P&P-Assignment One; A portrait



Assignment One; A portrait

 

 

Object of assignment one

This assignment is to introduce myself to my tutor and give them the opportunity to get to know my work as this assignment is not formally assessed.

I have to take one person as a subject and create between five to seven different portraits, drawing together my experiences in completing the projects/exercises so far and differ in type and style. 

 

I chose to photograph my friend Andreea for this assignment, she has a very striking look, with dark hear and blue eyes she fitted perfectly for what I needed.

I chose a range of different locations and had planned out the day, so it would directionally flow, to save time. I used 3 different lenses for this assignment;-

• EF 35mm f/2
• EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
• EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

I used an aperture of f/7.1 on all of the shots, so to keep a sharp focus on her face and adjusted the shutter speed, it was a cloudy day, so it made for an interesting photo shoot as the weather was diverse.

 

 

A portrait

On looking at portraiture photography on the internet, it is interesting how striking portrait photography is, all of the different focal lengths have their own nuances.  

 

With a full face image, the eyes really draw you in, whether they are looking at the camera or away, the image is still striking, the power of the image however, was the facial expression of the person, the eyes have a lot to do with it, but the slight change in their expressions is what made one image stand out, over another, also the smiling face shots actually made me smile and I liked that, it gives a feeling of warmth.  I noticed how a lot of the images are photo shopped to give that extra glint in the eyes, I may be wrong and it could be the studio lighting instead, however, I’m sure they have all been adjusted in some way.

  

With the head and shoulder, and torso images the background has a bit more significance in the image, without losing the connection of the persons face and hands, the directions of the torsos were interesting, if you do not get it right, it can look strange and make the image obscure in a bad way, I feel the hands can be what makes or breaks an image.

  

The full body portraits portray more of a story as to what event is happening, the background has to be involved somehow in the actual photograph as to what is going on with the image, also it fully depends as to what they are wearing in relation with the background.

 

 

Exhibition

I stumbled across a gallery, just off of Oxford street called “The Photographers’ Gallery” and it was quite interesting, there was an interesting exhibiting on called “Home truths: Photography, motherhood and identity” with a myriad of different photographers, concentrating on the feelings and thoughts surrounding motherhood and that sometimes it can be discomforting to acknowledge, or may cause embarrassment. As I am not a mother myself, I found this exhibition interesting and thought provoking, it showed key moments in mother hood and how it affects mother and child alike.

 

My favourite out of the exhibition is the photograph by Elinor Carucci called Feeding Emanuelle from a plastic bottle after I stopped feeding her, 2005 © Elinor Carrucci/INSTITUTE  (Photograph below)

 

 

I really like the shadow and the forward facing light, the natural way she is posed and the connection between mother and child, it is a very touching image and a poignant moment in their life’s, which I feel is reflected very well through the photograph.

 

 

Books used for this assignment;

• Photos for the future 2: Sutton publishing and The History Channel (A look at photography throughout 100 of history, up to the year 2000, it includes a plethora of interesting portraits of how the world was, the people and the incidents that surrounded those changes)
• The Times picture collection- Explorers, a history in photographs: by Richard Sale and Madeleine Lewis (Another look throughout history of the people how explored the globe to great lengths and the people they encountered along the way)

Websites used for this assignment;

http://stevemccurry.com/ -(An extremely famous photographer who works for National Geographic)

http://121clicks.com/inspirations/steve-mccurry-inspiration-from-masters-of-photography -(A look in to Steve McCurry’s work and profile)

http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/ -(To retrieve the photo I needed for this assignment)

 

I have done a collection of seven images for this assignment, I wanted to put in more as I liked a lot of them, it was difficult to choose which ones I wanted to use but I am happy with the final collection.

 

Red door; 1/30 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF 35mm f/2

I found this door by the gallery that I went to see the exhibition in, I thought it was perfect, clean and striking, with Andreea being in black, I love this image, it is my favourite in this assignment. The reflections are great and really give you a sense of what is going on behind me. The main difficulty I had taking this image was to not get the reflection of myself in this picture and still capture the full length of Andreea. In a way, I had to hide behind her whilst lining up the photograph, I feel it has worked really well and I am happy with the end result.

 

 

 



“No Tarking”; 1/60 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF 35mm f/2

I wanted to get a simplistic background that was relatively urban, my initial thought process with this was to take a full length photograph, however, when processing the image, the torso photograph worked a lot better overall, it is plain, simplistic and I think Andreea looks extremely striking in this image, she really stands out.

 

 

 

Raining?; 1/400 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

The sun came out just in time for this photograph, this was fun to do and Andreea was great, I wanted to take an image where she was ‘larger than life’ as it were, hence the reason why I used my wide angle lens and this location. I had originally had her with an umbrella without the cover, shrugging like asking where is the rain?, with the whole image, it fitted well, however, you could not see the actual spikes of the umbrella, in hindsight, I should have used a normal umbrella, so instead I used this image of her leaning and looking in to the distance.

 

 

 

 

Reflections; 1/125 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

I wanted a high dynamic image, so I thought were better than the river Thames?, the reflection off of the Shard building and with Andreea looking in to the distance, she looks like she is having a reflecting thought. With the blue of her eyes, the railing of the bridge and the Shard building reflection there is a very blue theme going on in this image, which I think ties in very well.

 

 

 

 

Naughty dog!; 1/40 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

I had always wanted to see an original Banksy, so this particular image took a lot of planning, firstly due to being able to find one that was still intact and not destroyed or painted over, my next challenge was then to find one that I could use Andreea in, one that was not high up or one that she could not interact with, luckily, I found this Banksy spray art in Bermondsey and it was perfect.

 

 

 

 

Patriotic; 1/160 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

For this image we went to Brick Lane, as I knew (as I am sure most of London does) there is great graffiti and I knew I could use it for this particular assignment. I like the way you are drawn in to her eyes and that she is not the only person in the portrait, more or less. I think it is a light and interesting image.

 

 

 

 

Happy; 1/200 seconds at f/7.1 – Lens EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

 
Every time I look at this photograph it makes me smile, as it is a natural and genuine look, it is the main reason I chose this photograph for the collection, I also chose it due to the simplistic background and the contrast of the shadows, even though you can’t really see her eyes, you can feel her expression, which I really like.