These are iconic portrait images from successful photographers stated up above.
portrait photography or portraiture is a type of photography that is aimed towards capturing the personality of a person or a group of people by having their picture taken in an environment that facilitates towards the person that is getting their picture taken of.
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. There are many different types of portrait photography, including; traditional, lifestyle, environmental, candid, street, glamour, fine art, conceptual and surreal.
August Sander chose to photograph this bricklayer as a part of his work ‘The People of the 20th Century’. His aim was to show all walks of life including doctors, farmers, chefs etc., in a post – WWI Germany. Sander’s photographs were the first body of work to document a culture through photography. In this photograph, the main point of focus is the man’s head, as it is being framed by the layers of bricks stacked behind him. However it could be argued that the bricks are actually the main focal point, as the man’s face is blurred, which contrasts to the in-focus bricks behind him. The way that the bricklayer is holding himself suggests to the viewer that he is proud of his profession and lifestyle, as his stance is very intimidating and authoritative. The lighting in this image appears to be coming from the upper right hand corner, and is casting a shadow across the bricklayers body whilst also illuminating and highlighting his head and the bricks stacked behind him, which again draws the viewer’s eye to these particular points of focus. There is a varying range of shadows across the photograph, with dark shadows being casted across the lower half of the man’s body on the left side of the image, whilst the right side and upper half is well-lit.
Hopefully you have all had a chance to respond to the task above…which may provide you with some material for the starting point in this project.
M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Resources\Portraiture\TO DO
and here : M:\Departments\Photography\Students\Planners Y12 JAC\Unit 2 Portrait Photography
TASK 1
You must introduce your new topic : PORTRAITS
Remember… your images must include a caption…this is especially important if they belong to someone else (copyright etc), and helps clarify which images are yours for assessment.
Try adding hyperlinks to use websites / blogs / video URLs or embed relevant YOUTUBE clips to help illustrate your key points
CREATE A VISUAL MOOD-BOARD
TASK 2
We will begin the unit by looking at ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAITS, which depict people in their…
“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”
CREATE A MIND-MAP
We will be studying the history, theory and concept of environmental portraits…their purpose and role in our day to day lives too.
Here are some examples…
Key things to consider with formal / environmental portraits…
Technical= Composition / exposure / lens / light
Visual= eye contact / engagement with the camera / neutral pose and facial expression / angle / viewpoint
Conceptual= what are you intending to present? eg : social documentary? / class ? / authority ? / gender role ? / lifestyle ?
Contextual=add info and detail regarding the back ground / story / detail / information about the character(s) / connection to the photographer eg family / insider / outsider
Photo-Shoot 1
Remember to show your Photo-Shoot Planning and clearly explain :
Due Date for Environmental Portrait Photoshoot = Wed 11th Nov
This week ensure your process looks like this…
3 x examples of image analysis
Environmental portraits mean portraits of people taken in a situation that they live in, work in, rest in or play in. Environmental portraits give you context to the subject you are photographing. They give you an insight into the personality and lifestyle of your subject.
Portrait 1: This particular image was photographed by Jane Bown of Quentin Crisp at home in Chelsea in 1978. Quentin Crisp was an English writer, famous for supernatural fiction and was a gay icon in the 1970s. This image was taken in his “filthy” flat as Bown describes. In the back ground we can see piles of books on top of the fireplace shelf which represents his career as a writer and a journalist. It looks as though he is boiling water on the stove which looks out of place because the room looks as if it is in the living room. As you would not normally place a stove in your lounge. He was living as a “Bed-Sitter” which means he had inadequate of storage space, this explains why his belongings were cramped in one room.
Portrait 2: This image was captured by Arnold Newman. He is also known for his “environmental portraiture” of artists and politicians, capturing the essence of his subjects by showing them in their natural surroundings. Here is a portrait of Igor Stravinsky who was a Russian pianist, composer and musician. In this photograph, the piano outweighs the subject which is him and depicts the fact that music was a massive part of him and his life. His body language looks as if he is imitating the way the piano lid is being held up, he is using his hand as a head rest. Another element in the photograph, is that the shape of the piano looks like a musical note which again symbolises his love of music.
Portrait 3: This photograph was also taken by Arnold Newman of John F. Kennedy, an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States of America. This pictures was taken on a balcony at the White house. Mr. Kennedy isn’t directly looking into the camera, he is looking at the view outside which suggests his role as a president because at the time he was one of the most powerful man in the world. He is looking at the scenery, people and his surroundings. The image was taken at a low angle to depict the huge building and the horizontal lines symbolise power, dynamism and control.
