It improves the quality of your photos and can offer some creative assistance that can set your final product apart from others. They are a common sight in studios, and the variety of lights tell every one of them has a specific use for different kinds of photography. Using professional lighting equipment can give your photos a professional look that sets them apart from the rest. Also, It sets the mood, provides direction, shows dimension and texture, and creates the darkest shadows.
What is the fill lighting?
A fill light is responsible for exposing the details of a subject that fall in the shadows of the key light. It is the secondary light in the traditional 3 point lighting setup. The fill light is typically positioned opposite of the key light to literally fill in the shadows that the key light creates.
Butterfly Lighting
Butterfly lighting is a technique where the light source is placed directly above and slightly in front of the subject’s face, creating a small butterfly-shaped shadow under the nose. It can make the subject look thinner and their eyes appear larger. A butterfly lighting effect refers to the setup and not to the quality of light; it can be soft or hard light depending on the effect you want. This is one point lighting as only one light is used.
These are prime examples of butterfly lighting images.
This is the set up:
My take at butterfly lighting:
For these images, I think I did well getting the lighting in the right places making a butterfly effect under the nose and defining the cheek bones.
Rembrandt lighting
Rembrandt was known for his history paintings and portraits commissioned by patrons, but he also pushed forward the genre of self-portraiture. The Dutch Master didn’t let thoughts of anatomy override him, nor did he micromanage his strokes. Rembrandt made a stroke abstractly — as if he were not painting forms at all. As a result, the viewer sees the paint articulating as much information as possible. Because of this, Rembrandt’s work is very subtle.
Rembrandt lighting is a technique utilizing one light and one reflector or two separate lights. It’s a popular technique because it creates images that look both dramatic yet natural. Rembrandt made the pictures more tense and dramatic with sharp contrasts between light and dark. In portraiture, the eyes of your subject are mostly always the main point of focus in the image. The triangle of light, placed just below the eye on the shadow side of the face, will increase the emphasis and the viewer really will be ‘drawn in’ to your image.
This is the set up:
This is a professional picture using Rembrandt lighting.
As you can see, just below the eye, is a triangle shape. That is key in this style of lighting.
My take at Rembrandt lighting:
For this lighting technique, I found it a bit more difficult to get the lighting in the right place. It took several attempts, however i got there in the end.
Chiaroscuro lighting
Chiaroscuro is a lighting technique that utilises a low lighting setup to achieve contrast between the subject and a dark background.It emphasises and illuminate important figures in a painting or drawing. Chiaroscuro using one key light and a variation using a reflector that reflects light from the key light back onto the sitter. The term chiaroscuro stems from the Italian words chiaro “clear” or “bright” and oscuro “obscure” or “dark”, and refers to the arrangement of light and shade in a work of art.
This is the set up:
These are professional pictures using the Chiaroscuro lighting technique:
One side of the models face, will always remain darker with more shadows.
My take at Chiaroscuro lighting:
I liked this lighting technique the most as in my opinion it was the easiest. I like how one side of the face is light, and the other half is dark.
Three Point lighting
Three-point lighting is the standard form of professional lighting in video production and still photography. It involves using three light sources placed in three different positions. I used a light positioned in front of the subject, a light slightly behind the subject, and a reflector positioned just in front but placed to the side of the subject.
1 point lighting only uses 1 light source (usually a key light), this could be a light facing someone in a studio, or if someone is outside, the light source would be the sun. It is important as without any lighting you won’t be able to see anything and the photo would just be darkness.
2 point lighting commonly uses 2 light sources or a light and a reflector. It is usually placed at a 45 degree angle from the subject and usually uses a main light and a fill light.
Rembrandt lighting is a technique utilising one light and one reflector or two separate lights. It’s a popular technique because it creates images that look both dramatic yet natural. It’s predominantly characterised by a lit-up triangle underneath the subject’s eye on the less illuminated area of the face (fill side). One side of the face is lit well from the main light source while the other side of the face uses the interaction of shadows and light, also known as chiaroscuro, to create this geometric form on the face. The triangle should be no longer than the nose and no wider than the eye. This technique may be achieved subtly or very dramatically by altering the distance between subject and lights and relative strengths of main and fill lights.
Rembrandt lighting takes its name after Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, a 17th-century Dutch painter who was known for using earthy tones and golden highlights to frame the faces of his portraiture subjects. What made his painting style distinct was focusing lighting on the subject’s face and adding detail around it, tapping into an innate human attraction to the face. The Rembrandt lighting technique results in a moody and dramatic effect. This type of lighting technique often features a dark or black background behind the subject, putting the subject front and centre.
Rembrandt lighting technique is considered one of the go-to photography lighting setups because it produces a dramatic visual effect without requiring a lot of setup. A more sophisticated version of this setup includes a reflector, which brings detail back into the shadows on the subject’s face, but even this setup requires minimal tools and associated costs.
