Evaluation

Evaluation

At the start of this module I was pretty unaware about Hasselblad cameras and capture one, one thing I had some background in was studio work and simple forms of lighting, but nothing compared to the professional facilities CCAD have in their studios.  

Throughout the project I didn’t seem to have one certain direction I just looked at getting the shots I needed and I wanted the images I had taken to stand out to me. I think this was mainly because I was unsure about the camera and I wanted to get a feel for how the photos would look opposed to a certain theme like other people in the class.

I started out with little experience of the studio and lighting so I had to get comfortable with this before attempting to start shooting.

Once I was comfortable with this I started out by taking shots of Courtney, Lauren and Ben.  I then went on in another shoot to photograph Jodie and then again Ben.

I ended up choosing 4 images, two from the first shoot of Courtney and two from the last shoot of Ben. I chose 4 instead of 3 because I felt the four images I chose went together well. In the end I sent my images of to digital lab and got them printed in gloss without a boarder.

My final outcome does meet the requirements of the brief I feel and If I was to improve my work I think I would have given myself more time to know the camera, studio lighting and also capture one for editing. So that I could achieve the best photos of my ability with the tools I was given.

Some of the problems I encountered during this project was to do with capture one at the start I wasn’t familiar with the software and alongside the project whilst taking photos we had to learn this new software and this proved difficult on more than one occasion.

But this leads me to say I have learnt and I am still learning a new skill from this project.

The assignment challenged me by putting my completely out of my depth. I was new to pretty much all aspects of the equipment we needed to use to complete this project but this I a good thing as it makes you want to succeed.

If I were to do something differently I would look more into what I was trying to achieve with my portrait shots. I would have liked to make them look like they had a theme opposed to them just fitting well together. I also think I would have given my self more time to edit my portraits instead of leaving them until the last minute.

Hasselblad.

Hasselblad

For this studio module we had to create 3 or more portrait shots using a studio and a Hasselblad camera with a digital back. I had never used this camera before so this project was a massive first for me. 

At first the idea of this and learning how the studio lights work and other various things like capture one was quite stressful because it all seemed complicated. 

In the end i did discover that although it was slightly difficult it wasn't as bad as i thought and i ended up really enjoying using the Hasselblad, the studio and capture one.

Background info about the Hasselblad camera

The Hasselblad camera was created by a man called Victor Hasselblad AB who at the time was a Swedish manufacturer of medium format cameras and other photographic equipment in Gothenburg, Sweden. 

My opinion

After using this camera i do think i like this as much or maybe more than a normal digital camera. I love how you have to stand over the camera and look down into it to see the image. The only downfalls i felt came with the camera was that i couldn't see how well in focus the image i was taking was until i saw it come up on the computer screen and it was some what difficult to position the model central in the frame. 

Over all i really loved the camera and it actually makes me want to buy one myself and try it out. 

The final 4 edited portraits.

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