What is Identity ?

Identity is who you are. It can be beliefs, personality traits, appearance, expression, it is what characterizes a person. It can also be your surroundings, your environment can develop and influence your identity.

image from google

What it femininity ?

Qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women or girls – Oxford Dictionary

Femininity is socially seen as traits such as nurturing, sensitivity, sweetness, gentleness, warmth, modesty, empathy, affection, tenderness, and being emotional, kind, helpful, devoted, and understanding have been cited as stereotypically feminine. Sometimes femininity can be linked to sexual objectification and sexual passiveness.

What is masculinity ?

qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men or boys – Oxford Dictionary

Masculinity is socially and traditionally seen as traits such as: strength, courage, independence, leadership, dominance and assertiveness. And is usually shown as a contrast and opposite to femininity. Traditionally masculinity can also be seen as being the ‘breadwinner’ of the household or house. However the standards of masculinity vary between different cultures and historical periods.

image from google

Kara Walker

images by Kara Walker

Kara Elizabeth Walker is an American Contemporary artist. Born on November 26th 1969. The main themes are work explores is race, gender, sexuality and identity. Walker is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes that often address the history of American slavery and racism.

The mural that really brought Walker to the art worlds attention was called “Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred Between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart” In 1944.

During her early career Walker lived in Rhode Island but later moved to Forte Green, Brooklyn where Walker became a professor of visual arts at Colombia University. As well as Walker is one of the youngest recipients of the MacAurthur fellowship at only 28 years old when she received this honour.

Tim & Sue Noble

images by Tim and Sue noble

Tim and Sue noble are British artists that work and collaborate as a duo.

The work that I am looking at mainly is their shadow work, which is where they use household rubbish to create silhouettes.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s work can be divided into the ‘Light Works’ and the ‘Shadow Works’, And Susan states: “We kept them both going side by side. There are two sides to the work; the shiny side and the dark side. That kind of reflects the two personalities within us. which I think that is very powerful as it links to good and evil and which could even be religion.

Photoshoot plan

For this photoshoot I took the idea of silhouettes from the artist references above and decided to put my own sort of spin on it, I really enjoyed using the coloured gels so I knew that I wanted to do something using them. And I decided to go for ore of the femininity route for this particular photoshoot. I liked the idea of kind of having the light shine through the hair of the model.

my photos – silhouettes

Edited images

this is my favourite image of the shoot. Because I really like the hand placement, it makes me think of femininity and I feel as if it kind of links to dance and maybe more specifically ballet which is a traditionally a feminine area. As well as the face the coloured gel lighting is very nicely outlining her arm, chin and I like the way that there is still some of the light shining through the hair.

Here is how I have edited this image:

Valerie Jardin

images by Valerie Jardin

Valerie Jardin is a French photographer whose photography gained a lot of followers due to its strong narrative and proving portraiture doesn’t need to be photos of a face. Jardin leads international workshops for photography has written books and has even published a weekly podcast for a few years. Jardin runs online courses and conferences as she states that she love to help and mentor other photographers .

Jardin has taken many photos all over the world. Her images are mostly classed as street photography which she is most known for.

Jardin analysis

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents two people holding hands whilst sitting at a table in a park. The tone of this image is quite light, however there are some darker spots for example the tree in the background, but due the lighting and the colour of their skin the overall tone of the image is light. The use of light in this image is quite subtle, soft, almost hazy looking  looking lighting, however, it is natural lighting as they are outside. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The  leading lines of the images would be the lightness of where the sunlight is hitting there skin against the contrast of the darker shadows of the parts of the arm that are not being hit by the light draw your eye along the image.

I believe the ISO is 600 as everything is in as most of the image is in focus however the background is blurred and grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

photoshoot plan

My plan for this photoshoot is too photograph my dads hands as to have some masculine hands and possibly some of maybe my hands next to his to compare the hand of a women in juxtaposition to big man hands.

my photoshoot – hands

Edited images

This is my favourite image out of the photoshoot that I have done because I some what shows a story behind it, as the signal of the fist is showing strength and power ( traditionally masculine traits) I decided to make these sets of images monochrome as I thought it gave them more of a dramatic affect as well as being a bit of contrast compared to the brightness of the coloured gels.

this is what I have done to edit the image as well as cropping out some of the blank space around the edges to make the hand a bit more central and a bit less empty.

To challenge myself a bit more I decided that I would further my photographer of the hands and move to more parts of the body such as just the torso of just legs. An artist reference for this could be Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt

Bill Brandt died December 20th 1983. He was born in Germany and then he moved to England. Brandt later denied that he was German and used to claim that he was born in South London. Brandt has held nine exhibitions which include many different places such as: The Museum of modern art in New York, Philadelphia Museum of art and Victoria and Albert museum. In 1984 Bill Brandt’s images were welcomed into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum. As well as receiving a English heritage blue plaque in 2010. Brandt made his portrait of Ezra Pound in honour of visiting him after he had just survived tuberculosis.

Brandt Analysis

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents a close up photo of an eye from an older man. The tone of this image is pretty dark, due to the fact the image is close up and high contrast as well as monochrome. But the wrinkles and texture in the face could also be making it look darker. The use of light in this image is quite harsh, however, it is artificial lighting as they could be in a studio space. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The  leading lines of the image would be the wrinkles on the skin of his face as the darker contrast and texture of the wrinkles draw your eyes to those spots.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in as most of the image is in focus however the background is blurred and grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

David Goldblatt

Images by David Goldblatt

David Goldblatt was an South African photographer. Goldblatt began his journey with photography when he received a camera from his father as a teenager. David’s first photographs were not amazing so he ask a local wedding photographer for help Goldblatt states: “He would drape several cameras around my neck so that I looked very professional, and my job was to ensure that no guest with a good camera got a good picture . . . I would have to bump or walk in front of them at the critical moment so that my boss was the only person who ended up with good photographs.” a few years later in1962 he became a full time photographer. Throughout his photography career David thought of himself more as a documentarist rather than a photographer/artist. He got around the label of artist by simply calling himself a photographer. He said: “I am a self-appointed observer and critic of the society into which I was born, with a tendency to giving recognition to what is overlooked or unseen.”

