Creative Portraits

A straw hat, carefully woven, doesn't do much to protect her blond hair from the falling specks of ice that drift from the dreary Maine skies that day.  This isn't a hat for freezing weather, this is a hat ready to battle the nasty western heat, the scorching summer afternoons. Her heart yearns for the wild west, for the horse back riding, for the cow boy boots.  She looks solemnly out the window, thoroughly disappointed by the newest accumulation of snow. Maybe one day, she thinks, she'll be able to proudly sport such a hat - if this New England winter ever ends.

Selfie

I liked this photo because I think Emma and I made some unique decisions in capturing this shot. We sat behind a railing which sits on the ramp running along the outside of the YPAC. Emma held the camera on the other side of the railing in order to capture it in the photo along with our faces. We thought including the railing was a strong compositional choice, as it acts as a frame for our faces. The tilted camera was another component that makes this photo more interesting. The direction of my hand mimics the tilt of the camera. Instead of a straight on shot, it looks a little bit more candid and genuine.  I especially liked how it seemed to capture an unposed moment. Our facial expressions evoke a playful feel in the photo which is another factor that draws me to this image.  We also played with eye contact here; Emma is looking directly at the camera, but I am looking away from the camera and at Emma. I think the variation in facial expression and eye contact make the photo more unique as well as visually interesting.

Portrait Techniques

I think a simple, but nice way to make a portrait more interesting is framing the subject. By framing one element of the picture with another, you can draw the viewers eye to a desired point. Having a person stand in a doorway, look through a window or even use another prop to frame their face would be a good way to draw more attention to a certain focal point in the photo. Another way to make a portrait more interesting is to experiment with facial expressions. Serious facial expressions can make great portraits depending on the mood the photographer wants to convey, but it can be nice to spice things up a bit. If I wanted to evoke a more playful mood, I could ask the subject to laugh or smile at the camera. If I wanted to portray a more somber mood I could ask the subject to look at the lens in a serious way, or maybe look off camera. Altering the perspective at which you take a photo can also make a huge difference in the quality of a portrait. Sometimes it works really well to shoot a person at eye-level as one would normally see the subject in real life. Shooting from another perspective can provoke an elevated interest of the portrait in a viewer. This can also convey a fuller story by giving the viewer a broader look at the subject and their surroundings. Playing with eye contact is something else I would like to experiment with in my work. The eye contact in a portrait can really effect the mood and/or message of a photo. While direct eye contact with the camera can be a powerful way to invoke a sense of connection between a viewer and a subject, sometimes having the subject focus on an outside object can be powerful as well. Having the subject look off camera can make a viewer more interested in the photo as it can cause intrigue in what the subject is looking at. I personally think that not having eye contact between the lens and the subject can make a photo look more candid which I find interesting. I think this is something I'd really like to play with to discover in which scenarios which technique creates the most powerful photo.

Famous Portraits

Dorothy Horan, best known as Dovima, with elefants (1955)
This portrait was done by Richard Avedon.  The subject matter of this photo was intriguing to me. The woman is placed in an interesting way with the elephants. She is not standing stiffly; rather she is graceful as to mimic the curves of the elephants. Her eyes are also focused on the elephant instead of the lens of the camera. This draws the viewers eyes around the portrait to the elephant she is looking at. The black and whites in this photo are also very vibrant which drew me to it.

Sir Cecil Beaton (1978)
Andrew Newman shot this portrait.  What drew me was the personality that seems to radiate from the portrait. The way the subject is positioned and is gesturing shows a certain energy the person possesses.  The background and other props also help to emphasize a certain story. Newman uses background and props to spice up the background, but also bring the subject to life for the viewer. 

 Emmylou Harris, Franklin, Tennessee, 2001

This portrait was done by Annie Leibovitz. The composition of this photo was interesting to me, as the subject is placed slightly to the right of portrait demonstrating her use of the rule of thirds.  This photo tells a story as the previous portraits do.  The woman is holding a prop which looks like it is something very special to her.  The background emphasizes the story behind this woman as it looks like an open road maybe symbolizing freedom. Rather than having the subject look directly at the lens, she is closing her eyes as in deep thought. I want to know more about this story after looking at the photo. 

Intro to History of Photography

Previous to these presentations, I really did not have a lot of knowledge regarding the history of photography.  Not only did my partner and I have a chance to work hands on with designing a poster, we learned interesting information about photographers and developments in the photography world.  While other art forms such as drawing, painting and sculpting have been around basically since humans existed, photography developed only with important advancements in technology. By some it was not regarded as a legitimate art form.  I learned that Alfred Stieglitz was instrumental in making it an appreciated form of art. A photographer that especially intrigued me while constructing was Sally Mann.  I learned a lot about her work and the controversy surrounding it.  The large black and white landscape portraits and the family photos are captivating.  Another photographer that interested me was Jerry Uelsmann; he was noted as the forerunner of the photomontage process. His photo montage techniques yielded incredibly interesting images. Learning about the history of photography and different photographers has helped me develop a greater appreciation of the field.

Shadow Photography

Descent

with only a 

shadow 

to catch its fall

Tension 

keeping the distance

Light 

dancing

to create

a delicate composition

of geometric shapes

reflecting its own intricate pattern

Energy, Passion, Fresh

Purpose:

• To strengthen your creative problem-solving skills so that you are looking at things in a different way;
• To find letters of the alphabet in everyday objects to create a word;
• To become familiar with basic photoshop tools.

As a result of doing this project, I learned many things beneficial to my development in photography. Finding the letters necessary to create the words "energy" "passion" and "fresh," forced me to look at objects in a new and creative way. The accuracy of each letter depended on how I composed the image to portray that letter. Something that may not resemble a certain letter at first glance, could be arranged in the lens in a creative way to do so. I had to shoot photos from interesting angles and crop some parts of the photo to accurately depict each word. Alongside looking at everyday objects in new and creative ways, I had to develop my problem solving skills while creating this project. At times we struggled to find certain letters and needed to produce them in creative ways. This skill pertains not only to photography, but other areas of learning as well. Developing greater problem solving skills is something I really enjoyed about this project and art classes in general. I was also able to bring back some of my knowledge of photoshop. By making each photo black and white, we had to think about the way this might affect the color and depth of the photo. Desaturating a photo can sometimes cause it to look flat; adjusting the contrast can help bring about more vibrant whites and blacks and many shades of gray in between. I needed to adjust the brightness and darkness and the contrast in order to make each image more visually appealing.