Portrait photography by definition is a photograph of a person or group of people that holds a meaning or shows their personality by use of lighting, background, props or poses.
Contemporary photography is very similar, except it focuses more on portraying our own modern values, challenges, and world views of this era. The image on the bottom left below is a contemporary portrait as it breaks the traditional mould of portraits through the use of editing software, most likely Photoshop.
Here I have demonstrated the wide variety of styles of portraiture and the range of techniques one could use to achieve a certain goal, as well as showing that using programs such as Photoshop can help to achieve a photographer’s final vision.
Here is a link to a website that explains some of the basics to think about when starting portrait photography:
After having finished displaying them, I believe that my final images were the correct ones to have chosen and mounted. They complemented each other while also contrasting and showing the range of my capabilities as a photographer and editor. Before mounting the images I felt that I preferred the pair in colour, but after seeing them finalised and in the window mount, I actually feel like I prefer the black and white pair, as they go better with the window mount card, but I do also think that the pair in colour are successful also.
I feel that the execution of my window mounts themselves could have gone better, but after the first one I feel like I improved significantly, as I knew where I had gone wrong and I was more confident with the equipment. If I were to do the project again, I would have printed the images off bigger to show more of the detail, but I do also believe that the large border of card helps to draw the onlooker’s eye in and only focus on the images themselves.
For inspiration during the urban landscape part of the project I used Robert Adams mainly, as his work in the ‘New Topographics’ exhibition was instrumental to my mindset when I went out on my photoshoots. His goal was to show the beauty that could be found in the mundane and ordinary scenes you could find in the modern world, and I used those beliefs to inspire my own work, during the shoots that provided all of my final images.
first pair of final images displayed using the window mount technique
my second pair of final images displayed using a window mount
I decided to pick my personal favourite images out of several shoots to compile a large-ish group of images, from which I can then select my final 2-4 to print and mount.
I took images from my romantic landscape, natural landscape, New Topographics, and urban landscape photoshoots, then I decided to make a series of contact sheets to properly visualise all these images and refine them down to my final selection.
I already knew that I wanted to have two sets of two A4 images, within which the two images had a similar aesthetic and complemented each other. From there, I studied the contact sheet and tried to narrow down any outliers or images that I just didn’t particularly feel stuck with my vision.
Here I paired the remaining images together with the other images I felt complemented them the best, and then I had to decide which two pairs to select for the final printing. At this point I decided that I would use two window mounts to display these images, because this method would showcase them best next to each other.
Finally I felt that the top and bottom pairs of images best went with each other, as they both represented different aspects of urban landscape, which was my preferred part of this landscape project, as well as contrasting the other pair due to the fact that one pair is in black and white and the other in colour.
Final Images-
Evaluation-
The top two images are more of my own style rather than following another photographer’s work, and my overall intention was to keep the colours vibrant and show how everyday scenes can be seen differently, with a photographer’s eye. I used Photoshop to edit these images subtly and they turned out successful.
I chose the bottom pair of images because I felt that they were the best representations of the ‘New Topographics’ era of photography, particularly the style of Robert Adams, who I studied before going out on a photoshoot. I kept with his style when shooting, as I only shot scenes I felt were bleak and “banal” enough to show how beauty can be found within urbanisation, which was a clear theme of Adams’ work and the ‘New Topographics’ exhibition in general. I also used his work as a guide when editing, by keeping the sky partly grey and not completely over-exposed, by making the image black and white, and also by adjusting the contrast to increase it but also keep the essence of the image clear.
When editing this image I simply increased the saturation of the blue background as well as adjusting the levels and contrast to make the straight lines and angles of the black and white building stand out more in the foreground against the simple blue background.
I intended to keep the security camera as the main focus of the image but I didn’t want the image to become boring and grey, so I over-saturated the green paint stripes in the background and also the small red light at the bottom of the image. This gave an otherwise grey-tinted image some pops of colour and made it seem more modern and urban.
This turned out to be my favourite image as I love the composition and placing of the bins and graffiti in the centre. I also edited the picture so that the blue of the doors became more vibrant and bright, and I also made the orange of the wall a little more vibrant as well, as blue and orange are contrasting colours.
This is quite possibly my second favourite picture from this shoot as I feel that it really stays within the theme of urban landscape, as it takes a banal and everyday sight, cigarettes left on the ground, and finds the beauty in this image. I adjusted the levels of this image to increase the highlights in the water’s reflection, as well as increase the yellow-orange colours to stand out more vibrant against the black tarmac.
Analysis-
Overall I feel that the first four images all fit well within the theme and explored aspects of urban landscape photography, as well as working well with each other and having similar colour palettes and lighting. However, the last image finished by feeling anomalous and not very cohesive with the rest of my final images. This is why I have decided to exclude it from my final selection, reducing my image count from 5 to 4, but I have shown it and my brief analysis of it below, just to demonstrate why I did not include it.
With this picture I used photo filters on Photoshop to make the lamp’s light as yellow-tinted as possible while still keeping the colours of the rest of the image. I feel that this also contributed to the grain of the image, which was unintended but I believe it works well.
I liked the colour contrast and simplicity of this image, with the modern straight lines and right angles jutting out against the clear and bright blue sky in the background.
I felt that this image fit in very well with the urban theme and I especially liked the lime green stripes of colour contrasting against all the black, grey and white.
This is quite possibly one of my favourite images, I really like the composition and the placement of the graffiti just above the bins in the centre of the image and the blocks of different colours around.
I like how I managed to capture the detail of the cigarettes in the puddle, and also how the water highlights the rough texture of the tarmac underneath.
This image was chosen due to the particularly saturated yellow lighting and how it adds interest to the image.
I liked the lettering across the foreground of this image, additionally the lone yellow streetlight in the background, almost like a star of some sort.
In the end I decided not to use the image of the street sign up close, IMG_1768, as I felt it did not fit within the overall theme of the rest of the shoot, even though I did like it as an image.
Locations: building sites, back streets, look for debris on floor and litter, puddles/reflective surfaces
Lighting: either dark and moody, or at sunset so the light is saturated. Maybe at night? Streetlamps?
Techniques: play w/ depth of field and focus, exposure for dramatic lighting changes, high/low saturation of colour
Concept: show dereliction/abandonment of industrial zones, how people interact w/ them (or don’t), some images of St Helier from above to show a bird’s eye perspective and how little meaning it all has.
Keld Helmer-Petersen (1920-2013) was a Danish photographer who became internationally known and recognised for his abstract black and white photography. He grew up in Copenhagen and began his career in photography in 1938, later experimenting with the contrast in industrial areas and architectural constructions that he later became acclaimed for. He was inspired by both German and American Modernist photography of the time, both of which saw architecture as a structural device and the camera lens as a way of capturing the rapid changes in society.
His most well-known images and the style that he is credited for uses a very high contrast to remove any of the mid tones and transform the image to become almost unidentifiable as the object or scene that it captured. His images most often use strong lines and bold shapes to make for an interesting photograph, and for the most part, they were taken in highly industrial zones in urbanised cities.
He first made his name in photography with his book 122 Colour Photographs in 1948, then went on to publish more, Frameworks: Photographs, 1950-1990 and Keld Helmer-Petersen: Photographs 1941-1995. Whilst he was very well known for his later black and white photgraphs, he actually began to achieve fame through the colour images in his first book, which stayed with the same themes of urbanism, minimalism and the modern world, but often focused more on specific details of normal objects than the iconic high contrast images he produced later.
OWN IMAGES:
This is how to remove the midtones of an image using Photoshop.
There is also this ability to edit the specific levels using the threshold tool.
Robert Adams was born 8th May 1937 and is an iconic American photographer whose work mainly focused on the rapidly changing American West during the mid-1970s. He first became known through his book, The New West (1974), and through his participation in the urban landscape exhibition The New Topographics in 1975.
This image captures the spirit of Adams’ style very well, as it demonstrates how normally ugly or unseen scenes of everyday life can be transformed into art and given meaning. It shows his well-known use of black and white and high contrast, as well as the sky not being entirely whited out.
I particularly like this image as it combines two ideas, that of heaven and religious beauty and that of the dull and simple human world. I especially like Adams’ use of contrast to ensure that the small clouds in the background stay visible and not completely faded into the sky
It was fairly rare to see a night-time image in the New Topographics exhibition which is why this image in particular stands out. It stays with the theme of using contrast to keep the sky in focus and the image itself focuses on a familiar scene for Americans: a fair. I very much like how the electric lights are the brightest light sources in the image as well.
This image portrays how many Western Americans lived in that era, and it shows the average city sprawling across the plains, which makes it seem interesting and brings beauty to the banal, which was the whole point of the New Topographics exhibition.
My Images-
I decided to try and keep with several recurring themes that I noticed during this study of Robert Adams and the New Topographics: keeping the sky and clouds defined and visible, black and white images, and using contrast but not too over-the-top.
I took a sample of images from my urban photography shoot that I felt would fit within the style showed from my research and chose which images to use for my final product from there.
From there I selected my final four images and edited them how I felt was appropriate and suited the image.
With this image I attempted to keep as much of the detail on the stone building as possible as I felt that it makes a nice difference to the plain and simple building directly next door. I also like the strong lines of this image brought on by the electric wires crossing above from the foreground to the background, I fell like they really draw the eye into the image.
To edit this image, I had to adjust the black and white levels to ensure the details of the balconies stayed in focus and that the structure of the image remained. I particularly like how the light highlights on the balcony rails showed up so nicely in black and white.
As you can see I kept the clouds in the background clearly visible and increased the contrast of black and white, but not overly so. This is one of my favourite images as I really like the composition and shape of the buildings, as well as how it turned out in black and white.
I quite liked the odd angle I took this image at, focusing more on the sky than on the house, and also how my editing caused the lights inside to become very bright, which makes the house feel inhabited. In fact it is not, it’s a building site currently, but I felt that the architecture felt very urban and stuck with the same style as the other images in the final selection.
Urban landscape photography is a development from traditional landscape photography where, instead of focusing on a natural landscape with minimal human impact, the photographer captures images of a town or city, showcasing the maximum of human impact. This can be done either from within the city itself, as a cityscape, or as a bird’s eye view from above.
It can be black and white or in full colour, depending on the photographer’s choice. Here are some examples of some more modern urban landscape photography:
“New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was an exhibition that used this new style of photography and completely altered the whole genre of landscape photography, not just in North America, but also in Europe and the rest of the world also. The show opened in 1975 in New York and remained open for the public to view until 1976.
It was curated by William Jenkins and featured the key photographers Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon, Frank Gohlke, Joe Deal, John Schott, Stephen Shore and Henry Wessel Jr. They photographed a series of images, normally of abandoned industrial buildings or town across the USA and Europe, with most photographers (except for Stephen Shore) shooting in black and white.
Examples from the New Topographics exhibition
They were attempting to find and showcase “the beauty in the banal”, how the modern landscape was rapidly changing and becoming more industrial and how this vast industrialization across the world contains its own type of beauty.
What I liked about this image were the trees in the foreground and the background, I felt that the staggered positioning gave the image depth and the impression that the onlooker is actually in the forest. To edit it I increased the green in the image to emphasise the natural setting and the complete lack of any human impact in this scene.
With this image, I wanted to increase the contrast between the completely natural and wild background and the straight lines of the concrete stairs in the foreground. Again, I increased the green hue and saturation of the image and I additionally adjusted the levels to change the darkness, specifically of the stairs and the tree trunks.
For this image I really liked the opposing lines in the two fields next to each other, I felt that it added texture to the image, along with the trees and the foggy and overcast sky. I really like the weather in this image as it added an air of mystery to the otherwise normal fields, and it provided a nice contrast against the constant green below, stopping it from becoming overwhelmingly green. I especially liked how the low clouds obscure the horizon line just a little bit in this image.
This image is one of my favourites on this shoot due to the out-of-focus leaves hanging down from above and obscuring the view slightly. I feel like this adds to the view that the camera lens is representing the human gaze , and adds interest to the image, which otherwise would have been mainly white and pale blue due to the overcast and foggy sky. When editing this image I increased the contrast between the dark bushes in the foreground and the clear and pale sky in the background, as well as making the bushes and the leaves above themselves darker, just enough to make the image seem moodier. I also increased the saturation of the greenery and the sea in the background.
