Portraiture
"A portrait is a painting, photograph,
sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and
its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,
personality, and even the mood of the person."
What makes a good portrait?
- Lighting
- Framing
- Person
- Interaction
- Props
- Camera Position
The camera settings I expect to use when shooting portraiture is an aperture of f1, a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 200.
The photo is incredibly dark and has a harsh contrast using the bottom and top of the tonal range only. His face shows no happiness and only a serious and determined mood. The tonal range and mood of the photo relates to the personality of him being powerful and serious.
Image Bank
Alec Soth
Alec Soth is an American photographer who makes "large-scale American projects" featuring the midwestern United States. His work has often been compared with Walker Evans. He has produced various books which have been published by various major publishers and self published through his own business.
Each one of this portraits focuses on using a low aperture like f4 to create a narrow depth of field to highlight the subject. Each photo uses negative space and makes the person the first thing the viewer looks at.
The first photo (top left) uses negative space to make the person the key aspect of the photo. He also uses muted colours for the background and saturated colours on the subject to make the viewer look at her first, this could have been done in editing or lighting on the actual day of the shoot.
The second photo (top right) uses negative space again but instead there is more negative space than subject space. This allows the viewer to focus on the idea the area that the subject is in which suggests that Soth wants the view to focus on the environment that the subject is in rather than the subject itself. There is also a use of props (planes) which gives a deeper look into the character of the subject.
The third photo (bottom left) is similar to the second in that it has more negative space than subject space. The photo is clearly a portrait as a person is the subject and in centre frame but the photo itself suggests that it wants us to focus on the surroundings is where the Soth wants us to focus on. Again there is a use of props that give an insight to the character of the subject. There is also a use of juxtaposition as he is wearing a suit and his a very rundown area.
The fourth and final image (bottom right) is a much more simplistic photo. The subject is giving a dead pan look straight into the camera which gives the viewer a depressed representation of the subject. The photo itself is a group shot but the background is blurred out making us only focus on the main subject at the front. The writing on the collar of the mans shirt also gives religious connotations.
All of these photos gives me a style of abstract street portraiture that I would like to apply to my future shoots.
Selected and Edited Images
AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
My intention with this shoot was to achieve the portraiture style achieved with Alec Soth’s work. I wanted the low depth of field which blurred the background and allowed for full focus on the subject. I also wanted to make sure that I got the dead pan look that was in most of Soth’s work.
AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
I used my cannon 5D and manual mode. I made sure that I got a high aperture to achieve the low depth of field, this meant I had the blurred background and in focus subject. The shutter speed was kept high to make sure that the all movement was paused.
I used my cannon 5D and manual mode. I made sure that I got a high aperture to achieve the low depth of field, this meant I had the blurred background and in focus subject. The shutter speed was kept high to make sure that the all movement was paused.
AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
My research into Alec Soth was vital in my process of recording portraiture. Seeing Alec Soth’s inspired my own shoots to shoot on a location with a low depth of field to achieve the style he had created. The dead pan look which set the tone of the photo was also important to me and inspired by Soth’s work.
My research into Alec Soth was vital in my process of recording portraiture. Seeing Alec Soth’s inspired my own shoots to shoot on a location with a low depth of field to achieve the style he had created. The dead pan look which set the tone of the photo was also important to me and inspired by Soth’s work.
AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.
Over all i think that my photos resembled the style of Alec Soth and was a good portrayal of
portraiture. I managed to get the low depth of field that made Alec Soth’s work so good and I also
managed in some of my photos to achieve the dead pan look that set the tone of the photo.
good work here but I have some general comments ref the way you are dealing with the blogger, please refer back to the initial exemplar as you are omitting the editing steps for creating the final outcomes,. the studio images produced need to be developed further as you have potentially some strong work there, the rationale for producing images in different styles (Ruff) and Avedon is not fully understood or explained, you should be doing this... the camera settings need to be reviewed as there are errors in the annotation... `there is no notation of the studio equipment used with an explanation why it was used, here you need to discuss the effect of the lighting attachments in the generation of diffuse lighting as opposed to harsh contrasting light. Ref the final images I would say that you need to edit them using a white balance and perhaps change the selected best image as the subject is more aware of your presence than the indoors images and as you are creating candid images think that the indoor image is perhaps stronger... Regarding the way you are writing things up I have discussed the need for more annotation to you before.. for example AO1 you need to reflect critically on the images you have produced, here you can analyse the best images using connotation and denotation.. The location shoots seems a little short (like shots in a restaurant whilst in London to take images of landscapes) the exam board is looking for Ao1 (sustained and focussed investigations).
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