INTIMATE PORTRAITS
What Makes a Good Portrait?
A picture can be a powerful story. A picture is worth a thousand words.
” Curious about the subject or like you are present.” Samantha Cooper Wired
” A good portrait empowers the subject.” Jennifer Murray Filter Photo
1.1 Portrait Project Idea:
I would like to explore motherhood and what it means to mothers in this day and age. I want to explore the empowerment of it, the lost identity and the juggle and sometimes chaos of it.
I want the project to be like an editorial piece, providing the mother a platform to tell her story.
I want to express a mood with the lighting and exposure and document motherhood through the eyes of my own and mothers I know. I will visit the mothers in their natural environment and it will be a collaboration together of how they want to be portrayed.
I would like to use a fine art, editorial style so the picture can evoke an emotion when looking at it. Using natural light and the use of window light indoors I’m hoping to create an edge of drama and atmosphere to the photo.
2.1 Identify photographic resources to complete a photographic project:
Using my Sony a7 full frame mirrorless camera I will use a 24m – 70m lens as well as a 50m prime lens. A wide aperture will be used for the main focus/person to pop. I will the use my exposure dial to adjust the ISO and shutter speed to create a dramatic dark exposure for some of the photography. I will be shooting in their personal space of either home or work environment so will use mainly natural light as well as lamps or over head lighting they have there.. Using Lightroom afterwards I can adjust the highlights and shadows to add more light and shadow contrast and will mute the colours slightly for an editorial, cinematic feel.
1.2 Fine Art and Editorial Portrait Photographer research
Nirav Patel – Fine art and Editorial
A fine art photographer based in San Francisco. Portraits are a huge part of her work and is dramatic photography, exploring human emotion. This is something that I am very drawn to when taking portrait photography.
Patel’s portraits have a cinematc tone. I love the use of cinematic tone and colours when I do my own photography, to give the dramatic or editorial feel. I will often mute colours slightly as well as adjusting the highlight and shadows in lightroom add more drama to the photo.
Each shot is meticulously constructed to evoke emotion. Patel uses natural and soft lighting to create deeply atmospheric images. The color palette is rich and dark. But the photos are high with energy. I would love to explore the use of natural and soft lighting as well as dramatic lighting to evoke an emotion and atmosphere.
“I am drawn to quiet moments. I believe this pull originated from attempts at self-preservation when I was a young boy living in neighborhoods that were difficult. At the age of 7, I built a sanctuary in my room. In this small space, I placed a red tent on my bed and surrounded it with a moat of stuffed animals that served as my protectors. My imagination soared in this beautiful, safe haven. The feeling of loneliness was replaced by the comfort of solitude. Here is where I found my quiet moments. To this day I still look for the glimpses of quiet when the world is turbulent. Creating imagery is the only way I’ve ever known how to share my story with others. ” Nirav Patel
Nirav Patel’s work:
Alessio Albi:
An Italian Fine Art Portrait photographer who also specialises in commercial and fashion photography. He is famous for expressing himself through extremely atmospheric shots. Mainly shot in low light settings.
To add drama in his photographs, he uses various elements of nature — grass, plants, trees, and wildflowers — to create an improvised shadow, silhouette, or frame. While his model’s faces are partly obscured, Albi makes it so each shot offers a unique way of hiding and revealing the subject. It’s way of adding an additional creative dimension to his work. I am thinking about using something similar when I explore the lost identity of a mother, with the use of light or object I would like to highlight the baby and have the mother obscured to represent the loss of identity in a mother.
His portfolio is full portrait photography examples. His shots are simple, however you are intrigued and drawn to them. He creates a mood and atmosphere in each shot. The models there aren’t just nice faces. Each of them tells a story of love or loneliness, hope or regret, fear or tenderness.
Alessio Albi work:
Annie Leibovitz
And obviously I can’t not touch on Annie Leibovitz whose portrait work has been in famous editorial pieces and is a huge inspiration to me on how I photograph people. I have researched her in my past photography projects.
Annie Leibovitz is a famous American portrait photographer. Her work is engaging and creative. She often uses old paintings as inspiration and has been called a Rembrandt photographer. She is known for photographing people, including the queen in intimate settings or poses.