Frederick Sommer, born in 1905, was an Italian-born photographer raised in Brazil. He was considered a master photographer, as he started his love for art in photography in 1931. He originally explored his creative trait through watercolour ink and paper but later discovered his passion for photography in 1938, when he acquired an 8×10 Century Universal Camera. Sommer was a self-taught photographer who experimented with wild concepts for his creative work, he worked with materials as extreme as coyote bones and chicken parts. Frederick Sommer often mixed the two concepts of landscape, portrait and abstraction in his work, for example his portrait of Max Ernst, in my opinion, contains all three elements. Sommer’s landscape work of the vast desert he lived in is considered to be his most extravagant and impressive images, he referred these images as “constellations”. Frederick Sommer later died in 1999, in the desert in Arizona where he lived due to medical issues.
light: The natural sunlight of the image allows areas, such as the walking path, to be highlighted amongst the masses of trees and plants. As the sunlight is coming from above, harsh shadows are cast under them which contrasts against the blinding path.
Lines: There is a pandemonium of unorganised lanes scattered across the image in a chaotic manner, therefore they do not lead to a specific focal point.
Repetition: The only form of repetition in this image is the constant cluster of trees running through the photo, however there is no definite pattern.
Shape: The shapes in this photograph are organic and unorganised, giving the image a chaotic appearance.
Space: There is a wide depth of field to this image as the majority of the photo is in focus, there is also no negative space in the photograph as the whole image is busy in all areas.
Texture: The photo appears to have rough texture, as the trees and plants create a harsh, bumpy composition, however this is contrasted against the smoother and less harsh texture of the path running through the image.
Value/Tone: There is a varied tone from dark to light in this photograph as the darkness is concentrated around the middle third, however there are also scattered tones of darkness amongst the light, therefore I believe the tones are balanced.
Colour: The lack of colour in the image enhances the light and dark tones in their natural form.
Composition: As the photo is a natural landscape, the composition is very unorganised and organic. The rule of thirds could possibly be seen in the middle third, with dark areas concentrated here, but there is no recognisable geometric shapes in the image in order to understand the composition.
Minor White, an American photographer, theoretician, critic and educator, was born in Minnesota in 1908. His interest in photography began in 1937, as he combined his passion for philosophical theories with taking photos. He was influenced by how people would view photos differently on a personal level, which then began his photography career in black and white and colour landscapes. White created thousands of photos focusing on all areas of landscape, portrait and abstraction before he died in 1976, he also taught photography in many schools across America in his lifetime. His images create a string sense of juxtaposition in the sense of light and dark.
The natural lighting in this photograph is reflected onto the water to create and intense highlight running through the middle third of the image. It also allows harsh shadows to be cast either side of the highlighted water to create a juxtaposition of light and dark.
The leading lines of the two cliffs direct the viewers eyes to the middle third of the photo, this creates the focal point of the glistening water, the harsh lighting also accentuates this. There is also a repetition of jagged lines in the image that appear in the cracks of the cliffs.
There is a repetition of line used in this image, but in a more organic sense. The natural cracks in the rocks are present throughout the image, aswell as the curved lines within the curves of the waves.
The shapes in this photograph are organic and curved, however there is a sense of sharpness in the jagged rocks and cracks within the rocks.
There is a strong depth of field in this image, as the foreground of the cliffs are significantly clearer compared to the background, which is concealed by fog. The darkness of the cliffs create a negative space which acts of a kind of border to the natural chaos of the waves.
The image portrays a rough texture as the sharpness of the rocks is contradicted against the curved waves. The surface of the rocks is uneven and organic, which adds to the coarseness of the photograph.
There is a range of tones from dark to light in this photograph, as the highlights and shadows juxtapose each other. The darkest area of the image is the rocks towards the left and right third, which act as a border to the lightest areas of the image, that being the waves in the middle third of the photograph.
The monochromatic format of the photograph allows the viewer to focus on the highlights and shadows of the image,as well as the shape formation, rather than the colours.
The image has a balanced appearance as the dark and light tones are evenly distributed throughout the image. For example, the dark tones are concentrated around the edges of the image, which then surround the lighter tones concentrated in the middle third.
Frederick Sommer and Minor White share similarities in there landscape work, especially the use of the monochromatic format towards their images, as they focus on tone and shape rather then colour. They also capture the chaotic composition of nature in it’s purest form, as well as the juxtaposition between light and dark.
