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Conclusion to Environmental Portraiture

This was a good shoot to do and I was excited to get the emotion out of somebody in their natural place, but again, this was something I was not familiar with doing and took a couple of shots to get the sense of place.

The only slight problem I had was that the natural lighting in the room wasn't very good due to the tungsten type light. This was as natural as I could have the lighting be due to the darkness outside not light enough to brighten up the room and see anything. For this particular shoot I believe the picture quality of the flash photographs are definitely better than the natural lighting as it brings out more features and tone showing more detail of what is going on.

My model Francessca Taddeo has a major passion for what she does and I hope to have grasped that in the way she focuses on what she is doing and the task to meet. Also with the grip holding onto the dress she has made almost showing how she never wants to let go of something she loves - fashion design.

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Conclusion to Pastiche

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this shoot, although I had never used a studio or its lighting before I came to grips with it quite quickly and will definitely be using this again in my own personal projects in the future.

Even though I was slightly out of my comfort zone for this shoot having not used the studio before, I found it very enjoyable and in some ways an easier way to take photos, especially for portrait images.

There were only a couple of minor problems whilst doing this project that I came across. Rankins' photograph was square and we were not to crop any of our images, therefore I had to make the decision as to whether or not to do landscape or portrait. After trying both I would say that landscape was definitely better suited for this particular photograph. Another minor problem was that in Rankins' photo, Kate Moss is very tanned and therefore the light hit her in ways it could not with my model Abbie Hills. I believe that my replica image is still very similar to the lighting in Rankins' photograph and that the lighting is just the same too.

This shoot was definitely all just a matter of trial and error with me, and took a couple of goes to get it right. I was very shocked that I had the lighting right almost straight away having not looked at anything like this before or using anything other than a flash before. 

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Conclusion to Street Portraiture

Overall this shoot was completely new to me, I was one hundred percent out of my comfort zone and struggled to get started though when I got a couple of photographs I started to become more confident with the idea of approaching a total stranger and asking for their photograph.

As previously stated in a separate post I did not want to limit myself to just one street in a city so I went around different streets of Cardiff so that I didn't also just get specific types of people.

I am glad that I chose to do these pictures landscape as you can also see what is happening in the background although this is out of focus, some of them you cannot see a background, this is because I was stood at a wall and took pictures of some people there. We were also asked to take photographs with a range of age and gender which I think I managed although was unable to take pictures of younger children due to parents not wanting their child photographed and placed onto the internet. Although I had this slight fault in my shoot I was still able to get a range of gender and got a range of age from teenager and above.

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Another photographer I admire and looked at for this project is Steve McCurry.

One of his most iconic picture is the one above know as the 'Afghan Girl'. I believe this is yet another fantastic example of environmental portraiture as we get a true sense of time and location, and emotion behind the girls eyes about where she is.

The way she is looking directly into the camera is also eye gripping as it really catches your attention and draws you in. I thoroughly like this picture and the depth behind it.

Image from http://www.boredpanda.com/top-10-photographers-for-travel-portraits/

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This is another piece of upcoming photographer Scott Chalmers' work of Eddie Howe.

I think this really relates to the environment portraiture shoot I have done as it shows someone in their natural habitat of their passion and showing a real sense of place. This is similar to my photograph of Francessca Taddeo, the Fashion student, where we get a real feel of her love to be designing and making clothing wear.

I really admire Chalmers' work and did a lot of my research for my photographs based around his portrait photographs which is his main criteria in photography.

Image from http://www.scottchalmers.co.uk/

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Environment Shoot

As you can see here this is my contact sheet of photographs and my two final images - first one with natural lighting and the second one using my camera’s flash.

Throughout the whole contact sheet we can get a good sense of enjoyment of what she is doing and that she feels comfortable in her own space and natural environment.

I chose these two images because the model looks like she is half smiling but still has concentration on her face showing the passion for her hobby. I also really like the way she is tugging onto the dress, making adjustments, it shows to me the true feeling towards her chosen subject and this can be seen as her almost gripping onto what she loves. These photographs are unedited, the only form of photo manipulation used is flash photography, half with flash and half with natural lighting.

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Environmental Portraiture

For this final shoot I was asked to go out and find someone with a particular interest, hobby or job and to get a sense of location.

I decided to asked a Fashion Student of my university if I could photograph her with one of her designs and was told she does most of her designing in her bedroom. Therefore this is the environment where I were to take these images of her. Although this is her degree it is also her hobby and her highest passion which I hope I have shown in my photographs through her focus on the piece she has made.

I was asked to take this photographs one with natural lighting and one with controlled lighting such as flash.

Contact sheet and final pictures to follow.

I chose to do no editing for this shoot

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John Rankin

Just a few pieces of information I found about John Rankin whilst researching his work on Kate Moss.

Rankin is a British fashion and portrait photographer born in Paisley. He started studying photography at Barnfield College Luton.

In his time Rankin took photographs for Vogue Magazine, was involved in Britain's Missing Top Model and served as a photography teacher in TV show Jamie's Dream School.

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As stated in a previous post, I would be attempting to replicate the lighting structure on the photograph taken by John Rankin of Kate Moss.

To prepare for this shoot I looked at different studio lighting techniques and studied them thoroughly to help me decide which technique would be best suited for this particular photograph. I looked at lighting structures such as Rembrandt lighting, loop lighting, short lighting and butterfly lighting - although studying these types of lighting none of them were exactly what I was looking for although Rembrandt lighting was quite similar. Due to this when I took to he studio it as a matter of trial and error as you can see throughout this contact sheet.

I originally started with portrait styling and then realised that landscape would be better, I wasn’t sure which one would work due to Rankin’s photograph of Kate Moss being almost square shaped. I then started with my lighting, as you can see, the first few images started out quite dark and progressively, as I changed the lighting in the studio, the lighting became better and more similar to the original photograph. I chose to not edit this picture as I believe it should look like the Kate Moss photograph through my own studio skill. I was surprised at how quickly I managed to get the lighting technique right and that it looks very similar now to the original.

The largest photograph on this post is my final image which I believe, when you look back at my Kate Moss photo post, looks extremely similar in lighting terms. Model - Abbie Hills

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These are my final twenty images for my street portraiture shoot. This is where I went out and took a portrait photo of twenty strangers. I am happy with the way these final images came out and believe they are all shot in the same way with the subject the same distance from the camera every time.

Although I originally struggled with this shoot and the idea of asking a stranger to take their picture, once I got the hang of things I managed to end the shoot with confidence in asking people for their photograph.

I decided to shoot these images in black and white as sometimes I think this can improve detail on someone's face and the expressions they are giving.

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This is a photograph taken of Kate Moss taken by John Rankin. I have taken to the studio studying different lighting techniques I could use to replicate this for my pastiche photoshoot.

Image from http://rankin.co.uk/portraits/kate-moss/

Contact sheet and final photo to follow soon.

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Street Portraiture

For the first assignment with the brief given, I was asked approach twenty strangers on the street and ask to take their picture. With these pictures the strangers I photographed were to look directly into the camera and were not allowed to smile or have any expression in their face. We were asked to use a standard lens for this shoot and use RAW format. With my Canon 1100D and the standard lens I used I had my lens shooting set to 35mm for every picture and shot in landscape format.

When doing this shoot I was, expectedly, extremely nervous and after getting rejected a few times my confidence was knocked and I had to build this up again to be able to do this shoot.

I did this street portraiture shoot in the streets of Cardiff such as at Cardiff Bay and by the Saint David's shopping centre. I chose to take these images in different places as I didn't want to limit myself to just one place where stereotypes could easily be evoked in my pictures.

Contact sheets to follow soon.

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This picture is by photographer Scott Chalmers based in Southampton. Shoot done for Valkyrie Corsets. I admire the lighting Chalmers uses in his portrait images especially in this particular photograph where everything is lit so clearly with the essence of fog in the background.

Image from http://www.scottchalmers.co.uk/

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Introduction to my blog

Throughout this blog I am going to be looking at three different styles of portraiture; Pastiche (Studio Portrait), Street Portraiture and Environmental Portraiture. I will be posting famous photographers work as well as my own to compare with. I will be focusing my blog a lot around lighting techniques used in a studio to help with my pastiche shoot where I will be recreating an image of Kate Moss.

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