colinjacksonphotography

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Different types of portraits

When researching different types of portraits I found there was more than I would have imagined. Once I started reading about them I noticed that some of them sync up with the others, and then some are totally opposites.  Traditional portraits are often very posed with a lot of set up being involved, with studio lights and a back drop. These are often posed with the model looking at the camera, although not always it depends on how the photographer poses the model. This is something that isn't done in other styles of portraits. The aim of these images are often to make the model look their best.  Lifestyle portraits are the opposite to traditional portraits in the sense that they are not taken in a studio with lights, they are also not posed the same either. Lifestyle portraits normally are limited in the time they are getting took, so the photographer tends to give tasks to do to capture the images such as group hug or even jumping on a bed. These are normally capture in everyday environments such as someones home. The purpose of these types of portraits are to create and capture memories instead of making the model look their best.  Where as environment portraits become a mix of both lifestyle portraits and traditional. means that the images are normally captured on certain locations that means something to the subject instead of a studio, but the model still gets posed in certain ways from the photographer in order to capture the image they have in mind. For example a chef in a kitchen posing next to a work station or a cooker posing a certain way to make the image stand out like if the chef had to kick flames up out a frying pan well looking at the camera.  Candid portraits are images that have not been planned, although does not need to be with strangers its more the photographer capturing the subject being themselves or without any direction coming from them.  Street photography portraits tend to be candid portraits as the photographer tend to take the photos of the people they meet when they are out and about. Well taking inspiration from the subjects actions or clothing or something along those lines, even simply walking past at the right time with the right lighting, 

Glamour portraits is another style I found when researching, the purpose of these images is to show of the beauty of the subject. This often involves a lot of planning from the wardrobe to even having a make up artist. These images can also become very sensual, sometimes these images can be took with the modelling wearing lingerie or even being naked. To get these images a lot of posing is involved but the main focus is still the model and not what they are wearing.  Boudoir portraits is also another style of this, but these are often took in the bedroom or at someones home. These images are more intimate rather than sexual. Meaning these rant about sexual poses or lingerie. These images are often given from the model to their significant other. With quite a lot of them saying it helps to boost the confidence in themselves.  Fine Art portraits and Conceptual portraits are pretty similar with they are planned down to every little thing and can be edited in interesting ways. sometimes using props.  Self portraits are not just taking selfies, its totally different from picking up a phone and taking a photo quickly. Self portraits tend to need a lot of planning to get right, and a lot of time to get it right. This can be helped with using an app on your phone to see what your camera sees. Self portraits can become very beautiful, interesting and unique portraits.  Group images can be any of the other ones just with more than one person. Although these tend to be a lot harder to capture than if it was just a single person. But can become very interesting photos. Although the most popular style for group portraits would be lifestyle portraits.  After researching all of these different types of portraits, I feel like I have a better understand of portraits and what kind of styles would work for different projects or to meet certain briefs. 

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Mike McGee

https://www.mikemcgeephotography.com

Mike McGees work really interested me with the wide range of portraits he has got on his website. I found him on instagram looking at different portraits, the images with the neon lights came up which caught my attention right away. after checking out his instagram page I went to his website to find he does a wide range of Photography.  He is an American photography based in San Francisco working for a modelling agency. Although he started out doing landscape photography he soon found his passion for portraits. The images you see above are some of my favourite ones from his website. although this was hard to select so few I thought this would be best so that it wasn't all of his work on here. He uses the light available very well to capture incredible images, weather its at the amazing ‘golden hour’ or even just the light through a car window after it had rained. Even the neon images, which both have been captured beautifully. Drawing the viewer into them straight to the key points.  The  use of shallow depth of field helps intense the images by keeping the attention away from what else is in these images. These are images that If possible finding the right lighting and location I would like to recreate or even capture similar images to these. These images got me thinking a lot about what I want to do and how I want to capture my images. 

