What is Sequence/Grid Photography?

Sequence photography is when you capture the movement of an object or of a sequence of events over time. The photographs are often taken at rapid-fire or they can even be taken separately. This can be displayed as a series of photographs or you could do some editing to make the movement all within one image. This is an example of the subject moving within the same image:

Grid photography can be either a collage of multiple photos together or splitting one photo into a grid known as the rule of thirds. Typologies are also a type of grid photograph and it is when photos are grouped with ones that have similar characteristics and laid out as a grid.

Mood board

Rule of Thirds

What is the rule of thirds?

The rule of thirds is a guideline in photography which places the subject in the left, right or middle third, leaving the other two thirds more open. The image is divided into 9 equal parts by two horizontal and two vertical lines of equal distance. The rule of thirds is generally used to create a well balanced, more visually pleasing photograph and draw the audience’s eyes towards the subject you want them to focus on.

Photo examples

Artist Reference

Brian D Smith

Brian D Smith is an American Wedding and Studio Photographer. He began his career in photography after photographing a wedding and making the decision to pursue his passion and drop his career in engineering. He is passionate about photographing weddings because he believes that committing to one person for life is a beautiful experience to witness. He also enjoys portraits and editorial work because he believes that it provides an opportunity to share a bond with a subject and reflect their beauty.

This is a series of photographs taken by Brian D Smith which have been arranged as a grid. In the top row, you can see that the woman’s eyes are becoming less visible to the camera each time, however, in the middle row she is making direct eye contact with the camera in each photo. On the bottom row, the subject is looking away from the camera in each photo and posing with her hands. In the top row, as her eyes become less visible to the camera, her hands are more visible. For example, in the first photo she is not using her hands, however in the second she is using both but only one palm is visible and in the last one both her palms are visible. Each image that makes up this grid looks like it follows the rule of thirds, apart from the bottom, centre image as the subject’s arm is aligned with the side of the photograph. Finally, this grid does not follow a specific trend as each photograph is different, however, they do all have similar characteristics.

Photoshoot Plan

Photoshoot/Photo Selection

I am going to be using this same set of photos for all Headshots editing.

Edits

Grid 1

I planned my first grid by selecting the photos I will use and positioning them where I want them in Freeform so I can visualise what it will look like.

The photos on the bottom row all appear a bit darker than the others, therefore, I am going to edit them a little bit on Adobe Lightroom Classic.

This is my improved grid after editing the photos:

To make my grid on Adobe Photoshop, I followed the following YouTube Tutorial:

The method I undergone for this was:

1) File > New: 1080 x 1080 pixels | 72 Resolution | Background: White

2) View > New Guide Layout: Columns: 3 | Rows: 3

3) Add a New layer and select Rectangular Marquee Tool then select any colour. Select first box, using Rectangular Marquee Tool, then right click and select Fill… > Foreground Colour.

4) Repeat this process with different colours for each of the boxes.

5) Select a layer and drag and drop a photo to place it on top. Right click the photo layer then select Create Clipping Mask.

6) After this, go to Edit > Free Transform and align the image how you would like it.

7) Repeat this process for the rest of the boxes to get your final result and clear Guides.

Grid 2

I used the same method from my previous edit, just with different photos. I decided that this grid would look better if I made it B&W, so that is what I did.

Grid 3

This will be the photos used in my 3rd grid. I am planning on possibly making the images in the middle row monochrome.

This is what the grid will look like with that row being in B&W. I then decided that I think it would look better with the B&W row being the bottom row so I changed it.

This is the final arrangement of my grid that I will make in Photoshop.

This is my grid that I created using these images in Adobe Photoshop:

Evaluation

Overall, I think my grids are similar to Brian D Smith’s due to the range of hand gestures and poses, although, my grids are different in terms of shape as they are squares whereas his are rectangular.

^ This is my personal favourite grid as I think that it looks quite professional and I like the B&W. I also like how the background of each image appear similar colour, except from the top left being a little darker.

Additionally, the rule of thirds is another form of grid photography and I would say that the majority of the images within my grids follow this rule.

Photoshoots

The following photos consist of three different studio lighting techniques, Chiaroscuro, Butterfly and Rembrandt.

