With my final images that I found were most effective I open each image in photoshop and copied them on to an empty gallery room where I distorted the images to get them to fit on the walls and aligning them to the ground. Edit > transform > distort. I then put a light drop shadow behind each photo to give them the affect that they’re on the wall.
The word PORTRAIT is defined as a painting, drawing, photograph, or engraving of a person, of the face or head and shoulders. A portrait is designed to capture someone in there own self such as there personality , lifestyle , glamour ect. In modern day this is can be done by using high tech lighting equipment , backdrops, poses by the models themselves and of course Photoshop where editing skills can change a photo. The first portrait ever to be taken was in 1839 were an American photographer , Robert Cornelius , took the first ever portrait photograph of a person. He removed the lens cap, ran into the frame and stood still for ten minutes, before returning the cap to its position.
Contemporary Portrait Photography – is a photograph from our own time, compared to an image from a much earlier period. It can be described as an image that shows and reflects are values and challenges to this day.
Environmental Portraits
Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were away from mainstream society and toward their own personality and what they do from day to day life. Whether that be a working environment or a hobbies , she loved to take photographs of people who supposedly look like they are happy.
In the 1960’s , Mary decided to take on photography as a side carer as the passion for it grew. These images above in black and white are effective as for they bring out the mood and personality of the model . A good example would be the image below…
This iconic image gives off an uncomfortable feeling as the girl to the right seems to be in a calm and resting state whilst the hippo next to her reaches out with its great big mouth , bigger than her , and in a sense showing some aggression towards her. The mouth seems as it could swallow her whole , but to prevent this she defends herself with only a stick. With her short shorts, boots and gloves , standing outside what it seems to be a tent , this looks as she and the hippo are part of a circus. The girl seems confident in herself as she stands proud with a brave face and a relaxed standing posture. This links to environmental portraits as she’s in her element , she’s doing what seems to please her and make her happy.
Photoshoot Plan
Who – I will be taking photos of family members and public people in their work environment.
How – Using a DLSR camera with a 500mm lens. Photographs will be taken with a natural white balance for the biggest range while editing.
Where – The market in town, small businesses, the hospital ect.
When – The day time to capture natural lighting , but this doesn’t really matter to what I am going to be photographing as they are going to be taken inside.
What – People in their work environment – environmental portraits.
Contact Sheet
My Best Selection Of Images
These images above I cropped and edited on photoshop to bring out the best quality of them. In photoshop i simply heightened the contrast and lowered the brightness level a tad just to make the image more intriguing to look at.
These images give a range of different types of jobs and carers which make people happy in their working environment.
I feel like these photographs link to Mary Ellen Mark’s images as the majority of the people are looking straight at the camera with a relaxed mood to them. I chose an image to represent Mary’s work more and changed it into black and white to see the similar style between the two…
These two images have similarities as both men have a relaxing , no posture facial expression. This implies that their mood/personality has a slight importance to their job. Both of their body postures seem to be relaxed and confident in themselves. This can be seen as the butcher boy has his hands resting on the sides of the table which can suggest that he is proud of his job. On the other hand the actor sitting in the dressing room seems to have a more chill vibe as for his legs crossed over themselves.
Both photographs capture these men in their working environment which links to the fact that they are environmental portraits.
‘Henri Cartier–Bresson (1908-2004), arguably the most significant photographer of the twentieth-century, was one of the co-founders of Magnum Photos in 1947 and champion of the “decisive moment”. He brought a new aesthetic and practice to photography, initiated modern photojournalism, and influenced countless followers.’
Henri Cartier-Bresson is well known for his street photography, here are some of his most significant images:
This image was shot in natural light on a sunny day, which created strong defined shadows on the dround. This creates a large tonal range from the light whites of the highlights to the darkest blacks of the shadows. This high contrast makes the subjects and image as a while pop out. The image is also perfectly exposed with no sun glare or over whitening of surfaces. The aperture of the photo seems to be around the f.11 mark, a medium to high aperture to let most things in frame be in focus and sharp. There is a slight vignette around the edges of the image to create a more moody feel and to draw attention to the centre of the image. The shutter speed was probably above 1/120 as the subjects were moving at the time the photo was taken and the sunlight was bright. There also seems to be a slight grainy texture to the image indicating a higher iso.
The light coming from behind the people give a silhouette effect. This along with the dark shadows being cast on the brightly lit road creates an ominous and almost uneasy, moody feeling. As the people get further away from the camera and further down the road, their silhouette becomes less distinguishable from the background, creating a greater sense of depth in the image.
The peoples faces are not clearly seen. This might symbolise how each person in the image, weather they know each other or are strangers, is living their own personal life (sonder). Them being unaware of the photograph shows the natural way of living and people getting on with their daily tasks.
In early 1947, Cartier-Bresson, with Robert Capa, David Seymour, William Vandivert and George Rodger founded Magnum Photos. Magnum was a cooperative picture agency and aimed to use photography in the service of humanity, and provided arresting, widely viewed images.
