Exercise: Scale and Setting

In this exercise we are tasked to produce four portrait images. These images are to be varied by the area captured of the sitter, starting with a close cropped frame of the face, a head and shoulders shot, the head and torso and the full figure.

For this exercise I chose all images in the sitting position using natural light through a south facing window to the right of the sitter. I then used a large gold reflector to reflect the light back to fill the sitters right hand side. This I felt worked very well warming up the images producing an even light. I wish I had varied the distance of the reflector a little more to perhaps get some darker images, one to remember for next time.

I tried a number of poses most of them didn't work out that well so this was a good learning curve for me. In the first set of images it was pretty straight forward as there is not much to focus on. I chose the following image that seemed more intimate with eyes off camera, the finger works well here adding more interest to the portrait.

The next shot panned back a little and this time I selected an image with the sitter looking at the camera, again making use of the hands.The eyes are very strong in this image and certainly the main focal point.

The third image pans further back to get in the torso. Again I used a similar hand gesture but this time tried to get a more relaxed view. The second arm folded seems to work well, the only real mistake I have here is the lamp stand in the back ground coming out of the head; I must be more aware of things like this for next time.

The final image is the full body image and for this I chose a more formal seating position with the hands placed on the knees, one taken from Patrick Earle's portraits. The background seemed more of a formal setting so I believed this would complement the portrait.

This was an interesting exercise which has made me think more and given me ideas of what works and what doesn't and things to look out for next time.

Exercise: Thinking about location

This exercise is all about scouting for locations for portraits that could either be full body or torsos. In my mind I have two types of locations, one a natural area of beauty, perhaps for a female and the other more urban.

All shots were taken within two days on a bright sunny winters day with the sun low and warm.I then had to wait for a similar day to recapture my favourite scene with a person in it.

The first set were taken at Sheffield Park Gardens, a place that looks great all year round.I like the colour and light in this shot and also the space, this would have been a good location for a full body shot but needs to be much tighter framed. I am thinking of someone sitting knees up against the tree to the right where the light is shining through. First mistake was trying to capture a nice image without someone in it!

The second image was again about light falling onto an unusual bench, a sitter here would be great.

The next image had more imagination in it for where someone would be positioned and their surroundings, perhaps with a hand slightly leaning again the end of the masonry with the tall grass in the background to the right.Again, natural light falling directly on to them.

The final image of the Gardens is an obviously one, but nonetheless one that would make a good full body portrait, perhaps leaning against the entrance. Once again natural light in the right direction.....

The final two are more urban and would require a youthful model. If I am to be honest I do not like the bus shelter. I thought at the time it may have worked because of the wooden textures and the graffiti but it is just to bland and boring.

The final one though I think works well and has many opportunities. The low light of the sun making the rusty ruin of this car very warm and inviting. Perhaps a young lad, a hoody leaning against the car as if it were his work of art.....I think for the image with a person in it it would need a tighter crop, the sky can be lost.

So I chose the above image as my site to bring along a person, a hooded child perhaps, and to my horror the burnt out wreck had been removed.

So to Plan B of some images I took over Ashdown Forest, I think these work well and am pleased with them. The light was strong that day and cast some moody shadows over the face, the images the,selves needing to processing at all.

I think have the person in this image actually balances it out better and gives it more interest.

My first day out with Street Photography

I have been looking forward to this one day photography course on Street Photography led by Andrew Newson and Justin Sainsbury.

Street photography is a genre that takes me seriously well out of my comfort zone, I was excited about the task at hand yet very nervous and very anxious. The day started with Justin and Andrew sharing images and books on different styles of Street Photography. I was drawn to Henri Cartier-Bresson [1908-2004] a French photographer and one of the earliest adopters of candid photography leading to developing a style that would eventually be known as Street Photography. The book I looked at was entitled Europeans, a brilliant collection of images published in 1955 with images taken from the late 1920's to the 1970's across the whole of Europe. It captures people and landscapes from varying cultures many of which are through the depression and war but yet the spirit of humanity still shines brightly in each image beautifully captured. The cover image below has so much going on it leads the viewer to wonder what the scene is about. Is the foreground man the father of the child? The mother seems to be showing him off, and perhaps a doting grandmother. The child seems perfectly happy and being naked adds to the perception of poverty along with the workers dungarees and the barefooted mother, yet it is an image of warmth and joy. The dogs are also interesting, are they trying to defend or are they welcoming?

Justin then discussed camera settings for Street Photography; forget the traditional rule book this was completely different. Justin uses an aperture of around f/9 or greater to give the best depth of field and a shutter speed of 1/250 second. This allows for the capture to be sharp when having to keep the camera moving when taking images at a split seconds notice. Aperture priority was therefore the choice of camera setting with varying shutter speed and or ISO settings to maintain 1/250 or greater. It was a bright sunny day in the excellent location of Brighton, which helped considerably, though on a shaded street this could lead to having ISO's greater than 800 which undoubtedly means grainer images but the only way to capture the fast changing landscape of Street Photography.

Another tip on camera settings that Justin gave later in the day was to set the focal length to a 50 mm inequivalent, turn off auto focusing and focus to 1.5 m. We then did a sweep of a busy market Lane, watching Justin's technique you would hardly notice him taking images despite his his frame of 6' 6" he just blended in. 'Keep on moving never stop' was one of his best tips, the Street Photographer is gone as quick as the moment in time that the camera has captured......

At the end of the day we retired for coffee and looked at our images through the view finders. I was quite surprised that I had a few possibilities that would make the viewer wonder what was happening, being able perhaps to have varying interpretations ... it was an exhausting 8 hours, but one that I feel I am significantly better for and hope that this will help with this OCA course.

Exercise: Scale & Setting Prep

The first exercise in this course is about taking portraits in the following varying scales.

• Close up of the face
• Head & shoulders
• Torso and head 
• Full body portrait

The setting will be affected depending of the scale, for example very little will be visible on the first two types, but more so on the last two. The viewers eye will also be drawn to different parts of the images two depending on scale and it is this interpretation that is being investigated. For example in the close up the eyes will be dominant but as the portraits display more of the person then gestures made with hands will become prominent  body language revealed and in some cases the surrounding environment will become part of the interpretation of the image.

The exercise requires taking several images from the above four categories, choosing the best and critiquing them.

As I am not strong on portraiture in preparation for this exercise I first drew up a list of ideas of my own and then googled many images for each category to get more.... I was surprised that the first two types are quite limited in configuration  and my own notes had this covered. The second two were however rather bleak in my notes and the googling produced some excellent ideas.

I was really drawn towards the artist Patrick Earle [  http://www.patrickearle.com/ ]  the head and full body portraits are very compelling and I plan to try and emulate some of these. Below are his examples for full bodied portraiture.

Assessment links

Dear assessors, all files have been provided on a pen drive with the assessment along with hard copies of the course work. The files are also available electronically on Google drive HERE.

The structure of each sub folder is the same for each module, with a PDF copy of each assignment report and Tutor Feed Back in the root folder.

I hope this helps,

Nathan