Rachel Parker Photography Group K

Artist Research – Richard Avedon

He was born 1923, and lived in New York City. During WW2 he joined the armed forces and his job was to identify photographs and then 2 years later left to become a professional photographer. The majority of his career he has focused on portrait and photographing models.

His portraits I found interesting as it challenged the normal kind, with a posed face expression or smile. Some of his portraits he captures the models with a natural face expression.

 

This is what I wanted to achieve in my self – portraits. So I had a friend to the side of the camera talking to me and making comments getting natural reactions. I then had a remote connected to my camera so i could trigger of the shutter. This got some natural images of me resting to a friend talking to me.

Contact Sheet

 

Edits

In a lot of the pictures, I had a very strong shining through my window. This has lite up the right side of my face (maybe a bit too much). I think I could of done with a reflector to light up the left side of my face a bit more. I think The sun however as maybe a bit too bright for the shoot and this made it hard to get the right exposure balance. In terms of composition I kept the head a shoulders idea of portraits and worked on getting the reactions.

Next I’m going to look at self- portraits through selfies.

 

 

Artist Research – Nils Orth

She is from New York, Brooklyn. The shoot which stood out for me the most was her portraits, they are close up black and white images which show more straight serious face expressions I like these because these show the flaws of normal face expressions of people in every day life and you’re not going to have perfect faces all the time.

Using Nils photos into my work, I decided to do a version of this as selfies of myself and looking at different lighting for it. I have still kept the concept of getting the close ups of a straight face. To do this I used my room and turned the lights off and used my lamp to light up my face in different angles.

Contact Sheets

Edits 

I lit up the right side of the face creating a shadow on the left side of the face. The black and white contrast made this image stronger. I got this idea from Nils work and this seemed to make my images stronger. For the images below I showed both the colour and black and white versions where you can see the difference.

The images above have a good light shadow in the top right corner however the quality of the image is poo from the camera I was using. This was improved in the next few edits.

 

The image above and below are both strong images in the shoot and worked well with a strong shadow. I have found that the shadow works better when its stronger especially for the black and white images. This gives the images a stronger contrast.

This shoot I went into the studio to take images of people I know. This was a good experience to try and work with light manipulating them to have a better effect, composition of the models within the image and also the interaction with the model and camera without having the issue of a busy background.

Contact Sheet

Edits

This image I looked at how cropping can effect the image. Both of these are effective in different ways. The left image has more space surrounding it and gives a stronger focus on the model. However the cropped image on the right, I have composed in a way that the head is on the left this and the shoulders stop at the top third line, giving the images more structure to it and the model fills the empty space. This means you can focus more on the detail of the model.

Again I looked at composition by using the rule of thirds in two different ways again for the image. The right one was stronger with the head of the model on the left third line and giving that third the grey space before having the model in the rest of the image. I also used the method this image of capturing the natural reaction like as in Avertons work, looked at in my self – portraits.

This image I got interaction from the model towards the camera. She is log straight at the camera but is sitting lightly at an angle. This is proven to be a more flattering angle than sitting straight on. With the model looking at the camera you can see a serious yet slight light hearted look, through the eyes and mouth shape.

This image I looked at the interaction between two models.This creates a story within the image instead of having a simple intersection with the camera. The exposure is weaker and I also used a reflector on the left side of the models to create some subtle light on the left side of the models. This balances out the light a bit more. down,

This image I changed the light to a reflector. This is stronger than the soft box light. This gave a stronger shadow on the backdrop, so this meant I was able to manipulate the shadow of the model. This image is a good example of how this light gives off a strong shadow of the model.

This image I used a back light. This image isn’t very strong as it’s too dark as a whole however you are able to see the outline of the model from the back light on the shoulders and most of the head. This image is good for showing how the backlight is used and what it does but the image itself could be stronger.

Again I used the same influence I first used in my first self shoot Richard Alvedon. However I focused more on one person instead of a group of people where I was able to get a range of reactions from the same person.

However after I felt I could also relate these images slightly to Diane Arbus.

She was born 1923 in New York, starting off with her husband doing fashion work. She then later branched off into her own work. She focused on capturing New York in a different, unique light which surprised many people. Her portraits showed the craziness and beauty of New York in the 1950s and 1960s. The images that caught y eye was of the boy in the park dancing. She caught a series of images alined together through a film where you can see the process of a little boy dancing.

This is what I wanted to do but through conversation and create a story through the facial expressions.

I also changed my destination to outside instead of a studio setting and so I had to work with the lighting provided by the weather. It was a grey day where I could easily adjust the white balance for the photos.

When shooting I had a full conversation with my model to get her to interact as directly to the camera as possible. This can you see through the images which I think is a lot more effective than my images of myself influenced by this shoot. This was because she was talking directly to me behind the camera instead of in my self shoots I was talking to the person at the side.

Contact Sheet

Edits

Here are the series of images which I think showed off the natural reactions well. When editing I just had to raise the contrast slightly as the dull day made the photos look a bit bland and plain. This boosted the images to look brighter. However I feel like the exposure of the images in general were fairly accurate. I slightly cropped the images so the eyes lined up with the top third lines and they are kept within the middle third. This gave a good head and shoulders shot for the image.

I lined these images up to make it look like a story like Diane Arbus but through a conversation instead of a dance. Through these images you can see a story through the conversation.

Continuing my work and focusing on the relationship between the camera and model, for the stranger brief I imagined you’d get a completely different photo. Initially asking the strangers for a photo I had some very odd looks but once you explain to them what the whole brief was they relaxed slightly but you still saw some tension. Then when you hold the camera up they all asked the same question ‘What do you want me to do?’. I told each model to just smile how they would normally. In each image you can see apart from the odd ones the smile is very hidden and there is a lack of confidence int he image. If you compare these images to the familiar images you will be able to see confidence towards the camera and therefore the relationship is stronger. However in saying that, some of the photos you can see a lot more interaction with the camera due to the confident personalities which you could tell they were from the moment you asked to take their picture.

Contact Sheet

Edits

 

This image is my best one, however I do feel that her hair merges a bit with the white background. The relationship between her and the camera you can see is a vey shy smile however almost flattered that we asked to take her picture. This shows a quietly confident interaction.

 

 

I then asked a group of girls to stand together for a picture. You can tell from having a group the models are a lot more confident and the relationship is closer the a familiar image. You can see this through the cropping of the image. The central girl has a very strong smile. However you can also see the interaction between the full picture on confidence of each person, the central girl like I said shows from her posture and pose that she is fairly confident surrounded by her friends. The girl on the left shows slight confidence but i shy away as she’s slightly leaning into the photo. The girl on the right shows quite a confident but quiet character.

 

This image I approached two girls but had separate images. This again bumped up the confidence in her smile however its still not as confident as the group image.

 

This guy was vary wary of where the image was going and quizzed us on our course before feeling confortahbe about having his picture taken, but then once he was comfortable with the fact it was going into a level one photography project he relaxed completely. This image I think is a bit too exposed from the sky behind him.