What is it?

Masculinity is often viewed as a characteristic that highlights ambition, the pursuit of wealth, and distinct roles for different genders. On the other hand, femininity is associated with traits that focus on caring and nurturing, promoting equality in sexuality, being aware of environmental issues, and having more flexible gender roles.

Artist Analysis

Noemia Prada

“My Story 

My name is Noémia Prada. I am a mother of two amazing children, they are the love of my life. I am an artist. I write, I paint, I take photos and I also like to be photographed. I’m a self-taught Painter/Photographer. My academic background is journalism and advertisement.  I am a private person who loves to be at home. I like solitude but not loneliness. Another passion of mine is music. I need music to create, to remember, to laugh and to cry. My life has been a bit erratic. For the last 20 years, I have lived in five different countries: Poland, Croatia, Portugal, United States and Angola. Where did I feel the happiest? In Africa. I have the identity of an expat. That’s who am. I don’t get too attached to people or places. Everything is temporary and ephemeral, unfortunately, or not. There’s a positive side of it. I know different places, cultural backgrounds and languages. My art, my creation portrays what I feel at a certain moment and at a certain place. My style is who I am: diverse, multifaceted and eclectic.”

Some of her photos

Image Analysis

Technical – I’m certain that the lighting in this photo is almost all artificial lighting, there is most likely no natural lighting and it was probably taken in a studio. The aperture is most likely shallow, f/1.2 or f/1.4 and I think it would have been taken of a macro lens.. Moreover the shutter speed is probably fast, something 250 or above, this is because all the hands are in focus and there is no motion blur. The ISO would be something low, maybe 100, I think this because there is no visible noise in the images.

Visual – The colours in this photo are fairly monochrome, with just blacks, greys and whites and moreover a clash of dark and light tones. The textures are both rough and smooth, this is because the upper hand is more rough, likely an older, more worn and weathered person, and the lower hand is is a younger, more innocent person. The rule of thirds is closely followed in this photo, this is because there is negative space in the outer three squares each side and the subject is in the centre three.

Conceptual – The concept behind this image is too show how time effects a person and further more how weathering and how primary or secondary sector work can wear someone’s skin.

Photoshoot plan

Who – I’m going to photograph multiple family members, including my little brother, parents and grandparents.

What – I’m going to take close up, almost macro like, photos of their hands and contrast young and old hands.

Where – I’m going to use an inside, studio like setting, most likely my kitchen and ill turn all the lights off and only use a small, direct light.

When – I’m going to take all my photos over the Christmas school break, and ill be ready to edit and manipulate my photos when I come back in January.

Contact Sheet

Selection Process

My chosen photos

I picked these four photos because they are sharp and in focus while showing an interesting contrast between between young, male, innocent hands and older, woman’s, worn hands.

Editing

Photo 1

Further editing

Photo 2

Further editing

Photo 3

Further editing

Photo 4

Further editing

Final Edited photos

Final further edited photos

I decided to edit my photos like this because it more closely links to Noemia Prada’s style of photos.

Black and white

The black and white links my photos closely back to my artist references photos.

More Photos

I decided to go back to a similar setting, however instead of having young and old hands, I substituted the young hands for objects. By doing this it shows the persons identity more clearly and what hobbies they are into.

Editing

I edited my photos to have a black and white background while keeping the subject in colour to isolate the subject and allow it to stand out more.

My other photoshoots

Contact Sheet

Selection Process

My best photos

Editing

Black and white

Further experimentation

I have decided to further edit my photos like this because it allows them to link back to my first photoshoot further edits.

Composition Experiments

My final outcomes

Art Steps

Evaluation

I believe that this project went really well and was overall successful. My intentions where to create effective portraits and hand pictures to put together to form a final outcome, to some extent I did achieve this but went off course slightly when creating the grid of 6 photos, however I think they are still effective.