Favourite Portraiture Photos

It would seem that I have a particular taste towards black and white portrait photos as I'm drawn in with the ones shown below. I suppose being able to see a photo in black and white, especially when its of people is very fascinating to me because if anything, people aren't but just black and white, but yet it fits so well when it comes down to taking photos of the subjects.

I'm not very experienced in taking portrait photos in black and white but I imagine it to be a lot more technical than what people like to think it is. You get various tones of colour when you take photos in normal shooting mode, that is, normal shooting mode in today's standards. 

Many in between hues, possibly even between two contrasting colours, but with black and white photos, you just get a variety of grey. Its the subtle differences between the shades that makes the photo more interesting, and harder to achieve as you would be restricting yourself from all the colours on the pallet possible to the human eye.

Al Pacino (1995)

Irving Penn is known as a fashion and portrait photographer but is mostly known for his works on portrait photos of celebrities as well as his still life ones. I find his work to be very similar to Annie Leibovitz's work in terms of using mainly black and white when taking a portrait photo, however they seem to be less glamorous than Annie's. 

Maybe because I feel like his work focuses on the subjects' face and expression rather than having some background like Annie's, giving it a more humbling sense, when it comes down to it celebrities are people as well. I also find that the expressions on his subjects' faces appear to be more natural and relaxed, which links to a quote he once said

"Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is the one they would like to show to the world... Every so often what lies behind the façade is rare and more wonderful than the subject knows or dares to believe"

I think when he takes his photos, this façade is something he wants to eliminate from them.

What draws me in about this photo of Al Pacino that Irving did is that I believe it to be one of the rare and wonderful expressions that Irving tries to capture. You may or may not know, but Al's life wasn't particularly easy when growing up; considering his parent's divorced when he was 2, was drinking and smoking by 9, started using cannabis casually at 13, and dropping out of school at 17 which lead him to being homeless at times when working minimum paid jobs. Clearly he has not had an easy start to life.

I wouldn't describe his expression as sorrow though. I see it more as "quit complaining and get on with it" sort of look to put it in nice terms. I wouldn't imagine him to be someone who can tolerate being around people who whines about their life but doesn't do anything to make it better.

Twiggy (1967)

Above is a photo of supermodel Twiggy that was taken by Bert Stern in 1967. Bert is a self-taught American Fashion and celebrity portrait photographer who died in 2013. Stern's photos, much like Penn's, has this organic expression that his subjects portray, however in a different approach. I feel that his approach is to capture the innocence of a child within an adult especially within beautiful women.

In the photo above, Twiggy was 17 when that photo was taken. If you're not familiar with Twiggy and who she is as a person, you would guess that she is a very expressive  individual with a light hearted exterior, quirky even, just from looking at this photo. A quote by Richard Curtis from the 45 minute documentary on Twiggy by 'Biography' seems to back up my statement on Twiggy's charisma.

"I love the photos of her with Kate Moss, because I think they share that same quality of this rather astonishing, chilly, perfect beauty, and then when you talk to them, they're utterly natural, kooky girls"

What drew me to this particular photo that Bert Stern did of Twiggy is that it lacks this symmetry that most, if not all supermodels' faces, are based on. I'm not saying Twiggy's face isn't symmetrical, but rather the element of her asymmetric haircut and the underexposure of light on right eye, even though the soft box lighting is placed to the right of the photo. Another thing to take into account is how the shadows have a grainy texture compared to the white surface, which looks as smooth as porcelain.With the light coming from the right of the photo, the left side flaunts Twiggy's features with the shadows casting on it, much like the shadows sand dunes cast when the sun sets in the desert.

Kurt Cobain (1994)

This is a photo that Mark Seliger took 2 months before Kurt Cobain killed himself.

Mark Seliger is an American Photographer who is known for his celebrity portrait photos. He has photographed front covers for 'Detail', 'The RollingStones' and 'W' magazine and seems to favour taking them with a CU or a MS composition when taking them.

What I like about his photos is that they appear to be simple but intricate, his subjects, particularly his male ones, have a distant look in their eyes. Although most of the portraits that he has done are in black and white, some are done in colour. His use of blues and golds appear to be a favourite and shows a spectrum of temperature which adds more dynamic. I've noticed that he likes to set his male subjects in blue themes, giving them a rather cold and detached demeanour to them even when they are looking into the camera lens. When he uses gold on his female subjects, they create a warm glow within the frame, however they seem to lack narrative and intensity in terms of them seeming more like stoic in comparison.

Salvador Dali - Philippe Halsman

A Photo I Admire

"The Ash"

The Company 'Ars Thanea' used its own creative studio to create something that was supposedly simple. Glowing Roses. From there it started to develop into something a bit more meaningful as they progressed putting this together. It became something representative of sharing a simple idea, or even a whim, to people who are willing to make that idea a dream come true'. They proceeded to set a bouquet of roses on fire.

To be frank I thought this photo was something to do with 'Lost Love', but apparently I was wrong. I was interpreting it as something of a passion burning too brightly for something so delicate to withstand. Even so with the flames of passion gone, there still lingers remnants of the love that was.

