Unit 3 Photography Conclusion

For my unit three I decided to explore portraiture and I figured out it was not easy. It was quite challenging for me to capture the personality and character of the subject.

I set out to capture the reality of the subject using film and digital plus software available.

My research included the work of Nadar and Cunningham and later modern day photographers such as Taylor Wood and Liebovitz.

I looked at the work of these photographers who were all so different so I could gain as much insight into portrait technique and style as possible

The techniques I learnt were many, when to use natural light versus studio lighting. What background could do to enhance the quality of the image or destroy it. Angles, props, or heads shots versus group photography, they all have their place and it all needs careful consideration.

I started on the work for this unit during July 2012 when I was asked to capture the wedding photographs for my brother’s wedding. The camera was used on manual setting this was because it was dark and I had to use an extended flash as a tripod for some of the more formal shots and also the timer on my camera to allow me to be in some of pictures.

Observational work I did also linked to capturing my parent’s image through their personal possessions with the use of Rayograms.

The research on the diverse range of portrait photographers I studied is evidenced in my sketchbook.

My responses to Nadar, Liebovitz started as more traditional portraiture but as I began to develop my work responding to Taylor Wood I produced some emotional images capturing character and enhancing it with studio lighting and Photoshop.

In my last photography unit I responded to the work of Taylor Wood. ‘Self portrait suspended’ series.  I wanted to know how she created those images and how I could I recreate images like that.  In this unit I developed the skill further in respect of her crying men series linking my responses to portrait work. This work in the style of Taylor Wood developed quite well do to the skills and guidance we gained at a professional photography Banana studio (Newcastle) This may be an area I will expand more in the future.

Some of the portraits I have looked at show a serious expression yet they are good so it seems that the subject does not always need to smile.

Direction from my tutor Mr Robinson had me develop a series of typology portraiture exploring the similarity of facial feature in an ethnic group of Kurdish workers. When I began this I had little knowledge about this type of work but I enjoyed the progression of work to the final A3 presentation.

I was compelled to explore the work of blurred and distorted portrait images as many photographers move from the traditional to the surreal.

Murielle Michettii was one artist I responded to and I used Photoshop and Gaussian Blur to develop some of my earlier photographs in her style. I found this really easy and enjoyed doing a different type of facial study.

I was not sure at the beginning of the project if time would allow me to explore Photomontage until I discovered Ulric Collette

His style and approach could be described as surreal as his photomontage series of genetic portraits and disembodied Bodies distort reality.

The genetic portraits explore facial similarities between families by seamlessly blending two relatives’ faces together. Ulric used initially explored the genetic likenesses between members of the same family and then took it one step further by taking studio portraits of two family members and blending them

The work of Ulric is different and starts conversations. His work is widely known on various art and photography web sites.

I believe taking ordinary portrait photographs and turning them into a surreal type of images is what makes him different.   His work however would be nothing out of the ordinary without Adobe Photoshop software.

I began to respond to his work but then actually began to develop some good photomontage studies of my family which became the final piece of my work. however as part of my final piece I have created a video by morphing each members of my family faces together, each two members of my family’s portrait took me 30 frames as been presented in the previous pages of my sketchbook, I enjoyed working with morphing and turning an image to a video wasn't easy, it took a lot of time an effort. To finish the final piece I used variety of different computer software such as Photoshop, Premier Pro, Magic Morph and Windows Movie Maker.

This specific work or imagery is constructed using a variety of different techniques such as using collage (cut and sticking down of photographs on top of one another)

Photography Mind Map Unit 3

PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY
Digital enchantments
Natural Light
Sun Light
Studio Lights
Head shots
Full Body Shot
Group Photography
Props
Pinhole Experiments
Scanogram
Rayogram
Film Camera
Sepia
Black & White
Observational photography
Friends
Fake or real Smile
Posing Shots
Family
Natural Shots
Objects Describing the Person
Explanation of a portrait
Essay Presentation, old effect on top
Three Artist & Analysis
Sam Taylor Wood (Paul Newman)
Annie Leibovitz (Demi Moore)
Felix Nadar (Sarah Bernhardt)

Response Idea's to Annie Leibovitz (Demi Moore)