Edits

For this rembrandt photo I chose to bring up the exposure and add some warmth to it too. This made the photo look a lot more clearer. I also changed the vibrance and saturation a small bit just to emphasise that warmth and to bring in brighter colours to the photo instead of the dark greys that are present in the original photo.

In this butterfly lighting photo, I chose to make the temperature colder. This changed the background from grey to light blue, which overall changes the atmosphere of the photo and makes it look a lot more interesting by adding slightly more vibrant colours.

For this chiaroscuro photo, I decided to bring up the contrast so that the difference between both sides of the subjects face is more defined. Also, I rose the clarity so that there is more texture in the photo. Overall, this makes the photo a lot deeper and slightly more dark, while the added clarity highlights the subjects face a lot better than before.

For all the photos below, the camera was set to:

ISO 100

ƒ16

1/160 sec

Best photos

Masculinity:

Qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men or boys. Masculinity involves displaying attitudes and behaviours that signify and validate maleness, and involves being recognised in particular ways by other men and women.

What is healthy masculinity?

What Is Healthy Masculinity? Healthy or positive masculinity is the idea that men can be emotionally expressive, have female friends or mentors, and express their emotions without feeling emasculated.

What does toxic masculinity mean?

Toxic masculinity refers to the notion that some people’s idea of “manliness” perpetuates domination, homophobia, and aggression. Toxic masculinity involves cultural pressures for men to behave in a certain way. And it’s likely this affects all boys and men in some fashion.

What is gentle masculinity?

Gentle masculinity is supportive, caring, loving, gentle and kind. There is banter, yes, but it’s gentle banter. It’s supportive banter compared to that of “sour masculinity,” which is marked by aggressive behavior, harsh sexualized language, abusive and cold banter about women, and constant put-downs between boys.

FEMININITY:

Qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women or girls. It is both a means of ‘getting ahead’ as much as it can be a form of distraction. Being in the feminine means taking time as it comes and feeling into situations. It’s about trusting intuition and allowing time and space for life to unfold.

There are seven feminine archetypes that prevail in contemporary western society—the mother, the maiden, the queen, the huntress, the sage, the mystic, and the lover. The presence of these archetypes in our psyches accounts for the major differences among women.

What is very feminine behavior?

This may include being passive, naive, sexually inexperienced, soft, flirtatious, graceful, nurturing, and accepting.

What are the three types of femininity?

Type 1: Careerist Femininity. Type 2: Individualised Femininity. Type 3: Vocational Femininity.

Binary opposition

Binary opposition originated in Saussurean structuralist theory in Linquistics (scientific study of language) According to Ferdinand de Saussure, binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. Using binary opposites can often be very helpful in generating ideas for a photographic project as it provides a framework – a set of boundaries to work within.

A binary opposition is very easy to identify as its the basics of opposites for example:

Henry Mullins Dimond Cameo

The diamond cameo is something Henry Mullins created using 4 photos of the same person but the person is facing different angles in each photo.

our separate portraits of the same subject are printed on a carte-de-visite. These are then printed onto each of the oval shapes of only their headshots and not their body.

Photos I’m using:

The final piece:

How I created it:

I added whatever photo I wanted to start with and then used the elliptical marquee tool to created the oval shape around the individual. I did this 4 times. I then ordered my photos into the front facing at the top, both side facing on the sides and then another random one at the bottom.

I think something I could have improved would be by adding a boarder around the white backgrounded photo.

Double/Multi-Exposure

Double/multi-exposure photos are an illusion created by layering images. This is usually done digitally by taking multiple images and then editing on apps such a photoshop. you can edit the level of opacity of the photos to make it more transparent to see the images that are layered underneath. There is also a way to create this effect without digital editing.

Here’s how your camera captures a double exposure in film cameras:

1. 1. Take your first photo. The camera shutter opens to expose the film to one image, then closes. The first image is generally a subject, often a portrait.
2. 2. Rewind the film and take your second photo. The camera shutter opens again to expose the film to a second image, then closes, shooting over the same frame again. The second image is generally a background, often a landscape or cityscape.
3. 3. Develop both images in one photo. The final image combines the two exposures into a single image where they’re both visible on top of one another.

My own digital attempt:

I copied the same image onto photoshop 4 time and layered the, on top of each other. I then adjusted the positioning of them by using size or just moving them slightly. From here, I edited the opacity and lowered it to create the transparent look. I did this one each photo except the background to keep a solid photo as the base.

JUXTAPOSITION:

Juxtaposition is a photography technique that consists of a contrast of separate photos. This can be created using a contrast of colour, people, places etc. Some juxtaposition techniques have also been used to create stories behind an image but contrasting it with the usual image against teh deeper meaning of the image.
Elliott Erwitt is a master when it comes to juxtaposition.

This edit was a fairly easy process. I began by deciding what I was going to juxtapose using the images and found 2 similar takes with different light colours used. I did not use photoshop for this edit, instead I edited them separately on Lightroom and then just transferred them onto a PowerPoint where I was able to align them next to each other for them to be able to go onto my blog as a single photo.

Henry Mullins was a photographer who was founded in the first few years of photography being originated. Photography came about in the year 1839, Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s. He then moved to Jersey due to tax reasons in 1848 and carried on his career of photography. He set up his own photography studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. in the beginning, he was known to have worked with a Mr Millward but a year on from that he worked alone for the next 26 years in the same studio.

There was short period in the 1860s where Mullins worked in London but there is a large amount of photographs, which are held by the  La Société Jersiaise, that suggest there were plenty of people on the island willing to pay a good amount of money to have their photograph taken by Mullins.

Cartes de visite

Henry Mullins has a speciality called ‘Cartes de visite’ and the photographic archive of La Société has a big collection of these, which are produced in albumen, which was a thin paper photograph mounted on a thicker paper card. The size of a carte de visite is 54.0 × 89 mm normally mounted on a card sized 64 × 100 mm. On the online version of the archive there is 9600 images. this was usually done by a number of 16 photographs taken in one sitting.

Some of Henry Mullins’ photographs

Diamond Cameo

A Diamond Cameo is a process in which four separate portraits of the same subject are printed on a carte-de-visite. the four photos are usually taken from different angles of the subject. These are then printed onto each of the oval shapes of only their headshots and not their body.

1. Soft and Hard lighting

Hard lighting is a type of lighting in photography which is harsh and creates the effects of strong shadows in the image. It usually comes from a single, bright light which is smaller than the subject. When photographing objects, the dark lighting will also help to show the 3D-Appearance and will also further define the textures and details an object might have.

Soft lighting is a type of lighting in photography which is more diffused and creates softer shadows. Hard light has more contrast and is usually brighter than soft light, while soft light is usually more even. Soft light tends to wrap around the subject to create its subtle shadows . The use of soft lighting also increases the size of the photo as as the light rays travel in all directions as they move toward the subject. Soft lighting can also make colours pear richer and more realistic when it comes to the usual photography or cinematography.

My two favourite photos that demonstrate thus technique

Framing: Headshots

In photography, framing is often used to direct the viewer’s eye towards the subject of an image. 
for example, the technique of Rule Of Thirds is used to frame the subjects in your photo to make the image more visually captivating. The Rule of Thirds is the process of dividing an image into thirds, using two horizontal and two vertical lines

What can the rule of thirds be used to do?:

• Use composition techniques that are in line with what’s naturally pleasing to the eye
• Creatively use negative space
• Create conversation between the subject and background

in my attempt, my headshot is focussed on the right on the image and the 3 squares on the right are kept completely blank to draw attention only to the aspects in the middle and the right.

Focusing on the eyes

When focussing on the eyes in photography, photographers tend to do this is many different ways. Such as:

• Capturing the image up close
• Having the subject pose
• Adjusting the aperture 
• Lighting  

• The proximity of the photo allows the photographer to get an image up close to the subjects face. This will cause the subject to look directly at the camera with their eyes to create the interstellar stare. This will create a sharp quality within the eyes and most likely make them the main focus of the image.

• Posing with the eyes would be directed by the photographer for where they want the subject to be looking. By doing this is could enhance the lighting on the eyes when, for example, the subject is looking upwards rather then to the left.hands can also be used to focus the attention onto the eyes even when they are not looking directly at the camera

As an example, this photo shows the use of the hands posting upwards that lead the viewers gaze towards the eyes.