William Klein took many street photography, and ill compare the above image with Henri Cartier-Bresson’s images
Similarly to Bresson, the image has a large black and white tonal range, with no over exposure or under exposed parts of the image.
Contrasting to Bressons image, this was shot with a lower aperture, maybe about f.5. This is because the Gun that is being pointed at the camera in the foreground is blurry and out of focus, but the subjects behind it are in focus and well detailed. There is also not a vignette in this image.
There seems to be a high iso, similarly to Bressons image, because of the grainy texture.
Contrasting completely to Bressons image, there is immediately a lot of emotion and meaning in this photo. The use of a gun symbolises danger and destruction. Along with the boys emotion with shows anger and sadness. This contrasts to the unidentifiable, shadow filled faces of the subjects in Bressons image. Also, in the image the subjects are aware of the camera.
‘Street photography, also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places.’
I like street photography because of the natural, non staged flow of the images. It captures a second in time where everyone in the image is focused on their own thing and has not acknowledged the camera, making the image feel almost like a window into another persons life.
i particularly like this video by Pierre T Lambert, who is a photographer and videographer ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR329XWJzo8&ab_channel=PierreT.Lambert ) because he uses the rain and bad weather to his advantage to create moody and more impactful street photography images.
Here is one of the many images that he took while out in the rain.
The dark tones and reflections on the wet ground create a moody feel which i really like.
Bruce Gilden’s street photography is in black and white which draws attention away from colour and more to the actual contents and meaning of the image. This photographs tend to have a lot of emotion in them and are usually quite busy with many people. Here are some examples:
Paul Strand tried to communicate the sentiment of the land and its occupants straightforwardly, truly, and with deference. His prints are excellent in detail and resonance, and his methodology has affected American photography incredibly. Strand supported “straight photography,” and shot road representations to city scenes, machine structures, and plants with his particular clearness, accuracy, and mathematical structure. From 1904-09, he studied photography under Lewis Hine at the Ethical Culture School in New York, where he was born. Hine acquainted Strand with Alfred Stieglitz, who supported him and gave him a presentation in 1915, and distributed his work in the two last issues of Camera Work. Dynamic as both a still picture taker and a producer, Strand has been incredibly compelling.
Strand teamed up with Charles Sheeler in 1921 on the short film Mannahatta, and from 1923 to 1929, he functioned as an independent cinematographer. He filled in as head of photography and cinematography for the Mexican government’s Department of Fine Arts from 1932 until 1934; he administered creation of the government supported documentary The Wave. In 1935 he went overseas with directors of the Group Theater to Moscow, where he met movie chief Sergei Eisenstein. Upon his return, he dealt with Pare Lorentz’s film The Plow That Broke the Plains for the Resettlement Administration. Strand got comfortable in Orgeval, France, in 1951; there his thoughtfulness regarding “the world at his doorstep” moved to the basic excellence of his nursery. He distributed a progression of books on his movements around the globe.
My interpretation
| Who | Someone wearing a sign saying “BLIND” around their neck. |
| What | Stairs with the rail making a line shadow down them or buildings with interesting shadows to take photos of. |
| Why | Paul Strand liked to take photos using the natural lighting making interesting shadows on the ground, which he focuses his photos on. So the photos I’ll be taking will be focused on the shadows the rail makes and the shadow behind the person wearing a sign. |
| When | Near the end of the day or the start as I get more shadows going across the ground. With the photo having someone wearing the sign saying blind I want to do it before midday so the lighting would be on the person casting a shadow behind them. |
| Where | For the stairs photos I will go to millennium park to take photos of the stairs leading up to the park as the sun gets to the rails easily so the lighting will be natural when taking the photos. I will also go around town when the sun is setting to get some abstract photos of buildings casting shadows. |
| How | With the photo of the sign, I will make it using a piece of card or paper which I will write in bold BLIND or something different like DEAF then punch two holes in the corner of the paper and attach string which the person can then put around their neck. |
Paul Strand
Paul Strand was born in New York in 1890. When he was 17 years old, he began taking photography courses. His photographs moved from soft-focus scenes of modern New York that reflect the energy and movement of the city and its inhabitants more sharp, focused expressions of objective reality.
Laszlo Maholy Nagy
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy , born 1946, was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism.
