Walker Evans was an American photographer who mainly focused on documenting the effects of the great depression however he also produced some still life images using tools which he published in a portfolio named ‘Beauties of the common tool’. in 1955.
image by Walker Evans
Darren Harvey-Ragen
Darren Harvey-Ragen was another still life photographer who was known for taking more abstract images of sculptures positioned on a solid white background while both Walker and Darren photograph still life Walkers images are very consistent as the objects are always centred and taken from an above angle without shadows, while Darren uses a landscape approach and plays with angles and shadows in his images.
Environmental portraits are portraits taken in the subject’s usual environment home or place of work, showing both the subject and the background.
Mood Board-
August Sander
August Sander
August Sander
Arnold Newman
David Goldblatt
Sara Facio
Michelle Sank
Bert Teunissen
Jimmy Nelson
Mood board
Artist research-
Michelle Sank is a South African photographer who uses environmental portraits to explore societal and cultural differences, especially in the UK.
I like the simplicity of her work, often it is a single subject surrounded with an intentionally limited background, the lighting is often neutral and the interest comes from the models themselves.
Planning-
One of my friends is dying her hair so I decided to take pictures of her doing that. Another friend is coming to help her dye it so I can take my pictures with multiple people at the same time. I will take pictures around her house, but specifically her bathroom and bedroom.
The Shoot-
Contact Sheet-
Some of my original images before the editing process.
Colour Images
BW Images
Evauluation-
I enjoyed taking all of these pictures but if I were to do this task again I would have taken more and tried to organise the composition a bit more. In the future, I want to communicate more with my subjects to get better images. The lighting was not great and I probably should have done the shoot a little later in the day.
An Image is an Environmental Portrait when the Model and their Environment, the foreground, mid-ground and background, are linked through the actions or appearance of the Model, as if they are a part of that Environment.
Mood Board of Environmental Portraits
Ideas
3/4 of Model Visible?
Colour?
Portrait?
Holding Something?
Could use colour to make the model stand out from the background (Contrasting colour of clothing or prop)
Full Body?
Black and White?
Landscape?
How much of the Environment will be visible?
How large will the Model be compared to the environment?
Plan
Outside Photoshoot
For my outside photoshoot I will be taking pictures of my uncle doing archery. I will go to the archery range on the 17th October because it is sunny on that day, which will allow my images to have natural lighting. I also want to do the shoot on Sunday because we will be doing a Clout Shoot and because it is a less modern style of archery, we will be using an older type of bow and will wear a medieval-themed shirt, which will loosely link to Heritage. I wanted to take pictures of him doing archery because we have both done it for years and we both enjoy a lot.
Inside Photoshoot
For the Inside photoshoot I will take pictures of a hairdresser cutting someone’s hair at the salon they work at, which will allow me to make the images more recognisable. I will go on the 16th October, when it is not too busy, and I will be using artificial lighting, with fairly bright natural light coming through the door. I decided to take pictures of a hairdresser because I thought it would be a good way for the model to get into poses that are easy to notice and correlate to her profession.
Two or more people
I will be photographing my mother and one of her friends while they are doing a fitness routine. I will be taking this photoshoot at Le Braye (on the dunes) because it has a flat surface and a fairly plain background, which allows the models to be the main focus, on the 16th October because it was also sunny on that day, which allows for good natural lighting to be present in the photograph. My mother used to work as a fitness instructor, so I thought it would be a good idea to capture her skills within a photoshoot.
Bert Teunissen
An image of a man in his house with chili-peppers hanging from his room
In this image, the exposure is fairly low, which allows for the shadows to be clearly seen and made darker, giving the image a dismal, run-down look. The composition of this image is created primarily through the pipe in the centre of the image, with leading lines from the chili’s, windows and other furniture. It is arguable that the focal point is either the pipe in the centre or the man on the left. Lighting in this image overall is not too harsh, although light shines through the windows creating brightness. The artist likely uses colour as a way to show the situation of this person, with his house looking fairly run-down, which directly contrasts with the chili-peppers which would, supposedly, act as his livelihood. The model’s whole body can be seen and he has not been posed which could have been done by Teunissen to show that life for this person is mundane or glum. The image was taken level with the model, with the camera being positioned fairly far away, allowing more of the room to be seen. The model is fairly small compared to the rest of the image, which could possibly show how this man’s livelihood is of utmost importance to him in order to survive. The model is looking directly at the camera, which could have been done by the artist to make the model appear saddened or stressed about his situation.
Outside Photoshoot Contact Sheet
For these images I wanted to edit them in a simple way, by slightly changing the exposure, contrast, highlights/shadows and whites/blacks, which would allow for the colours and lighting to stand out more.
I think this is the best image from this set because I like how there is a difference in tone from the top and bottom halves of the image, as well as how the model inverts that difference in tone with their clothing (the darker parts of his clothing is positioned at the top half of the image which contrasts with the lighter sky, and his white trousers are in the bottom half creating another contrast). I decided to make the image black and white to make this correlation between the model and the background clearer
I decided to edit these next images in a similar way, I made the vibrancy low to create a dark red on the clothing of my model which contrasts nicely with the rest of the image which is left fairly dark and colourless.
I think this is my best image for the Outside Photoshoot because of how the image is laid out, with the other model’s upper body being positioned inside the bow of the closer model, which creates another frame within the image, as well as how both models have a similar pose like they are synchronised with one another. I also like how the colours in the image are shown, with red and white shirts contrasting heavily with the darker green.
Inside Photoshoot Contact Sheet
I edited these images in a similar way to the last ones, with only subtle adjustments, because I thought the colours of the models’ clothing worked nicely with the mainly black and white colours of the salon.
I chose this as the best image from the indoor photoshoot as I like how both models have their own frame or background around their head (with the model on the left having a white background surrounded by the black frames of the mirrors, and the model on the right having a mirror around their head, which is almost the complete opposite of what is shown around the model-on-the-left’s head). I also like how the image is primarily made of black and whites, yet some colour such as blue and green manage to make their way into the image and contrast with the black and whites.
Two or More Models Photoshoot Contact Sheet
For this set of images, I edited them in a simple way as well, this was so that the different colours, the warmth and tones of the images are kept close to the originals. I did this because I liked how the images turned out without editing them.
I thought this was the best image from the Two or more Models photoshoot because I like how there is a large variety of colours in the image, with blue and green being the majority of the colour in the image’s background and pink and black being the colours of the models’ clothing, creating a contrast. I also like how the models use the blue of the sky as a background for their head, which makes their faces stand out more as the sky has very little in it, while their lower bodies use the green on the ground as their background.
Final Images
Evaluation:
Overall, I am pleased with the outcomes of the photoshoots, I think the images correctly show what the atmosphere is like in those professions/doing those hobbies. I would say that my favourite photoshoot out of the three would be the outside one, as I think the images have a lot of energy and an ‘In-the-moment’ feel to them. However, I think I could have incorporated the style of the artist I researched (Bert Teunissen) more successfully, I could also work on my skills with communicating with my models in order to get the exact image that I wanted.
I used P (pick) and X (reject) to choose which pictures I wanted to keep and use later on for my edits.
Then I compared the images that looked similar and picked the one I liked the most by starring it.
After starring my pictures, I colour coded them and decided which ones I wanted to edit. (yellow = maybe, green = yes, red = no)
Editing An Image
the original image and how I edited it
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.
before
after
Final Edits
favourite edit because the colours and details stand out
It’s nice how the objects are in the middle however, they don’t look good together and some things are not in focus. I like how the edit looks a bit old because of the colours though
I cropped the image and made the reflection of the objects more visible because I thought they looked interesting
I like the composition and how the bottle is on the left and the rest is empty. It’s in black and white because I wanted to make it look old and I turned the texture up to give it almost a grain effect
I turned it black and white, cropped it so that the objects were in the middle and increased the texture to make it look older and more detailed
I was aiming to get a picture similar to Walker Evan’s work. Some of the things I did: turned it black and white, increased the exposure and texture
This version of the portrait is my favourite. This is because the black and white allows the picture to look timeless. This picture could’ve been taken recently or 50 years ago. I find this aspect of the photo the most interesting as I have made a picture taken in the 21st century look as if it is photographed in the 1900s. The black and white of this image reflects on how long this jewellery shop has been running for. It relates to the theme of heritage because it is a family jewellers which was established in 1988 by the hutching’s family. They stated at the time that they weren’t expecting so many people to come into the shop and since then, to this day, TJ Hutchings has been a go to jewellers to get all things jewellery fixed and is well known by islanders.
In total, I had 3 photoshoots: First at a youth club, second by some foliage, third in the market.
Contact Sheet
Contact Sheet
In each photoshoot I tried to use a variety of angles and distances in order to get an assortment of shots that looked different from one another whilst still keeping both the model and background in the shot. I found this quite difficult, especially when the model was moving around, as the photos would end up quite blurry/out of focus even when I changed the shutter speed and f-stop. However, despite these challenges, I think I was still able to get some decent environmental portraits.
Editing My Portraits
My original photo
When editing this image I wanted to make the background stand out just as much as the foreground in order to highlight one aspect of the surrounding environment whilst still keeping everything else in focus. This led me to increasing the highlights and shadows a lot whilst keeping the exposure down in order to make sure each object in the image was in focus and distinguishable from one another. I finished off the edit by decreasing the saturation on everything except the blues which gives the viewers eye something to focus on.
My final edit
My Final Edits
This is my favourite edit as I like how the colours stand out, despite being muted, and how they create a small wonderland due to the flowers surrounding her, making her seem like she’s in her own little world.
Environmental Portraits – show and discuss – critique
Work in small groups to take still life compositions in studio – use product table and flash lighting system, copy stand with flash light, and coloured backdrops with soft box lighting (this should be done by now)
Select and edit a range of images from your still life photo-shoot in Adobe Lightroom
Look carefully at this blog post for ideas, research and theory
Create YOUR OWN blog post(s) that clearly shows your selection process and a range of final images from the objects
Final Images = 3-5 object-based images
At least one image should be black and white, and show understanding of tone and contrast
Over half term…try to photograph a range of still-life set-ups, experiment with your own lighting, own objects etc
Remember when EXPORTING from Lightroom you must adjust the file size to 1000 pixels on the Long edge for “blog-friendly” images (JPEGS)
Refer to THIS BLOG POST… for help and guidance in the studio