Alternatively, White’s image here specifically focuses on depth of field and blurring out the background in order to create a focal point, whereas Sommer captures the landscape as a whole and rejects the use of a singular focal point. The juxtaposition between light and dark is much harsher in the work of White compared to Sommer, which suggests that White’s image became over exposed possible from using a wider aperture.
For my finalised images I got inspiration off Alfred Stieglitz in taking pictures of clouds for my image selection in my images being abstract pieces. I chose to get inspiration of Alfred Stieglitz for my final abstract pieces because when I looked at his pictures they caught my attention due to his pictures of clouds looking very abstract in the way the clouds are come across in the pictures for example, some of his pieces don’t even look like clouds although they are due to the contrast of black and white which manipulates the picture into not looking like clouds also, the patterns and repetition of the clouds look very odd making them interesting to look at as you can almost use your imagination in making the picture come across as something else and not clouds.
As you can see from this image of Alfred Stieglitz you can use your imagination to manipulate the picture to come across as something else, with this specific image I think of the clouds looking like fluff that comes out of a puffer jacket or a pillow purely using my imagination on what I think the cloud appears to be.
Finalised Pieces
The process I went through in making the first one in black and white on the left was by editing the picture by going onto the levels in order to change where the shadows should have been darker in order for the contrast between the black and white to bounce of each other and then I changed the image to being black and white. Moreover, I would say this picture is the closest to Alfred Stieglitz purely because the picture is in black and white with the shadows are heightened just like his pictures.
As for the picture on the far right, the process of editing that I went through in order to get the image to what it looks like was that I went onto the hue and saturation and changed the picture in having the colours of the picture being a bright blue. Also, I cropped out the image, so it was just the clouds in the picture however, this makes it very abstract as the image doesn’t appear to be a cloud and the bright colours in the picture eliminates the natural lighting or natural shadows meaning it would be difficult at first knowing what the picture is.
Finally, the picture in the middle was made through the editing stage of getting the picture on the left on top of the picture on the right merging it into one. Once that was complete, I went onto the black and white image that I put on top of the blue one and I put the opacity down which enables you to see the bottom layer of the image. After that, I changed the colour of the image in order to make the clouds be highlighted in red to make both images contrast from the colours of red and blue.
Overall the middle picture is my favourite out of the three because of the way it doesn’t look anything like a cloud but maybe a weather report. Moreover, I feel like I have taken Alfred Stieglitz’s style of photography and evolve it in the way that it’s not in black and white which goes to show we are photographers in different time periods and this makes my photograph probably catch the eye of a younger person due to how bright the colours are in the image which makes it stand out from the rest.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Saul Leiter was a painter and photographer who started his career in the 1940s and 1950s. He left theology school and moved to New York to pursue painting at age 23, this is also where he found his love for photography. In the 1950’s, Leiter held his first colour photography exhibition at the Artist’s Club, where groups of Abstract Expressionist painters would meet and admire other work. Leiter furthered his career as a fashion photographer throughout the 1970’s, he worked for publications such as Elle, British Vogue and Nova. The Saul Leiter Foundation was founded in 2014, a year after Leiter passed away, this was dedicated to preserving the art and legacy of Saul Leiter.
Light- The lighting in this image seems artificial as harsh shadows are created in both the foreground and background of the photograph. The lightest areas of the image are the vibrant colours of the car roof, these areas are juxtaposed against the gloomy shadows inside the car and in the foreground.
Line- The lines in the image are rather geometric and artificial, however they create a contrast as the curved lines blend with the straight lines. The lines lead your eyes to the direction of the shadows cast under the roof of the car, and to the dimly-lit figure inside the car.
Repetition- There is a repetition of curved and straight line in this image, which creates a geometric shape to the image.
Shape- The shapes in the image are geometric, this give the image an artificial aesthetic.
Space- The image has a wider depth of field, as the foreground is blurry, however the background is in focus. There is a rather a large sense of depth in the photograph.
Texture- The texture of the metal gives the photograph a smooth appearance, the highlights on the roof also add to the smoothness of the image.
Value/Tone- The image has an extreme contrasting range of tone, as the vibrant colours of the car clash with the muted shadows in the shadows and the figure’s clothing. The lightest part of the photo is the colours of the car and the darkest areas are in the shadows. Overall, the image tends towards the darkness.
Colour- The coloured parts of the image are very vibrant and intense. They display the harsh primary colours of red and yellow, which are jarring when placed next to one another.
Composition- There is a simple composition to the image as it doesn’t seem busy. There is not much going on in the image, and the photo focuses on the juxtaposition of light and dark , and colour and black and white, rather than the composition. The rule of thirds has not been used in this image, in my opinion.
In 1924 he co founded the Czech Photographic Society with Josef Sudek and Adolf Schneeberger. Two years later he produced a series of Surrealist images of store windows (Glass and Reflection) based on the photographs of Eugène Atget. Funke served for several years as editor of the journal Fotograficky obzor.
His interest in modernist ideas led him to make studies of simple objects. As the decade progressed, he turned to the production of arranged still life emphasizing abstract form and the play of light and shadow. During this time he also produced several important series of photographs, including two inspired by the images of Eugène Atget: Reflexy (Reflections, 1929) and as trvá (Time Persists, 1930-34).
The series of photographs that inspired me is the Absrakni Kompozice (Abstract Composition) photos. In these images he focuses on shape, light and shadow. He uses a different objects to get a range of unique, interesting and abstract shapes. In the background of the the images he uses the material of paper to get structure in the background with the creases and edges of the paper. This also helps to have a solid white background.
In Abstraktní kompozice Funke focuses on the use of light in his photos creating light and darkshapes.
In this image in particular the lighting used seems to be natural and is positioned behind the camera facing forwards making anything in front cast a shadow. There is a large range of tones due to the contrast between the light and dark areas in the image which help make the shadows from the objects sharp and visual. The aperture and shutter speed in this image creates a crisp photo in the sense that the abstract shapes are clear and sharp but the image overall is under exposed which makes it seem blurry and more warm toned. There is various lines from the objects. The shadows created are very geometric and layer on top of each other creating a composition with the more organic curvy shapes. Overall it is quite warm toned as it is not a normal black and white photograph it is more of a black and off white colour due to the white balance.The middle of the photo is framed by the dark shadows around the light, creating a vignette.
| Who | Jaromir Funke takes photos of objects and light so I will not need anyone else in the photo however I will need someone to hold the objects. |
| What | I am going to take photos of shadows from interesting objects with different silhouettes and shapes. |
| Why | I am going to take these photos as it will closely interpret Funkes images with abstract forms and light and shadow. |
| When | I will take these photos late afternoon so the sun is starting to set and it will be shining where I need it. Also the shadows will be strong as the sun should be quite bright at this time. The weather also is important as I will need it to be sunny. |
| Where | I will be using a plain white canvas for the background so it gives a solid colour for the background and I can move it to where the sun is shining for the best shadows. |
| How | I will place the canvas in front of the sunlight and get someone to hold the objects where I need them to be as I will be taking the photos and will not be able to hold the objects whilst photographing. |
I chose to do this idea for my first photo shoot inspired by Jaromir Funke as I wanted to try and get the shapes he has used. In particular one of the objects I used was a whisk because in one of his photos he uses a couple of whisks to create multiple shadows and photographs the object in front of the camera. For these particular photos I set the shutter speed lower so the camera would capture the movement of the whisk and would give it a blurry affect. I used the natural light from the sun coming through the window to create a soft, yellow shadow. If I were to do this photo shoot again I would perhaps use artificial lighting so that the shadows would be harsher like Funke’s images. I used a canvas for the background of the image as it was plain but also gave the image a slight yellow cast with the light settings on the camera.
I chose to do a second photoshoot following Jaromir Funkes’ images closer so that I could get the same abstract effect as him. For this photoshoot I used plain white paper to set the background of the photo and as an area to cast the shadows onto. I also incorporated a black curtain into the background so that I could create a vignette effect, having the black background around the sides of the photo framing the centre which is brighter. The lighting used was artificial lighting coming from a projector, I used this to have a more yellow light rather than white lighting and so that the shadows would be harsher. Additionally it was easy to control where the light and the shadows were in the images because I was able to place the objects in various places on the projector glass and it would reflect with the shadows of the objects. The lighting used also created soft and harsh shadows making shadow shapes contrast.
When editing my images I wanted to make them busier and edit the shadows so that they were harsher and bolder. To make the images busier I combined them together layering 2-4 images over each other altering the opacity of each photo so certain photos were more visible then others. I also cropped and adjusted the positioning/rotation of the photos either choosing certain parts of photos to layer or crop the final outcome. When editing the lighting and colour of the images, I used adjustments on photoshop and altered the exposure, contrast, levels, vibrance, saturation and more.
Ray Metzker quietly made extraordinary and influential photographs over the course of a five decade career. Today, he is recognized as one of the great masters of American photography.
