Environmental portraits:
They are portraits taken in the subject’s usual environment, such as their workplace, and will typically highlight the subject’s life and surroundings. 

A good environmental portrait can tell a strong story of the persons subject. Their immediate natural surroundings will give the viewer insight into who the person is, what they do and who they are. The location and person should tie together in a meaningful way. They can be used to highlight certain occupations or issues in society , for example homelessness.

Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman was born March 3rd, 1918 in New York. He was raised and went to school in Atlanta and Miami. He specialized  in portraits of well-known people posed in settings associated with their work. This approach, is called environmental portraiture.
He began his career in photography in 1938 where he worked at a chain of portrait and immediately started working in abstract an documentary photographer. He opened his own portrait studio in 1946. Newman saw photography as a way to express himself,k reflecting him and his fascination for people.

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I have chosen this image as my final image as I feel it shows the most about the man and his job. The man is stood tall and proudly infant of all the meats clearly showing he is a butcher. He is wearing an apron and has a big smile on his face indicting he is proud of his working environment. The big expression on his face makes the viewers feel happy and makes us feel as if he loves his job and is proud.

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To create a diamond cameo I narrowed my images from my shoot down to 4 images , including different angles. I then went into photoshop and opened up all 4 images. On all images I selected the  Elliptical Marquee Tool to create the oval shape of the images. I then copy and pasted the oval shaped images onto a blank white document on photoshop and cropped and moved the images around to create the finishing product.

For my next photo shoot I will be playing around with the colour of the studio lighting , making strong shadows and creating detailed portraits. I will be asking my model to pose with their hands and where to direct their face. My camera set up is the following….

Camera settings (continuous lighting)
Tripod: recommended to avoid camera shake
Manual exposure mode
White balance: tungsten light (3200K)
ISO: 400-1600 – depending on how many light sources
Exposure: Manual 1/60-1/125 shutter-speed > f/4-f/8 aperture
– check settings before shooting
Focal lenght: 50mm portrait lens

Studio Set Up –

Contact Sheet…..

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History –

The invention of photography came around from a guy named Louis Daguerre, who first introduced the concept in 1839. That same year, Robert Cornelius produced what’s considered the first photographic self-portrait. Portrait studios started to become more popular in the next year. This was used to identify someone’s self in ID cards for upper class people. Or studios were used to create books to log in photos of wealthy locals in a particular country. Here is some examples of early portraiture…..

What Is Portrait Photography? –

Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses. This captures different facial expressions which indicates on a mood that the person is in the photo. The use of colours effects this, for example – The use of red indicates anger or love. Portraits can be used to show someone’s personality such as what they wear or what makeup they have on. Backdrops/scenery suggests what the models life is based upon or simply to make the photograph more effective. Here is an example of a more modern portrait photographer…

David Bailey

David is a British Portrait Photographer who was born in 1939 (age 81). He is known for his advertising, celebrity, and fashion photographs. Having been interested from his youth in painting and photography, in 1959 he apprenticed at the John French Studio, where he became involved in fashion photography.

Mood Board –

Analysis –

This Portrait above of Jude Law taken in 2004 is a studio portrait photograph. We can indicate that this photo was taken in a studio as for the backdrop – a white infinity backdrop. This is a long white thick paper like material which has a curve when reaching the floor. This creates the curve which on a camera looks like a white setting with no ending or any corners ect. This photo , edited in black and white, has a quite harsh artificial light coming from the left side of his face. This contrasts with the dark shadow formed on the right side of his face. The colour balance between black and white is equal as for the black blazer being one type of shade as well as the shirt being on type of shade of white. This is known as a dull image for any colour captured. The portrait is symmetrical as for the face and body facing the camera straight on. As for Jude’s eyes, they give off a deep gaze directly into the camera. No emotion seems to be shown from his facial expression. The cigarette suggests more of a reckless personality to viewers.

Photoshoot 1

Studio Set Up –

Camera Settings –

(flash lighting)
Tripod: optional
Use transmitter on hotshoe
White balance: daylight (5000K)
ISO: 100
Exposure: Manual 1/125 shutter-speed > f/16 aperture
– check settings before shooting
Focal lenght: 105mm portrait lens

Contact Sheet…

My Best Portraits –

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Here , above is one of my images that I have related to David Bailey’s work as for the strong contrast between the light facial features and the shadow formed on the left side of the face. To capture a more sophisticated image , using a more of a harsh key light to bring out a more white colour on the right would link to David’s work better.

A studio portrait is a large photograph for which the sitter is posed, typically taken in the photographer’s studio.

Mind map

Photographer

Jocelyne Moreau

Vulnerability and trust are essential aspects of the relationship the model and I have during a photography portrait session. The model literally needs to expose him or herself in front of the camera. To give something personal, he or she has to trust me. I try to create the greatest possible sense of safety, so that there is an exchange of energy; a bond or circle between the subject and myself – an absolute must for a successful photograph.

Image analysis

Photo-shoot Action Plan

Contact Sheets

Final Outcomes

A diamond cameo is a format of displaying head shots. One photographer who commonly presents their work in a diamond cameos is Henry Mullins, a Jersey photographer who photographed over 9,000 portraits of islanders from 1852 to 1873 at a time when the population was around 55.000. The record we have of his work comes through his albums, where citizens are displayed in a social hierarchy. The arrangement of Mullins’ portraits of ‘who’s who’ in 19th century Jersey are highly politicised.

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My take on diamond cameos

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In these head shots, I used 2 soft boxes on flash heads to give the photos a softer lighting, this also helped eliminate shadows as the large soft boxes spread out the direction of the flash. I replicated Mullins use of angles and how they’re presented in the diamond.

Using continuous lights and flash lights for 3 photo shoots;

Photoshoot 1– different lights- soft and hard

Photoshoot 2– different face expressions and moods on model.

Photoshoot 3– taking really close headshots so all you can see is the face and a small part above the shoulders.

Taking inspiration from; Henry Mullins is one of the most prolific photographers represented in the Societe Jersiase Photo-Archive, producing over 9,000 portraits of islanders from 1852 to 1873 at a time when the population was around 55.000. The record we have of his work comes through his albums, in which he placed his clients in a social hierarchy.

CONTACT SHEETS-

For all my photos I used two point lighting- flash heads in this case. Every time I pressed the camera the flash lights would go off. I took the photos in the dark so that when the flash comes on the lighting would be very bright creating no shadows on the face.

Diamond cameo background-

The Patent Diamond Cameo photograph was registered by F.R. Window of London in 1864. Four small oval portraits (1″ x ³/₄“) were placed on a carte de visite in the shape of a diamond, each portrait being of the same person photographed in a different position. A special camera made by Dallmeyer was used in which the one glass negative was moved to a new position in the back of camera after each portrait had been taken, and when the paper print had been pasted on the card a special press was used to punch the four portraits up into a convex cameo shape

Taking inspiration from Henry Mullins-

Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. Initially he was in partnership with a Mr Millward, about whom very little is known. By the following year he was working alone and he continued to work out of the same studio for another 26 years.

Using photoshop to create a diamond cameo;

Using two different images and adding an old paper effect-

Procedure– I cut out oval shaped sections of my images and copied them over to a ‘New’ layer. I then flipped one image horizontally and afterwards I took an ‘old paper effect’ image from google and pasted it on top of my diamond photos. Once it was pasted in, I over-layed the image so that it creates a subtle effect as the original old diamond photos.