Idea's responding to Annie Leibovitz (Demi Moore) photograph#

• Men with their tops off, revealing their body
• Pregnant lady (using balloon, blown up)
• Old people naked boom
• Revealing inappropriate parts of the body
• Lying in the bath naked with milk all over your body and pulling a funny face (http://blog.slate.fr/viddywell/2012/07/02/spotlight-on-annie-leibovitz-3/
• http://blog.slate.fr/viddywell/files/2012/06/12.jpg
• Self portrait only covering my genital areas with a small bit of cloth

https://www.google.co.uk/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1366&bih=667&oq=calvin+klein+naked+&gs_l=img.3...1825.11818.0.12130.21.15.2.4.1.0.56.691.15.15.0...0.0...1ac.1.4u2Vs89XMg8&q=calvin%20klein%20naked&orq=calvin+klein+naked+

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/calvin-klein?before=1315591651

Roger Ballen poor

Roger Ballen was born in New York USA in 1950, he studied Psychology at degree level and moved to South Africa after the age of 20 and began to photograph normal life in small villages of South Africa. He mainly focused on people who had something wrong with them, for example having an embarrassing body, on the other hand he's focus was towards poor people. However his work didn't take off until early 1990's. When he started to do documentary photography (looking at a photograph could describe the person's appearance, personality, age etc)

Annie Leibovitz (image analysis)

Annie Leibovitz

Photographer Annie Leibovitz was born October 2, 1949, in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1970 she took a job at Rolling Stone magazine. In 1983 she began working for the entertainment magazine Vanity Fair. During the late 1980s, Leibovitz started to work on a number of high-profile advertising campaigns. From the 1990s to the present, she has been publishing and exhibiting her work.

Rolling Stone Magazine

 

She was one of the six children born to Sam, an Air Force lieutenant, and Marilyn Leibovitz, a modern dance instructor. In 1967, Leibovitz enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute, where (although initially studying painting) she developed a love for photography.

After living briefly on an Israeli kibbutz, Leibovitz returned to the U.S., in 1970, and applied for a job with the start-up rock music magazine Rolling Stone. Impressed with Leibovitz’s portfolio, editor Jann Wenner offered her a job as a staff photographer. Within two years, the 23-year-old Leibovitz was promoted to chief photographer - a title she would hold for the next 10 years. Her position with the magazine afforded her the opportunity to accompany the Rolling Stones band on their 1975 international tour.

Vanity Fair

In 1983, Leibovitz left Rolling Stone and began working for the entertainment magazine Vanity Fair. With a wider array of subjects, Leibovitz’s photographs for Vanity Fair ranged from presidents to literary icons to teen heartthrobs. To date, a number of Vanity Faircovers have featured Leibovitz’s stunning - and often controversial - portraits of celebrities. Demi Moore (very pregnant and very nude) and Whoopi Goldberg  (half-submerged in a bathtub of milk) are among the most remembered actresses to grace the cover in recent years. Known for her ability to make her sitters become physically involved in her work, one of Leibovitz’s most famous portraits is of the late artist Keith Haring, who painted himself like one of his canvases for the photo.

Later Work

Widely considered one of America’s best portrait photographers, Annie Leibovitz published the book Women (1999), which was accompanied by an essay by friend and novelist Susan Sontag. With its title subject matter, Leibovitz presented an array of female images from Supreme Court Justices to Vegas showgirls to coal miners and farmers. Currently, many of her original prints are housed in various galleries throughout the United States.

In 2005, the Brooklyn Museum of Art did a retrospective on her work entitled "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005." As busy as ever, Annie Leibovitz continues to be in demand as portrait photographer, often capturing arresting images of today’s celebrities.

Annie Leibovitz is the mother of three children. At the age of 51, she had her daughter, Sarah. In 2005, her twin daughters, Susan and Samuelle, were born with the help of a surrogate mother.

Demi Moore: Naked & Pregnant, August 1991 – Vanity Fair 

Shot by famous celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, this 1991 Vanity Fair cover featured Demi Moore, who was the first celebrity to appear naked and pregnant on the cover of a magazine. Moore, then 28, and then-husband Bruce Willis were expecting their second child that August. The now famous pose would later be copied by other celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson.