September 10, 1931-October 9, 2014
Image Analysis
Metzker used the car window as a mirror in this image; that could have confused the viewer because they may initially see the image that is reflected on the car window, but not necessarily the car itself.
Plan
Shoot one
For the first shoot I was inspired by the image below. Instead of focusing on the reflection, I tried to focus on the flowers themselves so I just put them in the water and left them to float and I just took the pictures as they bobbed around.
For a couple of the images, i had my hand underneath them. I did this because in many of Metzker’s images, there are a lot of people and/or shadows of people which some could interpret that there’s no part of this world that hasn’t been disturbed or effected by the human race.
Favourite Images
Edits
Although Metzker’s work is mainly in black and white, I wanted to show the difference by making one of the images have the blue hue rather than fully black and white and one with all colour.
Favourite Image
This is my favourite image because it’s blurred, however the viewer can still tell what the image is. In the image, the flowers have darker details which are bolder and more apparent in the centre of the hand, this is because this is what my camera focused on while I took it.
Selection Process
First I looked at all my abstract photos and decided one which ones were the best. I choose the ones that were the most colourful and used the rule of thirds as they tended to look better as it had more composition. For the other images I used other good images that I’ve taken to fill in the blanks.
Editing
After, I edited them and boosted the saturation by about +10 to make it ‘pop’ and cropped it to line up with the rule of thirds, to make it more visually pleasing.
Displaying
To Finalise the images I found 2 different art blank picture galleries on Google. I grouped my photos into two groups, portrait and landscape. The gallery with the large wall would be for landscape photos, and the other for portrait photos. I put my abstract photos into the galleries, I put the image onto the canvas in the gallery, where I wanted it to be, then in Free Transform mode I pressed CTRL and dragged on the corner of each edge of the image and moved it to the corresponding corner of canvas space in the gallery to match the perspective of the gallery and its 3D walls. After the image was properly on the canvas, I added Drop Shadow and angled it to the same as the direction in the base image. Then, I added bevels to the image to make it look 3D to make it realistic. To add the effects I right clicked the layer then went to blending options. As there were blank spaces in the gallery I put in other good photos that I’ve taken.
Evaluation
I really like how it turned out, as they look realistic and they all fit in naturally. The drop shadows and bevels really worked well. Overall, it was relatively simple but took a long time to added all the images in.
Mood Board and Introduction
For this project I explored Alfred Stieglitz’s work on patterns in the sky.
Mind-map of ideas
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred was an American Photographer born in 1864. He was an integral part in an acceptance of photography as an art form. He created a portfolio of pieces which focused on the pattern of things. His favorite way to capture this was by looking up and shooting patterns in the sky.
His images possessed flat, faded, contrast with bright, harsh highlights. They are also populated with pattern with little negative space.
In this image Alfred captures an astral, melancholic but also euphoric, free emotion with this image. It seems as if an artist has painted on these clouds. The flat contrast and sandpaper clouds give this image a faded, rough texture.
He has used natural light streaming in from the corners of the image to give it an astral glow. He has still managed to, even though there seems to be harsh daylight, combat this by slightly under exposing the image by deepening the blacks of the sky by using the cameras film. he has used a small aperture to gain detail in the distant cloud formations and give the image depth. Alfred might have used a slightly longer exposure to drag the clouds across the composition. He has also used a higher ISO to add a fine grain to the image.
The image also contains a pattern of the repeating clouds sweeping upwards. There is also a significant depth in tone created by the blackened sky contrasting with the white clouds. The image is also populated with little negative space.
Photo Shoot Action Plan
Who: There will be no subject in this project.
What: Cloud patterns.
Where: I will be shooting near my house and close to the coast as there tends to be more interesting cloud formations there.
When: On an overcast day
How: DSLR 50mm – 80mm lens with small aperture capability, lense hood to prevent glare and a ND filter to grab blacker skies. Walk down to coast and around my neighborhood looking up and following cloud patterns
Why: To experiment and learn more about photographing pattern.
Contact Sheets
Final Compositions
My above compositions portray the experimentation of pattern. They use deep tonal range with deep depth of field. My compositions featured similar elements to Alfreds work.
Both pieces include soft sweeping pattern work. They both use de saturated deep black negative spaces with the cotton clouds contrasting in the foreground. They both Make use of natural lighting adding accents to the patterns from a certain direction. They both use a small aperture to gain detail and depth in the clouds. They both consider a longer exposure time to drag the clouds out more. Both images hold a gloomy astral emotion. Finally, one difference is Alfred uses a flat contrast and my image contains a deeper contrast.