• By adjusting the aperture on your camera, it is another way of adjusting the detail of specific aspects. If you were to focus on the yes, you would adjust the aperture which would then slighting blur out the background of the image other than the eyes. This can be a very accurate and frustrating process as one slight movement could move the focus on the nose or the hair so to lower the chances of this happening to Paul d be smart to use a tripod if possible.

• Direct focus on the yes using lighting can easily brighten them and create the main focus. This can also be used by sunlight and not just artificial lighting. The lighting can cause shadows all over the image but the eyes will be well lit. This is a proven technique to create engaging portraits.

Expression

Pose

used the link below to find these ideas:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_conflict

What is double/multi exposure?

Double or multi exposure photographs are when an illusion is created by layering images (or parts of images) over the top of each other. This can be done on Adobe Photoshop by creating image layers and then using blending options and opacity control.

Mood board

Artist Reference

Man Ray was an American photographer, painter and filmmaker, born in 1890 under the name Emmanuel Radnitzky in Pennsylvania. He was most famous for his work in portraiture and spent the majority of his career in Paris, where he later passed away in 1976, aged 86. Man Ray was Jewish and a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist Movements, challenging social norms through art and writing. He invented many photography techniques, a remarkable example of this is Rayographs. Rayographs were made without a camera and, alternatively with the use of photosensitive paper which he would place objects on then expose to the sun.

Here are some examples of Rayographs:

I find these photos fascinating that they were not taken using a camera and they appear like an Xray. These images also look like they have been edited to create a Muti exposure image, which is why Man Ray is an interesting artist for this.

Photoshoot Plan

Photoshoot/Contact Sheet

I am going to be using this same set of photos for all Headshots editing.

Edits

Edit 1

The photos I used for this edit are:

I started editing this photo by adding both images as a layer onto a blank document then lowering the opacity of the layer on top.

I then cropped the edit so that you couldn’t see the edges of the image layers then I went to Layer > Flatten Image so that the whole thing was just one singular layer.

Finally, I made the image B&W by going to Image > Adjustments > Black and White and making the colours how I wanted them.

This is my final result:

Edit 2

These are the photos I used for this edit:

Firstly, I opened up my first photo in photoshop and made the image red for rage by going to Image > Adjustments and changing the Colour Balance.

After this, I added that photo as a layer on top of the other and lowered its opacity so that you could see the other beneath.

Finally, I lowered the brightness and increased the contrast so that the red of the image, to signify anger, is clear.

Edit 3

The photos I used for this edit are:

I created the final image by, firstly, layering each image where I would like them and lowering their opacity.

I then decided to go a different way about these images. Whilst hiding the first layer, I used the background eraser tool to remove the background then used the regular eraser tool to clean up. This was so that the backgrounds of each image don’t overlay so, when in colour, you can see the clear contrast between the 2 appearances.

I then repeated this process for the other layer.

I then repositioned these layers and made each of them fill 65% so that they were transparent then added some colour. I added colour to each image by going to Image > Adjustments > Colour Balance and adjusting the colour until I was happy with it.

I then cropped this edit to create my final result.

Edit 4

The photos I used for this edit are:

I chose these photos because they are where her facial expressions are most similar so that they will match up well.

This was a very quick edit. I edited this by placing the image where her hand are on the side of her head on top of the other and lowering the opacity then aligning them so that her face remains normal.

I then decided to make this more interesting by making it black and white.

This is the final result after cropping it:

Edit 5

These are the images I used for this edit:

I edited this by, firstly opening up each image in photoshop and duplicating the layer. At this time, the photos were separate from each other. I then, like one of my previous edits, used the background eraser tool to remove the background of each image.

After this, I copy and pasted each layer onto a blank canvas, arranging them how I would like them then changed the colours of the images by going to Image > Adjustments > Colour Balance.

I did the same for this image, however, I also adjusted the Hue/Saturation.

Finally, I altered the opacity of each photo to give a double exposure effect.

Evaluation/Virtual Gallery

These are my final images:

Virtual Gallery

Evaluation

I personally don’t think that any of my edits share any similarities with the work of Man Ray, except from possibly this one:

I think this image is similar to Ray’s in terms of the B&W and Xray effect. I also believe that Man Ray has a rayograph that includes hands on the face, much like mine. This is also possibly my favourite edit for double exposure because I think that it clearly displays understanding of double exposure in Photography.

