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.