Irving Penn

Irving Penn

Irving Penn is an American photographer who was born on June the 16th 1917 and unfortunately died on October 7th 2009. Irving was best known for his fashion, portrait and still life photography, an example of the kind of high profile work Irving would be commissioned for is that during his career Irving worked for Vogue magazine and also independent clients Issey Miyake and Clinique.

Irving Penn's portrait work is really impressive to me. I like black and white images, (especially portraits in black and white) and high contrast images also.
Another thing i like is how almost all of his portrait shots have gray/black backgrounds, this does give the images a darker feel in some instances but i really like the way a portrait looks with a darker background. 

The majority of the portrait's i saw of Irving Penn's work whilst conducting my research, was of relatively famous people, and i have chosen three images i found that i liked to talk about.

This is a portrait of Audrey Hepburn by Irving. I like this because although i prefer to show little or no emotion whilst taking portrait's i do like how her personality shows through in this portrait. Its a simple expression but at the same time shows a lot. Another thing i liked was that her clothes are so dark that it doesn't distract you away from her face. I am not sure if this was the intention by Irving but to me it looks like the clothes are minimal so that you can concentrate on her face and her smile.

This is a portrait of Marilyn Monroe by Irving. This shot has more of a smooth background with more of an even color compared to the first example i showed. I do like how she is looking of camera, just the slight way she looks down makes her look sad or distracted. One thing that is different to the first example i showed is that Marilyn has a sparkly low cut dress on and this is a distraction from her face. But to me this makes me think that it is almost a metaphor for her life. I'm sure this wasn't the intention when Irving took the photo, but as someone who is looking back on her life, she was always in the spotlight and always looked glamorous and happy and that was the distraction (like the dress) but deep down she was sad and depressed and she supposedly took her own life, (looking sad in the photo). 

This is a portrait of president J F. Kennedy by Irving. I really like the use of a prop in this portrait (the chair) it kind of makes the portrait look more relaxed but at the same time it makes it look like a school photograph to me, just with the way his hands are placed. This photo to me looks like it is very high in contrast and it has a great deal of dark shadows making the direction in which the light is shinning very obvious. 

Jill Greenberg

Jill Greenberg

Jill gilbert was born in America in 1967 and currently still works there as a photographer and fine artist. 
The majority of Jill's work is portraits, and very good ones at that. Through research and looking at Jill's work i noticed that almost all of her work involve children or adults crying and showing strong emotion. I think this is a really cool concept, although i prefer to show little or no emotion in portraits. But there is also a side of Jill's work that involved celebrities and famous people. I have included examples of all 3 types of people i have mentioned. 

This is one of the first pictures i discovered of Jill's work whilst doing research and along with this shot i saw a dozen other images very similar with both young girls and boys crying or looking sad. I really like the use of lighting in these shots. There isn't a part of the little girls face that isn't lit up, i also like the two toned background. The use of a spotlight on the backdrop to achieve this kind of glow. I have used this technique briefly whilst taking some portrait shots on wednesday in the studio. I do like the affect but i think i'd like the effect more if i had a different coloured backdrop like a blue or black so i could get different colours to white.

Another thing you can notice straight away when looking at Jill's photo's not just this one but all three of the shots i have used as examples is how clear and sharp they are. They look like HD tv, the camera quality is amazing but i think some of this may be because of editing after the shoot. But then again i'm not entirely sure. 

This is an example of one of the many shots of celebrities Jill has taken, I really liked this shot and to most people they would not know who this man is but me being a fan of the show he is in, i do. This man is Michael C. Hall he play's Dexter in the American TV show Dexter. In this show he works for the police but kills bad guys on the side and that is what the blood is there for in the shot. I like this shot because it portrays him as a nice guy he is smiling he looks nice, wearing a nice shirt, clean shaved and with a neat haircut but then on the other hand the blood there makes you think he isn't a good guy and that is exactly how he appears on the TV show. She captured a very good representation of his character. Again in this shot his whole face is lit up and there isn't really a dark part even though there is shadows in this shot they aren't really really dark like some shots can be. It is also a really clear image just like the last one i cannot judge whether it was photoshopped after shoot. 

This is a shot that i found that was similar to the series of children who were crying. It is portraying a lot of emotion but this time Jill has used adults. The thing i really like about this shot is again the spotlight in the background creating a two toned effect, but also how she is looking of camera, this makes you think about what she is looking at and why Jill chose to take this shot. Her facial expression to as she is an adult and not a child you know she must be or is representing that she is crying for a reason unlike when a child cries this makes you wonder why. The lighting is also lighting up her entire face like the previous three images, and again there may have been editing after the shoot due to how sharp the image is.