Goldblatt analysis

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents a close up photo of a pair of old mans hands in his lap. The tone of this image is medium tone, due to the fact the image is all mainly one tone due to the outfit that the man is wearing. But the wrinkles and texture in the jeans and palms of the hands can give the image depth and make it look slightly darker. The use of light in this image is quite soft, natural lighting, as you can see they’re in an outdoor area. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus, however the background is slightly blurred an grainy. The  leading lines of the image would be the wrinkles and folds in the jeans and around the edge of the hands as they’re areas with shadows compared with much brighter lighting.

I believe the ISO is 200 as everything is in as most of the image is in focus however the background is blurred and grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

photoshoot 3

edited images

My favourites

these two images are some of my favourite of this shoot because they are so simple but they still convey this powerful message, especially with the slight rips and sort of imperfections in the GI ( the outfit ) shows that my dad has been doing

Personally I really like this image because I like the contrast between the old worn out belt compared to the lightness and the freshness of the GI, this was one of the first black belt my dad ever got and it shows the life-long commitment and possibly hardships that have happened / been through.

I have edited this image by:

as well as to get this particular monochrome colour I used the filter: BW02

This images above could also be linked to Satoshi Fujiwara, code unknown, by how he get close up and in creases and different perspectives of looking at things.

Satoshi Fujiwara: code unknown

images by Satoshi Fujiwara

analysis of my own image

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is Identity.

The mise-en-scene presents a close up photo of a belt draped over a karate GI. The tone of this image is very light, due to the fact the belt is silver and the GI is white. But the wrinkles and texture in the belt could also be making it look a little darker. The use of light in this image is quite soft, warm as it is artificial lighting because the picture was taken in my home using a wall light. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The  leading lines of the image would be the seams on the GI and the actual belt itself would be a leading line as it helps bring your eyes around the image.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in as most of the image is in focus. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

Virtual Gallery

I really like the way this gallery / project has come out I think it really shows my dads identity, as karate has been a big part of his life as he’s been training for 43 years ( he’s only 48! ) and teaching for 36 years since he got his first black belt at 12 years old. He has 2 organisations MMA ( mental martial awareness) which helps people deal with their mental health. And his non-profit karate club which he is the chief instructor of.

The way I made this is that I used some of the hand pictures that I previously took as they were also of my dads hand so I thought that they would be good to include as some of them especially the fist link to this kind of topic that I’m doing. As well as I have added some of my environmental portraits that I took of my dad from when he was in his GI and in his dojo.

further experimentation

Claude Cahun

images by Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, sculptor and writer. Cahun was widely known for her self portraits where she crosses the gender boundary’s between male and female, which challenged the strict gender roles at the time. Cahun had a rather androgynous look which she used to help her switch between the gender, which was new for the time as there were stereotypical gender roles, and the thought for people being gender fluid or transgender or anything like that was not thought of. Cahun writes: “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me. However, Cahun mainly referred to herself using grammatically feminine words however described her gender as gender fluid.

She was born 25th of October 1894 in Nantes to a well-off Jewish family. When Cahun was four years old her mother unfortunately was suffering of a mental illness which led to her mother being put into a permanent place at a psychiatric facility. Cahun attended the University Of Paris, Sorbonne. During this time is when he started her self-portrait photography which was as early as 1912 (which means she was 18) and continued to take photographs of herself through the 1930’s.However, Cahun passed on 8th of December 1954

Many of Cahun’s self-portraits show her with her head shaven and only from the shoulders up eliminating her body which blurs the gender indicators. Which shows that her identity and gender is allowed to be seen, however should not be objectified.

WW2 Activism

Cahun settled in Jersey in 1937, after the fall of France and the German occupation of Jersey and the Channel Islands . Where Cahun became an activist and propagandists and worked producing anti-German fliers. In 1944 Cahun was sentenced to death however it was not carried out as the Island was liberated in 1945, however throughout her time in jail Cahun’s health declined and unfortunately never recovered after being let out and Cahun passed on 8th of December 1954.

Cahun Analysis

This is image is taken using a film camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents the self-portrait photo of Claude Cahun sat on a chair, with a t-shirt that says don’t kiss me, I’m in training, with a black background. The tone of this image is pretty dark, dues to the background and her hair and makeup being dark as well. The use of light in this image is quite soft warm looking lighting, however, it is still artificial light so this may have been taken in her home or where ever she used as a studio. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The  leading lines of the images would be the lightness of her white outfit against the dark black background, as well as the black accessories she is wearing also bring your eyes across the image.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in focus and not grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

Claude Cahun states: “The abstraction, the dream, are as limited for me as the concrete and the real” this demonstrates the fact that during the occupation she felt trapped and possibly isolated. As she has big dreams to be creative and free however they were stopped by WW2 and the occupation of Jersey.

Man Ray

images by Man Ray

Man Ray was an American visual artist who spent most of his life in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada  and surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. Above all he was best known for his pioneering photography and was a highly known fashion and portrait photographer.

Ray is also well know for his photograms which he called “rayographs” Throughout his career Man Ray didn’t expose many details of his life or family into the public, Ray didn’t even publicly acknowledge his “other name” which was Emmanuel Radnitzky. He was born in South Philadelphia, August 27, 1890.

From a young age Man Ray was displaying a range of artistic and mechanical ability’s, whilst still at school he used to educate himself by frequently visiting the local art museums in his area.

Double / multi-exposure images

Double / multi-exposure images are photographs created by combining two or more photos into a single image, which blends different elements, subjects, or moments together. This technique can add depth or movement to an image.

To create these images I used photos from the previous post on studio portraits and edited them in photoshop

To create this image I cut out the subject of the image and made a new layer and pasted him on top. moved the second copy of the subject to where I wanted and turned the opacity down. I also edited the original image a bit more to add a bit more contrast and make the effect of the double a bit more dramatic.

I thought that it would be cool to edit one of these images from when we did the motion blur photoshoot. As I thought that seeing the blur repeated would have a cool effect.

This image was a bit harder than the previous to edit as there was the blur as well and I copied it three time instead of two, I Used the eraser tool to smoothly blend these together as well as having it make the colour of the background correctly. Additionally I made the subject in the middle dark to add a bit more depth into the image.

This was an idea I had as the regular image just had the hands in his ears which I thought would look different if they were replicated and moved around the whole subject. One issue I ran into with creating this is that the lighting on the hands didn’t match the tone of the background, especially when doing the right side which is significantly darker than the left or even higher up on the right side. The way that I combatted this is by clicking on the layer of the hand I would like to change. Then by going to the top of the screen and clicking on image then adjustments, that allows me to lower the brightness and contrast on that single layer. So I then did that for the rest of the hand I would like to make darker to match the tone of the background.

Russian Constructivism

Alexander Rodchenko

Images by Alexander Rodchenko

 Alexander Rodchenko was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism  and Russian design.

Rodchenko was born in St Petersburg and moved to Kazan after the passing of his father in 1909. Rodchenko became an artist without much exposure to the art world, he main drew inspiration from magazines. He began his artistic studies in 1910 at the Kazan Art School where he met his future wife.

In 1921 he became a member of the productivist group, which advocated bringing art into everyday life. He gave up painting to concentrate on graphic design for posters, books, and films.

Rodchenko was the main influence for many of the 20th century graphic designers, for example American conceptual artist Barbara kruger took huge inspiration from Rodchenko’s work.

My Interpretation

to create this image in photoshop I first got the background. Then I cut of the subjects face from a previous image, and edited it with a filter to create that high contrast look. and placed it onto the background I then added some stripes onto the image some with different of levels of opacity as I thought it looked a bit plain. Then added some bold red text as Rodchenko’s images that he created often involved adding text, so I decided that I should add some to mine to give the feel of his work. I then got the target off google images and thought that it added great effect to place it over the eye to draw attention.

Michael Betzner

Michael Betzner is a 27 year old conceptual portrait photographer, who is completely self taught. Betzners photography started when he found his husbands ( Benjamin) old camera. Because he completely self taught he approaches photography with a different view and perspective. Betzner’s main focusses with his photography are fashion, branding and building portfolios.

Betzner states: “I felt right at home walking through the woods capturing nature, but I quickly fell in love with portraits and capturing people’s emotion”

Inspiration photo

image by Micheal Betzner

My Interpretation

inspiration photo

image by Micheal Betzner

Personally, I really like this image because it’s not something that I would have thought to do with an mage and show a real creative way of thinking and show the unique approach Betzner has to his work. As well as I think that the way that Betzner has blended the hair together looks great and seamless which really elevates the image.

to create this image in photoshop I unlocked the background image, and expanded the image so that the top of the image was higher to allow me to place the copy of the guy on top, I selected the subject of the image and copy and pasted him back onto the image. I then pressed CTRL T to allow me to spin the image around to make it upside down I then used the erase tool to blend the hair better as it looked a bit weird because it didn’t blend.

What is studio lighting?

studio lighting is artificial lighting that photographers use to add to the light already there

Why do we use studio lighting?

Many photographers prefer to use studio lighting so they can have complete control over where the shadows go and can also control the temperature of the light.

One Point lighting

One point lighting portraits are used to capture images where one side of the models face is more exposed than the other. (one side has the light on it and the other side is dark) However they aren’t as harsh as split light photo there are more natural where one side is darker but you are still able to see the other side of their face.

Photoshoot 1 – one point lighting

edited images

I really like this image as I think the contrast with the black background. As well as it is a good example of split lighting (when half the face is illuminated and the other is dark) Another part of this image that I like is the light parts on the jacket also make good contrast compared to the otherwise dark image.

Something I like about this image is that the darkness of the right side of his face and neck against the bright chrome of the background. As well as how one side of the background looks as if it has warm lighting, then the other side has cool tone lighting.

Analysis of my Image

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents the portrait photo of a boy sat on a chair. The tone of this image is pretty dark, However you could also argue that the tone of the image also quite bright ad there is sort of a half and half going on in this image. The use of light in this image is very harsh, cold artificial lighting as we were in the studio with specific lighting set up. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The  leading lines of the images would be the lightness of his face and side of his jacket against the black background.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in focus and not grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

Rembrandt lighting

Rembrandt lighting is a commonly used technique in studio photography to contrast Butterfly lighting. All you need is one or two lights and one reflector. It became popular due to producing natural looking images with minimal equipment.

To create this lighting the “main light” is placed high and and to the side, roughly 45 degrees to the side of the model. T he reflector is placed on the other side of the model at half height facing it at an angle to the camera, which helps illuminate the opposite side of the face.

An easy way to identify if an image has Rembrandt lighting is on the darker side of the face there will be a triangle sort of shape illuminated on their cheek

image from Google

Examples of Rembrandt lighting

images from Google

Why use Rembrandt Lighting?

When using Rembrandt lighting you are able to instantly create contrast and depth in an image, as well as added a bit of moody drama and psychological depth.

It is a very effective way of lighting as it is used as a device to draw the viewer to the eye of the subject. As when doing portraits the eyes and usually always the main focus of the image. The triangle of light underneath the eye draws the viewers eyes to meet the focal point of the image and highlights the significance of the eyes in the portrait.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born July 15 1606, was a Golden Age Dutch painter, printmaker and draughtsmen, and is generally considered one of the best visual artists of history Western art. Over his time Rembrandt created an estimated 300 paintings and 2000 etchings.

Rembrandt’s 17th century work depicted many different genres, such as portraits, self portraits, landscapes, biblical and mythological themes and historical scenes.

At the end of 1631, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, a city rapidly expanding as the business and trade capital. He began to practice as a professional portraitist for the first time in which he had great success. During 1634 Rembrandt became a citizen of Amsterdam and a member of the local guild of painters as well as acquiring a number of students.

photoshoot

edited images

ISO 100, 32mm, F/10, 1/125sec

I decided to make these images monochrome as I thought it would make them more dramatic. I think this is one of the best images from the bunch as the triangle under the eye is very clear. Something I like about this image is the darkness from the hood of his jumper compared to the slightly over exposed side of his face.

these are all the things on light room classic that I changed to edit this image.

Analysis of my image

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents the portrait photo of a boy sat on a chair. The tone of this image is fairly light, However you could also argue that the tone of the image can be a bit dark based on all the shadows on the left side of his face. The use of light in this image is very soft, cold artificial lighting as we were in the studio with specific lighting set up. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The leading lines of the images would be the darkness of his face and side of his jacket against the light background.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in focus and not grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

Butterfly lighting

Butterfly lighting in used in a studio setting, and is when the main light is set up in front and above the model you are photographing. The name refers to the “butterfly”-shaped shadow seen under the nose, although in a lot of images the shadow is not strongly defined, it just depends on the strength and intensity of the light.

Example of a butterfly lighting with the “Butterfly” shadow defined.

Butterfly lighting tends to be a popular lighting set up due to the fact it is usually face slimming as shadows are created on both sides of the face which emphasizes the facial features such as the cheekbones and nose in a photogenic way.

Why use butterfly lighting?

Reasons to pick this lighting pattern are that it is versatile, is easy to set up, doesn’t require a lot of fancy equipment, and creates a natural look

Examples of butterfly lighting

George Hurrell

George Edward Hurrell was known for using butterfly lighting in his images in the glamour of Hollywood during the 1930s and 40s. He was born June 1st 1904 and began his life in Ohio.

In the late 1920s he was introduced to famous Hollywood actor Ramon Novarro for who he took a series of portraits. Actor Ramon Novarro was so impressed with Hurrell’s work he then went and told some of the other famous stars he was friends with about the amazing work, and this became the start of how Hurrell became the photographer for the stars, where eventually he opened a studio in LA.

Continuing in the late 1920’s after his career took off he signed a contract with MGM and he became the head of portrait photography department. However he then left MGM in 1932 due to differences with the head of publicity.

Hurrell analysis

photoshoot

edited images

I think this image is a good example to butterfly lighting as you can see the butterfly shape under the nose and the shadows on the side of the face, and especially under the chin which shows the directional light from above.

To edit this image I decided it looked better monochrome, I tried to edit it to emphasize the shadows that were being created by the lighting Here’s everything I changed on light room classic to edit this image

photoshop experimentation

To create this image in photoshop firstly I selected the girl in the image and copy and pasted her and then clicked Ctrl T on my new layer with the copied girl and turned down the opacity and the interpolation tool to flip the image.

This is what I used to flip the image

Two-point lighting

Two-point lighting is when two different light sources are used to illuminate the model. They’re often at an angle from the model and either side of the camera.

Two-point lighting enhances the visual appeal of interviews by using two light sources that create depth and dimension on the models face. Using two lights allows the photographer to have more flexibility and creativity compared to one light.

There is many different lighting techniques you can do with two-point lighting such as soft side lighting and fill which looks like this

Example of soft side lighting and fill – using 2-point lighting

For this you will need two lights with reflectors positioned either side of the model, the light reflects off the walls of the studio creating softer light.

soft side lighting and fill lighting set up.

Another type of 2 point lighting you can use is the deep umbrella technique which looks a little something like this:

To create this lighting you need two lights with the key light being a focus umbrella, which produces a very versatile like used especially in beauty work and fashion photography.

Example of deep umbrella lighting set up

examples of 2 point lighting

Images from google

These are good examples of basic two-point lighting, as the model is looking straight through the camera and you can see that most if not all of the face is illuminated, with just a few shadows on the side of their face.

Annie Leibovitz

Images by Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is an American portrait photographer, best known for her portraits of celebrity’s. And she is the first women to have her images featured in the Washington National portrait gallery.

Leibovitz started out her career as a photographer for the Rolling Stone magazine polaroid image of John Lennon that was taken only 5 hours before he was killed is now considered one of Rolling stone’s magazine’s most famous covers.

photoshoot + coloured gels

edited images 2 point lighting

ISO 100, 27mm, f/10, 1/250sec

To edit this image I changed things such as the temperature and the tint of the image as I wanted it to have a slightly more of warmer temperature and green sort of tint, Something I think I could have done a bit better whilst editing this image perhaps crop it a bit as there is rather a lot of blank space of the background.

Here is the image cropped:

Overall, I think this photoshoot was fairly successful, as many of the photos displayed two-point lighting well as you can clearly see hat both sides of the face are illuminated, However I would enjoy experimenting with the other types of two-point lighting that I said in the above.

edited images coloured gels

Personally, I really enjoyed using the coloured gels in the photoshoot as it a simple was to introduce a pop of colour into a what could be called “traditional portrait” A reason I particularly like them is that I really enjoy ‘traditional’ photographer however I do love involving colour where I can and this was a good blend of the two for me. I would love to do this again.

This image is one of my favourites from the shoot as the colours from the lights split almost perfectly down the middle of his face. As well as I think the blue light really compliments the tone of his face.

Virtual Gallery

Environmental portraits are portraits that usually feature the person in their “natural environment” for example it could be in their bedroom or their work place. These portraits are a good way to convey a message and get people interested in the story behind the person.

Lighting: Front facing natural soft light. I think this the lighting is coming from behind the photographer and I think the light is coming from a window so that its natural light, however I do think the window may be slightly to the left of the photographer based on the shadows of the image.

Environment: In a diner / restaurant the social class is probably working class. An American women in her place of work.

Framing: Three quarter length body shot, with the arms slightly crossed in front of her. The angle is straight on and deadpan. The dark colour of her hair helps frame her face from the colour and pattern of the wallpaper.

Approach: A formal (posed) image a neutral pose and slightly smiling but other than the slight smile its a neutral expression.

Gaze: The women in the image is making eye contact with the camera / viewer of the image., this shows that she is engaged.

Camera Settings ( predicted )

• Focal length – I think the focal length is 50mm and its a standard lens
• Depth of field – I think this image has a large depth of field as everything in the image is in focus probably, f/5.6-f/8
• ISO – it is an indoor image and everything is crisp so I think that the ISO is low

August Sander

August Sander was a German portrait and documentation photographer. Much of Sanders photography includes nature, architecture, and street photography, however he is most known for his portraits. Sander first learnt about photography whilst working in  Herdorf iron-ore mine while he was assisting a photographer who was also working in the mine at the time.

Sander published his first book in 1929 and it was called Face Of Our Time which includes 60 portraits from his collection called people of the 20th century. In this series of images he aimed to show society  during the Weimar Republic, and the series is divided up into 7 sections called: The Farmer, The skilled tradesman, Women, Classes and Professions, The Artists, The City, and the last people.

Twenty years after his unfortunate passing August Sanders work and entered into the International Photography Hall Of Fame and Museum in 1984.

Images by August Sanders

Sanders Analysis

August Sanders takes his images using an old-fashioned large-format camera, glass negatives and long exposure times. The genre of this image is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents the portrait photo of three men in a field / walking path, they are looking straight in to the camera and they don’t look like they’re dressed for the environment they’re in. The tone of this image is quite dark, for example if you look at the colour of they’re suits are sort of blending into colour/ tone of the background, it may even be a little bit underexposed. The use of light in this image is very soft natural lighting as they’re outside, it looks as if its not even that sunny of a day outside and a bit cloudy. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is short as only the people are in focus in the image and the background is blurred. The photographer has used leading lines which would be the light colours of the sky and path to draw your eyes across the image.

I believe the ISO is 600 as most things are in focus however there is a bit of grain. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

As August Sander states: “I hate nothing more than sugary photographs with tricks, poses and effects. So allow me to be honest and tell the truth about our age and its people” and I think this really comes across in his images as they are “plain” image of just people posed, however I think he has really managed to capture a story and cause intrigue in his images. As when I look at Sanders portraits I can’t help but wonder about the person in the images life, what the job is ?, how are they feeling in that moment? I think to be able to convey this from such simple images is just incredible and is an enormous amount of talent and skill.

Typologies

Images by Bernd and Hilla Becher

Bernd and Hilla Becher started photographing together in 1959. Most of their work included architecture and had extensive images on water towers, blast furnaces, coal mine tipples, industrial facades and many other industrial architecture pieces.

Typologies are a body of photographs ( more than one or two ) that share a high level of consistency, so they are often placed next to each other to create a series of similar looking images. And grouping them together based on similar characteristics, often showing repetition and patterns. Typologies can be used to explore how small variations within a group can create meaning or convey information about the subject.

photoshoot plan

For my photoshoot I thought that I would use some of my family members and partners. My first idea was to go to my dads karate club that we runs and take some photos of him with his GI and doing some poses such as punches. Then I thought I would take some photos of my friends that would relate to Sian Davey although her images are of her family i thought some of the images relating to her older daughter Martha and her life would be cool to take.

photoshoot 1

edited images

To edit these images in light room classic, I first used the remove toll as there were some scuffs on the floor that I wanted to get rid of. Then for this image specifically I used the

B&W selenium tone for the monochrome, to get the base colour then changed the individual items, for example I increased the contrast by 15%.

For this image I used the B&W sepia to get the old image sort of look. Personally, I really like the warmer tone of this image as I think it really compliment the tones of the wood and the scenery of the dojo. As well as the colour of the black belt against the white GI is good contrast a long with the dark colour of the hair against the light colour of the wall.

The reason I have put my images into these tones is to try and relate it to August Sanders as all of Sanders images were monochrome of slightly warmer monochrome such as this image above.

Overall, I’m really happy with the way that my first photoshoot has turned out as the images are really plain and simple however they are moody and dramatic.

Siân Davey

images by Sian Davey

Sian Davey is a British photographer, much of her work focusses on family and friends and is informed by her background in psychology. Davey was a psychotherapist for 15 years before starting photography in 2014

In 2015 Davey created a series of images titled Looking For Alice which is a series of portrait images focussed around her younger daughter Alice who was born with down syndrome, which was published by Trolley Books in 2015. This series led on to the particular image I like which are about her teenager daughter’s (Martha) life. Two of the images in her series about Martha’s teenage life were selected for the 2016 Taylor Wessing photographic Portrait Prize Exhibition.

Davey held a solo exhibition for her series of images called Together in the National Portrait Gallery London. This was a series of images based on her family and her family life in 2017.

I really like the series documenting Martha’s life as it reminds me of a similar photographer which I like called Elaine Constantine who also document teenage life.

Davey Analysis

This is image is taken using a digital camera and the genre of this photography is portraiture.

The mise-en-scene presents the portrait photo of a group of teens sat on a bench in the park. The tone of this image is quite bright, as they are outside of what looks like a bright day with fairly clear skies. The use of light in this image is very soft natural lighting as they’re outside, it looks as if it is a a little bit cloudy, however you can see where there could be gaps in the clouds with the soft warm light coming through. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is short as only the people are in focus in the image and the background is slightly blurred. The photographer has used leading lines which would be the dark coloured clothes of the teens against the bright background.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in focus and not grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

photoshoot 2

edited images

This image from the photoshoot is one of my particular favourites as I think it relates the most to Sian Davey’s images of Martha, this is an image I took on my digital camera of my friends on the beach after we had gone for a swim. This image looks a bit blurry due to the motion blur of the people moving around so in my editing I tried to make the image as clear as possible.

This is a screen shot of the editing that I have done on Lightroom classic to the above image

Virtual Gallery

The way I have laid out the images in the gallery I have done for specific reasons. with my images I took for Sian Davey, two of the images have a blue colour so I have put them opposite each other whilst having the two darker images in the middle.

The way I have laid out the images of my dad I decided to have the images with the 3 different tones of black and white together and I thought although they aren’t the same tone they complimented each other well. So I thought that the other image should be able to have it’s own wall.

Texture is the visual quality of the surface of an object, seen through tone colour and depth.

James Welling

James Welling was born in 1951 in Connecticut, Welling is an artist photographer and educator currently living in New York. He began taking photographs in 1976, His first body of work consisted of LA architecture and portraits. 1978 is when he moved to New York and started straying away from more traditional forms of photography such as portraiture and landscapes and moved more towards abstract photography by using tin foil, drapes and jelly, these images were later exhibited in New York exhibitions throughout 1981, 1982 and 1984.

Welling joined UCLA in 1995 as a faculty member and began working with digital technology and colour.

images by James Welling ( fire of mind )

For texture we used scrunched up paper for our paper experiments. Paper is a good thing to use when experimenting with the theme of texture as the wrinkles in the paper when it is scrunched up, which was somewhat inspired by James Welling’s images.

James Welling Analysis

This is a digital photo of a crumpled piece of paper. The genre of this style of photography is abstract.

The mise-en-scene presents the abstract photo of a crumpled piece of paper which had been scrunched folded up then layed flat again, the tone of this image is quite light, for example if you look at the really bright area it even looks a bit over exposed. The use of light in this image is quite harsh artificial light as well as being lit from the side. Evidence of this is on the dark areas / shadows of the image which you can see are directional. The focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The photographer has used leading lines is the folds of the paper to lead your eyes through out the image. The photographer has clearly not used the rule of thirds as the leading lines are dissecting the thirds.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in focus and not grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

contact sheet

for these images I tried in a range of different coloured lights and different lighting angles to be able to create

Final Edited images

I edited each of these images differently, as I used different coloured lights, and different lighting angles. All these images had an ISO of 100.

This image that I have edited is one of my particular favourites as the shadows of the paper have a sort of blue tint on them, and I think this contrasts really well with the red lighting I’ve used in the image, this helps to create depth in the image.

Photoshoot 2

I decided to take some more images of the paper trying out have multiple lights and different angles, as well as thing image my ISO was 6400 as all my other images were ISO 100 I thought I’d change the ISO and see how they come out.

Contact sheet

Edited images

When taking these images I really thought about experimenting more with the paper, such as making the paper flat again, using different kinds of paper to get different crumpled effects. As well as using multiple balls of paper.

This particular image I took is one of my favourites from my shoot, as I like the warm tint this images as I think compliments the different variety’s of paper that I’ve used.

These are images I also really like as I think they are a very creative way to show the paper, as they aren’t just paper balls I’ve then layed the out and cut them / displayed them in a unique way that I think it really appealing to the eye.

Photoshop experimentation

To create this above image I started with one on my images and copied it and flipped it so that it was on top of the previous image and use the smudge tool to kind of blend them together a bit better. I then opened a different one of my images and placed it on top the flipped image and turn the opacity down so that you were still able to see the original flipped image underneath.

To create this image I picked which of my photos I wanted as my background photo, I knew I was going to add the cut outs so I chose a monochrome photo so that the colours of the triangles would pop a bit more. To create the cut out triangles I opened a few other of my images and used the shape tool to draw a triangle on the image. I then used the magnetic lasso tool to trace around the triangle, when doing this make sure your on the background layer, once I have traced around my triangle right click and select “layer via cut” I then rearranged the layers depending on what triangles I wanted to overlap, as well as changing the opacity of some of the triangles.

Aaron Siskind

Aaron Siskind was an American photographer, his photography focuses on detail of surfaces that present as flat surfaces. Siskind was part of the abstract expressionist movement. Siskind was born in New York and shortly after graduating from City college, to which he then became an English teacher in a public school in New York for 25 years. He began his photography career after receiving a camera as a wedding present. In 1981 Siskind published a book featuring 52 photographs, which included portraits of local residents and about their lives. The book also included interviews and stories from the residents featured in the book, the purpose of the book was to document the reality of urban life in New York.

Image by Aaron Siskind

Siskind Analysis

This is a film photo of a brick wall. The genre of this style of photography is abstract.

