Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton has done a lot of portrait work of famous people including Queen Elizabeth. I like this photograph as it shows her as a mother and not in her formal role as Monarch. It’s a portrait that focuses on the Queen and her child, there is no obvious background to distract the viewer. I’m not sure whether Beaton will have controlled the background or just avoided distraction so the focus is on the Queen. I think he will not have had the techniques at the time the photograph was taken to crop out the background so more planning will have been needed.Obviously it was taken a long time ago but I like the simple quality to the photograph and the fact it’s black and white. Beaton uses light effectively on his photographs in lots of different ways.   In this one I think he will have used 2 studio lights to remove the shadow. Artificial light does not have to be harsh. I think it will have been gentler in this photograph.It’s not a formal dignified portrait photograph like some of the other photographs he’s taken of the Queen but this one captures warmth and love. The natural pose seems to capture a far away look in the Queens eye. Mother and child images are popular because they show us as human.

I took this image of my brother and his new wife on their wedding day. They holding a cousins baby and it reminded of the warmth and love I’d seen in Beaton’s work. I realised it was a moment I had to capture. For me the image seems very natural and not posed

Sam Taylor–Wood Crying Men

I looked at the work of Sam Taylor–Wood in my AS year and was influenced to reproduce some suspended images after looking at her ‘Self Portrait Suspended’ series. Although I looked at the Crying men work she did last year I have explored that further when considering my topic portrait in unit 3.

Crying Men is a series of photographic portraits of famous film actors by Sam Taylor-Wood. Taylor –Wood asked each of these actors perform and cry for the camera while she photographed them.

Taylor-Wood wants the viewer to decide for themselves which were real tears and which were fake. She did say it was difficult for some of them to show their feelings and she had wanted to get masculine men and show a different side to them

I think if these subjects were not known or were not famous we wouldn’t even question if the sadness was real. We would assume it was real.

I think portraits, whether they are taken on film or digitally still depend on the photographers ability to use decent light and pose the subject. Taylor-Wood has a skill of bringing in the unexpected. She goes one step further to make you question what you are seeing. In her ‘self suspended’ series she made me think ‘how does she do that?’ with the ‘crying men series’ she will get a response from the viewer. Either ‘are these tears real?’ or its not what people expect, men crying. Will the viewer think about themselves, would I allow someone to capture something private?

As well as photography Sam Taylor-Wood makes films that challenge and provoke emotion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkp4t5NYzVM&feature=player_embedded

Garry Parker Animal Portraits

Gary Parker

I chose to look at a photographer who had done some work on animal portraits. This is something I want to try. There are many photographers out there who do this type of work but most I looked at were boring, showing pretty images of fluffy kittens sitting about. I like the work of Gary Parker because he appears to capture the character and spirit of the animal with his images. Research shows many households have at least one pet and in some cases, the pet alleviates Empty Nest Syndrome for older married couples. Their animals are not just pets but companions, and many owners consider their pets their children.  I think Parker captures the best from the animals and the humans he photographs. The owners are often in the photographs and the love they have for their pets is captured by Parker. That’s what makes his photographs different

I notice Parker’s images focus on the object in the foreground while the background is out of focus. This puts the emphasis on the animal. I suspect he also uses photoshop to create layers if he needs to. Many of his images are taken at different angles and heights to create interest. The subjects are often not aware their image has been taken. I think he will take several images and uses the best ones.

Parker is also clever to use some colour in his images, a yellow flower petal floating the a white toilet bowl with the black cat watching in the image below or purple flowers out of focus in the foreground and the subject in the background.

His composition is planned and by that I mean he sets the image up, he considers light, focus, background, colour but most importantly he tells a story. For example the image of the dog and cat makes me think the dog is eating out of the cats bowl. Fluffy is a cats name but perhaps Parker filled the bowl with dog food to set the scene to photograph.