Evaluation

Studio Portraiture

This project was a little new to me, it was the first time I’ve experience the studio environment and using the Hasselblad camera. Like my first project (Street Photography) you have to interact with your subjects, more so with studio photography because you want you’re subject to feel comfortable and relaxed so that you can achieve the images you want. I think it’s defiantly something I need to work on, I’m hoping that with each project I complete and the knowledge I learn about photography I will feel more confident in what I’m doing.

At the beginning of the project I think the first couple of weeks I was just trying to understand everything so I didn’t really know what it was that I wanted to capture (other than the obvious it being a portrait). Also I think everyone went with the more fashion side of portraiture at the beginning but further on we started to understand the difference between them I guess and found our own preferred style. I tried to keep things simple when I was shooting, I didn’t really want to over complicate everything with it being my first time in the studio. So I stayed with only using one or two lights, I mostly used the beauty dish and then had a light on my background or I would only have the beauty dish. I did this mostly when I was shooting with the black background which was closer to the beginning of the project but then I started experimenting with the grey. I didn’t shoot with a white background, I saw other people use it but I didn’t like it as much as the grey or black. I thought the white was to overpowering and it just didn’t look right.

From looking at Irving Penn’s work and seeing that he captured full body shots and had quite a lot of space around his subjects I wanted to do something similar but different (if that makes sense). Then I looked at David Bailey and Jill Greenberge and I liked the closeness of them to their subjects so I tried to think of a way of how I could get these two things in my own images but to also try make it my own. So I experimented a lot with space, I tried portrait as well as landscape and found that I preferred landscape. And thinking back to Bailey and Greenberge’s work, instead of me moving away from my subjects I got closer. The main reason why I liked landscape better was because I liked the shape of it most portraits are either square or portrait so I wanted to try something different.

If I was to do this project again I would defiantly shoot more and just experiment more. I’d also improve on my workflow, I still think that I need to add more to my blog. I think I managed my time better on this project then I did on Street Photography but I still need to work on it and get more work done. Also I need to learn more about resizing my images I understood how to import and export to TIFFs and JPEGs in Capture One but when I had to go in Photoshop my mind was just baffled and I had to get someone to help me which was annoying, so I defiantly need to learn more on that. 

I didn’t really have any problems with this project, because the time was quite spaced out I think it helped a lot. It wasn’t as hectic as Street Photography was for me. It was nice. Also the feedback I got from the Street Photography project I’m hoping I’ve improved on everything that was said, I probably still need to work on my research but I think it’s getting better.

I’d say the new skills I’ve learnt are more to do with the studio and how everything works. Obviously I still need more practises, I didn’t actually think I’d like working in the studio as much as I did, it can be a fun environment to be in. And I’d probably say using the Hasselblad as well, I enjoyed using the camera and the images I got from it where pretty amazing but I don’t think it’s the camera for me. I’d love to try the Polaroid back for it, it would be interesting to see what the images would look like.

I would say this project has challenged me more on my way of thinking if anything else. With the studio equipment, how I wanted my images to look and just thinking how I can capture my subjects and show their personality and who they are in an image.

If I had to do anything differently I would be more experimental instead of being quite safe and sticking to just using one or two lights I’d like to use more. Also experiment with background colours I think it would be interesting to use them and see how they would change my images. And mostly my workflow again I need to try space everything out and not leave it to last minute.                   

 

Final Prints

These are my final three images, getting inspiration from David Bailey, Irving Penn and Gill Greenberge, I decided to capture close-up portraits but go for a landscape format. Mainly because I liked the shape of it and it’s not really the traditional portrait style.

I choose these three mostly because I thought that they captured my subject perfectly, they show a bit of who they are in each image. I went with the Fuji Matt C Type paper, I didn’t really want to go for the Fuji Gloss I thought that it wasn’t really the right type for images like this. The gloss I think was just too shiny,  it took away the detail I guess of the images when you look at them you have to sort of move the image side to side to see it properly. 

Experimenting

At the start of the project I think you can see that I stayed with the traditional style of portraiture. I guess I was just trying to get used to the Hasselblad and the whole studio environment. Because this is quiet compact I wanted to experiment with space and distance also with the background I tried to stay away from the white and worked more with black or grey. I thought that the white was to over powering and it didn’t really mix well with my subjects. 

Hear I’ve experimented with a grey background and tried landscape instead of portrait.

I like these images as a set, there’s a slight pattern with their poses so it brings them all together. I only used one or two lights whenever I was in the studio so it wasn’t that complicated. I think because I liked having all the space around my subjects I got further away from them each time I captured them, and experimented with landscape and portrait. 
 

I really like these two images, when you use black and white I think it changes everything and you get a more mysterious look and in some it creates more character in the image. 

I only used one light with these (the beauty dish) but if I was to experiment with studio photography more I’d like to use more than one but for this project I liked the simplicity of it and the effects I got with just one or two lights.

 

 

    

Okay, so I’m not sure if this worked but for this image I ask her how she feels about getting her picture taken and she said that she doesnt like to be in the spot light, then i thought about how my subject is quite shy aswell so I purposely made this image look out of focus to represent this in a way. But it just looks like an out of focus image, it doesn’t really give you anything when you look at it, you dont get a feeling you could say that i was hoping i could create with it so it is more of a trial and fail idea I had. 

Instead of getting further away from my subjects I decided to try something different and got closer, first I tried portrait but I didn't really like them and it was expected, so I went back to landscape. 

 I like the shape of my landscape images, although there close-ups they do still have the space around the subjects. These three images are what I initially got my idea from for my final three images but from researching portrait photographers and looking at David Bailey, Irving Penn's Picasso shots and Jill Greenberge work, I quite liked the style of the close-up shots they all captured I decided to got closer to my subjects but still went for the landscape formate.  
   

  

Research

Rineke Dijkstra

Rineke Dijkstra a Dutch photographer, born 1959, captures the expressions and emotions of her subjects. She captured a series of "Beach" photographs in the 1990s which captures young people’s vulnerable side. You could say they hold insecurities which is one of the main things I think young people are left to feel and express. Mostly because of how people portray what beauty is and what it isn't, so we become conscious of how we look.

The subjects are well lit so it instantly draws you to them. I picked these three images out of the series because I thought they showed more of the subject’s insecurities. They look uncomfortable like Dijkstra has caught them unexpectedly and there not sure on what to do with themselves, their almost trying to hide themselves with the way their standing and their facial expressions just add to the emotions and insecurities that are captured in the images. I like Dijkstra's style and the compostion of her work, its different from the other photographers ive looked at.