For the single light method you will need:
indoor studio environment
off-camera light source with stand
optional: 32″ – 42″ reflector or split light sources
At its most basic, Rembrandt lighting consists of a single light source placed on a 45 degree offset from the subject, about 5 feet away. Positioned roughly two feet higher than eye level, the light source is angled slightly downward and hits the side of the face that is farthest away from the camera.
Rembrandt Lighting Photoshoot:
For this photoshoot, I took studio portraits using a Rembrandt lighting technique. In order to achieve this look, I placed my light source on a 45 degree offset from my subject (approximately). I then experimented with different distances and angles in order to get the most defined triangular shape I could possibly get. I had multiple attempts at this until I was satisfied with the final outcome.
Overall, I like how these images came out as I think I successfully managed to create a triangular shape on the majority of my images which is what I was trying to achieve. Additionally, I like the negative space in the background of my images which helps to draw the attention to the subject only. However, if I were to do this photoshoot again, I would try to get a more defined triangle shape and use Lightroom to enhance it even more. Additionally, to improve my final outcomes, I would make some of my images black and white as seen in traditional studio portrait photography.
Response to evaluation:
I decided to edit my images on photoshop in order to make them black and white as this was a common theme amongst the other images I saw online. I think I did this successfully and my final images came out similar to those seen on the internet. The black and white also helped to define my triangular shape created from the lighting setup as you can see the comparison more clearly and your attention is immediately drawn to the brighter side of the face rather than the different colours seen on her sweater etc.
Rembrandt Lighting Photoshoot 2:
For my second attempt at creating Rembrandt lighting, I decided to include more of my subjects body in it as the first set of photos only had their face/ upper body. I think these photos came out well as they are of good quality and you can see the triangular shape on the subject’s face, which is the main focal point in a Rembrandt lighting photograph. However, an improvement that I would make to this photoshoot is I would turn the subject on her side slightly in order to enhance the triangle shape seen on her face. Additionally, I would get her to experiment with her hands more and maybe place them on her face etc. Finally, to finish this photoshoot, I decided to edit my photos and make them black and white on photoshop.
Butterfly lighting is a lighting pattern used in portrait photography where the key light is placed above and pointing down on the subject’s face. This creates a dramatic shadow under the nose and chin that looks like a butterfly. One of the most famous photographers to use butterfly lighting was George Hurrell, who was known for his dramatic portraits of Hollywood stars, and since, the technique has grown more popular.
This creates a shadow under the nose that resembles a butterfly. It’s also known as ‘Paramount lighting,’ named for classic Hollywood glamour photography.
Some benefits of butterfly lighting is-
It’s Perfect for Portraits. Butterfly lighting is often used in portrait photography, especially in headshots. …
Create Different Moods. …
Easy to Set Up. …
It’s a Natural Look. …
It’s Versatile.
Butterfly lighting is primarily used in a studio setting. It is named “butterfly” because of the butterfly shaped shadow that it creates just under the models nose. This occurs because of the lighting in the shot, comes from above the models head. Butterfly lighting is mostly used for portraits, as it is flattering on everybody.
Lighting set up:
Light – Butterfly lighting requires a key light that can be a flash unit, or continuous. If continuous, it can be artificial or natural, meaning you have a lot more choice in which lighting you think would benefit your photos a lot more. Butterfly lighting can be varied, soft or hard depending on the objective of the image.
Lens – The most popular lens used for butterfly lighting is between a 50 – 85mm lens. This helps the photo because it allows a larger depth of field.
My own photoshoots-
Within these photos, we placed the light in a 45 degree angle above the subject in order to attempt to get the shadow underneath the subjects nose. We attempted to get that strong eye catching deep shadow however we used a reflector in the set up which as shown above there is a significant better result without the reflector. I have therefore learnt for future photoshoots using this technique in order to improve and result in a better outcome without a reflector would be better. However within these images, I either increased or decreased the exposure depending on how exposed and bright the image was so it has the correct amount of brightness. I increased the contrast on both images so the image was more detailed and had high depth in the shadows which is needed for this lighting style. To emphasize this, I decreased the shadows just to add more eye catching and significance to the image but contrasted that with increasing the highlights so the image wasn’t too dark or dull as the contrast had been increased. Finally, I increased the whites and decreased the blacks so it had a perfect mix and balance of both. Overall I decreased the texture so the image looked a lot smoother therefore making the outcome look a lot more professional.
Why do we use studio lighting? We use studio lighting as it allows you to capture a large number of photographs and ensure absolute light consistency in exposure, colour, and image quality. It can also give your photos a professional look that sets them apart from the rest.
