For our third assignment we were asked to take portraits of three kinds, one of a stranger, one of a friend and one self portrait (a selfie known by popular culture). There didn’t need to by an overall theme or connection between the pictures.
STRANGER
I knew this would be a difficult part of the assignment, its nerve racking going to strangers and asking for photos, trying to explain why and what I needed it for. I went up near the cathedral and asked a few people but many seemed reluctant to agree to have their picture taken. I went into the cathedral to have a look around and to find someone who may agree, during my visit I found Father Aran Beesley. I thought it would be a good photo to have a portrait of a priest in a cathedral, I needed to be quick though has he had to be somewhere. I got him to stand against a door near a big window but the light, background and position didn’t seem right. I quickly got him to switch position with me and found a good angle, a quickly took a few photos and let him on his way. I used a Canon 700D with a 18-55mm lens, shooting in raw format, I found I needed to stand close to the priest in get a good portrait which made me feel a little uncomfortable as I felt like I was invading his space. I also only chose to shoot in landscape, I don’t like the view of portraits in photos for some reason. It looks off in someway, like something is missing. I find the background in images can tell you a lot about the portrait as much as the subject can.
For my chosen image I decided to edit some of it, the windows in the background were a little over exposed while the blacks were to dark. I used Photoshop to to change then lighting, I changed contrast, highlights and added shadows and vibrancy. It worked really well the windows look much better and the priest face has better colour to him.
FRIEND
I knew this would be a much easier part of the task and by using a friend I could take many photos and experiment in a natural way without framing or a posing shot. I decided to place Tamsin against the window on order to get the afternoon sun coming through. This lets the subject be projected from the background and almost highlighted, she is the main focus of the image and the lighting and simple background help this. I have used split lighting on this, where one side of her face in in direct light and the other half is in shadow, but with the natural light of the room, its not a harsh shadow and this allows us to see the rest of her face easily. Her gaze is off to the side, I feel this gives it a spontaneous look, a moment in time captured. I’ve decided to try an edited version of this photograph in Photoshop, I changed the exposer, contrast shadows and blacks. This seems to sharpen the subject but also gets rid of a lot of the light. I did try capture a few shots in portrait format but they didn’t feel as good as the landscapes.
MYSELF
I’m not a fan of the popular culture of selfies, its never really appealed to me and I didn’t want to take a generic selfie photo so I tried to do a self portrait in where the back and fore ground told you as much about myself as my portrait did. I started by thinking about myself and asking others what they know about me and came up with a really good idea for a photograph. They mentioned things like my prolific note taking, constant tea drinking, my knowledge and a few, even from my home town have mentioned how posh I sound with the way a say certain words. Also during family events, especially during Christmas and other such things, I’m required to smarten up and with my father’s family from London. So I decided to place the camera on the tripod and set a timer to go off at random, checking each photographs frame and and position. I set a cup, my note books and a favourite science magazine I like to read to show what people had described of me so any new viewer would be able to see what kind of person I am to others. I chose to use a random time for the camera to go off so it was posed but almost a realistic moment. I did a few bits of editing by changing the shadow, clarity, whites, highlights and sharpen the image.
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