HEAD SHOTS

Inspiration –

Henry Mullins was a profile picture photographer who producing over 9,000 portrait photos of islanders in Jersey between the time of 1852 – 1873. In this time period, the population of islanders was 55,000. He had a base studio known as the Royal Saloon at 7 Royal Square in Jersey where he would photograph Jersey political elite, mercantile families, military officers and professional classes. His portraits were printed in albums using egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper. To create the head shot he desired to get he would first take a portrait photo of someones feet/knees and above. Then he would simply cut around the body to create a photo of shoulders and above. These photos were placed together (mainly in a group of four different head shots) by the same person to create a diamond cameo …….

Portrait of Philip Baudains, Writer, Advocate, Constable and Deputy of St Helier. The four headshots are called a diamond with a cameo…
Henry Mullins Album showing his arrangements of portraits presented as cartes de visite

As we can see Henry’s work is based upon upper class workers who seem to be wealthy locals from Jersey. They are photographed wearing their best uniform next to posh and expensive furniture to show off their wealthiness for their profile pictures. Here are some of my own diamond cameo’s….

My Best Portraits –

Studio Set Up –

The studio set up involved a tripod for the camera, two flash head lights to cancel out the shadow that would appear in the background as well as to capture good lighting of the face. A white infinity backdrop is hung behind the model for a blank background.

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