TD -PH1200 - Visualising Ideas Blog - Book review on Nadav Kander

I have chose to do my book review on Nadav Kander, this book shows different elements of his work but I have focused on his portraiture work because I connect more with this style of photography and have taken a great interest in his work. Throughout the portrait section of the book  we can see that there isn’t an obvious theme as he experiments with various compositions, lightings and techniques such as we can see he uses coloured gels quite a lot to add a mixture of lighting to the shoot. In the past when experimenting with different sides of photography I came across Kander and took a shine to his work that used coloured gels, by using this technique I was able to show a persons personality or emotion threw not just there expression but by the colours that I projected onto them. 

Normally I analyse  images from the internet as its a lot quicker and easier then getting a book, but in fact I have found it easier to understand an image as I have a closer connection with them, seeing his work on a larger scale is helpful as I can see up close the colours and detail that make the photo. Seeing a photographers work up close made me appreciate the art of photograph and how simple lighting and certain techniques can make such a beautiful image. 

One of my favourite photos in the book is of Mark Rylance this image is of a simple stance with his body facing forward and his head turned to his left but what I love about the image is how the light catches his eyes making them glossy, this is what stands out the most in the image and I feel without the light catching his eyes this photo would be nothing, by having it black and white it washes away  the mixture of colours making it very calm and innocent the expression on his face Is blank and I get a sense of sadness from it but I feel that I only get this because of it being black and white. 

My least favourite image from the book is Dream Girls where we can see a naked women in the background and a pot of flowers in the foreground, this type of portraiture photography does not appeal to me the photo is rather neutral and dull quite the opposite to the work I am inspired by and know Nadav Kander for, I love photography where the images are visually eye catching and are something special and where I can take time to look at it and build up thoughts. 

Nowadays everyone views images online but books are still important I found it a lot easier and beneficial analysing photos from a book, I have learnt that the internet isn't always the best option and I can get just as much insight into a photographers work by a book so in the future I will broaden my ways of researching.

TD - PH1200 - Visualising Ideas Blog - Website Review on Terry Richardson

I chose to do my website review on Terry Richardson as he is a well known portrait photographer I found his website at http://www.terryrichardson.com/ , at this moment in time I am starting to like portrait photography especially after a fashion photography assignment, I enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot such as making the models enjoy the shoot, by looking at Terry Richardson's images I could tell that the models enjoyed the Photoshoot and that would be because Terry engaged with them and relaxed them to make them comfortable and so he is able to produce natural and amazing images. 

His website is very minimalistic with a white background and black font, however this does not make it a plain and boring website because when you enter his website he has a slide-show of images which straight away catches your attention making you want to delve in further, his images are so strong both either black and white or in colour it draws the viewer to them and without any distracting colours in the background you're able to focus on the images more. The layout of his images are quite simply in the middle on the page vertically displayed with a brief caption under the images starting from his most recent work dating back to his older work, his photos are easily viewable on the screen but its very time consuming getting from say page 1 to 10 as you have to scroll down to the bottom and click older and do this repeatedly until you get to the page you want.

In today’s society we are surrounded by technology so its a lot quicker and easier to access photos of photographers work online,  but I do not think I would have the same feeling and connection with them as I would if I seen them in a book or at an exhibition just because of the scale they are at and the quality of them, I would love to see his photos printed up big or even in a book just so I can see the difference and get a more personal view on them.

This photograph of Rihanna as Terry Richardson is one of my favourites because I am a big fan of her but no only that I love the contrast of the black and white, the high exposure highlights a lot of the image which many people may think its too harsh but I disagree, by having a high exposure it has washed out the detail on her hand and features such as her nose and mouth, building a strong contrast with other features like her eyes, roots and the glasses which are all dark. 

The cropping of the shot makes the viewer focus on Rihanna's eyes because there is no distractions around her, the sharpness and bold contrast of her eyes immediately draw the viewer to them.

On the header of Terry Richardson's website are menu buttons which take you to different categories of photographs he has taken for example one menu button is named 01. Terry, this is simply photos of himself with the hundreds of clients he has photographed, I like the idea that it shows the people that he has met and he has a personal keep sake which in years to come he can look back on, Richardson is also known for putting his thumbs up in photos so a lot of clients have embraced that and again its great that he has a little personal trait that comes across in his photographs.

I don’t understand 02. Diary and the concept behind it as I just see it as random photos with captions that point out the obvious, I don’t feel any interest in any of his diary work and I prefer to see Richardson's portrait work which is seen in 03. People, 04. Models.

Richardson has always been one of my inspirations in photography and I will always be inspired by his work, I like how threw his photos you can tell he loves his job and that he has passion for photography by having confidence and enjoying what he does, he is able to produce photographs that people like myself look up to and are inspired by.  

TD PH1320 - Intro Digital Imaging

Part One - Composite Portraiture 

Sir Francis Galton invented composite portraiture also known as composite photographs in the late 1870’s, the process of this was thought to identify different types by appearances, composite photographs was hoped to aid medical diagnosis and criminology by identification of typical criminal faces. It concluded that such types were not attainable after a lot of exhausting experimentation.

Working in the borderland between art and science extending practise influenced by Galton, Nancy Burson uses morphology and genetic codes to digitally manipulate portrait photographs of the human face. This technique was used to update images of missing children at one point when the FBI enlisted Burson.

 

For this assignment I had to create two composite portraits using at least three existing photos to produce a new face, the portraits will come under the headings of Family, Fictitious, Killer, Celebrity or Gender.

I started by scanning in photos of my Grandad on a resolution of 4800 so that when I print the final image off on A4 the pixels wont look so pixelated.

Once I had the photos I needed I took them into Photoshop and began layering both photos of my Grandad on top of each other, it was very important to join up the eyes and nose so the faces fit together. By turning down the opacity on one of the images I was able to make good judgement when lining up the photos.

I added a third image, which was of myself to the layered photos on Photoshop and again played around with the layers and opacity until I was able to join all of them together. To merge the images together to make it look as realistic as possibly I played around with the layer effects such as overlay, hard light and multiply but I found that soft light worked the best as it gave the best natural looking complexion. However because I used old and small photographs they still showed up pixels but this adds to the outcome making it rough and dated. What is great about this style of portraits are you get a messy boarder around the image from each photo which adds to the final outcome making it artistic and graphic.

I am made up with the outcome of my first composite portrait and would not change anything about it, I have captured the resemblance between myself and my Grandad threw the photo and love how alike we are and have the same features I never really noticed this until after I produced the photo. I would in the future like to have another go at composite portraits using other members of my family because it’s fun, easy and a nice way to compare photos from different generations and ages.

 

My second portrait comes under the heading celebrity, I chose to firstly match my face up with Stephen Mulherns, (presenter) as I constantly get told we look alike, again using the same process as my first portrait I reduced the opacity of the top image so I was able to match up the faces. Our faces fitted surprisingly perfect together I just needed to now find a third image that would sit nicely with the others. 

After a lot of research and looking for celebrities that would compliment and add to the portrait I came across the actor Jim Parsons who is best known for playing the character Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, I selected an image that had similar characteristics as the other two this way the final outcome would look realistic. 

I placed the image of Jim over the layers below and matched up his face, I noticed that his head needed to be flipped horizontally so that the shape fitted correctly, before I did this his features matched up right but unfortunately his head didn’t compliment the photo as it looked to messy and not as professional as I wanted.