The mise-en-scene presents the abstract photo of a crumbling brick wall which had been painted on and graffitied the tone of this image is quite dark, for example if you look at the stencil paint work of the 5 that is an extremely dark tone. The use of light in this image is very subtle natural light as well as being directional as the light is only gently coming from one side of this image, evidence of this is on the top of the pillar you can see the lightest tone of the picture clearly where the light is hitting the focus distance is short as it is a close up photo and the depth of field is large as everything is in focus. The photographer has used leading lines which you can see as the very dark arrow and the dark 5 lead your eyes. The photographer has clearly not used the rule of thirds as it is a flat wall and nothing really sticks out.

I believe the ISO is 100 as everything is in focus and not grainy. I believe that the shutter speed is 1000 as everything is clear.

As Aaron Siskind states; ” photography is a way of feeling, of touching and loving. Whatever you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there” You can tell in this photograph as Siskind says it’s about the little things and he cares about the little things that others may not see and I think this really comes through in his photography, as he’s looking at a crumbling wall that most people would just walk past everyday and not pay any attention too. I think Siskind has an amazing talent to capture something so average with such beauty and skill is brilliant.

Home photoshoot

To take these images I went for a walk in the woods by my house, as I thought a good way to display texture would be trough the bark of trees. And whilst on my walk there were some rusty fences with the paint flaking and peeling so I also thought those would be good to take picture of.

Edited images

This image that I have taken is of a pinecone I found on my walk, and i thought that it would be a really good way to display texture, as well as it being a unique angle.

I have made these images monochrome to link my images back to Aaron Siskind’s , as all of Siskind’s images are monochrome.

I think out of all my images that I have taken this one relates to Aaron Siskind the most and it is close up and the moss on the trees that has turned white looks like some of Siskind’s peeled paint images, as well as the dark cracks kind of remind me of a desert.

Experimentation

To create this experiment image I went into photoshop and opened my monochrome image I edited and opened the colour version and used the polygon lasso tool and cut out the green wire and placed it onto the monochrome image for a pop of colour which contrasts really well and personally I think really goes.

A reason I chose to make the wire the original colour is because in the original image that I had made monochrome I felt like the wire was getting lost in the texture of the bark, so I thought that if I made it green it wouldn’t get lost and you still get the contrast of the texture.

My virtual gallery

To make this gallery I used the website artsteps and entered my images, and I decided to make them all a bit more uniform. Most of my images are in black and white ( monochrome ) however I have chosen certain images with more colour and scattered them around to try and contrast the monochrome images.

the aperture controls the amount of light that is entering the lens, like the iris of your eye. This is measured in F-Stops for example F-Stop 22 would be tiny like a pinhole. Depth of Field is basically what is in focus in-front and behind in the image, so if you have a shallow depth of field make the background of the image blurry / not in focus. If the whole image is in focus than the Depth of field is large. This links to Aperture (e.g F-stop 8) as if you use a large aperture than you will have a shallow depth of field. Than if you use a small aperture (e.g F-stop 22) than you will have a large depth of field. From F16-F22 will mean that all the of the image will be in focus.

My Images

these images are from a canon camera simulator, and this was to experiment with how Aperture, ISO and Depth of field effect each other when taking an image.

Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Meatyard was an optician before he took up an interest in photography. He was a member of the Lexington Camera Club which lead him to pursue his interest in photography, Meatyard’s main genre of photography is abstract. With many of his images using motion blur and multiple exposures.

These images are combining abstract photography with portraiture photography whilst including aperture and depth of field.

These photos show how there is the main object in the image in focus at the front of the screen and the rest of the background is more blurred.

Saul Leiter

Leiter started out as a painter and then, found his inspiration of colour photography, his works began in the 1940s. Leiter focused mainly of colour theories but also different perspectives of framing the images, He created abstract compositions of everyday objects. Leiter had large areas of the images out of focus ,which draws your eyes to a particular area or pop of colour.

examples of images by Saul Leiter

Personally, I really like Saul Leiter’s work as I like that the main part of the image is not centred and all the pop of colour is something I personally like and look forward to trying something similar in the future.

My Images

contact sheet

Best Images Edited

I have chosen these images as the best of my aperture and depth of field images, either the background or the main object of the image is in focus or out of focus. Especially these images with the leaves are and interesting way to mix portraiture photography and depth of field.

Shutter speed is the amount of time that your camera is letting light in for. The longer that the shutter speed is open for the brighter that the image will be.

If the object or person you are photographing is moving, for example sport photography, you will need to use a high shutter speed, to be able to capture the moving object clearly. Whereas if you use a low shutter speed such as 1/30 the colours of your image will be richer and more light will have been allowed in.

Examples of high shutter speed images

you can tell these images have a high shutter speed as they are moving images but the movement looks still.

Examples of low shutter speed images

and these images are low shutter speed as it has a bit of motion blur on the image.

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman is an example of a photographer who uses slow shutter speed. Many of Woodman’s images were taken in her parents farmhouse in the countryside of Florence Italy. The European art and culture of surrealist art, many photographers such as Man Ray and Claude Cahun have also influenced her work as you can their themes and styles in Woodman’s work.

In the topic of photography Woodman’s importance as an innovator really helped develop photography as during the 1970’s photography was still considered to be less important than painting or sculptures. Francesca Woodman helped pave the way for photography to explore more important themes such as identity, just like Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.

Image by Francesca Woodman

My Images

Contact sheet ( slow shutter speed )

Best Images Edited

these photos are good examples of a slow shutter speed as you get a clear sense of the motion blur that is occurring, which you can tell as part of the images are blurry as there is movement happening in the image.

