Mood Board

Photoshoot plan:

To create photos inspired by Walker Evans I will be using tools as his photography of tools has inspired my to do so. I will use a manual camera setting to take the photos along with my own set up of a white card background to achieve a clear background similar to the one in Evans’ photography.

For my single object photoshoot I experimented with different coloured gels for the background of my photos in addition to the plain white background.

Best photos:

Editing:

I applied the pre-set to the photo and I also cropped and rotated it slightly so that it was level.

I also applied the pre-set to this photo however I found that it was slightly on the cooler tone rather than a neutral one so I adjusted the temperature on the white balance.

To complete this edit I then rotated it so that the fork was exactly in the centre of the photo. This is my favourite photo as I like the way that the highlights hit the fork in the different areas.

My final set of images

I chose to use these as my final set of images. I chose to set it out in this was as it is an example of typology photography. I used these three photos as they were my best and clearest ones. I edited each separately to enhance the quality and make them clearer and sharper so that the final product would be good quality. I chose to place the fork in the center as the background is slightly darker in comparison to the two other photos, the object used in that photo is also thinner than the others therefore placing it on the side would most likely take the focus away from it as it doesn’t stand out as much.

Typology Photography: A photographic typology is a single photograph or more commonly a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency. This consistency is usually found within the subjects, environment, photographic process, and presentation or direction of the subject.

This is an example of typology as all the objects in the photo grid share a common aspect, they are all cameras.

Jason Jackson.

Jason Jackson is a visual artist specializing in photography. Originally he was hailing from Riverhead, New York, however he has resided in Harlem for over 20 years. Jackson is extremely talented at illustrating current events through the lens of candid and spontaneous moments of everyday life. Most of his work is mainly based on Documentarian, Street, Travel and Portrait Photographer. He has lots of work where he shows an environmental portrait.

Some of his work is in black and white which I quite liked and want to use as an editing technique in my photos. His work is quite raw and harsh and tends to show the political climate and culture all around the world. He quotes “Shoot with authenticity and let the picture tell the story.” which really inspired me when it came to think about how I was shooting my pictures and really allowed me to be engaged in my work.

He also says, “Also, being a Black photographer I do believe that I have an obligation and responsibility to capture the “Black experience” in my work.

Some of his pictures,

Jackson did lots lots of projects, these are some of the names of his projects:

• NYC STREETS.
• Black Lives Matter, NYC.
• NYC COLOUR.
• EL Rostro Flea Market.
• Mermaid Parade.
• Loisaida Street Festival.
• Street Gymnasts of Madrid

NYC STREETS

Black lives matter, NYC

NYC COLOUR

EL Rostro Flea Market.

Mermaid Parade.

Loisaida Street Festival.

Street Gymnasts of Madrid

Image analysis of one of the pictures above.

Technical: The lighting in the pictures seems to be taken with natural lighting. You can see that it is taken outside where light from the sun was very present. Even if the picture is edited in black and white, it is evident that the picture was well lit. The picture is extremely focused. You can tell the shutter speed is high because this picture is candid but also professional so to freeze the moment/movement, shutter speed needs to be increased. This picture also has depth of field and is quite soft. The picture has good exposure because, even though it was edited in black and white the light in this picture is truly clear. The trees are blurred and not focused. The people are the focus especially the man in the Centre sitting down. Lastly the picture has a cold tone to it because of the black and white.  

Contextual & Conceptual: Although the context of this picture is not clear even after much research, El Rastro Flea Market is a market in Madrid which is among the most popular open-air flea markets in the city. It is held on Sundays and public vacations and offers a wide variety of products. The market is known for its variety of new and previously owned products, as well as the many antique shops surrounding the area. In my understanding, this picture shows a sense of sonder. Sonder means the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it. The man is the symbol of sonder. As you can see in the picture, everyone is in their own life, living and constructing their own life without worrying about other people’s lives, focusing on themselves. The man symbolises how just stopping for a moment and becoming uncomfortably aware from your surroundings, you realise that you are not the only one living and doing your own thing. The man is procrastinating about something, or he was tired and exhausted of sitting all day waiting for some type of income from the things he is selling on the floor but not having any luck because of people’s ignorance and self-absorbance.

Visual:

• Color: black and white, however there are some lighter white and blacks. It is not just bland, black, and white without shading. It has shading.  
• Tone: the tone in this picture varies, there are some light tones but some tones that are quite dark, mostly seen in clothes that are dark colored or just black.  
• Texture: The picture has a variety of textures. On the back, where there are trees, it is evident that the trees are quite blurred so not as focused but then if you look where the man is sitting in the center, the picture is much sharper and has more depth.  
• Form: the picture is overall 3D,  
• Pattern: in this picture there is quite a lot of repetition. There are lots of people, a lot of them are doing something, busy. There are lots of trees too.  
• Space: The space in this picture is quite full. There is not any part of the picture where there is a certain stillness to it. It is busy and chaotic.  
• Composition: This picture does not have any type of organization because it is a candid picture not professional, so the photographer did not organize it or purposefully set up the background like that. Some parts of people are not in frame so again it means that the setting was not organized. This photo was taken from eye level and has contrast between different shades of black and white. It does not follow the rule of thirds as lots of the space in the picture is full, so it does not the subject in the left or right third of an image, leaving the other two thirds more open.  