In 1973 Annie became the chief photographer for Rolling Stone and later 1983 Annie began working for Vanity Fair and she produced iconic and provocative images. Many collections of her work have been published and exhibitions of her photographs have appeared at museums and galleries all over the world.
Her style is often very staged but at the same time captures the essence of the daily life of a person if sometimes exaggerated. She uses bold colours, with a muted tone and her lighting is superb.
“When I say I want to photograph someone, what it really means is that I’d like to know them. Anyone I know I photograph.” – Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz work:
I have always been a big fan of Annie Leibovitz and have her portrait book (2005-2016). I love her use of colour and then the texture that she seems to capture too, the wrinkles in the faces. The muted tones and bold colours really appeal to me.
She really focuses on the subject and can depict their passion with the drama and mood in the picture. I like how she captures the essence and intimacy of the person.
1.3 Analyse and evaluate research for the photographic project:
I love how Annie Leibovitz empowers the subject. I would love to do this when working with my empowered mother.
Looking at the work of Nina Patel, I love her cinematic tone, and how she uses natural light to add drama. I also like her work on mirror reflections and would like to capture images both with a mirror reflection and natural light coming in from the window. I can then use Lightroom afterwards to play with the highlights and shadows to add a dramatic contrast like she has in her pictures.
Like Annie Leibovitz, Alessie Albi gets very intimate and close to their subject and then creates a mood and atmosphere. I am hoping to collaborate closely with my subject, I will pick a close friend, so they are comfortable and relaxed with me and we can talk intimately on what we want to portray.
I will work with both natural light coming from the windows as well as the light from artificial lights/lamps in the room.
The Empowered Portrait
Lucy Dowler- Mother of 3 and business owner.
Lucy – stripped back
Sony a7 F1.8 ISO 320 1/125s 55mm lens Sony a7 F2.8 ISO 400 1/125s 55mm lens
Empowered Mother
Lucy Head and Shoulders
Sony a7 F1.8 ISO 100 1/125s 55m lens
Lucy in her environment
Sony a7 F2.8 ISO 1000 1/80s 24-70mm lens
Lucy close up
Soy a7 F1.8 ISO 100 1/125s 55mm lens
Lucy is a dear friend and I know her very well, over 20 years now. She hasn’t taken any maternity leave with her 6 week baby, as she owns her own business with 5 international brands in lingerie and swimwear. I visualised bold colours, strong and powerful, proud looks. I did think she would want to be photographed in her office with her baby, as they are both very important to her.
Lucy said to me she has 4 babies, the first being her own business that she now nurtures and grows. She wanted to wear lots of gold jewellery as she says its her ‘armour’. Lucy wore bold colours like I predicted and with a glamourous/sexy feel, as that’s the industry she is passionate about and is something she would wear daily too. Lucy wanted to represent the power and glamour but with the chaos in the office that surrounds her too. She also felt it important to breast feed in the picture too, to show the true reality.
I tried to use as much of the natural daylight from the windows in her house (albeit on a grey day) as well as artificial lamps and over head lighting. I set the aperture wide and the ISO did need to be increased when in the office.
I slightly muted the colour and temp in Lightroom. I wanted to give an editorial look that shows she means business and motherhood won’t stop a growing business, as well as feeling glamourous as a mother.
Strangers in the street
As a group we headed out to the streets of Richmond with our camera and then used a plain colour backdrop. The mission was to get an intimate portrait of a stranger on the street.
Intimate Portraits – Exploring Motherhood continued.
The lost identity of a mother
Sony a7 24-70mm lens F5.6 ISO 100 1/100s
Sony a7 24-70mm lens F5.6 ISO 12800 1/160s
In Black and White
Grouped in a series to show the contrast of the empowered and glamour to the lost identity and baby with cradle cap (less glamour).
Chris Vine The Intimate Portrait
Subject – Husband Thomas Griffiths
Week 1
Two settings – Relaxed on holiday in a chalet in the French Alps and second setting is at home working in the office. I used my Sony a7 camera with a 24-70 mm lens.
Week 2 and 3
Headshots of Thomas Griffiths
I explored both the use of natural light and artificial light and getting a deep close up. I used my Sony a7 camera with a 50 mm lens and a wide aperture.
Environmental
The working commute, the natural habitat of being outdoors and father and son. I used both my 24-70mm lens and 50mm lens.
Fine Art Portraiture
One of Tom’s favourite places to be, is in the bath. I explored this area and managed to capture the natural sunlight coming through the window spotlighting on the side of his face. I used my 24-70mm lens.
Conceptual
Whilst visiting the Tank museum in Dorset, I was drawn to the wonderful backdrops and cinematic/vintage lighting it provided. I decided to take Tom back in time during the first and second world war. I used my Sony a7 with the 50 mm lens and a wide aperture.
Portrait and the use of colour
Alphabetography
Locate objects, lines and forms that most resemble teach letter of the alphabet. From A to Z can be discovered in natural or man-made forms, in shadows or made by cropping with the frame of the camera.
In this exercise I found the letters with cures tricky to find, and could not un-see many straight letters in trees and branches
Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition
I also visited the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House in London. Below are some photographs I liked.
The two final photographs chosen form ‘The Intimate Portrait exhibition’.
2.3 Analyse and evaluate the photographic project
From my initial research at the beginning of the project, I was very drawn to the Fine Art portraiture that I haven’t really explored. I wanted my final image to be dramatic, as well as sending an empowering message.
With working with my friend Lucy we both agreed we wanted to create an empowering image as a working mother which is very relevant in todays society. I wanted it to be quite editorial, so it was strong and sending a clear message. Initially we did lots of close up images using my 55 prime lens. Lucy was very good at being relaxed with me with her facial expressions. After we had worked together with the close up images it was then clear to get a strong message across, we needed to shoot in her working environment.
It was Lucy’s idea that she wanted to wear her lingerie that she sells, in a bold, colourful and glamourous way. At the same time we agreed she should feed her baby with her chaos of her busy work environment behind her. It was very like something Annie Lebovitz would have done with her project she would have worked with. Telling a true story, empowering the subject but obviously staged to create a good picture.
The office space was quite small, I had to change my lend to the zoom lens and crouch in the corner of the room. It was quite a grey day so I was relying on the natural light from the window in front of her and the I moved the desk light to shine towards her. I had a wide aperture as I wanted Lucy to be the focal point and the the chaos behind her slightly out of focus.
I was happy with the final image, the colours and textures came out really well, her facial expression worked really well too. Here I am, having it all, I can still be glamourous feeding my baby, as that is who I am and fashion is what I am passionate about, and I can do it working from home.
I did have to add some more contrast and exposure slightly up in Lightroom due to the grey day. Enhancing the texture and clarity in lightroom also really emphasise the lovely colours to what Lucy was wearing.
To improve the picture, perhaps on the day I could have used another artificial light towards Lucy to really make her a focal point. Or even a flash, although I would have been worried it might have lost its documentary/editorial style. I could have maybe placed a gold reflector under Lucy so her face could have lit more, however this would have been tricky to manipulate with feeding her baby underneath.
With the picture of Charlie, after all my research on Fine Art Portraiture I really wanted to explore something with either reflection or water. I used my zoom lens for this one again with a wide aperture to create some bokeh behind him. I took probably about 20-30 images of Charlie coming out from the water until I felt I captured the mood I wanted.
I used the natural light coming down from the above window and then using lightroom afterwards I was able to make the contrast between him and the water the texture of the water and his hair in the water more dramatic.
This intimate portrait was less of an editorial/documentary style image like the empowering mother of Lucy but more of just an intimate picture with the fine art influence between mother and son.
I was very happy with the image, to improve the picture, maybe I could have added a soft partial flash so his eyes and hair lit up more. My other idea which didn’t really work, as I needed a stronger color bath bomb but was to add a strong colour dye to the water so it would have added a more dramatic atmosphere to the picture.
3.1 Identify and use safe working practices in a photographic project.
When working out and about in different homes and environments, I had to do a recy of the light and also make sure there was not any obstacles in my way to trip over or for my person photographing to trip over. I also made sure my camera was on a lead around my neck at all times so it wouldn’t get damaged by dropping it.
UAL Level 1 Photography 