I have made these images monochrome as I think you are able to see the motion blur better as well as making the images more dramatic.

Harold Edgerton

Harold Edgerton is a great example of fast shutter speed photography. Edgerton was born in Nebraska in 1903. The flash that Edgerton had used to create his most famous image of the bullet through the apple, was 1/100,000 of a second.

Many of his images have been featured in magazines such as “Life Magazines”, and when taking his multi-flash this strobe light could flash up to 120 times in a second. In 1934 Edgerton was appointed a professor of electrical engineering at MIT.

Harold Edgerton / MIT / 1964

My Images

contact sheet ( fast shutter speed)

Best Images Edited

these are some of my best images for fast shutter speed as you cant see any movement in the images. I particularly like the one of the yellow ball as the colour of the ball really compliments with the the colour of the tree. As well as the different tones that are on the ball from the shadows.

ISO

ISO is one of three main pillars of the photography triangle along with shutter speed and aperture. ISO refers to the light sensitivity of the camera, so the higher the ISO the higher the light sensitivity, So if you were shooting on a dark cloudy day you would want to use ISO 1600 or higher. The lower the ISO the less grainy / “noisy” the image will be, however sometimes grain on images is sometimes used for artistic design or dramatic effect. You want your ISO to be as low as possible whilst still freezing the action.

If you’re using a high ISO, in turn there is a possibility that the quality of your image can degrade.

Examples

Here are some examples of high and low ISO from my own images

These images have ISO that ranges from ISO 100 to ISO 3200

Best Images (edited)

Best Images (edited)

Colour +tone

Examples of Haas’ work

Romanticism

The early invention of photography coincided with the era we now call the romanticism era. As many of the ideas and beliefs of romanticism greatly contributed to the early experimentations of photography, which has helped it become what it is today.

Chemical developments (early 1800s)

the break through for camera obscura came with the observation that certain chemicals are light sensitive. Such as silver salts and silver chloride. So these were used to create images, however they ran into issues when they realised they couldn’t stop the image from developing, so the image they wanted would over develop and turn black.

when they first started discovering using chemicals the first ever trial, Humphry Davy soaked a piece of leather with the chemicals and got a botanical specimen directly onto the leather and exposed it to sunlight, and that is when they saw a first image start to appear. This led into the marketable photographic process in 1839.

Dageurrotype

Louis Daguerre invented the dageurrotype process in 1837. To make a dageurrotype you need a sheet of copper that is plated with a thin coat of silver, this is then cleaned and polished to a mirror finish . Once it is sensitized it needs to be kept in a light proof container with iodine and bromine vapours, until the surface turns yellow. To develop the image you must place the plate over a source of heated mercury fumes until the images appears, this creates a milky white image. Now the image is fixed and is not developing any further.

Nicephorus Niepce

Was a French inventor and one of the earliest inventors of photography, who died on the 7th of March 1765. Niepce invented heliography, which is a technique that has created some of the oldest surviving products of a photo.

Joseph Nicephorus Niepce first experiments is uncertain, but they stemmed from his interest in lithography and the camera obscura. Niepce’s first images were captured on silver chloride-coated paper, which were particularly difficult to fix, later moving on to using Bitumen of Judea ( a light sensitive asphalt which is used in etching ) Niepce’s successful camera photography was between 1822 and 1827 and was rediscovered in 1952. In 1829 he partnered with Louis Daguerre to develop Physautotype, whoever after Niepce passed away Daguerre continued the research on his own. A few years later the Government ending up buying Daguerres proccess rewarding him and Niepce.

Henry Fox-Talbot

Henry Fox-Talbot is accomplished in all sorts of things, however drawing was one thing he could never master. Despite not being able to draw Henry decided he was destined to get the colourful 3-dimentional world onto a piece of paper, this is when the idea of camera obscura and chemistry came together.

George Eastman and Kodak

Originally Eastman was working as a bank teller, until he became interested in photography when he decided he wanted to document one of his trips. He ending up becoming more interested in photography than going on his vacation (which he never ended going on) Eastman revolutionised photography by miles, by now producing that we now even take for granted which is a roll of film.

A few years later after producing the roll of film Eastman used the same concept to create the first “amateur camera” called the Kodak camera. The word Kodak means nothing, this is a word he came across when playing with anagrams with his mother. The reason that he had chosen this word is because he enjoyed the fact it started with a K which was a strong and incisive letter. So he thought what better to way to sell a product than to have a name people are going to remember. As well as the fact the word has no alternate meanings.

The Kodak revolution turned the empire of photography into a republic. And the emblem of this revolution was the distinctive circular prints. The first generation of the amateur photographers were called the Kodak Fiends.

Digital Photography

1969 was the heart of digital photography. William Boyle and George Smith developed a device that they called a charged-couple device which ended up being given a common name of a CCD. It used a row of tiny metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitors to store infromation as electrical charges. This does the same function as the magentic tape in the older cameras.

Anna Atkins

Anna Atkins made her images with cyanotype photography. The first use of cyanotype photography was in 1843 and it was used it illustrate a book. This is the method of tracing shapes with light on photosensitive surfaces, and this has been an early repertoire of photography.

The cyanotype is a slow-reacting photographic printing formulation which is sensitive to ultraviolet and the blue light spectrum. It produces a blue monochrome print. To stop the developing of the chemicals you must use water to fix the image onto the paper.

My Cyanotype

We went outside and out either flowers or leaves that we would like to include on our cyanotype. we got the special cyanotype paper with the chemicals on it and placed our plant on top. to secure the plant to make sure it didn’t move in the wind of outside, we placed a piece of Perspexs on top of the plants and left them to sit for about 20 minutes in the sun. Then we fixed th eimages with water and here is my finshed product.