For the studio portraiture I think my favourite outcomes are the coloured lighting ones, they have a fun feel to them and I like the way all the detail on the face stands out.
Here they are in a virtual gallery.
These photos will look nice together because they both share a common shade of blue, and also have a contrasting red and green next to each other. The high amount of detail on the skin in the photos I think looks really visually effective and high quality.
I then did the appropriate adjustments on each image.
I tried to add contrast to all the ones that needed them to match the contrast that the B&W filter gave some of the others. I turned the exposure and highlights down in a lot of them because the flash made some of them overexposed. I also turned up the shadows in a lot of them for more contrast.
My plan now is to create a zine of all these photos as I think that is the best way to tell a story with photos – since they are all edited the same way I think they’ll look really great as a well thought out and put together set.
I’ve got three really effective images in my environmental portraiture, and for the final piece I’m going to have them as a triptych, A5 and all one on top of the other. I think this is the best way to layout these images as they speak for themselves.
Evaluation:
The photos have a nice vintage effect to them and go together quite nostalgically. They almost have a dulled down saturation which resembles film. They are quite simple images that just capture a random moment of skateboarders just hanging out quite serenely.
Here they are in a virtual gallery
The photos I took at the skatepark are a genre called documentary photography – this is the perfect opportunity to create a magazine so the photos are all linked together and tell even more of a story.
Skateboard photography normally consists of hot summer days, shirtless, sweaty people and sweltering sun. I wanted to convey a time in skating unique to the UK – cold, winter night skating – only for the hardcore. Everyone is wrapped up, gloves, hats, big coats. Skating on winter nights is hard – everything hurts more, your legs don’t work as well, the cold bites your fingertips – and this is conveyed pretty well in the photos through outfits, positions, the way people are huddled up.
I want to convey this through body language, angles, and people emotions.
Evaluation:
I think the zine conveys a sense of cold, shivery happiness like I wanted it to. I had to make some tough creative decisions in order to get some of these spreads the way they are, for example, when an image that I like becomes more of a background it is hard to accept – but it is worth it when I can put framed images over these photos because they end up look much more thought through. Also, when a landscape image has lots of negative space on one side I find it works really well to use the space to put frames or text in it. Throughout making this magazine I realised that text almost always looks more professional when it is much smaller than you would initially think. Most of the text that is in the final edition is over half the size of how I originally thought it looked good. Overall I’m really happy with how the zine came out, the high amount of contrast in the photos, and the grainy look I intentionally shot it with at a high ISO in order to have a more lo-fi effect.
I also want to have 5 of these photos printed in large, matte A3 size – I think this will look brilliant with the heavy grain. I’m going to choose 3 darker portraits, and 2 much more heavily exposed photos of small details like clothing or objects. That way I can have them in such an order that its almost like 1 line of a checkerboard.
Danny Evans is a jersey photographer who did a project on the skateboarders from the island. Capturing the grit, scars and tattoos. This has inspired to me to my own project on the skateboarders in jersey.
Danny Evans is a freelance photographer with over 18 years of experience. He focuses on commercial photography, especially advertising and fashion. His work has been featured in magazines and on billboards in places like Singapore, Australia, Europe, and the UK. Danny is based in Jersey, where he runs his own studio. His unique lighting and set designs make him stand out, and he’s also known for working on fashion shoots for Gallery Magazine in Jersey. In 2023, Danny created an exhibition called “FLUX” at ArtHouse Jersey. This project combined photography, film, and tech to show off sustainable fashion designs from local and international creators. It was all about mixing art and technology to explore modern fashion. Danny started out using old-school film cameras like the Nikon FM but has moved on to advanced digital equipment, including the high-tech Phase One camera system. He’s always upgrading his gear to make sure his work is top-notch. Overall, Danny is passionate about turning everyday settings into amazing photos and is super dedicated to his craft. This has made him popular with both local businesses and big brands.
Pete Thompson was a skateboard photographer for 13 years in the 90s – capturing the boom of a huge movement without realising. He worked for different magazines like Transworld Skateboarding and SLAP. He even got the role of Senior Photographer at one of these roles. His photography career began with a Konica Pop point-and-shoot 35mm in the 80s – taking photos of his friends at the skatepark.