Analysis Between Both Photographers
Natural light floods both image from left to right. Pauls work has a strong tonal range from light to dark. Hard shadows are formed from the pillars and stairs and overrules the amount of light take in in both photographs. Laszlo’s image has a higher quantity of objects that create detailed lines , especially when photographed in black and white. These lines are a much softer tone than Pauls work as The pillars form more harsh and thick lines which are repetitively in line with each other along the floor and the left hand side. This refers back to the topic of reflection as the pillars in Pauls work reflected downwards onto the floor. Pattern is found in Laszlo’s work as the thin shadow lines cross over each other forming some sort of chequered pattern. The darkest tone in Pauls image is the nearly completed border that is nearest to the colour black whereas Laszlo’s work has a blurred light formed at the top of the image that fades down to the darkest part of the photograph , the first steps on the bottom left. As both photographs are taken in black and white , the dominant colour black, surrounds the natural light in Pauls work. As for Laszlo’s work , the black and white colour quantity is equal throughout the whole photograph. Both images being in black and white gives a subtle appearance as not too much is going on in the images.
My Photoshoot – Contact Sheet –
I think these images I took of buildings down the waterfront , St.Heiler , are similar to both Lazslo and Paul’s work in a sense that they have pattern and repetition in the structure of the buildings and streets. I took a few of these images into photoshop and changed them into black and white to refer back to both photographers above’s work.
This last image with the mental rails relates back to the theme of patterns and repetition as for the same railing is repetitively put in a straight line and is photographed at an angle that captures a good quantity of the rails. White bricks with dull, contrasting black lines in between , lay on the floor of the image creating a simple, easy pattern.
In all final Photos , a bit of editing such as changing the contrast/brightness levels. As well as darkening the shadows that are formed by the natural light and a bit of toning/cropping/rotating, they came out in my opinion pretty decent.
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.
Environmental Portrait
August Sander
August Sander was born on 17 November 1876 and died on 20 April 1964. He was a German portrait and documentary photographer. He’s best know for environmental portraits during the 1920s and 1930s riding his bike on the muddy German country roads, Sander photographed every type of person he came across in an attempt to capture German society as a whole. Sander photographed middle class families, farmers, students, blind children, war veterans, circus artists and beggars. In each photograph Sander had his models simply stare at the camera, and hold still.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2008/03/20/augustsander
Image Analysis
In this photo the lighting is natural and seems to be coming from behind the photographer as you can see the building behind him has made a shadow which is behind the soldier.
Alfred Steiglitz:
Alfred was born on January 1st 1864 in New Jersey , USA. He began to photograph while a student in Berlin in the 1880s and studied with the renowned photochemist Hermann Wilhelm Vogel. When going back to the US in 1890, he began to advocate that photography should be treated as an art , he wrote many articles arguing his cause. For many years Stieglitz photographed New York, portraying its streets, parks, newly emerging skyscrapers; as well as some of its people. n the late 1910s and early 1920s, he also focused his camera on the landscape around his summer home in Lake George, New York.
His work:
Contact sheet:
Selected images:
Edited images:
I like the outcome of my images as I feel they match and represent Alfreds images well. I edited my images into black and white to replicate Alfreds images.
Contextual : The photo was taken around 20 years after the end of the Second World War. The photo was taken in an old factory that made all things from railroad cars to trains and in the Second World War his family made ammunition for the Nazis. The photo was taken in 1963 by Jewish photographer Arnold Newman.
Conceptual : The image was taken as a form of payback for the Jewish community on the Krupp family after supplying the Nazi’s with ammunition for the entirety of the Second World War. Newman made Krupp look evil and have shadows around him with light in the background. He makes Krupp look sinister and mysterious but also not in power as the photo was taken looking down on his subject. This references the Krupp family power when the Nazi’s relied on them during WW2 and how after the war ended their power had gone.
Technical: The lighting in the photo is harsh and has a very large depth in the photo. The photo transitions from a very dark and sinister tone to a free and light one. The photo is deep and is taken to make the sinister figure in the centre of the image look below the viewer as if he is not in power.
Visual: The color pallet of the photo are dark and mysterious with a lot of dark colors and then quite white and bright colors swell. The darker and more mysterious colors are in the foreground of the photo near the man and the brighter and more normal colors are in the background of the image. The photo is clearly three dimensional and the different layers of the photo can be seen clearly. The image has some symmetry and very straight lines.
Arnold Newman was a Jew who took environmental portraits of influential people such as Bill Clinton and Pablo Picasso. Alfred Krupp was a German steel manufacture and inventor. He made ammunition for the Nazi’s and used the Jews from the concentration camp as slaves. Arnold was very hesitant to work with Alfred because of the type of man he was and because of his beliefs.
This image shows a sinister looking man in the foreground of the image with an industrial background. As a viewer we can only see from Alfred’s torso up and he is lent forward with his hands linked , making him look more intimidating
The lighting of this image is a mixture of natural lighting and artificial lighting. Arnold set up artificial light on each side of Alfred so the the lighting hits the sides of his face and deepens in the middle of his face making his eyes look menacing.
The overall consensus of this image is very negative and leaves the viewer feeling quite uncomfortable as Arnold has portrayed Alfred as a very powerful looking man and the fact Alfred is looking directly into the camera gives the viewer the feeling that he is looking straight at them leaving them with an uncomfortable feeling.
