Mary (born March 20, 1940, Pennsylvania U.S.—died May 25, 2015) had been travelling for over five decades to create photographs that reflect a high degree of humanism. Being recognised as one of the most influential and respected photographers, her cultural photos have become landmarks in the field of documentary photography. She has spent many years in India including portrayals of Mother Teresa, Indian circuses, and brothels in Bombay. Since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1962, she has earned a masters degree in photojournalism. She also published her first book named ‘Passport’ containing a selection of her images from 1963 through to 1973.
Context behind the image:
The subject is a girl names Tiny, who was 13 years old at the time when Mary Ellen Mark first met her. Mark was impressed with her confidence in front of a camera , and over time developed a friendship with her. Over the years she continued to photograph her. In this shoot, Tiny wears her Halloween costume that she put together to re-create the look of a French prostitute. Tiny dreamed about horses, yachts, diamonds, and jewels as a child. Twenty years later, she was the mother of nine children.
Before Mark passed away in 2015, She finished her decades long project ‘Streetwise‘ with Tiny. Now Mark’s rich retrospective, Tiny: Streetwise Revisited, is making its debut appearance in Palm Beach, Florida’s Norton Museum through March 20, 2016.
I’m not very happy with this photoshoot as none of the photos are what i was aiming for. We were set this task in class to find places in the school to take environmental portraits. This was difficult as the lighting around the school isn’t very good and alongside the dull colours, it doesn’t create a good photo.
However, I edited a few of the images and i like the outcome of two of them:
I like the outcome of this image as it fits with the topic of environmental portraiture. This is a student sat in front of a board with whatever subject he’s taking. The image is strong as he is sat in a firm position, you can see his full body; I cropped the image so that he is in the centre of the photo, creating a focal point. I also turned the image into black and white, as there was a lot of colours in the background that were distracting from the focal point.
In environmental portrait photos, the subjects in the photos usually have a straight, emotionless face. I told this student to make a straight face to fit with this.
I like the outcome of this image, however, I think the quality could have been a lot better. There wasn’t enough time spent taking these photos; and I feel like if we had taken more time taking these photos, we could have experimented more and tried out different angles, backgrounds and maybe lighting. I like the fact his whole body is in the photo and the background does relate to him and reflects on what he does in his working environment. This is what an environmental portrait should be like.
“You don’t take pictures with your camera. You take pictures with your mind and your heart.” -Arnold Newman
Arnold Newman is widely renowned for pioneering and popularizing the environmental portrait.
With his method of portraiture, he placed his sitters in surroundings representative of their professions, aiming to capture the essence of an individual’s life and work. A musician, for instance, might be photographed in their recording studio or on stage, a Senator or other politician in their office or a representative building.
Why did Arnold Newmann start photography?
Arnold stressed that he was motivated by a genuine interest in his subjects, and in the craft of photography. He is well-known for his portraits of artists, such as Igor Stravinsky, Marilyn Monroe, and Pablo Picasso, and political figures (which he focused on in the 1960s), such as John F.
He also mentioned that the work of the Cubists, including Picasso, influenced the way he structures a photograph.
Story of Alfred Krupp’s Portrait by Arnold Newman
When Alfred Krupp first saw his portrait he was furious. Convicted Nazi had his portrait taken in 1963 by Arnold Newman who was Jewish . Newsweek commissioned Arnold Newman to take his portrait but he refused. He saw the convicted (and later pardoned) war criminal as the devil but later changed his mind as he decided to put a knife in his back.
Newman had a platform specifically erected in order to place Krupp against an industrial backdrop and he knew exactly what kind of image he had in mind. When composing the shot he asked Krupp to lean forward slightly, when he did he clasped his fingers together under his chin. “As a Jew, it’s my own little moment of revenge.” “It was my impression of a Nazi who managed to survive yet killed millions of people” he said.
An environmental portrait is a photographed portrait that captures subjects in their natural surroundings instead of in a studio or other artificial setup.
Good environmental portraits will tell strong stories of their subjects. Their immediate surroundings will give the viewer insight into where these people are, what they do, and who they are. Locations that help to tell a person’s story could be places where they relax, work, or play: Their home.
Alec Soth is an American photographer, based in Minneapolis. Soth makes “large-scale American projects” featuring the midwestern United States. He was born in 1969 ( currently aged 54 years), in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States.
Alec Soth’s practice was influenced by the American documentary photography tradition of Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Joel Sternfeld. He chose the open road for his projects, often with a list of the shots he wants attached to his steering wheel. New York Times art critic Hilarie M. Sheets wrote that he has made a “photographic career out of finding chemistry with strangers” and photographs “loners and dreamers”.
From 2012–2014, Soth embarked on a series of state-by-state road trips to make a portrait of present-day America.
“I’ve never been comfortable photographing people I know, myself included. I guess I prefer the mystery of strangers”
Here are some examples of his photographs and they were all taken in different countries around the world. The photos consist of different angles and close up, half body and full body shots, showing how he experiments with his work.
Image Analysis
Alec Soth- Charles- Vasa, Minnesota, 2002
This is one of Soth’s most famous photographs ‘Charles‘ which he made during his road trip along the Mississippi river. His series ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi’ consists of many different people he found interesting, this man Charles being one of them. Soth was initially drawn to the mans house, which consisted of a glass roof. After meeting his wife, Soth wanted to meet the interesting man he later described as a ‘dreamer’ and after finding out about the man’s life and how he called the top room his ‘cockpit’, Soth decided to photograph him on top of one of his roofs, having him hold a pair model planes in hand he built with his daughter.
The photo was taken face on, capturing a full body shot of the man. He appears to be wearing an outfit he is comfortable in, possibly being something to do with his interests. The composition of the photo places Charles in the centre, his strong, stable stance presenting him as a confident individual who takes pride in his work (the two model airplanes in his hands). Behind him, we can notice the empty, bleak landscape which appears to be surrounding his home. The photo was composed so that a slither of the wall of his home was seen, the bright blue colour contrasting with the dull colouring around. This could portray how Soth saw Charles compared with other people- a dreamer that stood out to him in a crowd. The left side of him is slightly more illuminated by the cool natural light due to the slight shadow the roof casts onto him, causing there to be a wider range of tones in the picture. The different materials scattered around him indicate he uses them to upgrade his home, once again showing us how he is in his favourite place that he loves working on. This photo is staged, since the man is engaging with the camera and his body facing towards it, suggesting that Soth talked to the man before, deciding on the pose, props and landscape behind him to create this powerful environmental photograph.
The task was to take photos of students around school. They had to be at least half-body shots in order to include parts of the background. This is so that the environment can contribute to the context of the photographs.
Here are the outcomes:
As you can see there is a variety of subjects, objects, backgrounds across my outcomes. I have also edited some in black and white to create more of a variety.
