Headshots are a form of portraiture which frame the subject’s face and perhaps part of their shoulders and upper body.
Here are the outcomes from a photoshoot I did in the studio, focussing on producing headshots. They shows my attempt at utilising multiple lights and coloured gels that are in the studio.
We had another photoshoot down in the studio, where we experimented with gel filters to add colours to the different lights. We used flash lighting and didn’t use very exciting camera settings, using f/16, an ISO of 100, shutter speed at 1/125, and a focal length of 105mm.
I sorted through the images we took and found some very interesting compositions, keeping the ones in good focus and lighting, and discarding the rest, which ended up being a large chunk of the last part of the shoot.
I colour-coded and gave each photograph a star rating, based on how good I thought they’d be as a final product or to be edited. As the shoot itself was in a low-light setting, it was difficult to be able to get a good final image from a lot of the darker ones, as they are more of a struggle to edit.
I think these photographs are all quite dramatic and unique, and express various tones in darkness and emotion. The use of coloured lighting creates personality within the subjects, and alludes to what kind of people they might be.
These two images of myself both show very little detail of my face, only showing explicit details such as my earring and my silhouette. It exudes a feeling of mystery as to who the person in the image is, and could also stir a sense of anxiety in the viewer because of this.
These two images both have a primarily blue colour palette, creating a melancholy atmosphere for the viewer, amplified by the use of these colder colours. On the photo to the left, some red light shines onto the back of my head, creating a contrast to the palette.
These three images all share very similar colour palettes, reds and blacks, mostly mixed with blues (excl. centre), and make great use of pose. The combination of the blues and reds as key and filler lights create links to police siren lights, which adds more personality to the photograph, creating interest. I think these three images could work well as a triptych, and could be used in a final piece later down the line.
These two photos contrast greatly in brightness, the one on the left using brighter reds and more separated (from the reds) blacks, whereas the one on the right uses softer tones of red and greens at a lower exposure. I don’t think these images are the best from the shoot, as the one on the right doesn’t have the strongest focus, but I still think they’re interesting enough to be looked at.
Using different types of lighting and gels, we did some headshots inspired by Ole Christiansen, a Danish photographer.
Some of our images:
Henry Mullins moved to Jersey from London in 1848 setting up a studio called the “Royal Saloon”. In the beginning, he worked with another man but by 1849 he was working alone in the same studio he would end up working in for the next 26 years.
He quite famously did Diamond Cameos, the four headshots of the subjects were presented in a diamond shape using a process in which four separate portraits of the same subject are printed on a carte-de-visite.
His Diamond Cameos:
My attempt:
This shoot shows us experimenting with the multi-exposure setting on the camera:
I imported these images onto Lightroom and sorted through the best outcomes and rejected the ones I didn’t want to use:
Then, still on Lightroom, I did the initial editing.
We went into the studio to take some photos making sure only our heads are in the frame and they turned out very good. We also changed the lighting and backdrop to make different moods, feelings etc.
.The Patent Diamond Cameo photograph was registered by F.R. Window of London in 1864. Four small oval portraits (1″ x 3/4“) were placed on a carte de visite in the shape of a diamond, each portrait being of the same person photographed in a different position.
First I used the Elliptical Marquee tool to shape around my image. Then I added it on a plain white background.
Then I measured the other images By copying my first shape to make sure they where all the same size and then repeated this with all Four of my images.
Finally when I have set out all the images into the shape of a Dimond I changed the background to pink and added shadows to each individual image.
Double and multi exposure images are created by layering images or taking an image with a slow shutter speed.
Double/multiple exposures are an illusion created by layering images (or portions of images) over the top of each other to create artistic looks, like a ghost effect, mirror images. This can be achieved in the camera settings, or when editing on Adobe Photoshop by creating LAYERS and then using BLENDING OPTIONS and OPACITY CONTROL. This technique has been used to explore Surrealist Ideas and produce dream-like imagery/imagery that explores time and time lapse whilst being a technique in which you combine at least two images into one to create artistic looks, like a ghost effect, mirror images.
This effects can also be created by slowing down the shutter speed and some cameras also have a setting especially for creating multi-exposure images.
My attempts using photoshop:
My attempts using camera settings:
