Week 4- Texture and positive/ negative space practitioners.

Yousuf Karsh

December 23, 1908 – July 13, 2002 

Karsh is an Armenian- Canadian portrait photographer. Karsh grew up in the Armenian genocide where he saw his relatives killed right before his eyes. His sister died of starvation. When Karsh was 16 he was sent to live with his uncle whom was a photographer. This is what sparked a passion within him and led him to be known as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the twentieth century, who achieved a distinct style in his theatrical lighting.  Karsh was known for his portrait of Sir Winston Churchill because he managed to capture the determination of the wartime leader which then won him international recognition. Karsh then went on to photograph other well known people. Personally i love Karsh's work, He has managed to capture something so real and the people's personalities in his portraits.

This photograph really captured my attention because of the detail in his face, the texture of his skin and every wrinkle is defined. Its beautiful. I really like how his eyes stand out and he has a slight smile. I feel his eyes add another dimension to the portrait. I really like how the lighting has created negative space as the background and nice shadows around his face. 

Jacques Henri Lartigue

This is such a lovely portrait because once again he has captured the personality of the person. When i look at this i feel happy, This man seems like one of those happy go lucky people. I really like the detail in this image swell, being able to see the texture of the mans skin and wrinkles makes the photograph more powerful in the sense of character and individuality. Once again Karsh has used  negative space as the background to enhance shadows around face giving it more depth and detail.

Edward Steichen

March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973

Edward was a Luxembourgian American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. Edward started out as a painter until he started visiting a camera store and finally decided he would buy his first camera which was a secondhand kodak box 'detective' camera. Him and his friends then got some funds together to buy a small apartment where they could build up a business in painting and photography. 

This photograph is so captivating. I love how the material is in front of her face adding texture to the portrait. There is not much positive space because he has cropped most of it out. But the texture really shines in this portrait and even though there is netting in front of her face it doesn't distract you from her facial expressions and her.

Gloria Swanson.

Absolutely love this photograph. The use of positive negative space is stunning and how he has used a low f stop making the focus very narrow depth of field making her arm feathers and half her face in focus. The texture of her clothes and wrap around her head is very beautiful and defined. Her facial expressions are quite stunning as well. She almost looks scared. Very elegant though.

Week 4 -Line Pattern, Positive and negative space and Texture.

f/ 1.8    1/80    ISO 800

Who would have thought something so small could be so interesting, I used narrowest depth of field on my camera settings. The negative space in this photograph is the blurred foreground and background of the frame where you can see no texture of the pin board. You can even see the pattern in the fabric where its all been weaved together . I edited this and made it black and white using the greyscale panel and boosted with the yellows and oranges so that you could see the pattern and texture better of the pin board.

f/9.0  1/100  ISO 1600

Love the triangle shape Caryline, Tracy and Stephie create. And then the textured background of the floor. Such a successful photo I feel. The composition of the three of them is pretty much perfect I also love how they are all looking up at me. The lighter coloured blocks of wood on the floor almost frame them. I really love the second photo because i captured the moment perfectly. You can see the relationship between Tracy, Caryline and Karen. I love the texture of the bar walls. and the leading lines of the stairs and rail which takes your eyes from bottom to top.

f/2.5    1/125    ISO1600

The use of negative space is really nice in this frame I really like the tint of gold along the top of the shoe , I made sure the heel of the shoe lined up with the rule of thirds line. I shot this in live view. I really like how the edge of the table leads your eye right to the tip of the heel.

Self directed.

Textures!

Love the texture in this pillow case and the fact that i have used a narrow depth of field made this photograph far more interesting. The photo to begin with was slightly under exposed 

I found this lovely ornament at my nana and granddads and thought it had fabulous texture in the dragon scales. I also love the detail in the teeth of the skull.

 

Captured some rain droplets on the window. I absolutely love this photo! Glad I used narrow depth of field.

Week 3- Cropping, composition, line and pattern Practitioners.

                                           Paul Strand

October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976. Paul was the only child born to bohemian- Jewish descent. In his teens he was known for his excellent documentary photography at his school. At the age of 17 Paul started to take photography courses where he studied photographer Lewis Hine. Paul left the states and moved to France in his later years, even though he was best known for his early abstractions he returned to still life photography where he then published six Portrait books of place. Paul was awarded for promoting social change in his photography and showing the world the effectiveness of art when it comes to raising awareness for problems around the world. I really love Paul Strands work especially his portrait series Ghana- African Portraits. It shows the reality of life and how some people have to live.

Afe Negble, Asenema, 1964

I find this image stunning because of the how the white background contrasts with her dark toned skin. If he had her against a darker background she wouldnt have stood out as much. Her skin looks beautiful and smooth in this image. I love how he has captured her facial expressions and has not got her to look straight at the camera. I think this image would have been even more effective if he had done a close crop and just captured the portrait form just below her collar bones and up. Possibly seen more detail in her face. I like how she is slightly off center

Paul Strand, New York,  published in Camera Work 1917, photogravure.

When i first saw this image I couldn't work out what it was but then I realised it was a shadow of some tower, something else I didnt notice until I had a proper look was the two men talking in the shadows. If it wasnt for the leading lines in the shadows i wouldnt have noticed them. You could almost say that the two men are on an intersecting line

Max Dupain.

(born April 22, 1911, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia—died July 27, 1992, Sydney)

Max was well known for his commercial photography. During world war ll Dupain left his current career in Fashion and portrait photography to work for the army Camouflage unit. When Dupain returned to photography he did not bounce back into beautiful landscapes and portraiture, he veered towards more abstract architectural and industrial photography.

Detail from Rescue and resuscitation, Manly, 1940s by Max Dupain.

I really love this photograph for its use off leading lines, my eyes are lead down the rope and men towards the sea. I can also see a pattern in the way they are standing and have their hands above their heads. I really like how he has fitted the three men perfectly in the frame, the guy right at the front is the same distance from the edge of the frame as the guy right at the back. Also the guy in the middle sits right on a rule of thirds line. 

Max Dupain, 'Untitled' (Jean with wire mesh), 1936.

I just think this photograph is stunning with the way the shadow is across her. It is a close crop Portrait but really works well because you can see the detail in her eyelashes, lips and hair. Very beautiful frame and i find it really effective how the shadow takes up half of the frame.

Week 4 Digital Technology 1- Camera Raw Excercises

BEFORE

AFTER

The first photograph is very warm which actually tones down the colours of the flowers and makes the purple flower look a bit yellow. In the second photo i have used the colour correction tool in Camera Raw to give the photo more of a cooler look and made the flowers stand out and look their true colours. I really like the cooler tone of the concrete now and even though I didn't change the clarity or anything in the second photograph there is far more detail in the concrete and flowers. Another way I could have changed the colour in this photograph is used the Temperature slide in the basic panel and made the temperature cooler.

BEFORE

AFTER

Heres another photograph that has to much of a warm temperature which ruins the nice blues and greens in the water, sky and tree this time instead of using the colour correction tool i used the Temperature slide in the basic panel. I made the temperature cooler so we could pull out the rich greens and blues. Now the photograph looks far more natural.

BEFORE

 AFTER- Colour correction                                                                             AFTER- B&W

                                                                    

So as you can see in the first photograph you could see the lighting stand in the background so I used the spot removal tool to remove it, I could see improvement straight away. I then cropped the photograph so she was centered making her belly the main focus. As you can see in the first photograph the colours were a bit faded so I used the colour correction tool to darken those colours adding a bit of contrast. In the third photograph I used the greyscale panel to make it black and white and then i played with the colours to make certain things pop. I mainly played with the Warm colours so I could make her skin stand out more and make the shadows darker.

BEFORE

Here is my close crop portrait. As you can see in the first photograph it is slightly over exposed so I tried using the colour correction tool to tone it down, but when I did that it made the colours more natural but some areas in the photograph were still over exposed so i used the exposure slider in the basic panel to tone it down, I also used the contrast slider to make the colours richer. In the third photograph I used the Greyscale panel to turn it black and white and then targeted certain colours, yet again I played with the pinks and reds to adjust the colour of her skin and also the colours in her top. Because i had played with contrast and exposure in the second photo I didn't have to do anything to the third photo. I edited this photo Monday and now that its Wednesday and I've come back to it I find the skin colour a bit too grey.

                 BEFORE                                                                                               AFTER

In this photograph I have used the adjustment brush to make the Back ground B&W and then I increased the clarity and colour of Roxy. I do like this but prefer the coloured background, this type of editing would be really affective with flowers if your wanting to really boost the colour of the flower.

Week 3- Cropping composition

f/6.3   1/250  ISO 100

Here is a close crop frame of Tracy. I love the fun side in this image the only problem I have is that you can see one eyebrow and not the other because she has tilted her head to the side. But I should have told her and reshot it. Her arms lead my eyes to her lovely painted fingernails which then leads me to her face that she is trying to hide!

f/5.0  1/160  ISO 100

I felt the need to do some adjustments in this photograph, I boosted the Metallic grey and orange colours using the adjustment brush. This made the image pop more. I really like how the railing frames the steps and also how the lines in he steps lead my eye to the warm orange wall in the background. I think this image is successful because of where I positioned the steps in the photograph and the contrast of the two different colours. 

f/5.0  1/160  ISO 100

I photographed this in live view so i could line Tatiana up in one of the intersecting lines. I really like this image because of how the tree takes up one corner and also frames the pathway. I had edited this in Camera raw because i wanted to straighten it slightly so that the line in the pathway at the bottom of the frame was straight. I also did some slight adjustments to the shadows so they were not as intense, Especially in the tree.

Before.

After- f/6.3  1/250  ISO 100

Heres a before and after of some editing I did in this photograph. As you can see in the first photo it was on a bit of slope but i used the Auto camera correction tool to straighten it up. I also cropped this photograph and minimised the negative space and cut off some of the first pole to mirror the pole right at the end which has been cut out. I really love the leading lines in this photograph and the pattern of the poles, I purposely got Tatiana to stand on on of the poles to disturb the pattern, I think it looks quite affective and adds a bit of character to the photo.

Bernd and Hilla Becher inspired photograph. Obviously had to do adjustments but I really like the bottom photograph. I used the perspective crop tool too make it more even and straight. 

Here I had a play with composition, I used live view mode to make the door on one of the rule of third lines. I used the Clarity slider to make the photograph look more grungy and then made it black and white to give it an older look. 

Week 2 -Vantage point Practitioners

Henri Cartier Bresson

Born August 22, 1908, Chanteloup-en-Brie, France. Died August 3, 2004 (aged 95), Montjustin, France. Henri in his early days was a painter he had a fascination in surrealism but once he had spent a year in Ivory Coast his passion switched to photography which was not just a one off hobbie, it was a life long passion. Henri had his first first exhibition in Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1933. Henri explains his passion for photography '"For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression." In 1940 Henri joined the army but was captured by the German forces and was put into a Prison-of-war camp where he was locked up for three years. After two failed attempts in 1943 Henri finally managed to escape the camp and return to his passion of Photography. Henri had a wanderlust which led him to head east to india where he met and photographed Mahatma Gandhi before he was assassinated in 1948. Henri documented Mahatma's death which then lead to being one of life magazines prized photo documentaries of all time due to the affect it had on many people around the world. In later years Henri went back to his first fuelled passion which was painting, Henri then subdued himself from the world and hardly ever talked about his career as a photographer. 
Personally I find Henri's photographs so powerful, It shows the world as it is. His photographs show war, love, sadness and loneliness. Henri works a lot with Fore/mid/background and leading lines.

Guard of honour at a ceremony
commemorating Leningrads liberation
USSR, 9 May 1973

In this photograph its clear to see the leading line of people, this carries my eyes down the line giving me a clear indication of what is happening in the photograph. Henri has also used a Narrow DOF making the main focus the little girl and flag. 

SWEDEN. Goeteborg. 1956

This photograph makes me feel sad, and even though there are two people together hugging I still get a feeling of loneliness. There is so much happening in the background, you can see ships and city but yet there are two people lonely, cold and trying to sleep. It makes me wonder what happened to them both. I love the detail in the rocks in this photograph. Henri has used a Narrow DOF in this photograph because only the people and rocks are in focus. I think if Henri has just focused on the people making the rocks softer swell this photograph would have been ineffective because it wouldn't have given the idea of the people being secluded from society.

Alexander Rodchenko

Born on December 5, 1891, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Died of a stroke on December 3, 1956 in Moscow. Like many other photographers Alexander started as a painter, his work was inspired by Cubism and Cubo-Futurism. Alexander had much practice in many different forms of art but focused into photography. He used his camera as a drawing instrument. He managed to master photographing using odd angles, Shadows, wide frames. I love Alexanders exploration of shadows, many leading lines and patterns which hold the frame together. Alexander often shoots his subjects from above or low angles so he could shock the audience and make objects look larger or smaller.

Suchov-Sendeturm (Shuchov transmission tower)

Even though I'm not much of a fan of Achitecture photography I really like this shot. I love how he has shot it from a lower angle making it look larger. Also the leading lines which lead your eye right to the top of the power lines. 

Girl with a Leica, 1934 

In love with this shot because of the odd angle he has shot it at and also the shadows. I feel the shadows make this photograph almost mysterious because you can only see parts of her face. The shadows on the women lead your eye across her body. When ever I look at this image I find myself tilting my head.

Week 2- Vantage point, fore/mid and Background

f/1.8  1/400  ISO100

 This is one of my favourite Fore,Mid and Background photos. As you can see the fore ground is out of focus and Tracy who is in mid ground is in focus and then the background is out of focus. I love how the focus on Tracey is very sharp and crisp. I really like the compositing in the photo, I like how she is standing directly under the bottle art and how the Tree trunk and the pole mirror each other. I feel like the over exposed background works really well in this photograph because it contrasts with Tracy's dark clothing making her stand out more.

f/1.8  1/500  ISO100

Heres another photograph where the Mid ground is in focus and the Fore and Back ground are out of focus. I feel like there is too much going on in the photo and I don't like how you can't see the mans hand behind the pole. Maybe if he was centred this photo could have been more successful.

f/1.8  1/400  ISO100

Here's a good example of a foreground photograph as you can see Karen and Denise are in focus then Caryline is in a softer focus and then the background is completely out of focus. I like how i've captured the two different conversations maybe if i had stepped back and did not get such a close crop the photo would have been not as intense with two different things happening.

Self Directed- Vantage point

Personally I really like this photo because of the lighting and how the colours in his top contrast with the green background. If I had shot this photograph from a lower angle he wouldn't  have looked as small and his top would have stood out even more against the darker green hedge. But because Shev is a small built guy anyways i don't know if it would have made much of a difference photographing him from below. I feel photographing from above is a very flattering way to photograph, especially for girls. 

Low Vantage point- f/40  1/80  ISO 100

High Vantage point- f/4.0  1/80  ISO100

These two photos are the perfect example of how a lower angle makes a man look stronger and a higher angle makes a girl look thinner. As you can see my model Mo'e looks more muscly and wider in  the shoulder compared to the bottom photograph where he looks thinner and his face looks longer.

Week 2- Aperture

f/22      1/25     ISO100

This is a wide depth of field photograph (High F stop). It doesn't do much for me because the focal point should have been the Lift+ can but instead I'm more drawn to the cars in the background. If I was photographing a landscape I would use a wide depth of field but if you are trying to focus on only one thing its best to use a narrow depth of field ( Low F stop)

f/1.8   1/3200  ISO100

This photo shows narrow depth of field, I really like this photo it gives me a sense of 'Peace' just with the way she has her eyes closed. I believe this photo would not have been as 'Peaceful' if the background was in focus as well because there would have been so much going on in the photo for you to focus on her face and her relaxed body language.

Self directed

f/1.8   1/80    ISO100

f/1.8     1/40    ISO100

Personally I love both these images. The Narrow depth of field I found really affective with Portraits because then the subject is what you focus on. If I used a wide depth of field for the photograph of Roxy the golden retriever I feel she would have blended in with the leaves in the background because of the similar colouring, but because i used a narrow depth of field she stands out.