The photograph has a very strong story behind it, this is what made the Vanity Fair magazine take off, because it was the first shot of the most famous celebrity been naked in the history of magazine. The communication you get from this photograph is when you see it, you’re eye catches her stomach been blown up with pregnancy and it’s that big that she has to hold it up with left hand of course the other hand is covering her private area. This is a very important piece of work I think because it’s basically about bringing another human into life and on the other hand it relates to history because eventually the baby born could always look back at this photo which would be a really good memory to have for a parent and her child. It shows the story of a mother going through so much to just to give birth to her child. However the other thing I could think of is to why would she show her private life to the public’s eye, is it something to do with fame, because she could just have the image in her album at home…

Although this piece of photograph does make you investigate further, it’s like half the story has been told and the other half is left. Because you want to know what the baby would be, is it a boy or a girl for instance, if a girl would she be as attractive as her mother. Is that her natural skin colour or has she been in the sunbath before this image had been taken. As the viewer you start to ask yourself a lot of different questions. If you want to know the answer you have to wait until the baby is born. The artist has hidden the story behind this image.

The only symbol I can see on this image is the jewellery ring on her middle finger and the earing she’s got on. Which make you want to explore further to see what’s on the other hand, is she married or not, for instance if you didn’t know the person. I think the artist again is trying to hide the information and the artist want you to interpret what’s all the work about, is it just a memory or a claim to fame by showing herself naked to the public’s eye.

Also the work has a title which shows what it’s all about and what it’s based on which is “vanity Fair” a big magazine company, however what I think is good that it has the date on the front page of the magazine “August 1991” on the other hand they’ve got some information about “how saddam survived” which gives you more idea about when the magazine was made. The title doesn’t suggest anything else apart from the person’s name “More Demi Morre” which basically saying that she’s done it before, it’s not her first time!

Besides I think the colour the artist has used in this image is very important because you get more detail about the person, however the big title “VANITY FAIR” I personally think goes very well with the colour of the skin of Demi Moore but the background is a darkish deemed colour, this is because the artist wants to set the focus of our eye on the person not the background which a portrait should be about. However what I like about this is that artist has chosen her colours very carefully, so they match well, her diamond earring and the ring on her finger matches very well with the white coloured typography she’s used, which makes the image look very simple, because the artist wants your eye to catch the person before you read what’s going on. If for instance artist had used a lot of different colours then I don’t think these would’ve made the person stand out as much, I think as an artist the simpler you create something the better it looks, but you have to really good at what you’re trying to get to the viewers.

As an artist you have to present your work in a very important way, because you want to attract different eyes to your final piece, you want to make people see what’s going on. For instance what you want the viewers to look at you make it stand out from the background or set the focus into the thing you want people to see. Also I think the artist kind of used the rule of thirds in this photo, this is to put most of the body on one side of the image and her belly on the other side, to balance it out however, the space between “VANITY and FAIR” is where her head is placed, this is a good promotion for the company’s name, so she’s not covering anything important apart from the Y and a bit of the F.

I think the technique the artist has used looks simple for example most artist uses light from the side of the object to get shadows of the bend, but in this image I think she’s just used a normal camera flash or an extended flash face to face to the person. This is to set our eye focus on the person’s stomach and her body. Also the good thing is that the artist makes the person stand sideways which covers most of her private sections up and she’s got her hand on her boobs which make you think she’s hiding something. The other good thing about standing sideways is that she’s displaying the size of her belly is and it gives you a rough idea about how long away the baby might be.

Felix Nadar 1820 -1910

Felix Nadar 1820 -1910

Was a bit of an entrepreneur and dabbled in lots of things including writing plays and inventing crowd control barriers.  He was persuaded to move into photography by a friend in the 1850’s as it was seen as an up and coming profession.  He took many photographs of famous people at that time, this included Jules Vern a writer who is famous for such books as ‘A journey to the centre of the Earth’.
He initially set his brother up in the photography business and then became interested himself so joined him.  Apparently his brother Adrian lacked commitment and so it’s Nadar himself who was the one who made some stunning photographs for that time in history.
 Nadar made numerous self-portraits, which allowed him to experiment with poses and gestures before using the camera on his subjects.

This is an image taken of Sarah Bernhardt a famous actress at the time.  Nadar had got better with his posing using a side profile and also the actress was covered in a velvet drape and this put the emphasis on her neck and face.
Ref;  http://www.getty.edu/art/
The disadvantage all those years ago were photographers like Nadar did not have the advantage of digital and computer technology.   If I was to reproduce in the style of Nadar I would use the technology of software such as Photoshop to enhance the image.  People aren't grey. Skies are not black or grey or white.  You have to consider that.

Focusing deep into this image you get the feeling that there’s a story behind this photograph, it’s like you want to be inside her head and think what she’s visualising, the reason behind it is because she's not looking directly at the camera, she's focusing on something else. Looking at the corners of the photo, it seems like it has been scratched or burnt in some sort of way, which clearly gives the image a very old vintage effect and from there we can roughly say how old the image could be. It gives you the feeling of the portrait been under the ray of sunlight for a long period of time. However the other thing that makes the photograph look old is the actress’s hair style and the type of blanket she’s got wrapped around her. It doesn’t look very attractive in comparison to what we have in the twenty first century.

As you first look at the image, you catch the actress eyes however her focus is on something else which makes you want to investigate what she’s looking at.  then you start to look at what she’s got on round her body, and it make you wonder has she got any clothes on beneath the blanket, is the room temperature not at the right level and why is she leaning on a wooden cabinet, has she maybe been making love? You as the viewer start to ask yourself a whole load of weird questions that you can’t answer about the portrait.

There are not many symbols used in this image but the only one I see on this image is the ring on her finger which represents she must be married, you can’t really see the ring in detail until you focus right into the photograph. The hidden meaning behind this portrait is one of intrigue why use a blanket was this staged or taken at her house?  You could imagine she has just gotten out of bed and covered herself up. Looking at her eyes, they looked relaxed. Is this staged to look sensuous?  The artist leaves the interpretation up to you as the viewer. Other viewers might look at the image and interpret it totally different to my personal summarisation but as a young male this is the impression I get.

Although there is a title to on the picture but I can’t read the message the artist is trying to get through to the viewer. I personally think it might be the artist’s signature.

The important thing about the colour in this image is that it’s in black and white, thinking about black and white photography and the time the portrait had been taken, photographers didn’t have the advantage of digital photography compared to what we have today. The advantage over the past photographers, for example we have cameras that take pictures with which show every small detail on a person’s portrait. As the image is black and white, you can’t really see the light shades on each folded bits of the blanket. However people are not grey coloured so I think us as the viewer would’ve got more detail about the person if it was done in colour, we can’t really see whether the actress is mixed race or Caucasian. Not many Caucasian’s have curly hair.

What I like about the image is that Nadar shown the light from one side of the person, but I don’t think they would’ve had any photography lights to use at the time, so I think he might’ve used a natural day light. But the shadow that’s created behind her neck and in every bend of the blanket gives more detail on the image and the person’s face

It’s such an old image that you can’t really see the space it’s been presented in, it’s black and white and the person looks gray but the artist has used rule of thirds to capture the image. The effect that has been created by using this rule is that it puts the person’s body on one side of the image, face been in the middle of the photograph, which is the most important thing about a portrait Although around the person there’s a lot of negative space but I personally think that’s part of portraiture because you’re trying to show the person not what’s around them.

Nadar has used some kind of cloth material to cover the body of the person up with but photos been in black and white and the camera’s not been as good as what we get today, I think he was trying to show the actress’s face and shoulders  more, because our eye always are attracted to bare skin. Using the folds in the material gives some depth to the image while focusing the viewer on the actresses face and shoulders. Although it looks old material it appears to have a richness to it. I think using different textures and colours in old black and white photography were necessary to enhance the images. 

Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen was born in New York USA in 1950, he studied Psychology at degree level and moved to South Africa after the age of 20 and began to photograph normal life in small villages of South Africa. He mainly focused on people who had something wrong with them, for example having an embarrassing body, on the other hand he's focus was towards poor people. However his work didn't take off until early 1990's. When he started to do documentary photography (when looking at a photograph could describe the person's appearance, personality, age etc)

Directly I think, as photographer he's different from many other artists because he's showing you what life is like for some people who might not be wealthy or have might have something wrong with them. However the other good thing about him is that he's always takes pictures in black and white, now I personally think that it shows more detail of the person's portrait, because more color brings more distraction to the image