An environmental portrait is a photograph executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings.
By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience.
This project will allow me to explore this way of taking portraits, not only finding out about the person, but also about their surroundings. This creates a very interesting concept, the photo revealing more about the person being photographed than portrait photos normally do.
I mounted up these edits by using foam boards, cut to various different sizes (some being bigger than the picture to create a white outline). I used a spray on glue to attach my photos to the foam boards.
During this project, I researched both of the main aspects of Landscape Photography; the natural and urban aspects of it with many subtopics. I learnt about Romanticism and the Sublime, Urban photography and lastly the Anthropocene. Each sub- topic introduced me to new photographers and the techniques they use- expanding my knowledge on landscape photography. Overall, I think I completed this project very effectively, exploring the different ways I could photograph my surroundings and capturing any different locations in a variety of styles. One of the most successful aspects of this project, was my experimentation when it came to editing, resulting with many effective and successful edits that linked in well with the artists I focused my research on. Something I could improve on, would have to be the amount of photos I took, resulting with more images to choose from and therefore making sure each image is good quality, making the final edits even better. Furthermore, I think I did well on researching the photographers, my analysis showing my understanding of their techniques and the type of landscape photography they do. If I could change/ add to certain parts of the project, I would research more urban landscape photographers, to deepen my understanding of the topic and therefore make my analysis and comparisons easier to write and more detailed.
my best final edits from my Anthropocene landscape responses
Comparison
My photoJung’s Photo
This photograph was inspired by Stephanie Jung, who takes multiple exposure photos of urban landscapes, editing them so that they appear as though they are moving. She illustrates reality as we normally see it whilst portraying many bizarre and unearthly dimensions within her pictures. Her photo includes a cityscape that shimmers and shifts, forever moving and not allowing the viewer to fully understand what is happening. Jung focused on the bluey-green tones apparent throughout the image, accentuating them during her editing phase and creating this ghost-like image. I loved the dizzyingly abstract effect she created, and I tried to recreate it by capturing a similar landscape from the same high angle she took it from, the bird’s eye view angle showing the city from a different way it is normally seen from. I was inspired by the multiple exposure technique, recreating it by layering the same image on top of itself twice and slightly moving it to create the shifted look. Furthermore, the overall cool tones in the photo looked very effective, and it became yet another aspect of her photo that I recreated, enhancing the cool blues and whites in my image to create a similar effect. On the other hand, her photo has a quite high exposure, making her photo quite bright. In contrast, my photo’s exposure is quite low, juxtaposing her image by being much darker and having a gloomier look. Moreover, her photo consists of a much clearer foreground and background, the buildings at the top of the image being much paler where as my photo was taken at a steeper angle and the foreground and background don’t have such a clear difference. Both of our photos present human architecture as a repeated concept, the shifted repeated photos layered on top of each other further supporting this idea.
My photoJung’s Photo
This photo was once again influenced by Stephanie Jung, who captured a street view in Japan and edited it in her style to create this interesting photo. Her photo consists of the road creating a leading line, running from the corner of the image and helping our eyes decipher the image by guiding us through it. I thought this as very effective and decided to recreate the leading line, however I decided to take the picture so that the leading line would start in the middle of the photo, guiding the audiences eyes through the foreground all the way to the background of my image without getting distracted by the shifting surroundings. I, once again, recreated the shaking effect by layering the image on itself over and over, slightly changing the position of each after lowering the opacity. Jung’s photo focused on the sandy yellow tones present in the image, enhancing them to create this interesting filter. Although being influenced by this before, I decided to go for a more natural effect, simply enhancing the colours by increasing the saturation. This, however, did bring out the cool, blue tones of the image therefore there is a link of focusing on one colour in the two photos. Furthermore, both pictures include a sense of depth of field, the leading line being the main cause of this by adding depth to the image. The composition of Jung’s image struck me as very effective, the two buildings on either side of the street towering over it and almost embracing it. I attempted to recreate this by capturing a building on each side of the image, even a bit of a tree branches to add another pattern to the image, just like the artist did. The repeated shapes (branches in Jung’s photo and the windows in mine) adds a repetition of patterns throughout both photos, another effective technique that adds to the idea of multiple dimensions.
I edited these images in both photoshop and lightroom, using tools such as the smudge tool and adjustment brush to create these images, manipulating the images to look better and more like the artists in lightroom and later layering the images in photoshop. I lowered the opacity of the layers on top, creating these multiple exposure photos. For some images, I conjoined different yet similar images, and for some I layered the same photo on top of another (one version being edited, for example by using the smudge tool, differently to the other). I also moved the layers around ,creating the idea of movement in my photos.
I edited these images in both photoshop and lightroom, using tools such as the smudge tool and changing the hues of different colours in the image to create these images, manipulating the images to look better and more like the artists in lightroom and later layering the images in photoshop. I lowered the opacity of the layers on top, creating these multiple exposure photos. For some images, I conjoined different yet similar images, and for some I layered the same photo on top of another (one version being edited, for example by using the smudge tool, differently to the other).
Stephanie Jung is a freelance photographer based in Berlin, Germany. In 2010 she finished her studies in Visual Communications, where she discovered her passion for experimental photography.
She loves to travel all over the world, especially to big cities, to capture the vibrant and hectic mood of a place. But her work is not just about citylife, it’s about time and caducity, about capturing special moments getting lost in time. Her extraordinary shots show cities that depict reality but nonetheless lead to a different, surreal dimension apart from our real world.
With her camera, she does no more than 4 exposures. She believes anything more than that is hard to control and the pictures’ structure vanishes. Instead, she reworks the images, adding elements and editing them the way she likes.
“It’s about time and caducity”
– Stephanie Jung
Stephanie Jung
Image Analysis
Times Square II- Stephanie Jung
This was one of the photos that Jung took while in New York, portraying a busy, crowded area. Jung’s fascinating technique causes her multiple-exposure photographs to have many different layers- illustrating reality as we normally see it but nevertheless portraying many bizarre and unearthly dimensions within her pictures. This entrancing piece is a perfect example of her unique approach- her use of multiple exposures combined together creating a ghostly appearance. The range of different opacities provokes a cluttered effect to emerge throughout the image, creating an effective look and engaging the audience more. The high saturation of the image makes the colours stand out, the oranges and reds overtaking and causing the picture to be mostly made up from warm tones. There is a sense of repetition in this piece, some areas (such as billboards) being repeated in the image numerous times, producing an overlapping effect that brings depth into the image, causing there to be a 3D effect and adding an interesting look to it. Furthermore, the layered rectangular billboards create a pattern of blocky shapes within the photo, adding a harsher and sharper look to the photo. This photograph captures the true complexity of this cityscape, Jung accentuating these qualities with her editing later on, layering different photos together. This image seems to be consistently shifting, causing the audience to notice new things each time they look at the image. This piece is an perfect balance between time and timelessness, the photo seeming everlastingly alive. The people going about their day adds another sense of chaos to the image. The overall feeling of chaos seems to be quite disruptive and exaggerated however, when looking more at the picture, proves to be a beautifully abstract way of reducing the complexity of the landscape. This image is a perfect example of photographs being able to capture more than a single moment in time, as he piece clearly has a much longer timeline.
