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 technique has been used for centuries in the form of paintings.

Early Pioneers

Louis Daguerre + Daguerreotype

Louis Daguerre was a French artist and photographer, recognised for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography. He is known as one of the fathers of photography. He was inspired by Nicephore Niepce who was a French inventor of the 18th century

The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. This method consisted of treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, then exposing them in a camera and “developing” the images with warm mercury vapour. Unlike heliography, this process only needed 20 minutes of exposure.

Henry Fox Talbot

Henry Fox Talbot was an English scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the ‘salted paper’ and ‘calotype’ processes.

The ‘Salted Paper’ process was discovered in 1834, and it was used to create photogenic drawings, meaning drawings produced by light. The process involved dipping the paper in a solution of sodium chloride and coating one side with silver nitrate. An impression of an object was then made by placing it on the sensitized side of the paper and exposing it to the sun.

Calotype(Ancient Greek for “beautiful impression”), also know as Talbotype, was introduce in 1841. In this technique, a sheet of paper coated with silver chloride was exposed to light in a camera obscura; those areas hit by light became dark in tone, yielding a negative image.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer who is considered one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature.

Cameron was often criticized by the photographic establishment of her day for her supposedly poor technique: some of her pictures are out of focus, her plates are sometimes cracked, and her fingerprints are often visible. She is now know for those “mistakes” which made her work more unique.

Henry Mullins

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.

Final Prints

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Editing One Image

For my digital photomontages I used the pictures I took in the studio of different objects we got from Jersey Heritage, as well as the images I took on my trip to Hamptonne of the the good wife. I edited them using photoshop.

I edited these pictures in lightroom then did the photomontage in photoshop. I started by tracing the outline of my model using the magnetic lasso tool then making a new layer via copy in order to cut her out. I did this process again and inverted it before making a new layer because I wanted to get the background. I dragged the first copy I made on to the object image and placed where I wanted her to be, then I turned the opacity down and erased the bits that where on top of the object. This is so that it looks like she’s behind it and not on it. At the end I took the background copy that with her cut out and placed it on top of everything.

My Final Edits

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I hate this one I don’t even know what I was trying to do and its just looks bad. the line in the middle is like too clean? and the chicken instead of the apple looks out of place. And I know that’s the point but I hate it

Editing One Image

For my hand made photomontages I used the pictures I took in the studio and the images I took on my trip to Hamptonne of the the good wife. I edited them by hand using scissors and glue.

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For this edit, I placed the object picture upside down to make it look more interesting and visible. I then cut out the model from the black and white picture, using a craft knife and a mat, and placed it on top. I took the other portrait and cut it through the middle using a pair of scissors to give it a sharper look. I carefully positioned it so that the face lines up with the face from the black and white image.

My Final Edits

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I hate this one I don’t even know what I was trying to do and its just looks bad. the line in the middle is like too clean? and the chicken instead of the apple looks out of place. And I know that’s the point but I hate it

A photomontage is the result of combining two or more pictures together in order to make a new image. This can be done through cutting, pasting, ripping, rearranging and overlapping. Photomontage are usually used to convey a message, whether that be a commentary on political, social, or other issues. The credit for photomontages is given to Dada artists in 1916 but it emerged in the mid 1850s due to artist trying to make photography fit into fine art.

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John Stezaker

John Stezaker is a British conceptual artist know for his collages using images found in books, magazines, and postcards. His work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.

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I hate this one I don’t even know what I was trying to do and its just looks bad. the line in the middle is like too clean? and the chicken instead of the apple looks out of place. And I know that’s the point but I hate it

Selecting Pictures Process

Editing An Image

I decide to edit this photograph because I though the lighting was quite good and I liked the way I placed the item. This is because the rope is clearly visible and you can see all the small details on it which I thing looks interesting. I also liked the colours in the image because they compliment each other. The metal thing with the paint on reminded me of a paint palette.

I started by cropping the image because I wanted the object to be more visible to the viewer. I increased the temperature by a little bit because I wanted to give it a warmer tone and make it softer (the studio lights were a bit too harsh in my opinion). Increasing the whites and shadows made the whole image brighter and I liked that because the details became more visible.

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Final Edits

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For this photoshoot, we went into the studio and took pictures of different objects provided by Jersey Heritage and the school. There were three different camera stations that were set up. One was positioned at bird’s eye level, one had a plain white infinity curve and the last one had a pink and yellow background. We split up into small groups of around 3 or 4 and took turns using each set-up.

Bird’s Eye Set-Up

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It was a bit tricky using this set-up because we had never used it before and getting the objects in focus and frame was hard because we had to get on a stool and carefully try and look through the camera without touching anything.

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Infinity Curve Set-Up

This was the easiest one to use because the lights that were there were really good and we had no difficulties with them. Most of the pictures turned out bright and clear.

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Pink and Yellow Set-Up

This was the hardest and most annoying set-up to use because the tripod we had was wrong and we couldn’t use it properly. The lights were also quite bad which made the pictures turn out dark and there were lot of shadows that we couldn’t get rid of.

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Walker Evans

Walker Evans (1903-1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist that was best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. He began to photograph in the late 1920s, making snapshots during a European trip. In 1936 he travelled with the writer James Agee to illustrate an article on tenant farm families for Fortune magazine; the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men came out of this collaboration.

The ‘Beauties of the Common Tool’ collection has around 22 photographs in total and was published in July 1955 by Walker Evans. These images consist of a reamer, an awl, a bill hook, an auger, various pliers, and a couple of variations on a T-square and some wrenches. He used a nail to stabilise these tools and make them float in order to get rid of shadows and make the photographs seem cleaner.

Darren Harvey-Regan

Darren Harvey-Regan is a photographer interested in the concept that photographs do not exist just to show things, but are physical things that become objects themselves. He was influenced by Walker Evans’ pictures of ordinary hand-made tools, such as a ratchet wrench and a pair of scissors. He first constructed a montage of Evans’ images to make new forms. He then sourced matching tools, cut them in half and re-joined various halves together, with the resulting physical objects being photographed to create his final work.

Harvey-Regan’s ‘The Erratics’ project focuses on abstract rocks of different shapes and sizes. For this project he spent months in his studio photographing rocks, concentrating on composition, geometry and line. I really like the way his pictures turned out because each rock is different and can tell a story. I also like how in some rocks there are straight lines and clean corners because it looks interesting and you don’t usually see anything like that in nature.

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Comparison

Both of their works are quite similar because they both focus on taking detailed still life pictures of objects on plain white backgrounds and turning them black and white. The main difference is that Evan focused mainly on tools rather than rocks like Harvey-Regan. Harvey-Regan takes his pictures from different angles and has them placed them on a white table, he also seems to use some light source to get shadows on his rocks and accentuate the details. Evans just takes his photographs from a high angle and minimalises shadows as much as possible, he also makes his tools look like they’re floating by placing them on a nail that can’t be seen in the picture.

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Inside

For this photoshoot, I asked my friend if I could go to their house and take pictures of them doing everyday things. I let them do whatever they wanted to make it seem more casual and realistic. I took pictures of them in their room while they played the guitar, read a book, played games on their switch and watered their plants. I used the window as my main light source as it was still sunny outside and there were interesting shadows on the walls.

I tried using low and high angles as well as different positions because I wanted my images to look unique and different from each other. I used some close-ups to focus on what my model was doing in order to get a better understanding of who they are as a person.

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Contact Sheets

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Editing One Image

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I really like this image because it shows my model’s interest and a bit of their personality. I think the way the lighting was hitting their face and the guitar looked interesting and I wanted to make the image livelier. I started by changing the tint to give it a softer and warmer look. I then turned the highlights down and exposure up in order to make the details stand out more.

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Final Edits

Outside

Photoshoot 1 + Contact Sheets

The weather was nice so I took some pictures of them on the roof listening to music, reading and then looking out of the window.

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Photoshoot 2 + Contact Sheets

I went to the market and asked an old lady at the flower stand if I could take some pictures of her and her shop. She was quite busy, so I was only able to take pictures of her whilst she was working and doing her own thing. Them being unposted is a good thing because it made the pictures look more realistic. The lighting wasn’t that good in there and the camera settings were a bit tricky to figure out however I think I managed to get some shots in the end.

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Editing One Picture

I decided to edit this image because I liked the way they were looking in the distance listening to music making it look mysterious. I also wanted to give it a more sombre look and that’s why I turned it black and white. I increased the texture and clarity to bring out the details and I also played around with the shadows and highlights.

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Final Edits

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 in a genre of photography.

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Mary Ellen Mark

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Mary Ellen Mark was an American photographer from Pennsylvania that was known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were “away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes”.

One of her pieces of work that attracted me the most was the ‘Ward 81′ project where she went to the Oregon State Hospital (mental institution) in 1975 and took pictures of the patients’ lives. She spent 36 days photographing and interviewing women who were considered a danger to others and themselves.

I think all of the pictures in this project are black and white because Mark wanted to show how depressing and dull the women’s lives actually are. This could show that they have lost hope and that their future is uncertain. Mark kept all of her pictures unposed during the photoshoot to keep it simple and realistic and to show that these women are real people and not just animals being kept away from society. This could make the viewer feel sympathy towards them because you can see the hardships and pain these women go through and how hopeless some are.

Bert Teunissen

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Bert Teunissen is a Dutch photographer who is known for documenting European homes built before World War II and their inhabitants in his book ‘Domestic Landscapes: A Portrait of Europeans at Home’.

In his photographs, he tries to have more than one person and usually makes them sit down and look straight at the camera. I really like this because the background is visible and you can see all the different houses clearly. Teunissen uses natural lighting and has them at eye level in order to make them seem more natural and realistic. These pictures seem welcoming and cosy as there are mainly older people in the frame and usually there’s more of them sitting at a table making it look like a happy family. I quite like these rooms because of their old fashioned and small designs. It feels familiar to me as I am European and used to live in houses similar to these.

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Photoshoot Plan

First shoot (Outside): I will probably ask a friend if I can take pictures of them using their skateboard or walking to school or through town. I will have plenty of natural lighting which means I won’t have to worry about shadows and be able to use different angles. I’ll try to not make them pose because I want the photographs to turn out natural and not forced.

Second shoot (Inside): For this photoshoot, I will ask a friend if I can take pictures of them in their room or house in order to achieve pictures inspired by Bert Teunissen. I will mostly take full-body pictures and have my model do everyday activities like reading or playing video games to make the photographs seem more casual and natural. I will use natural lighting from the window (if possible) and use high angles to get most of the environment in. This is because I want to be able to show how my model is like a person.

Third shoot (2 or more people): I’ll go to a youth club and try to take pictures of the workers doing their jobs and helping people out. I will have to ask for consent from them and the young people that go there because I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. I’ll try to take most of the pictures from the waist up and experiment with different angles in order to focus on the activity they’re doing.