David Bailey

David Bailey

David Bailey is one of my all time favorite photographers. 

He is someone i have used for examples and sometimes just for inspiration in my work through the last 4 years of school. 

I love his portrait work. The portraits are maily black and white and the majority have light backgrounds either being light gray or bright white, although some do have darker backgrounds.

The subjects in the images are only shown in really limited amounts of colors, mainly being just black and white but sometimes there are slight gray tones. 

I like how his work has limited colors and sharp high contrast colors its almost iconic and makes the work memorable for that reason. 

I honestly believe i would be able to point out David Baileys work out of a sea of others because of how unique it looks to me. 

I have chosen three examples of David Bailey's work to talk about.:

As well as showing the high contrast images i was talking about i wanted to throw in an example of an image by david that has lots of different tones and isn't that high in contrast. 

This image to me looks like a typical portrait photo. 

The stance of the man being on a slight angle, the almost blank expression and the neutral coloured background. Of course not all portrait have to follow this format but this is what i would say a school portrait photo is like and this image really reminds me of that. 

I wanted to include this because this is an image i have actually used in part of my coursework at the start of my A Level studies. I used it as a transcription so i actually had to try and recreate this image which did prove harder than i initially thought.

This is a perfect example of a high contrast piece from david The bright white background teamed with the harsh deep black colour.

This is a beautiful image. As well as the high contrast in this image making skin her effortlessly mix with the background, which in return makes her features such as her mouth, eyes and hair stand out massively, there is the added feature of using what i am assuming is a fan to blow her hair out. 

All of these features together make this a really beautiful image in my opinion. 

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.

Three point lighting set up for portrait photography

Platon

Platon

Platon was born in London in 1968 but was raised in the Greek isles until his family returned to England in the 1970's.

I really like Platon's portrait work, I love the amount of contrast the image has and i like how most of his shots are close ups of a person, so the face is the main thing in the frame. 

The series of images that is my favorite of his is the 'portraits of power' series. This series is a collections of images of people who are considered powerful and influential, examples would me Michelle and Barack Obama, George. W Bush and up to 97 other world leaders like this. 

Platon published all 100 of these images in a book, this book was actually the second book he had published. 

One thing i did notice about the series of images is that almost all of the leaders who featured in this series were male. Only 4 of which were female. I'm not entirely sure if that was something he was trying to put across at all but it is definitely something that i noticed straight away.

I have chosen three images from the series to put forward to analys. You will notice that i have chosen to use images that also have who the person is, where they are a world leader, when they were born and also the date in which they have been in office since. 

I really like the portrait of Dalia Grybauskaite, I think it looks really powerful. I think this is mainly down to knowing that she is president of Lithuania but also because if the pose she is in, also the way she appears to be staring right into the camera which in return means when you look at the photo she appears to be staring right at you. I like how close Platon has got to Dalia i think the close up shot leaves less room for a background to distract the eye from the main focus. 

The portrait of Muammar Qaddafi oozes power to me. The way the camera is pointing up towards him showing that Platon was clearly at a lower angle, maybe crouching. I really like the use of the whole torso and head in this photo. That combined with the low angle shot and the fact his head is tilted a little up whilst looking down makes him look powerful, if this was to be displayed on a wall on a large scale it would definitely look as though Muammar was looking down at you. I also like how his clothes are gold. Gold is always linked to wealth and the added fact of the colour also makes him appear powerful. Another thing you

 can notice with this shot is the background, as it is a longer, less close up shot there is a background and i really like the use of colours having the white glow around the person almost like a its radiating from him and then the darker greys to blacks towards the edge. The fact the colours are quite dull also makes Muammar stand out more. 

The portrait of Brian Cowen is similar to the portrait of Dalia Grybauskaite, its very close up and he is looking straight into the lense so it looks like he is looking at you in the picture. The only difference between the first 2 portraits and the last one is that the last one has some form of expression whereas the first two don't really have any expression. He has a half, side smirk on his face now that can be interpreted as a good or bad thing because to me it looks smug. But others may disagree with that. 

The thing i find interesting is how these portraits are in color, because the majority of the portraits i have seen are in black and white. I think colour looks best with these shots because they are modern day leaders so it would only be right to show them in colour than in black and white. I like the high quality of these shots. They have great lighting but also they show every bit of detail making these leaders be shown in their true form not edited or manipulated for the public eye.

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon in an American photographer who was born on the 15th of May 1923 and unfortunately he died on the 1st of October 2004.

Richard was said to have helped define Americas image of style, beauty and culture for at least half a century with his fashion and portrait work.

I really like how Richard Arden's work is highly exposed making the whites in the photo's very white and the blacks in the photo's very black, using high contrast is something that i do when shooting portrait work, I either will use a black or white back ground with lighting close to the models face to achieve harsh bright light and also shadow. 

Although some of Richards portraits have some facial expression in them quite a lot of them do not, the models have natural faces and this is something i also like in portrait work.

I have three examples below of Richard's work.

You will notice that Richard has photographed a lot of famous faces, this is something i realised as soon as i searched the internet for his work. The models he has photographed stretch from Marilyn Monroe to J F Kennedy and his wife.

This in itself shows how famous Richard must have been as a photographers to have the opportunity to photograph these people.

I really like all three of these photographs. I think although they are all showing very little emotion you can almost know what their lives are like and how they feel about their lives. I also like the use of different shades for the background all three of these photos are bright and high in contrast however there is a medium gray, dark gray and bright white. I do prefer the bright white background however because i think it just draws the eye towards the model and not the background. 

Andres Serrano

Andres Serrano

Andres is a New York based photographer who was born there in the 1950's/
His portrait work doesn't tend to have a similar pattern when it comes to the models in which he photographs. They can be old, young, middle aged, black, mixed raced or white. There is only one thing that is similar throughout all of his photos and this is the background, 
Although the background of the portraits are not always the same color the pattern the colors are in, in the background is almost always the same. 
The pattern the light is in, is  lighter shade of the color will me in the middle and this lighter color will be all around the persons head and upper torso in a circular shape and then the darker shade will be right around the outside also in a circular shape.

I have chosen three example of Andres Serrano's work to accompany this piece of text. 

As you can see i have chosen to use a example of an older person, young person and a middle aged person. I really liked the portrait of the old man. I love the fact he has used a war vet and put him in uniform, the background also fits with the war theme as it looks as though there is something exploding behind him because of the color of it (orange and yellow).

I think the picture of the little girl looks really cute. Mainly because the girl herself is really cute but also because of the pink background i think ever detail of the image i.e. the background, the girls hair, her posture and facial expression, have been really thought out to create a really beautiful image. 

I chose the final image because i thought it was an all around good image. I think its quite quirky because most portraits have the models showing little or no facial expression but this image shows a lot of facial expression. I also thought that the angle in which the photo was taken was quite unusual for a portrait because you can clearly tell Andres is lower than the model looking up at her, usually portraits are taken at around about the same level as the model.