everyone by doing the developing and sending the reloaded camera and developed prints back to the customer. These cameras made photography more accessible to the general public. Their 1900 Brownie Box camera was the first mass market camera. The turn of the century also embraced photography as an art form.

Stieglitz and the Photo-Secession

This time period also introduced Alfred Stieglitz, one of the first people to become famous for making photography an art form. In 1902, he and a group of friends founded the Photo-Secession movement. This movement sought to make photography less commercial and more of an art form.

Alfred Stieglitz | Portrait of Miss N | 1903

Photojournalism and the picture story vs Documentary (long-form) photography

Photojournalism really started to take shape when photographers could easily transport cameras into war zones. The “Golden Age of Photojournalism” is often considered to be roughly the 1930s through the 1950s. It was made possible by the development of the compact commercial 35mm Lecia camera in 1925, and the first flash bulbs between 1927 and 1930, which allowed the journalist true flexibility in taking pictures.

Yet photojournalism is not just about war or photographers working the beat for a local newspaper. It’s much more than that. Photojournalism tells a story and it often does so in a single photograph. They evoke a feeling, whether its astonishment, empathy, sadness, or joy.

That is the mark of photojournalism; to capture that single moment in time and give viewers the sense that they’re part of it.

Documentary Photography

The turn of the century continued to use portrait photography for documentary uses. In 1906 Lewis Hine was hired to document the conditions that child labor workers had to deal with in different factories throughout the U.S. His photographs were used to help pass child labor reforms, like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which banned oppressive child labor.

In 1914, the U.S. State Department began requiring photographs on all passports.

The stock market crash in 1929 led to the next round of documentary portraiture. In 1935, photographers were hired to document what was going on in the farmlands of America. The Resettlement Administration, which later became the Farm Security Administration, wanted to see through photographs how the farmers were living. The New Deal offered several programs for artists and photographers, such as the Works Progress Administration. People hired for the WPA documented life throughout America. One famous WPA photographer was Dorothea Lange, who profiled the plight of farmers in America.

‘Migrant Mother’ by Dorothea Lange, 1936

AO1 Develop Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Photography

November 1, 2018 Kristin F 1 Comment

Environmental photography is a type of portraiture that requires people to be in an environment that they’re used to or work in. Its used to illuminate the life of the person.

This is a selection of some of my favorite images that I have taken for environmental photography. A lot of the images turned out very dark so if I were to edit them I would make them a brighter tone.

This is one of my favorite images I have taken. This image displays the person in one of their usual work environments in an ICT department in a school. It captures her in a neutral way and shows some parts of what she does such as the security camera footage seen at the right hand side of the image. I have increased the brightness in this image because it came out too dark due to the lighting in the room being very dim.

This image shows the person organizing books in a library in a school. It captures some of the things she does while working at the school which can be seen from the hand placement. I have also edited this image to increase the exposure and the brightness so that the person in the foreground stands out more and isn’t completely in the shade.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 2 Portrait

Environmental Portrait – Arnold Newman

October 31, 2018 Nathan H Leave a comment

Environmental Photography Definition – “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”

Arnold Newman was born in New York in 1918. At university Newman studied art, due to the fact he was granted a scholoship at the university of Miami. Newman started his careers as a photographer in 1938, where he started to explore abstract and documentary photography. In 1941 his work was ‘discovered’ and he was given a exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art. It is said around this time Newman pioneered environmental photograph, which presents a new idea/concept to other photographers at this time. During his career as a photographer he has gained multiple awards including nine honorary doctorates.

In this photograph which Newman has captured we can see an old man located in the centre of the frame. He looks as if he is standing in-front of an easel, suggesting that he is a painter and a very creative man. The main focus point of the image is the man (the subject) who is directly looking straight at the lens of the camera, which is implying that he may be proud of his job. In addition the facial expression on the mans face is plain and his body posture is slouched, which can inform us that he could be bored. My eyes are first lead to the subject of the image, they then move around to the different objects in the room. The frame of this photograph is not busy making it easier on the eye, and allows us to gain a better understanding of what life was like for this man. The image is taken at a straight on angle and only shows half of the mans body. The background shows a plain wall with a painting on it, in the top right, which may be showcasing work he has previously done, thus he could be in his place of work. The formal elements found in this image is value and light, which is shown through the different tonal areas due to the picture being presented in black and white, and there is a sense of depth due to a large depth of field being used. It also stands to reason that the aperture is low, which also allows the whole frame to be in focus. The shutter speed seems to be very quick as no ‘intended’ blur can be seen. Moreover, the ISO is low as there is no noise, because of lighting, in this photograph. The lighting which is used in this image is likely to be artificial lighting as the man is located in doors, inside a room or a studio. The lighting is quite cold which makes us grasp a better understanding of the type of environment the man is in. The fact the image is black and white and the photographer was alive during the 1900’s suggests that it was at a time when the men had to work and provide for their partner, thus presenting his gender role. However, the fact he is an artist implies that he was a higher class otherwise he would be working in a factory. Multiple ideas can be drawn upon from this image, making Newman’s attempt at environmental photography successful.

Planning

In these photographs I will be using two models in their natural environment, their home. I will capture them doing normal tasks that they would do. However, in order to show gender roles, like Newman did, I will be making stereotypical judgements of having the woman model do the cooking and knitting and my male model working in an office, with his car and cleaning a fire place. The photographs will be taken during the morning and I will be using natural lighting with an occasional use of artificial lighting. In order to make the final outcomes successful I will be editing them black and white. I will be use a manual camera setting allowing me to have full control of the focus, shutter speed, ISO and white balance.

Contact Sheets

Edits

For these edits I decided to keep things simple, like Newman did. I wanted to be able to show a clear contrast of tonal regions in the photograph and make the images seem like they have been taken at the same time period as Newman’s images. I simply levelled all the images and adjusted the curves until I was pleased with the outcome. I then desaturated my images, turning them black and white giving them this effect.

I am very happy with my final outcomes from this photoshoot. It clearly shows environmental photography as it meets the criteria of: having the model looking directly into the camera lens, having a neutral expression on their face and having something in the background to show the context of the image. These photographs also clearly show gender role stereotypes through the activities my subjects are doing. To further expand this shoot I would look at capturing the youth to show how times have changes, breaking the gender role stereotypes. I would also look at presenting some of these images in colour.