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PHILIPPE LEJEANVRE

https://philippelejeanvre.com

What drew me to these images is the use of neon lights and fairy lights. the photographer has used them to light the models in very creative ways which I find interesting. The way he has posed each model is unique to the style of lighting used, or even the difference in the neon lights. One thing he has managed to capture is relaxed expressions on each model.  The creativity that has went into these images really make you want to go out and see if you can capture similar images with the use of fairy lights or neon lights in windows. 

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Cyprus Phototour

https://www.cyprusphototours.com

Cyprus photo tour is a photographer called Dia who was originally from Hungary who works in Cyprus now. On the website of the shoots they have done I found a lot of nice images with strong lighting and really harsh shadows which has been used in a creative way.  The above three images I really took a liking to, the first one was done very creatively with the harsh shadows and leafs drawing your attention towards the models face. The second image I really liked the eye contact she is giving the camera which really draws your attention. and the third and final one was the natural smile on a location which builds a story.  Although they were a lot of images on the website I found these to be the ones that caught my attention and kept it more than the others. I like how they have been captured at different distances from the models. 

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Bordeax Photography

https://bordeaux-photographie.com/

This photography is one I found well on instagram, which had a website where I got these images from. I really like the above five images that was on the website, the use of locations for these natural lit portraits creates a kind of story within a single image as well as using the light that's available in a very creative way. Although they have done a lot of interesting work I feel like these ones stood out a lot more. 

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Sean Tucker

This image Sean Tucker drew my attention straight away, I like his work but this one really spoke to me. The way he has captured this image is unique and interesting. With what appears to be a single street light (although could have been done in a studio) lighting the front of the model. As well as the space in front of her, we'll keeping the rest of the image pretty much in totally darkness.  The image being captured the way it has gives off a cold vibe with the model wearing a big jacket and a pair of boots. Although only one is showing at the front as the model has been posed so she is slightly side on  looking up to the light, drawing the viewers attention in towards her face which has been lit evenly creating very harsh shadows under her chin and even on the ground. 

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BT Photography

https://www.bt-photography.co.uk

BT Photography is a new photographer that I found well doing some research on photographers who like to shoot with natural light. He tends to capture these images during the ‘golden hour’ which I really liked about them as it gives off a nice warm glow to the images. Well trying to find some history about Bt photography I found his name is Brian Tomlinson who mostly works from Milton Keynes, which is just north of London. Although he does cover the whole of the UK most his work is either in Milton Keynes where he has a studio or London. Brian has been published in the national press, on festival magazines and websites, the met office, Discovery channel, Sony world photography award and a various other galleries. He has also got a book which is called ‘Maker - Artist of Milton Keynes’. What I found very interesting about his work was the use of depth of field to create nice boca effects in some images as well as to give some foreground and background to build a nice image but keeping all the focus onto the models, which he has positioned different in each image to capture interesting and unique portraits well using natural light, as well as using shop lights or street lights to either light the model or add a boca effect in the background. I have took a lot of inspiration from the work I have seen on his website and other social media sites. This images you see above are some of my favourite images I got from his website, although there was many more I could of selected.

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Editing softwares other than Adobe

We were giving the task to find out about other editing softwares that are available other than Adobe. For this task I looked at two different softwares, one which is free to download and one which you have to pay for. 

The first one I looked at was GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP for short. This software was first lunched in February 1996, which is free to download with tasks as photo editing and file management. It has great tools similar to Photoshop such as curves, levels and masks. But photoshop has the real manipulation strength when it comes to editing. This is free to download so this is understandable that photoshop would be better but it is a good free alternative if photoshop isn't something you are wishing to pay for.  The second software I looked at was Affinity Designer which was lunched late 2014. The software costs $49.99 which is around £40. This software is more aimed at amateurs rather than professionals although a lot of things are very similar, such as the tools and a lot of features. This unlike other softwares can convert PSD and EPS files, as well as being able to open non editable formats. With less features than Adobe this is a downside to something that you will need to pay for, although its cheaper over all so this is to be expected. The software is available on Mac OS, with a windows beta version now available.