What is the difference between 1-2-3 point lighting and what does each technique provide / solve? One point lighting would involve just one light and this would be illustrated as the key light. The way in which we would utilise this light effectively would be to use a soft box in order to convert the light into a powerful diffusion light source. It has the most natural look and can have a dramatic lighting effect. It also draws attention, but can give a person onstage a very flat, two-dimensional look. In a two-point lighting setup, two light sources are usually placed at 45 degree angle from the subject. One of them is your key light, which is the main light used to illuminate the subject, and the second is your fill light which helps to remove harsh shadows on the subject that are created by the key light source. Three-point lighting is a traditional method for illuminating a subject in a scene with light sources from three distinct positions. The three types of lights are key light, fill light, and backlight. Key light is the primary and brightest light source in the three-point lighting setup
What is fill lighting? A fill light is responsible for exposing the details of a subject that fall in the shadows of the key light. It is the secondary light in the traditional 3 point lighting setup. The fill light is typically positioned opposite of the key light to literally fill in the shadows that the key light creates.
Butterfly lighting is a portrait lighting order where the key light is placed above and centred directly to the subject’s face. Evidently it creates a shadow under the subject’s nose that creates a butterfly like shape. In other cases, butterfly lighting can also be known as ‘Paramount lighting,’ which is named for classic Hollywood glamour photography.
The set up for butterfly lighting.
Own experiments of butterfly lighting
Experiment 1:
Editing process:
For this photo I wanted to make the picture less bright and exposed, so i decreased exposure (-0.70) to make it less lit, increased contrast (+54) to sharpen the image, i decreased, highlights (-26) to make lighter parts of image darker, shadows (-40) to recover lost details, whites (-51) to strip the whites in the pictures and blacks (-67) to make image darker.
This is all I did to the image to enhance that butterfly lighting that was not as evident as it is now. I made this overly exposed picture a representation of butterfly lighting.
Before (left) and After (right)
Experiment 2:
Editing process: For this picture I decided to keep it just as it is. I didn’t want to change it as I thought that it represented that butterfly shape. I think that the picture looks great and doesn’t need any type of editing.
Experiment 3:
Editing process: For this picture, I decided that if I desaturated it to -100 it would help highlight the shadow under the subjects nose that butterfly lighting is know for. I also wanted to desaturate it to make it black and white to create more diversity in my work as I think that it is important to have diversity like coloured and desaturated photos because it shows you can be creative.
Before (left) and After (right)
Experiment 4:
Editing process: For this picture I decided to keep it just as it is. I didn’t want to change or alter anything within the picture as I thought that it represented that butterfly shape where it shows a well lit face with a shadow below nose that creates that butterfly shape. I think that the picture looks good and does not need any type of editing to it.
Presentation of outcomes
Evaluation and Critique:
Overall I think that my pictures look great. I was able to show that butterfly lighting where under the subject nose a butterfly like shadow is created through the use of a key light and a reflector.
I think that I created a diverse set of picture where it includes, black and white picture, different type of emotions and experimenting with the editing in light room.
When it comes to that bright and illuminated face, I think that I did really well with showing that illuminated face because as seen in my final outcomes, the subjects face is very illuminated and its evident that, that butterfly like shadow is created under the subjects nose.
However something that I could have improved was showing that butterfly lighting. I feel that in some of my pictures that butterfly like shadows isn’t as evident as I would like it to be. As seen on experiment 4, the butterfly shadow is barely there. I could improve this by moving the reflector around and taking pictures and seeing which position the reflector is set at, produces the best butterfly lighting.
Lastly another improvement my photos could’ve had was a darker background. When I was researching about butterfly lighting, lots of the pictures I saw the background was black and not white. I believe that it is easier to show that butterfly shadow using a black background instead of white. So next time I will try taking pictures with a darker background and I can do that by using a black back drop or lowering the ISO in the camera to around 100-125
Rembrandt lighting is a form of art that takes advantage of one light and one reflector or sometimes two separate lights. It’s a known technique because it forms images that look both noticeable yet logical. It’s mainly famed by a triangle that is lit-up underneath the subject’s eye on the side of the face that is less illuminated.
The set up for Rembrandt lighting
Own experiments of Rembrandt lighting
Experiment 1:
Editing process:
For this picture I decreased exposure to make the picture a little darker to highlight the Rembrandt lighting on the left side of her face (-0.61) and blacks (-56) to make the darks in the picture lighter.
This was the only editing I did to this picture because I believe that this photo needed little editing to it as it already represented that Rembrandt lighting without it needing to be edited however I wanted to make the right side of the subjects face less bright and a little more warm.
Before (left) After (right):
Experiment 2:
Editing process:
For this picture I decreased exposure to make the picture a little darker to highlight the Rembrandt lighting on the left side of her face (-0.61) and blacks (-56) to make the darks in the picture lighter.
The editing for this picture is the exact same as the first experiment as I liked how the experiment turned out. I strongly believe that adding this small amount of editing hugely improved and enhanced the picture but still showed the sole purposed of the picture which was showing the art of Rembrandt lighting.
Before (left) and After (right)
Experiment 3
Editing process:
For this picture, I desaturated it (-100) to create diversity within my pictures and because I liked how the picture looked in black and white especially because it made the left side of the darker part of subject face even darker which was what I wanted to improve in this picture using editing.
Before (left) After (right)
Experiment 4:
Editing process: For this picture I didn’t edit a single thing in this picture. I thought that the picture really showed that Rembrandt lighting where a triangle like shape formed on the left side of the subject face or wherever the key light wasn’t directly facing at, hence why I didn’t feel the need to edit it.
Presentation of outcomes:
Evaluation and Critique:
Overall I strongly believe that all my pictures showed Rembrandt lighting. I came out with a diverse set of pictures. My pictures diversity include, black and white picture, pictures where lots of the subjects body is showing and pictures where it is a shoulder shot. This shows that I can be creative and produce a variety of different type of pictures that show Rembrandt lighting.
A strength I had was the fact that I was able to show that triangle figure below the less illuminated parts of the subject’s face. In all of my pictures I am able to show this perfectly which is something I am greatly proud of because it shows that I am able to replicate the famous triangle shape on the subjects face.
However a way I could have improved my pictures is by successfully creating an all black background which would greatly impact my pictures and make that triangle more evident and deep. In some of my pictures, I felt that the triangle and the other parts of the picture that are meant to be really dark are not as dark as I wanted them to be. I could improve this by using a black curtain in the background or by decreasing my ISO to around 100-125 so that it would make the background completely black and therefore make that triangle darker and even more evident.
Chiaroscuro is an Italian word that translates to Light and Dark. The effect is created by a light across the subject that goes in one direction and then a lit background positioned so that it is in a reverse direction. Ideally, the subject should go to black on the side that is unlit and it should stay the same for the background. The subject’s outline or shape, is clearly described because of the lit background even though its black on the unlit side. The word chiaroscuro came from painting. It was a job that joined a very strong contrasts of light and dark in an image so that it created a sense of volume and shape.
The setup for Chiaroscuro lighting.
Own experiments of Chiaroscuro lighting
Experiment 1:
Experiment 2:
Experiment 3:
Editing process: For these three pictures I kept them just as they are. I didn’t edit them because I though that it perfectly represented Chiaroscuro lighting as it shows the dark background and the illumination of the subject’s face. Although the background could possibly be darker, editing it would negatively effect the subjects illuminated face. So changing this picture would only do harm to it and strip that Chiaroscuro lighting from it.
Experiment 4:
For this picture I kept it just as it was because I think that shows chiaroscuro lighting because of the black background and the illuminated face.
Experiment 5:
For this picture, I desaturated it (-100) to create diversity within my pictures and because I liked how the picture looked in black and white especially with the illuminated face and the dark background.
Presentation of outcomes
Evaluation and Critique.
Overall, I think my pictures look great. I believe that in most of my pictures I was able to show that chiaroscuro lighting that we we’re meant to show. My pictures have that black background that chiaroscuro is meant to have and that illuminated face.
The quality of my pictures are high. They are focused and have no type of blurry parts showing in the pictures and due to this the quality of my pictures is good.
However in some of my pictures I feel like they could show more of that illuminated part on the face and also have a more evident dark side on the face. For an example on my experiment 4, the left side of the face could have been darker by moving the key light more to the right side of the subjects face and same goes for fifth experiment. Adjustments like this would’ve massively impacted the photo and increased that chiaroscuro lighting slight more.
Another improvement I could’ve done in my 1-3 experiments was the fact that the background could’ve been a little darker. The way I could make the background darker is putting a black curtain in the background to make sure that the background is fully black. I could also bring the key light closer to me from where I was taking the picture and also bring the key light closer to the subjects face and facing it more so that it was closer to the centre of their face but not completely centred to the subjects face.
This is my first photoshoot taking mainly photos using Rembrandt lighting but also some with Chiaroscuro, I have taken 64 photos, using these techniques in my first photoshoot, and now will eliminate ones I don’t want or like, then save the ones I want to edit.
Once I rejected the ones I didn’t want from this photoshoot I was left with 21 photos I can now edit.
These are a few I didn’t select because the lighting wasn’t right, they were blurry, not the main focus, and half blinking which i couldn’t edit or just didn’t like.
Photoshoot 2:
In this photoshoot I did similar things but tried with butterfly lighting a chiaroscuro lighting more, now I am picking what are the best.
After deciding which ones I liked I ended with 12 as there was lots I felt didn’t fit in with the lighting technique.
Below are some INSTRUCTIONS AND INSPIRATIONS for your headshots in the studio. We will be experimenting with both continuous lights and flash lights using 1, 2 and 3 light sources and respond to a number of creative approaches to headshots with reference to both historical portraits photographers from Societe Jersiaise Photo-Archive and contemporary practitioners.
TECHNICAL
RECORDING: produce at least 3 portrait shoots in the studio and consider the following:
1. Lighting: soft, hard
2. Framing: Headshots
3. Focusing: focus on the eyes
4. Expression: Explore different moods and emotions.
5. Pose: Manner and attitude. Use hands too…
Camera settings (flash lighting) Tripod: optional Use transmitter on hotshoe White balance: daylight (5000K) ISO: 100 Exposure: Manual 1/125 shutter-speed > f/16 aperture – check settings before shooting Focal lenght: 105mm portrait lens
Camera settings (continuous lighting) Tripod: recommended to avoid camera shake Manual exposure mode White balance: tungsten light (3200K) ISO: 400-1600 – depending on how many light sources Exposure: Manual 1/60-1/125 shutter-speed > f/4-f/8 aperture – check settings before shooting Focal lenght: 50mm portrait lens
DUE DATE FOR HEADSHOTS PROJECT = Fri 15th December
BLOG
In addition to complete the work listed in Exploring Lighting you are expected to show evidence of the following three EEEs on the blog for the work on Headshots.
EDITING: For each portrait shoot produce a contact-sheet, select and adjust your BEST 3 IMAGES in Photoshop using basic tools such as cropping, contrast, tonality, colour balance, monochrome. Describe also the lighting setup using an image from ‘behind the scenes’, ie. key light, back light, fill light, use of reflectors, gels etc.
EXPERIMENTING: Complete at least 3 out of these 5 experiments on DIAMOND CAMEO, DOUBLE/ MULTIPLE EXPOSURE, JUXTAPOSITION, SEQUENCE/ GRID AND MONTAGE (see more details below). Make sure you demonstrate creativity and produce at least 3 different variations of the same portrait experiment.
EVALUATING: Compare your portrait responses/ experiments and provide some analysis of artists work and images below that has inspired your ideas and shoots. Use this Photo-Literacy matrix.
INSPIRATIONS
Henry Mullins is one of the most prolific photographers represented in the Societe Jersiase Photo-Archive, producing over 9,000 portraits of islanders from 1852 to 1873 at a time when the population was around 55.000. The record we have of his work comes through his albums, in which he placed his clients in a social hierarchy. The arrangement of Mullins’ portraits of ‘who’s who’ in 19th century Jersey are highly politicised.
Henry Mullins Album showing his arrangements of portraits presented as cartes de visite
Henry Mullins started working at 230 Regent Street in London in the 1840s and moved to Jersey in July 1848, setting up a studio known as the Royal Saloon, at 7 Royal Square. Here he would photograph Jersey political elite (The Bailiff, Lt Governor, Jurats, Deputies etc), mercantile families (Robin, Janvrin, Hemery, Nicolle ect.) military officers and professional classes (advocates, bankers, clergy, doctors etc).
His portrait were printed on a carte de visite as a small albumen print, (the first commercial photographic print produced using egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper) 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. In Mullins case he mounted his carted de visite into an album. Because of the small size and relatively affordable reproducibility cartes de visite were commonly traded among friends and visitors in the 1860s. Albums for the collection and display of cards became a common fixture in Victorian parlors. The immense popularity of these card photographs led to the publication and collection of photographs of prominent persons. Another popular form of commercial portraits in the 19th century were vignette portraits which is a portrait that has its edges bleaches out only to reveal the face (see below)
Portrait of Philip Baudains, Writer, Advocate, Constable and Deputy of St Helier. The four headshots of Baudains are presented in a Diamond Cameo which is a process in which four separate portraits of the same subject are printed on a carte-de-visite.Some headshots by Mullins of both Jersey men and women produced as vignette portrait which was a common technique used in mid to late 19th century
Becque á Barbe: Face to Face: A portrait project about Jèrriais – the island of Jersey’s native language of Norman French. Each portrait is titled with a Jèrriais word that each native speaker has chosen to represent a personal or symbolic meaning, or a specific memory linked to his or her childhood. Some portraits are darker in tonality to reflect the language hidden past at a time when English was adopted as the formal speech in Jersey and Jèrriais was suppressed publicly and forbidden to be spoken in schools.
Juxtaposed with portraits of Jèrriais speakers are a series of photographs of Jersey rocks that are all designated as Sites of Special Interest (SSIs); important geological outcrops that are protected from development and preserved for future public enjoyment and research purposes. The native speakers of Jersey French should be classified as People of Special Interest (PSIs) and equally be protected from extinction through encouraging greater visibility and recognition as guardians of a unique language that are essential in understanding the island’s special character.
Ole Christiansen (Danish): A special preoccupation has been music photography, portraits, but also – often strongly graphically emphasized urban landscapes which is reflected in his portraiture . Ole has over the years provided pictures for a myriad of books, magazines, record covers, annual reports, etc.
Medina, 2018Ole Michelsen, Copenhagen, 2000Imacon Color ScannerFlemming, Copenhagen, 1995Ole Christiansen: Portraits I & II
THE DEADPAN AESTHETIC
According to sources the origins of the word “Deadpan” can be traced to 1927 when Vanity Fair Magazine compounded the words dead and pan, a slang word for a face, and used it as a noun. In 1928 the New York Times used it as adjective to describe the work of Buster Keaton.
It is less clear when it was first used to describe the style of photography associated with Edward Ruscha, Alec Soth, Thomas Ruff and many others. Charlotte Cotton devotes a complete chapter to Deadpan in The Photograph as Contemporary Art and much that has been written since references that essay.
In summary Deadpan photography is a cool, detached, and unemotional presentation and, when used in a series, usually follows a pre-defined set of compositional and lighting rules.
This style originated in Germany and is descended from Neue Sachlichkeit, New Objectivity, a German art movement of the 1920s that influenced the photographer August Sander who systematically documented the people of the Weimar Republic . Much later, in the 1970s, Bernd and Hilla Becher, known for their devotion to the principles of New Objectivity, began to influence a new generation of German artists at the Dusseldorf School of Photography (4). These young German photographers included Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer and Thomas Ruff. The Bechers (4 & 5) are best remembered for their studies of the industrial landscape, where they systematically photographed large structures such as water towers, coal bunkers or pit heads to document a soon-to-disappear landscape in a formalistic manner as much akin to industrial archeology as art. The Bechers’ set of “rules” included clean, black and white pictures taken in a flat grey light with straight-on compositions that perfectly lent themselves to their presentation methodology of large prints containing a montage of nine or more similar objects to allow the study of types (typology) in the style of an entomologist.
If you want to learn more about the theoretical and philosophical basis for the deadpan aesthetic READ HERE.
Thomas Ruff wanted to mimick the setup for a having a set of passport images taken. Read an interview with him here recently published in the Financial Times
eyes must be open and clearly visible, with no flash reflections and no ‘red eye’
facial expression must be neutral (neither frowning nor smiling), with the mouth closed
photos must show both edges of the face clearly
photos must show a full front view of face and shoulders, squared to the camera
the face and shoulder image must be centred in the photo; the subject must not be looking over one shoulder (portrait style), or tilting their head to one side or backwards or forwards
there must be no hair across the eyes
hats or head coverings are not permitted except when worn for religious reasons and only if the full facial features are clearly visible
photos with shadows on the face are unacceptable
photos must reflect/represent natural skin tone
BACKGROUND:
Photos must have a background which:
has no shadows
has uniform lighting, with no shadows or flash reflection on the face and head
shows a plain, uniform, light grey or cream background (5% to 10% grey is recommended)
TYPOLOGIES
TYPOLOGY means the study and interpretation of types and became associated with photography through the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, whose photographs taken over the course of 50 years of industrial structures; water towers, grain elevators, blast furnaces etc can be considered conceptual art. They were interested in the basic forms of these architectural structures and referred to them as ‘Anonyme Skulpturen’ (Anonymous Sculptures.)
The Becher’s were influenced by the work of earlier German photographers linked to the New Objectivity movement of the 1920s such as August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert-Renger-Patzsch.
The Becher’s were influenced by the work of earlier German photographers linked to the New Objectivity movement of the 1920s such as August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert-Renger-Patzsch.
August SanderKarl Blosfeldt
UP CLOSE
BRUCE GILDEN: FACE: Bruce Gilden is renowned for his confrontational style and getting up close to his subject. Between 2012-14 Gilden travelled in America, Great Britain, and Colombia and created a series called FACE. Read a review here in the Guardian newspaper and another on Lensculture.
USA. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 2013. Chris, worker at the state fair.USA. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 2013. Mary at the state fair.USA. Des Moines, IA. 2014. Iowa State Fair. Terry.USA. Las Vegas, Nevada. 2014. Donna, a card dealer.
In addition to focusing on details of the face try and isolate body parts, gestures, clothing and physical features, such as hands, elbows, shoulders, neck, torso, hip, knees, feet. Your understanding of abstraction in photography; focusing on shapes, colours, light and shadows, textures and repetition is crucial here.
Satoshi Fujiwara: Code Unknown: In Michael Haneke’s 2000 film Code Unknown, there is a scene in which the protagonist’s lover, a photographer, secretly snaps pictures of passengers sitting across from him on the train.
Inspired by the film, I used the same approach to shoot people in Berlin trains. Yet in contemporary society, it is not acceptable to rashly and publicly display pictures of people’s faces that were taken without their permission. Thus, I shot and edited my pictures in a way that makes it impossible to identify the individual people who served as my “models.” To avoid impinging on the “right of likeness,” I used the shadows created by the direct sunlight pouring in through the windows, various compositional approaches, and digital processing to keep their identities anonymous.
When we look at another person, either directly or through another medium, we interpret a wide range of information based on outward appearance (face, physique, clothes and accessories, and movements)—in other words, various codes. By regulating and altering these codes in various ways, I set out to obscure the individuality and specificity of the subjects in the pictures in my series.—Satoshi Fujiwara
David Goldblatt: Particulars: Following a series of portraits of his compatriots made in the early 1970s, photographer David Goldblatt, for a very short and intense period of time, naturally turned to focusing on peoples’ particulars and individual body languages “as affirmations or embodiments of their selves.” Goldblatt’s affinity was no accident: Working at his father’s men’s outfitting store in the 1950s, his awareness of posture, gesture and proportion—technical as it was—formed early and would accompany him throughout his life.
In this series we see hands resting on laps, crossed legs, the curved backs of sleepers on a lawn at midday, their fingers and feet relaxed, pausing from their usual occupations. This deeply contemplative work is framed by Ingrid de Kok’s poetry.
EXPERIMENTATION
TASK
You must produce minimum of 3 the following experiments:
DIAMOND CAMEO : Recreate a diamond cameo, similarly to Mullins of which four separate portraits of the same subject are arranged onto the same document in Photoshop.
DOUBLE/ MULTI-EXPOSURE: Either in camera or in post-post-production layer or merge two or three images into one portrait.
JUXTAPOSITION: Select 1 portrait by Mullins and one response that you have made and juxtapose opposite each in a new document in Photoshop. Look for similarities in pose, expression, gestures and overall composition. If you have some environmental portraits from previous shoot try and juxtapose in a similar way that Michelle Sank responded to Mullins portraits in ED.EM.03.
SEQUENCE/ GRID: Select a series of your headshots (between 5-12) and produce a sequence either as a grid, story-board, contact-sheet or typology. Reference Mullins pages in his portrait albums
MONTAGE: Select an appropriate set of portraits and create a montage of layered images in Photoshop as an A3 document.
DIAMOND CAMEO
DOUBLE / MULTI-EXPOSURES
Double or multiple exposures are an illusion created by layering images (or portions of images) over the top of each other. This can be achieved in the camera settings, or on Adobe Photoshop by creating LAYERS and then using BLENDING OPTIONS and OPACITY CONTROL. Artist have used these techniques to explore Surrealist Ideas and evoke dream-like imagery, or imagery that explores time / time lapse.
Man Ray
Man Ray
Alexander Rodchenko
Claude Cahun
Lewis Bush, Trading Zones
Idris Khan, Every…Bernd And Hilla Becher Gable Sided Houses. 2004 Photographic print 208 x 160 cm
Since 1959 Bernd and Hilla Becher have been photographing industrial structures that exemplify modernist engineering, such as gas reservoirs and water towers. Their photographs are often presented in groups of similar design; their repeated images make these everyday buildings seem strangely imposing and alien. Idris Khan’s Every… Bernd And Hilla Becher… series appropriates the Bechers’ imagery and compiles their collections into single super-images. In this piece, multiple images of American-style gabled houses are digitally layered and super-imposed giving the effect of an impressionistic drawing or blurred film still.
JUXTAPOSITION
Juxtaposition is placing two images together to show contrast or similarities. For inspiration look at some of the page spreads from ED.EM.03 where pairings between portraits of Henry Mullins and Michelle Sank are juxtaposed to show comparison/ similarities/ differences between different social and professional classes in Jersey mid-19th century and early 21 st century.
For inspiration look also at the newspapers: LIBERATION / OCCUPATION and FUTURE OF ST HELIER produced by past A2 photography students and the publication GLOBAL MARKET by ECAL.
LIBERATION / OCCUPATION newspaper 25 April 2020FUTURE OF SY HELIER newspaper 18 Sept 2019Spreads from Global MarketW. Eugene Smith. Jazz Loft Project
Juxtapose images according to shapes, colours, repetition, object vs portrait
Henry Mullins: Pages and re-constructed contact-sheets from his portrait albums.
Thomas Struth
Shannon O’Donnell:That’s Not The Way The River Flows (2019) is a photographic series that playfully explores masculinity and femininity through self-portraits. The work comes from stills taken from moving image of the photographer performing scenes in front of the camera. This project aims to show the inner conflicts that the photographer has with identity and the gendered experience. It reveals the pressures, stereotypes and difficulties faced with growing up in a heavily, yet subtly, gendered society and how that has impacted the acceptance and exploration of the self.
Duane Michals (b. 1932, USA) is one of the great photographic innovators of the last century, widely known for his work with series, multiple exposures, and text. Michals first made significant, creative strides in the field of photography during the 1960s. In an era heavily influenced by photojournalism, Michals manipulated the medium to communicate narratives. The sequences, for which he is widely known, appropriate cinema’s frame-by-frame format. Michals has also incorporated text as a key component in his works. Rather than serving a didactic or explanatory function, his handwritten text adds another dimension to the images’ meaning and gives voice to Michals’s singular musings, which are poetic, tragic, and humorous, often all at once.
Things Are Queer, 1973 Nine gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text 3 3/8 x 5 inches The Spirit Leaves the Body, 1968 Seven gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text 3 3/8 x 5 inches (each image)Death Comes to the Old Lady, 1969 Five gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text 3 3/8 x 5 inches (each image)Tracy Moffatt: Something More, 1989
Tracy Moffatt: The nine images in Something More tell an ambiguous tale of a young woman’s longing for ‘something more’, a quest which brings dashed hopes and the loss of innocence. With its staged theatricality and storyboard framing, the series has been described by critic Ingrid Perez as ‘a collection of scenes from a film that was never made’. While the film may never have been made, we recognise its components from a shared cultural memory of B-grade cinema and pulp fiction, from which Moffatt has drawn this melodrama. The ‘scenes’ can be displayed in any order – in pairs, rows or as a grid – and so their storyline is not fixed, although we piece together the arc from naïve country girl to fallen woman abandoned on the roadside in whatever arrangement they take. Moffatt capitalises on the cinematic device of montage, mixing together continuous narrative, flashbacks, cutaways, close-ups and memory or dream sequences, to structure the series, and relies on our knowledge of these devices to make sense and meaning out of the assemblage.
Philip Toledano: Day with my father, 2010
Philip Toledano: DAYS WITH MY FATHER is a son’s photo journal of his aging father’s last years. Following the death of his mother, photographer Phillip Toledano was shocked to learn of the extent of his father’s severe memory loss.
Walkers Evans and Labour Anonymous
Walker Evans: One of the founding fathers of Documentary Photography Walker Evans used cropping as part of his work. Another pioneer of the photo-essay, W. Eugene Smith also experimented with cropping is his picture-stories
Hans-Peter Feldmann, Sonntagsbilder (Sunday Pictures). 1976 The complete set of 21 offset lithographs, on thin wove paper, with full margins, all I. various sizes
Hans-Peter Feldmann: (b. 1941 Duesseldorf). The photographic work of Hans-Peter Feldmann began with his own publications in small print-runs between 1968 and 1975. Often using reproductions of photographs from magazines or private snapshots, which he mixed with his own photographs, Feldmann, like Ed Ruscha, undermined the aura of the unique, “authentic” work of art. With his laconic imagery he seeks to break down conventional notions of art.
Salvatore Dali: The Phenomenon of Ecstasy (1933)
PHOTO-MONTAGE
Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image.
Mask XIV 2006
John Stezaker: Is a British artist who is fascinated by the lure of images. Taking classic movie stills, vintage postcards and book illustrations, Stezaker makes collages to give old images a new meaning. By adjusting, inverting and slicing separate pictures together to create unique new works of art, Stezaker explores the subversive force of found images. Stezaker’s famous Mask series fuses the profiles of glamorous sitters with caves, hamlets, or waterfalls, making for images of eerie beauty.
His ‘Dark Star’ series turns publicity portraits into cut-out silhouettes, creating an ambiguous presence in the place of the absent celebrity. Stezaker’s way of giving old images a new context reaches its height in the found images of his Third Person Archive: the artist has removed delicate, haunting figures from the margins of obsolete travel illustrations. Presented as images on their own, they now take the centre stage of our attention
Thomas Sauvin and Kensuke Koike: ‘No More, No Less’ In 2015, French artist Thomas Sauvin acquired an album produced in the early 1980s by an unknown Shanghai University photography student. This volume was given a second life through the expert hands of Kensuke Koike, a Japanese artist based in Venice whose practice combines collage and found photography. The series, “No More, No Less”, born from the encounter between Koike and Sauvin, includes new silver prints made from the album’s original negatives. These prints were then submitted to Koike’s sharp imagination, who, with a simple blade and adhesive tape, deconstructs and reinvents the images. However, these purely manual interventions all respect one single formal rule: nothing is removed, nothing is added, “No More, No Less”. In such a context that blends freedom and constraint, Koike and Sauvin meticulously explore the possibilities of an image only made up of itself.
DUE DATE FOR HEADSHOTS PROJECT = FRI 15TH DECEMBER
Follow the 10 Step Process and create multiple blog posts for each unit to ensure you tackle all Assessment Objectives thoroughly :
Mood-board, definition and introduction (AO1)
Mind-map of ideas (AO1)
Artist References / Case Studies (must include image analysis) (AO1)
Photo-shoot Action Plan (AO3)
Multiple Photoshoots + contact sheets (AO3)
Image Selection, sub selection, review and refine ideas (AO2)
Studio lighting is referring to when a person/photographer uses an ‘artificial’ light course instead of just natural lighting as with artificial lighting you can create the shapes and shadows a lot easier and everything is to your control unlike natural as if its natural lighting from outside then t really depends on your environment and the nature around you at that time and if its indoors and just a room lighting then you really don’t get any variation within that room.
There are three main/common types of studio lighting techniques which all create their own different effects. These are Rembrandt lighting, butterfly lighting and Chiarscuro.
When taking these photos we had a basic set up of having a stool for the model to sit on and then later if necessary changing the chair to be higher or lower if needed.
I mainly used the white backdrop and then I had the light which I could move around and then to help we used the reflector to reflect some of the light back onto the models face.
I found using the back background worked best for when using the Chiarscuro technique as I found the models face stood out better and the darkness kind of surrounded the model which looked very interesting
Here is the contact sheet for all of the photos I have taken.