An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used as a genre of photography.

It is a shot that captures a subject at work, at home, or in another important location. 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.

These are some examples of environmental portraits:

As with all photographs, the main photographic components of a portrait are light, composition, and moment. This creates a good environmental portrait.

Portraits tell us about an artists intentions and what they are trying to say about the model, e.g. thoughts, feelings, or what they are known for. They tell a story, but also hide secrets.

Environmental portraits can create a short biography by incorporating a constructed or real background of the subject’s life seamlessly into the photograph as there is no significant separation between person and place. The subject and environment depend on each other for meaning.

This is a mind map I have created for ideas on what makes a good environmental portrait. Adjust your camera settings, use ambient light, use a wide-angle lens, communicate with your subject, use props naturally, and focus on the essential details.

Here is a mood board of environmental portraits.

August Sander (1876 – 1964)

August Sander, born in Germany- died April 20, 1964, A German photographer who attempted to produce a comprehensive photographic document of the German people. His portraits were usually stark, photographed straight on in natural light, with facts of the sitters’ class and profession allude to through clothing, gesture, and backdrop.

The environmental factor of Sander’s portrait meant that the subjects in his photos would always be surrounded by the environmental they work in, in the background of the full-body shot, so their occupation was clear to the viewers. Here are some of them.

He used Zeiss lenses, an orthochromatic plate with corresponding light filter and clear fine grained glossy paper. He made his photos on 13 x 18 cm plates, enlarging them to 18 x 24 cm.” Which is about like a 5×7 large format camera.

The son of a mining carpenter, Sander apprenticed as a miner in 1889. Acquiring his first camera in 1892, he took up photography as a hobby and, after military service, pursued it professionally, working in a series of photographic firms and studios in Germany.

One of the first photographic typological studies was by the German photographer August Sandler.

Sanders approach to photographing the world has had an enormous influence on later photographers, such as Bernd and Hila Becher. 

Sander sought to create a record of social types, classes and the relationships between them, and recognised that the display of his portraits as a collection revealed so much more than the individual images would alone by themselves and he showed so much within his work . it was so powerful that it was a record.

The term ‘Typology’ was first used to describe a style of photography when Berend and Hila Becher began documenting dilapidated German industrial architecture in 1959. The couple described their subjects as ‘buildings where anonymity is accepted to be the style’. Each photograph was taken from the same angle, at approximately the same distance from the buildings. Their aim was to capture a record of a landscape they saw changing and disappearing before their eyes so once again, Typologies not only recorded a moment in time, they prompted the viewer to consider the subject’s place in the world.

A photographic typology is a single photograph or more commonly a body of photographic work, that shares a high level of consistency. This consistency is usually found within the subjects, environment, photographic process, and presentation or direction of the subject.

Here are some useful links related to this piece of work.

 Dusseldorf School of Photography

 August Sander’s 

 Bernd and Hilla Becher

He used movement that sought to depart from abstraction and artifice and return to realism, Sander wanted his photographs to expose truths. “Pure photography allows us to create portraits which render their subjects with absolute truth,” he said.

Another fascinating artist who took these style of photographs’ and structured them this way is..

Arnold Newman.

Arnold Abner Newman was an American photographer, noted for his “environmental portraits” of artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life images.

Born in Manhattan to a Jewish family, Newman grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey and later moved to Miami Beach, Florida. In 1936, he studied painting and drawing at the University of Miami. Unable to afford to continue after two years, he moved to Philadelphia to work for a studio, making 49-cent portraits in 1938.

Arnold Newman used many different techniques

and also favoured prime lenses, and clarity in his images. Newman was also known to use a range of lighting techniques to create the desired mood and atmosphere in his portraits. His skilful use of natural light, as well as studio lighting setups, helped him achieve a balance between the subject and their environment.

He frequently used medium format cameras, such as the Rolle flex and the Hasselblad, which allowed for greater detail and higher image quality. He also favoured prime lenses, and clarity in his images. Newman was also known to use a range of lighting techniques to create the desired mood and atmosphere in his portraits.

Here is some of his work.

Arnold Abner Newman was an American photographer, noted for his “environmental portraits” of artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life images.

To conclude
I think that this is very interesting and useful for peoples live, to show what they love to do and shows them happy doing what their doing which is nice to see, Portrait photography, also referred to as portraiture, is a type of photography in which the subject is one or more people and the aim is to convey something about the subject’s identity, personality, or story.

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, and or work.

There are many different types of portrait styles you could take, and it gives you an insight on their life , especially if they have lived a long life, such as this mood board.

This.

An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject’s usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject’s life and surroundings. The term is most frequently used of a genre of photography.

It can show many things such as backgrounds, ethnicity, culture, religion, past and future, work, job, family and friends.

Environmental art is art that addresses social and political issues relating to the natural and urban environment.

The main aims of environmental art are to: Raise awareness of the dangers facing the planet and promote its conservation. Encourage communication and citizen participation to protect nature. Incentivise political commitment to fight global warming and its impact so that we can help each other and not single each other out.

Here’s an old image of this selective type of photo vs a today photo…

These types of photos are good for showing ethnic background’s and how people live the way they do and their lives revolving around jut one image. One photograph can show so much about someone and their life, past, future and present. It tells a story.

Environmental photography is a powerful conservation tool. There are many ways you can raise awareness about the importance of protecting our environment, but the most popular strategy is often through showcasing natural beauty, as in the case of Ansel Adams. Another tactic: demonstrating a visible problem.

A good photographer for this style of photos is..

Here’s a mind map of the main elements’ of environmental photography.

Why should you shoot environmental portraits?

When going for a more “real” depiction of a person in their workplace, an environmental portrait will deliver a better result. This is a way to describe the subject’s life in their everyday job from an authentic and spontaneous perspective.

Nature photography can also play a direct role in environmental work. Photography can be used to document and record the state of the landscape and how it has been shaped by human activities.

To conclude

I think that I am going to well on this project and am going to take loads of photos with different people and backgrounds, hopefully distributing a hidden and deeper meaning within the photos.

Environmental portraits are used to portray people in their usual environment, such as their place of work. It fundamentally shows the subject’s life and the environment they are surrounded with on a day to day basis. The purpose of environmental portraits is to tell a person’s story via the background of the photo and the connections they have with these surroundings. In an environmental portrait you will often notice that the subject is making eye contact with the camera which portrays a strong portrait photo and also creates emotion from their facial expressions and their eye expression. The aim of an environmental portrait is to capture peoples interactions with their natural surroundings to tell a story that generates emotion for the viewers, and giving insight into where these people are from, what they do and who they are.

Arnold Newman was the first person to create an environmental portrait in 1918. Since then he has created several famous photographs that many people have taken interest in. He placed his subjects in surroundings that represent their profession, aiming to portray the subjects life and environment.

Typology

What is a environmental portrait?

Environmental portrait photography is the art of taking pictures that is used to tell a person’s story via its connection to what they are surrounded (environment) by in the picture. This connection regularly reviews the message that the environmental portrait photographer wants the viewer’s eye to receive.

Environment portrait is not as important for the end result as it is for other types of images that are produced. Environmental portrait photos can be obtained by doing either a candid or a staged photoshoot. However staged pictures are much more professional than candid pictures because most of the times candid pictures are taken there is movement which is not really professional.

what is environmental photography?

The surroundings or background is a key element in environmental portraiture, and is used to convey further information about the person being photographed.

Some environmental portrait photographers, like August Sander, create typologies. A typology is commonly a single photo or a body of work that shares a high level of consistency, like ideas in mind or angles or framing. In environmental portraiture, when each photo is taken with a similar idea/meaning, it emphasises comparison and analysis between photos.

Influential environmental photographers.

August Sander (1876 – 1964)

“If we can create portraits of subjects
that are true, we thereby in effect
create a mirror of the times.”

-August Sander

August Sander was a German Portrait and documentary photographer. He began his decades-long project People of the Twentieth Century. Though Sander never completed this exceptionally ambitious project, it includes over 600 photographs divided into seven volumes and nearly 50 portfolios.1 The seven volumes Sander used as his organizing principles were The Farmer, The Skilled Tradesman, The Woman, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and The Last People.

some typology i picked up on here is how all the people are looking at the camera and centered this shows how each person photographed all had an equal experience.

Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark (March 20, 1940 – May 25, 2015) was an American photographer known for her photojournalism, documentary photography, portraiture, and advertising photography. She photographed people who were “away from mainstream society and toward its more interesting, often troubled fringes”

“she portrayed the street girls of Bombay (now Mumbai) in all their exoticism and ennui, as well as the often cramped and dirty spaces they were forced to work in. Her images were never vicarious or salacious, but always shot through with a sense of her own humanity.”

She returned to India to shoot travelling circuses,

-Another magazine

This is my virtual gallery where I have presented my favourite photos that I have taken. I chose this layout because it is very plain and lets you focus on the photos without having any distractions in the background. I have put in two of my favourite still life images on the side and my tools object photos at the back in a row for an organised gallery. The frames around the still life images are plain black to make the photos easily visible and make them stand out more. They are angled forwards and with shadows for a 3D look to make it look like they are in an actual gallery.

I chose this photo because I like the colder tones of this photo rather than the warmer tones of the violin picture opposite it. it is a nice comparison in still life and shows how there is both cold and warm tones in both photos that has similar vibes but different contrasts.

I used this photo because I really like the angle its shot at and it contrasts nicely with the other still like imagine in the gallery. the violin is a warm tone and it looked better than when it was originally dull and neutral.

For these formalism photos I have presented at the back of my gallery because I think it looks organised and neat compared to if they were spread around on the walls. I chose these three photos as I think they are the best looking out of the tools photoshoot and I like how I have presented them in the gallery.