He has compiled the entire experience of skateboarding in the 1990s into one nostalgic book called ‘93 til. (I own this book and this was how I was introduced to this photographer). A lot of the philosophy of skateboarding is the desire to capture and document the life – and this is true for photography as well. Pete Thompson was clearly motivated by this desire. His photos are full of friends and good times – just hanging out and skateboarding for the fun of it. He worked with pro skateboarders like Tom Penny, Nyjah Huston, and Tony Hawk – and many others. He travelled the USA and Europe with these pro skateboarders documenting their journey along the way. In an interview with him, he speaks about how they would use the main bulk of the film roll for taking skate photos, and then there would often be a few shots left at the end – he says after a while he felt guilty for wasting these, and begun to take random shots of his friends with the last few on the roll – and these turned out to be some of his favorite photos – I like this.
This is a film photograph of a skateboarding doing an ollie at a skatepark. The genre of this style of photography is portrait/action/identity. The mise-en-scene presents a lot of empty sky – taken up only by a skateboarder doing a large air. The floor takes up probably half the image and has curved concrete which creates an interesting shape to look at. This all creates a simple composition, with the image split into the thirds.
The colour is desaturated, although the sky is vibrant. The musty, dry looking air makes it feel like midsummer, and you can tell its hot, and dry. For example, if you look at the trees they aren’t a bright green but more of a hazy washed out green. The use of light has an old school feel – being a bit washed out. It is clearly taken in the height of summer’s heat – the photo almost has a heat effect. The whole image is very bright and slightly overexposed which creates a vintage, washed out feel.
The focus distance is infinite – the whole image is in focus and there seems to be an extremely wide depth of field. I believe that the photographer has used the rule of thirds – the image is split into three sections vertically – the floor, the sky and the skater – pretty much exactly follow the rule of thirds. I believe that the ISO is 400 – due to the amount of grain, and I believe that the shutter speed is quite high – a minimum of 1/250 because that is how high it needs to be for an action shot to not be blurry. The shot probably has an aperture of probably f/5.6 because of the wide depth of field, and the high amount of light that the other two settings let in.
As Pete Thompson says “Driven by my curiosity of photography. I always just wanted to be shooting something;” I think this is great way to describe a lot of the culture of photography and especially skateboarding. His work has a lot of black and white (not this image) – this is representative of the era he spent most of his career skateboarding – I think he has chosen to make his whole “‘93 til” book black and white because it helps non-skateboarders to understand the cultural significance of the image – a lot of these moments were future defining for the sport and even sport photography in general, without the black and white, it does not convey as well that these are vintage images of a different time – and people may not realise the impact they had. I think this says a lot about the use of colour and tone in photography in general – you have to consider what you want your image to convey and how you’re going to do that. I really admire this work, not only because I am a skateboarder, but also because I can see the thought – and often the lack of thought – he put in while taking the photo and editing it.
My plan is to go down to the skatepark and just talk to the skaters and take natural photos to truly convey identity. I will use a 50mm Canon lens. I love taking photos that tell a story and show life. I think to do this I should also take photos of small details of the people and also things like the scenery and architecture of the skatepark. I think I will go at night and use my flash and a high shutter speed to create a freeze frame effect. I think my photos will end up being more similar to Pete Thompsons’ than Danny Evans’.
Identity is the set of qualities, beliefs, personality traits, appearance, or expressions that characterize a person. Identity means different things ot different people and everyone identifies themselves with something else – could be a job, a role, a parent, a sportsperson – e.g skateboarder, baseball player.
Femininity is described as the qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of girls. The stereotypical qualities for women are pretty much the polar opposite – kind, emotional, compassionate, nurturing, gentle.
The appearance of masculinity and femininity are represented in very different ways through photography. Masculinity is generally represented with sharp lighting, accentuating sharp, aggressive muscle lines, jaw lines and pronounced Adams apples – the sharp lighting also plays a part in making the skin look rough and weathered, which plays into the stereotypes of men being strong brave, hard working. On the other hand, femininity is represented with softer lighting, which places more emphasis on things like collar bones and gradual curves – and also plays a part in making skin look softer and smoother, which plays into the characteristic stereotype of women being soft, nurturing.
Photography captures the essence of individuality through portraits for example showing unique features emotions or objects in the image to tell a personal story.
Claude Cahun was born in 1894 and died in 1954. The was multifaceted – a French photographer, sculptor and writer. She is widely famous for her unique, revolutionary and rebellious self portraits that embody personas like weightlifter, aviator, and doll. In 1937 she moved to the island of Jersey with her stepsister and lover – Marcel Moore. She joined the resistance against Nazi Germanys forces during the islands occupation, and was imprisoned and sentenced to death in 1944 – however, the Germans never carried out the sentencing for fear of public outcry, so she narrowly survived. Many of her pieces and photos were seized and destroyed when the Nazis seized her home. The Jersey National trust holds the surviving collection of her art. Her health delined due to the imprisonment and she died in 1954 – her stepsister and parter commited suicide in 1972 – both are buried in St Brelades churchyard.
Her work wasn’t well known at the time – and it might’ve often been ridiculed, she was a cross gender person – and all her pieces challenged gender norms and general societal standards for photography and gender conventions. She used her androgynous look to her advantage by shaving her head and using this to create a sense of confusion and gender neutral appearances – this was almost never before seen.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
The mise-en-scene presents a multi-exposure image of Claude Cahun with a very androgynous, shaved, gender neutral appearance in two different positions – almost looking at each other. The background is dark and chalky. There are no clothes visible. The composition is central, the two faces being on either side of the centre, and the photo is well balanced.
She once explained: “Under this mask, another mask; I will never finish removing all these faces.” This quote may lead me to believe that these two faces may represent different masks – despite them looking the same – therefore it could be linked to some sort of differing emotion, or mood. There is a deep personal tension in the photo – and the name of the photo: Que Me Vas Tu? (What do you want from me) could indicate that the two headed creature present in the image is some sort of metaphor for a splitting of identities. In her case she is presenting herself as gender neutral as there are no clear characteristics between male and female.
The photo is clearly taken on a film camera – as was the only method of the time. And has a high level of grain. There is a harsh contrast and the eyes are almost a solid black. Similarly, the whites are a sharp and crisp solid white, with not much texture in the lighting. The background however is rich in texture and almost appears to be some sort of chalk board or similar.
I believe in this image she could be trying to make a statement on some sort of duality – for example, the duality of personalities of identities, the duality of male vs female. This is backed up by other things in the image like the duality of the black background against the harsh white skin (binary opposition).
During WWII, Claude Cahun and her partner Marcel Moore did some really brave resistance work against the Nazis who occupied Jersey. They used their artistic and writing skills to fight back by creating anti-Nazi leaflets. What’s really cool is that they wrote the messages in German so the soldiers could read them, and they left them in sneaky places like soldiers’ pockets or around the island. This made it seem like there was a big underground movement, even though it was just the two of them.
Eventually, though, the Nazis figured out what they were doing, and in 1944, Cahun and Moore were arrested. They were sentenced to death, but luckily the sentence wasn’t carried out. Still, they were thrown in prison, and the experience really messed up Cahun’s health. Even though their resistance wasn’t super well-known at the time, what they did was super inspiring. It shows how creative resistance can be really powerful, even if it’s just a small group of people standing up to something so terrible.
What’s really inspiring about Cahun and Moore’s resistance is how creative and fearless they were, even though they were basically on their own. They didn’t just sit back and accept what was happening—they took real risks to stand up to the Nazis. It wasn’t just about passing out leaflets either; their messages were psychological warfare. They wanted to make the soldiers question what they were doing, and that’s such a smart and unique way to resist. They didn’t have weapons or an army, but they had their words and ideas, and they used them to fight back. It’s honestly amazing that two people could cause so much trouble for the occupiers with just some paper and a lot of courage.
For all these photoshoots, we were all taking photos, then looking at them, chipping in on what settings to change, what we could all do differently on the camera and the model to make the photos better – this was a join photoshoot and not all the photos are directly mine but I had a lot of input in making them camera-wise
Studio lighting is the art of using special lights in a studio to manipulate the camera into catching exactly what you want. There are two types of light – static and flash. There is lots of different ways you can use this to make your photo look, such as Rembrandt lighting and split lighting.
The three photos above are quite a nice set, they are all edited the same way with similar crops and contrast and the same black and white filter.
Rembrandt Lighting is using one light at a 45 degree angle from the front of the subjects face, and a reflector on the other side – this creates a beautiful effect that fully illuminates one side of the subjects face, and the other side is dark aside from a triangle of light underneath their eye.
Rembrandt lighting became popular in the 
Two point lighting is when you use two lights on either side of the subjects face in order to fully illuminate as much of their face as possible – it creates a realistic effect that looks much more than real like than other types of lighting that might make the photo look more artistic.
This photo worked because there was very little shadow on her face and she is well illuminated – but at the same time the lighting seems to reflect the moody look of the model in a way. To edit this I turned up the contrast and the texture, and also added a silvertone black and white filter. She is slightly off centre which is a deliberate crop which helps add layers of depth to the ragged and moody look of the image.
Butterfly lighting is also known as paramount lighting – which is when the only light source is coming from above the persons head, in front of them and angled sharply down.
These are three edited photos – I used a lightroom preset to give them an edgy effect which makes the white more blue and everything else a bit yellower.
Coloured light is the method of using thin, coloured gels inbetween your subject and the light source in order to create an effect of whatever colour you want. It is a style of creative portraiture and allows for quite a lot of fun experimentation.
Environmental photography is a subgenre of portraiture photography that generally tends to feature the subject in their ‘natural’ environment, eg skateboarders in the skatepark or in the streets, workers at work, labourers at a building site, and that general stuff. Differently to traditional portraiture, environmental portraiture tries to capture the subject in their natural environment, using props lighting and accessories to create more context to the image and create a deeper story which might add layers of meaning to the image.
ANALYSIS – This is an example of environmental portraiture. This photo is clearly taken on a digital format. The mise-en-scene presents an old woman with a sombre, bored expression sat in her old, 70s style house playing solitaire. The lighting is natural lighting, through the window, perhaps with an element of warm, artificial indoor lighting. The lighting is mainly coming from her right and I can tell this because the right side of her face is much lighter that the left side. The ISO is probably low-medium because the lighting is good and there isn’t the stereotypical grain typically seen when a high ISO is used. \the aperture is probably medium as well maybe f/5.6 – I can tell this because most if the photo is in focus but the table has a little bit of blur – the depth of field is fairly medium. The shutter speed is probably also medium to keep these settings balanced. The framing of the image is three quarter length, and she is sat down. She is making eye contact (the opposite of averted gaze) and she is clearly engaging with the camera. The white balance of this image is quite on the yellow side, giving it a warm homely feeling as you would feel inside a dimly lit old persons house.
August Sander was a german portrait photographer who focused on capturing a wide range of people in society, from farmers and workers to artists and city dwellers, in an honest and realistic way. His famous project, “People of the 20th Century,” grouped portraits by social roles, creating a visual study of Germany in that era. Sander’s style was very straightforward, with natural poses that showed each person as they are, which set a foundation for documentary photography and influenced later photographers like Diane Arbus (according to wikipedia). During the war, his photos faced challenges from the Nazis, as his realistic portrayals didn’t fit what they wanted, which then led to censorship and he lost some photos. Despite this, sander’s work was preserved by his son and continues to be valued for its deep insight into society and human personality. He learnt about photography when he was working in the coal mines and assisting a photographer.
MISE EN SCENE – This is a black and white film photo by August Sander. The mise-en-scene presents a sculpture artist contemplating his work. Surrounding him are tools to sculpt along with different, finished sculptures and this room is clearly an artists studio – his natural environment. The man wears a long white robe fit for an sculptist who is avoiding getting messy. He has an averted gaze, looking towards the light source which hits him dead in the face and comes from the left side of the frame. This mans is comes the the working social class – clearly spending his days labouring away creating sculptures probably to sell to the state of the higher classes above him. This photo tells this story magnificently and clearly has lots of backstory.
PROCESS – When I imagine how this photo was taken, I imagine the photographer had to spend hours with this man, having a cup of tea before, eventually building up a rapport to be able to ask him to take his photo. The photo captures the essence of the scene perfectly – August sanders did a breath taking job about capturing the man in his natural environment, and his natural, contemplative state because of this.
LIGHTING -The lighting is soft, capturing a mysterious, dusty aura around this man and his workshop, however, there is a start contrast between light and shadows created by the darkness of the room and the single natural light source – probably a window overlooking the town.
FRAME – The photo is a full length body photo – capturing his worn out shoes all the way to the emotions on his face. The approach to the photo is informal, natural and unposed, and the man has a fairly neutral expression.
SETTINGS – The camera settings probably have quite a high ISO because of the clearly dark setting and the tell tale grain on the photo. The shutter speed is probably quite slow because the photo isn’t amazingly sharp and there is a clear amount of darkness in the image. The aperture is probably quite low because the statues are blurred and the depth of field is very narrow. The white balance is more on the warm side however in black and white it is hard to tell.
August Sander specifically used the theory of typology to capture portraits from varied social groups.
Typology is a way of grouping things that share lots of similar features. Sander specifically organised people based on tings like their professions and social status to show the diversity of society. There is a few different key points in typology like objective portraits which focus on peoples social roles instead of their personalities, social categories which group people to reveal social structure and the big picture which helps viewers see patterns in society.
Typology is unique because of its systematic approach, which involves capturing a series of images which will soon be a collection, using a consistent method (like similar lighting and background or similar composition). The focus on patterns is another reason why typology is unique – this involves highlighting what is common among the subjects of the images – whether that would be shapes of buildings, facial expressions or everyday objects – in this case however it would be the peoples professions or hobbies since I’m studying environmental portraiture.
I used photoshop to create a little collage of my images. For the background I used one of the black and white images and added a gaussian blur filter which makes the main images pop out more. I used the guides tools to make sure that the gaps between the images were even and centered them. My favorite image is the biggest one and this makes it the clear place your eye is drawn to.
TEXTURE MOODBOARD
Texture as a photographic concept is defined as the quality of an object, referring to the variances in tone, depth, colour and shape.
James Welling is a photographer who did a selection of photos of crumpled paper. The images have a strange heavenly effect to them because the highlights are glowing and slightly blown out. The paper looks simultaneously flat and textured – a contrast. They also have a high amount of contrast which creates more texture in the paper. The photos almost look like they could be a birds eye view of an alien landscape.
INSPIRATION
Gabriele Basilico is an Italian photographer who explores texture and repetition of texture in urban landscapes – ruined and perfect. I find his photos very beautiful as he captures things honestly. Some of his photos explore the effect of war in urban landscapes and show the destruction. He shows texture in the different layers and strange ways in which the architecture often contrasts the sky. I am going to try to capture similar things when I visit the Barbican in London over the weekend. I want to capture how the repetitive, brutalistic architecture contrasts not just each other but also the sky and other surrounding things. Other photographers I looked at for inspiration were Lewis Baltz and Minor White.
ANALYSIS – This is clearly a fil photograph and I can tell this because of the grain and way nothing is as sharp as it would’ve been digital. The mise-en-scene of this image is a large, semi-circular warehouse stood against a grey, grainy sky. The windows are repetitive yet have some anomalies – smashed and white that show character and tell us that the building is old and run down. The use of line in this image is very clever, there is a clear deliberate contrast between the grid pattern of the windows and the circular line of the warehouse. There is lots of texture in this image, from the brick walls to the grainy sky, to the different coloured windows. The lighting is very flat and the tone is greyscale. It captures a repetitive and brutalistic piece of architecture, and knowing the context around the image, is a nice message about war. The photo uses the rule of thirds clearly and obviously, more so vertically than horizontally though, The top third is sky, the middle third is the warehouse and the bottom third is the wall – this intentionally splits the image up and makes it more visually pleasing and easy for the eye to process. I believe the ISO is higher – maybe between 400 and 800, I can tell this because of the grain and the way the light doesn’t seem to be bright daylight. The shutterspeed is probably medium as there is no sign of motion blur but its not particularly sharp. The aperture is likely higher and I can tell this because of the wide depth of field – everything is in focus.
My photos.
I edited these photos by turning up the contrast quite high, and turning down the black point to make the blacks very contrasting to the white. I used a lightroom preset called Silvertone which added a sort of black and white film effect to my photos.
To finalise and showcase the images I took of the Barbican I created a virtual gallery. The virtual gallery gives the audience an immersive experience and allows them to decide at what pace to view my images. IT gives them an insight into my photographic intent and is generally a cool showcase of modern technology contrasted against the 90s brutalism showed in the images. To improve I could’ve made sure the white balance matched exactly in each of the images to make them a better selection.