This is probably my least successful image and I think that I could have improved it by making there a clear contrast between the calm and anger by making just her face red in anger, rather than the whole image.

In terms of photo montaging, it is the experimentation and process of making a “composite photograph” by cutting, gluing, rearranging, and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image for artistic effect.

It is how magazine editors used to design “publications” before digital design software existed. It can exposes “the component images simultaneously through superimposed negatives”. Photo montaging can give the illusion of many object in one, it can look dramatic, bold and most of all interesting to look at in depth.

It’s been a potent and/or strong means of communication within the field of visual art since at least the early 20^th century, first appearing most frequently in work of “Dada artists” e.g Hannah Hoch and John Heartfield. Ever since, photomontage has remained, among artists, popular that work with ranges of styles and images that are different.

Contact Sheet for my headshots:

Experimentation with Photoshop:

In this edit I looked at the experimentation of Brno Del Zou:

Brno Del Zou is a French, photographer. In Brno’s ‘photosculptures’ series he uses the fragmentation of the body in order to better understand it.The body and the faces are revisited and the features under various angles are highlighted in order to create collages interwoven with the other features creating a distorted and unproportional effect.

Brno grew up during the 1970/80s and was influenced by the artistic culture of the time.

These distorted collages are edit in a monochrome palette probably on photoshop.The 1980s were a vital time culturally and were marked by growing global capitalism and widespread mass media. Artists growing up during this time were heavily influenced by this cultural environment.

I personally like Brno’s work as as I feel that each specific photograph expresses a new feeling or thought going through the person’s head. The fact Brno displays their work in black, white and grey undertones adds a negative and mysterious atmosphere.

If I were to recreate this I would change the sizing of the pictures to create a sharp and clean effect yet still disorganized and chaotic as it is much more difficult to observe the photograph if there is much more to explore through the layers.

Bruno Del Zou inspired editing process:

In this Photoshop edit, I decided to do a face fragment idea. Firstly, I opened the images I wanted to work with. They can be desaturated so they look at a similar tone to Brno’s edit’s but decided not to change any hue to them. I selected my background portrait image and double-clicked the layer to unlock it. I used the rectangular marquee tool to draw around different scaled features of a face, moved them around to create a distorted and layered collage using the move tool on the Photoshop toolbar, and used shortcuts such as ctrl d to fit my scale with I wanted the size to be and ctrl j to copy the layer so that I can move it later on in the edit. I took into consideration the other two photographs of the face at a different angle and copied them on the “Base Layer”. At the end of my Photoshop edit, I added a drop shadow to create additional layers and texture behind the fragments moved.

Double/Multi exposures are made by creating and layering photographs on top of each other. It can be created throughout the use of Photoshop and in the camera settings (making and experimenting with layers). The “Blending Options2 and “Opacity Control” can be used too. It can create a surreal feeling for the photographs and it two photographs collided can convey deeper “meaning or symbolism” (like a story).

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Double exposure has been used since the 1860s. In the 1860s it was a significant business boost. “they discovered how to make a portrait subject appear twice in a frame as if they had an identical twin. In each of the pictures, the individual was striking a different pose.” In order to take those now-vintage images, the photographer would snap a picture of the subject in one position. Afterwards, they’d direct themselves in a different pose. A rotating lens caps and special plates were also part of the process. The result ends up looking in a surreal approach to early photographs. The images today through the use of double exposure can be manipulated in a way to look distorted in the viewers perspective.

John Deakin (British Photographer) is known for his portraiture however Deakin has produced some fantastic images with this technique. The video below shows “explores his artistic development from the 1930s into the more recent years…

Contact Sheet for my headshots:

Photographer Andrés Gallardo Albajar takes “double, long and triple exposure photographs in few different locations”. Many artists and photographers use double and long exposure photography to “convey emotional insight, show a progression of movement or relate a change in time”.

For Andres, he does not document he editing’s and experimentation with the use of double exposure and the backstory for how he got the results he got. I think it explains for itself and that Andres did not find it quite difficult to come up with the result as the description is very limited.

Experimentation with Photoshop: