Portrait Photography
Examples
Portrait Photography:
Environmental: Focuses on capturing a person in a certain place or setting,
showing what they do and how they live their life.
Candid: Captures a person going about their daily activities and shows no
recognition to the camera taking photographs.
Formal: Just the person and really emphasise what they may be wearing or even
look like.
Self Portraits: Are images you take of yourself (e.g. selfies).
Environmental: Focuses on capturing a person in a certain place or setting,
showing what they do and how they live their life.
Candid: Captures a person going about their daily activities and shows no
recognition to the camera taking photographs.
Formal: Just the person and really emphasise what they may be wearing or even
look like.
Self Portraits: Are images you take of yourself (e.g. selfies).
Peter Thomas was a very skilful photographer since his childhood. His love for Photography carried on, however, later on in his life, he was inspired to make a career on something he enjoyed doing after he went to a wedding and was asked to take photos, Peter jumped at the chance with his arms open and he enjoyed himself that’s when he started perusing his career in being a portrait photographer. He mentions this in his bio on his website (click here to view). As you can see in the photograph Peter absolutely adores his family which consists of his wife and 2 children.
This is a really good image because of the background colour,The red represents love and passion in the relatioship. the mans tie is also the same colour as behind him this brings the image out and makes the couple stand out. Jimmy Nelson
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I like the black and white in this photograph because it makes the shadows, skin tone and dress stand out it also adds a depressing feeling over the image. In addition I like the way the lighting was used to emphasise distinctive facial features. Also I like the way her hair is going behind her face as this makes her seem comfortable when having her photograph taken. |
Jimmy Nelson is most well-known for taking photographs of tribes and indigenous people, he grew up in Africa meaning that there was plenty of opportunity to explore and see what tribes are like, and this may have helped him use his imagination to capture the lives of tribes.
In 2009 Nelson started to work on his biggest project called 'Before they Pass Away'. This project consisted of travelling for 3 years and photographing more than 35 indigenous tribes around the world in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and the South Pacific, using a 50-year-old camera. He takes his pictures as an environmental portrait photographer.
In 2009 Nelson started to work on his biggest project called 'Before they Pass Away'. This project consisted of travelling for 3 years and photographing more than 35 indigenous tribes around the world in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and the South Pacific, using a 50-year-old camera. He takes his pictures as an environmental portrait photographer.
This is Jimmy taking a photograph using the 50 year old camera.
Shoot 1
In my first shoot I will be testing out a camera future I have never used before this is a photograph timer, this will allow me to take images whilst being on my own, this will also allow me to take images of myself without another person controlling the camera.
Today we learned how to use the self timer, this was an advantage to our photographs because we had enough time to pose or get in the right position without using this, my images would be impossible to take. I am not going to put a best or worse because I know now i have got used to using the camera and how I take pictures to suit the topic correctly.
Photoshop Practice
In today’s lesson I learnt how to add animal texture or other textures to my images, I may use this technique or I may not.
Shoot 2
In shoot 2 I will be trying to understand how best I can take an image and I will be playing around with the different shutter speeds, I will note the best camera setting on a small piece of paper, this will help me decipher what the best settings will be depending on the environment I take the image in e.g. I will take it in taker places and the take images in different light styles (tungsten, fluorescent etc.) so I know what settings my camera works best at.
my best
This is my best shot because it had a good focus point, good white balance and is situated in the middle of the rule of thirds. It is also very clear furthermore the black background adds a little more depth to the i9mage and it also helps add a dark, (eary) feeling with it.
my worst
This is my worst image because the white balance was very low, however I corrected this as soon as I recognised it.
Shoot 3
In shoot 3 I will be trying to focus on using the photo filtering sheet and seeing what good effects I can get out of it, furthermore this will help me impact my shoots if I decide to use it after this shot as I will not need to edit how 'hot or cold' it looks as by using the filter sheet to manually create a filter without Photoshop.
My worst photograph.
This is my worst image just because it’s not how I desired it to be, there for I changes the models position, lighting and facial expressions to retake. The white balance also looked slightly over therefor I will set it at 0.
My Best Photographs
Image 1-i like this image because the facial features are along the rule of thirds line, also i kind of like this image more because it has more depth to it. This image also has a more powerful presence there for this will be the image I will edit.
Image 2-i do like this image as I used a close up shot, I also like the models facial expressions.
Image 2-i do like this image as I used a close up shot, I also like the models facial expressions.
Editing Photograph
Finished Piece
Shoot 4
My plan for shoot 4 is to start putting together what I have learned from my previous shoots to help influence how my image will look my plan is to get my model to put a 'gun' to his head, this is part of my campaign to hopefully show how boys can also feel suicidal, as it is a misunderstood problem within the UK at the moment.
my worst.
This is my worst photograph because I used a very slow shutter speed, I therefor the made my shutter speed a lot faster.
My Best Photograph.
This is my best image because I had the desired image and effect, I used the shadows to add more depth-I got this effect by going into a dim lighted room and turned the flash on, I also tried to implement 'the golden rule' to this, this is something I saw a few days ago whilst I was researching more techniques, I have got an image to show how the technique looks.
Editing My Photographs.
Finished Products.
I used a shallow depth of field and I also got the gun gesture along the top horizontal line this adds more focus to the image. The focus point is also set to the left eye which brings out the gun gesture, I created this image in this style because i used two totally different photographs and combined them with my own spin. My own spin was to add a shadow which is made by the hand gesture on the wall behind. (The original images are shown below.)
Shoot 5
In shoot 5 I am hoping to create a double meaning towards my image I am hoping to yet again reinforce suicidal thoughts within boys however I will be trying to portray the 'boy' as a business man to show that it isn’t also just people who are not well of. As an even deeper meaning to my image I am also using a black person, I have chosen to include race into my image as it also mistaken that not many black people commit suicide when in the UK they are around the same.
In this shoot I decided to do my own thing and I wanted to capture power and a high socio-economic person.
my worst
This is a good image however when I thought about I didn’t really achieve what I actually wanted to (high socio-economic person. Instead this image is more like for a campaign of some kind what focuses on how school children may be feeling within schools.
Best (Powerful) Photographs
These images show power. This power is represented by the angles the photograph was taken, also he posed leaning back or forward. I did not edit these photographs because in my opinion they are better without editing .company’s use these images to create company portfolios, you also see these advertisements for injury lawyers for them to show how serious they are at taking on claims.
Editing
The plan for my editing is to use one of my best images to blur the background this is to move the focus mainly on the model.
Black & White Textured Shoot
This shot will not be used to edit, I am just trying to find out what the setting monochrome does on my camera in case I want to use it in the future.
I was trying to understand how I could use the monochrome filter on the camera in different ways. The early pictures are over-exposed but once I had corrected the amount of light coming through the camera lens the monochromic filter added a dramatic effect. I also used the image of Barrack Obama as inspiration for my shoot.
Shoot 7 (Black and White Textured)
In shoot 7 I have chosen to use the monochrome filter as I like the effect it can give of as a whole and if the image is taken right it could have a huge difference of the message it gives off.
my worst.
This is my worst monochrome image as I didn’t take in to consideration how sunny and bright the day was there for the first few of my images appear to be over exposed however on Photoshop I could alter the brightness and contrasts to reduce the overall brightness.
The Best Shadowed Photograph
I really like this image because my model seems really relaxed. He was also in a content position, the shadow of the netting and the angle of the sun all come together and make the focus of the image at the face. However as much as I like this image I think that it is slightly over exposed and for that reason I will Photoshop this to make it slightly darker. This will also make the shadows more distinctive.
Editing.
My plan for editing is to change the brightness in hope to draw out the netting behind my model this is because it was slightly over exposed due to how sunny the day was.
Editing My Photographs
My Finished Product
I edited the brightness and contrast and it made the brightness go down just as I thought, it made my final piece even better.
My Best Photographs
The first image: I really like this image because I thought of filter ,background and shadows.
Second image: I like this image because of the background and how natural his facal expressions are.
Third image: I like the third image because I took it from a birds eye view and the focus point is correctly set and this makes his eyes the key point of the image. You may use this image in a campaign poster of some sort or maby a leaflet.
Second image: I like this image because of the background and how natural his facal expressions are.
Third image: I like the third image because I took it from a birds eye view and the focus point is correctly set and this makes his eyes the key point of the image. You may use this image in a campaign poster of some sort or maby a leaflet.
Summary of Unit
Portrait photography unit has been a huge learning curve for me because at the start I really struggled with the concept of coming up with ideas for shoots. I learned how much a background impacts a shoot as well learning new effective ways to take photographs such as how to take photos with a filter already applied.