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Exposure Triangle Aperture (F number) Aperture is a great way to change the focus of the image, or a great way to try capture as much detail in focus as possible. Having a wide aperture allows a lot of light into the camera as well as making everything but the main subject of the image out of focus. Then with a narrow aperture it lets more of the image stay in focus, ideally this is used for landscapes.  Settings used in these images was ISO 100 with a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second, changing the aperture for each image. This is to show another side of the exposure triangle, allowing more or less light to be let into the camera when capturing the image.  Image 1 - Aperture f16 was used to capture this image, this shows if the aperture is too narrow when the other settings can’t be changed or you don't want to change them that the image will become under exposed. Although it can show a lot more detail within the image, it is too dark to see enough of the details.  Image 2 - Aperture f1.8 was used to capture this image, which has made the image become over exposed blowing out the whole image. This may of given great focus on the leafs in the middle if it was not over exposed. Using this setting shows just how much of a difference changing the aperture can do to the image.  Image 3 - For this final image, I wanted to try get it correctly exposed again, so I went with F5.6, This allowed enough light into the camera when capturing the image well also showing that a wide aperture can make the viewer focus on a certain spot of the image with making the outside (or anywhere you choose) to be blurred/out of focus. 

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Exposure Triangle Shutter Speed -  Shutter speed can do a wide range of things when capturing an image. This can give great affects to an image such as making water seem like fog floating around the image. As well as it can freeze the motion in the image, weather this is the water at a waterfall so that you can see the drops or in sports.  Depending what you are wanting to capture is going to depend what kind of shutter speed you use, this also goes for if you want to capture an image using a certain aperture, so that the image is lit nicely without needing to change the ISO to reduce the amount of noise.  These images where captured with ISO 100 and aperture f8, this is for example if you don't want to change these settings but can change the shutter speed. Image 1 - This image shows that if you have a too fast a shutter speed the image will be under exposed. The water fall was in the woods so a faster shutter speed would not let enough light into the camera. This image was captured with a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second.  Image 2 - This image shows if the shutter speed is too slow for the other settings, the image will become over exposed. The shutter speed was set at 2 seconds, as you see in the image the water looks like mist coming down the waterfall, but it has been very over exposed. This is due to the amount of time the camera is letting light onto the sensor.  Image 3 - For the shutter speed on this image I used 1/6 of a second, this was to try get the correct exposure in the image. trying to avoid over or under exposing. 

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Exposure Triangle!  ISO Setting- for these images, I wanted to show what ISO could do for images, all these images I kept the shutter speed at 1/60s of a second, and the aperture f5.6. The only thing I was changing was the ISO. This was to show the best outcome, and show that even if an image is under or over exposed where you can’t change the shutter speed or aperture that the ISO is an option so that you can still get the image.    Image 1 was captured with ISO 100, the main idea behind this was to show that sometimes with ISO 100 its not going to get enough light on the sensor when taking an image.  Image 2 is the other end of the skill where the sensor is is more sensitive to the light which brightens the image up. ISO 3200 was used to capture this image. This is what the ISO is used for so that even in darkly light areas the amount of light can still be captured with the sensor is more sensitive. Although a down side to this is the image gets more noise the higher the ISO you use. With new cameras coming out now a days it can get higher ISO without the image having a lot of noise.  Image 3 was captured at ISO 400, this was to show an image light enough that it shows everything, not being over or under exposed. Showing light noise in the image. 

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For getting to know you on the first day of college, we were tasked with drawing the person in front of us and draw objects and clues about that person from the questions we asked.  This was more difficult than i thought it would of been, which made me release how much objects such as clothing can show about someone in an image, or even when it comes to landscapes or still life. Little objects or even lighting can change the whole image and tell a different story.  These are the images of Aimeeleigh who was in front of me and myself. i think this task was a good way to get to know someone as well as open your eyes up to simple things that you might overlook when trying to capture an image. 

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