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I began by taking normal portrait headshots: one of the right side of the face, one of the left, one of slightly below and one straight on.

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On photoshop, I began by selecting the Elliptical Marquee Tool, held left click and dragged from approximately where I drew on the blue X for an even and symmetrical cut (shown on image 1). I then pasted this cut-out onto a new, plain white document and sized it down – I repeated this step for all four images and placed them in a diamond shape (as seen in the examples right at the top). One by one I changed eash of the images to black and white and changed the colour balance levels to ‘45,0,-30’ as seen in image 2. This was to create a vintage-like tone. Lastly, I dropped an inner shadow with a distance of 20 and a size of 60 as shown in Image 3. This was to create a sense of depth.

Studio portraiture is an incredibly versatile genre of photography: images can be anything from bright, punchy, high-key images full of light and energy, to dark, intense images that draw the viewer to the subjects eyes. Studio portraits are widely used for many things, especially media.

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When taking the photos, I began with a few test shots using 1 point lighting and instantly chose to include a stool- I feel like it made my photos a little more interesting. I began testing different lighting for example light, dark, warm, cold. I had previously taken photos using coloured lights and they always added a dramatic effect, so I added blue and red gels on either side of the model, creating 2 point lighting– I really liked the outcome.

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When editing these images, I slightly cropped each side as my original images had the sides of the studio showing. I sharpened the face a little and increased the exposure to lighten them.

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I chose this image as the final image as the composition turned out well- I like the smooth transition of colour in the background and the strong shadow on the bottom right. The focus is still drawn to the face due to the bright colour and contrast which is what I was going for.

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As you can see in the photos above, 1 point lighting (also knows as chiaroscuro) creates a high contrast of shadows- and with portraits, its a great way to bring out the facial shape and its features.

Within this photo session in the studio, my main focus was to experiment with 1 point lighting varying from both sides and slightly below.

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Throughout the photo-taking I kept to the same tone of light (which was warm) as it responded well to the choice of clothing which was vintage-like. However I tried different intensities (dull and bright). Also, used a variety of different poses.

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I chose these two images out of my first selection. In image one, I like the composition and the straight posture of the model which portrays dominance, strength and confidence- there is also one sharp shadow on the right and a much more soft shadow on the left which contrast. In image 2, There are sharp shadows and bold golden reflections coming off the models shirt- however the majority of focus is still on the models face which is very defined due to the angle and lighting.

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When editing I made a couple small adjustments such as cropping image 1 and sharpening both images very slightly.

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Another outcome that I think turned out well was turning the images black and white- this was to refer to the 3 images by other photographers at the beginning on the blog.

Photoshoot Plan

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Artist References

August Sander was born in Herdorf, a small rural village east of Cologne, in 1876. He was one of nine children of a peasant and miner family. Sander is now viewed as a forefather of conceptual art and a pioneering documentarian of human diversity. In his project entitled ‘Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century)’, a project that spanned four decades of his life, Sander strove to systematically document contemporary German society. (https://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/2859-august-sander).

The photo above is one of the images taken by Sanders in his lifetime of a Varnisher. The background is black which allows all the detail of the person and objects to prominent. The image also has high contrast and is in black and white due to the time in which it was taken.

‘I hate nothing more than sugary photographs with tricks, poses and effects. So allow me to be honest and tell the truth about our age and its people’ – Sanders

Chosen Images

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After taking hundreds of abstract photographs this half term, I will be selecting and finalising what I believe are my most successful images.

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Above is my first grouped selection. The reason I grouped them together is that they are all have an ‘industrial’ sense to them.

Image 1 was part of my ‘REPETITION, PATTERN, RHYTHM REFLECTION AND SYMMETRY‘ project. This image specifically was a response to Ernst Haas who’s famous work is based on reflections on water with a high shutter speed (which is what I did for Image 1), and images taken with a low shutter speed, creating motion blur. This leads to Image 3- which was also a response to Ernst’s work. This was a low shutter speed image above the tunnel which created a long red line from the car the drove below me; this image took me a while to get right and I loved the outcome .

Image 2, being part of the same project, was a response to a different artist- Luigi Ghirri. Ghirri’s colour scheme is a lot more gentle (which is why this image is a little different to the other 2) however it fits in with the theme. I like this image because of its defined edges and delicate shadows.

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Although this is a singular image rather than a group, its one of the most interesting abstract images I have taken. Unintentionally, in this photograph, I captured a face like shape (eye and nose). However that is not the only reason- I also like the pitch background and high contrast shadows and highlights. I also like the centre composition.

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I created a gallery each for my images to see them from a different perspective. I really like the way my paper image looks on its own with a contrasting wall behind it- it really stands out to me.

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These pictures were an attempt to demonstrate how “to hold a moment, how to record something so completely, that all who see [the picture of it] will relive an equivalent of what has been expressed.” The ‘Equivalents’, as they are known, aim to create a sensation in the viewer similar to that experienced by the photographer. 

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I chose these images as they contain come potentially good shapes- To find them I cropped certain areas as you can see below.

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To also relate these images to Stieglitz’s a little more, I altered the colour balance by a small amount (towards the red) for similar colours to his work. I also increased contrast to make the images more dramatic.

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To get to this outcome I simply duplicated the image, flipped it horizontally and vertically while each time increasing the canvas size and flattening the image.