I think what drew me to this photo was seeing how intact the bouquet of roses was still in after being set on fire, and the contrast between the glowing embers and black of the smouldered petals.

Behind the scenes of the photo shoot

Using both scenography and digital art, as well as working as a team they managed to create this piece. As you can see from the above photo, there is a team member putting touches here and there to make the piece appear as it should on camera during production to make it as authentic as it possibly can before it goes of to the digital artists to enhance its already apparent features in post production.

Ars Thanea - The Ash

Presentation On Fashion and Documentary Photography

Prezi Presentation on Documentary and Fashion Photography

Well there's the link to my Presentation but it doesn't have all my notes on it because I was ad-libbing. To help with said ad-libbing, I had sheets with points on to help me along with the presentation 

Light Graffiti

Trying out some light photography today in class, which was interesting to say the least. Starting of we got the equipment which is just basic camera equipment, like a camera and a tripod. That's it. I suppose you could do it without a tripod but that's for another day.

Before beginning, we set the camera to a slow shutter speed, in this case to 20"or 30", the ISO was set to 100 because we are dealing with low lighting and having a higher ISO would make the final result look all fuzzy and brighter, which is bad considering you want your light source to be as concentrated as possible. Below are some examples of the photos taken in today's session.

For this photo (above) we used 30" shutter speed so we would have more time to draw the light because the subject wanted to make it look like she was holding up light. When the capture button was pressed, I shunned the light on the subject's face for a few seconds to help highlight her features better in the final result. After I did that I started to move the light around and took in consideration hands as I wanted to show them as well in the photo.

Same subject again, but this time she is lying down on the ground while I traced around her body while the camera was going off, we set it to 30" again so I could have more time trying to manoeuvre around her body with the light source.

In these photos, both above and below this text, I am the subject and the top one was achieved through me standing still while another person was 'scanning' my body behind me with the light source so they could get my silhouette to look sharper and more defined. Again the camera's shutter speed was set to 30". Below we used a different light source with colours and I was traced with it instead of it going back and forth behind me to capture my silhouette .

Above we tried to use the flash light on my phone instead of the other light sources becaus ethey were currently occupied, we wanted to achieve stars and to some degree we succeeded but the red light is from a finger blocking the light on my phone and is just the light going through the flesh, resulting in a red line.

Photographic Techniques

Panning Shot

These are examples of what a panning shot is. The distinctive traits of these sorts of photographs are:

- The subject is in focused

-The background in blurred

This is good because it can control where the photographer wants the viewer to look.

To do this you would need a DSLR camera, you can do this in manual but to make it easier set the camera to TV (Time Variant). This would make the Shutter Speed of your camera completely in your control but the Aperture is controlled by the camera, optimising the lighting to Shutter Speed you set. 

Preferably you should set the Shutter Speed to a low setting, something around 1/20-1/30 because it would increase the motion blur effect to make the background look more dramatic, helping to distinguish between the subject and the background. Once set, the goal is to focus on the subject and to match its speed. To focus on the subject it is best you don't actually focus on the subject but where you suspect your subject to be. I focused on the lane the car was going to be on. With my Shutter Speed set to 1/30 and my focus set, I waited for a car to go by, when it did, I followed it with the camera and pressed the capture button while still moving. Continue to do it as you follow the subject through the eyepiece multiple times.

Below are examples of this technique being used, it takes some time to get it right.

Large Depth of Field

A large depth of field photo consists of the foreground and background being in focus.

To begin for taking a large depth of field photo its easier to set your camera to AV mode which stands for aperture variant which makes aperture the priority. This would allow you to have full control of the aperture setting while everything else is in automatic. Having control on the Aperture, make it as high as you want, the higher it is the more background you'll have in focus, although it does make the image darker. You can get around this by either setting a slower shutter speed or turning up the ISO. I suggest turning down the shutter speed if you have a tripod to hold the camera steady, but if you don't then there is nothing wrong with turning up the ISO instead but don't turn it up too high otherwise you'll have noise on the image. Luckily this day was particularly bright so I didn't have to slow the shutter speed too much so I could take the photo while holding onto the camera. Below are some examples of photos I've taken.

Shallow Depth of Field

A shallow depth of field is a photo where unlike a long depth of field, the background is out of focus, sometimes it can be referred to 'bokeh' but it just means the background is blurry in comparison to the foreground. To achieve this look, you want to begin by turning the F-Stop down. In this case I turned it down as far as the camera would allow me, which was about 3.5 - 4. The lower the number the brighter the image but it doesn't affect the quality of the image like the ISO would, which I set to 100. This day was quite sunny so there were some difficulties but I just made the shutter speed faster and that makes the amount of time that light is allowed through the lens shorter, resulting in a darker outcome.

Below are some examples to shallow depth of field but I set my camera to manual because I didn't want to use the AV setting.

The leaves on the ground photos show examples of lens flare, which are those lines of light you see to the left of the frame. It occurs when light is shattering or reflecting in the lens' system.

Above is a good example of shallow depth of field as there is a clear distinction between the leafy greens and the bark of the tree to the green of the grass in the background.

Some lens flare and shallow depth as field. You can see it by how sharp and in focus the subjects' silhouette is compared the the smeared details of grass.