Portrait Photography

What is Portraiture Photography?

Portraiture is an image of a person or thing and has many different purposes. It has the purpose of showing superiority and status, represents a person or thing, advertises or promotes. I go into more detail of this further down. 

How does it work?

Portraiture is done by photographers usually taking close up images of one person to give off a meaning. Sometimes it can be staged in a studio or place, and other times it can just be a natural photo of someone (e.g. Marilyn Monroe). 

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Portraiture?

The advantage of portraiture is that is can help advertise/promote things. For example, a brand or business could promote their product by taking an image of someone wearing/using it such as Kate Moss wearing her lipstick to promote it.
It also keeps the public up to date of people as photographers take portraits of celebrities regularly so we know what is happening in other people's lives.
The disadvantage is that there can be quite a lot of conflict. For example, celebrities may not want their privacy being invaded by photographers trying to get natural photos of them. Another example could be the way their photo comes out (like nude photos giving off a bad image to some people). 

Examples of Portraiture 

One photographer I looked at was Rankin (real name John Rankin Waddell) who specialises in fashion and portrait photographer, and based in London. He likes to capture images that have memory to them because he had not many from his childhood. He is amazed by people and wants to capture their personality through his images. There are some images below this text which show some photos I liked from him. I liked them because they represented the person. For example, Robert Downey Junior is part of film, so the film strip which is over him represents that. Also, RDJ is a dominant character so his facial expression really shows that by being really serious; as if it's his decision to smile or not.

I also liked how he shows hidden meanings in his photo. For example, the second image shows a woman who seems confident because of her being nude which represents her not being bothered about showing her true self. However, the hidden meaning could be that she really isn't this confident represented by the hand grabbing her hair. It makes it look like she is being controlled by someone, showing she's really vulnerable deep down.

http://www.antenna-plus.com/

http://www.coins-bloc.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Rankin_Cheeky_5.jpg

http://www.page-online.de/emag/bild/artikel/rankin-show-off

maccphoto.wordpress.com

The next photographer I looked at was Richard Avedon who was a photographer which specialised in fashion and portrait photography. He wanted to take photos which represented people's cultures, style and beauty.

I liked his photographs because they were so imaginative and weird which is perfect to me to respond to for my course. For example, the fifth picture shows quite an unattractive photo of a man having his face pulled at from all angles, but it has meaning to it. To me, that meaning is that he is constantly being picked at-always having someone bullying him-and he's too vulnerable to do anything about it as you can see from him letting it happen.

The fourth image shows a woman whose hair looks surreal. It's quite blurred out because of the light focusing on her face. I feel this has the meaning of her being more important than what her hair defines her as. Some people stereotypically call blondes dumb, so her face being the centre of attention gives off the meaning that she isn't dumb, there's more to her than we think; as if she's superior and saying 'look at me now' to all those who thought she wouldn't succeed.

http://webradiopost.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/art-richard-avedon-photographer.html

http://www.undeniablestyle.com/richard-avedon/

http://ffffound.com/home/cchs/found/?offset=250&

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8146922/Largest-collection-of-Richard-Avedon-images-up-for-auction.html

http://www.blog.noipictures.com/richard-avedon/

Purpose/Use of a Portrait

Portraits have many uses, but the first purpose was to show superiority. When portraits were first used, it was very expensive to have one done so only religious figures seemed to have one; it represented someone you looked up to. However, once Augustus came into power he had a portrait created of himself called 'Augustus of Prima Porta' to show how powerful he was. He even had an angel in his portrait underneath him to show that even angels looked up to him so everyone else had to.

Once Kings and Queens came to throne, they had portraits done to show that they were also superior. Although, they could have also used portraits to show off their wealth to the poorer classes. They always had jewels on show, or money, to show off how rich they were.

Once portraits were more popular, anyone who could afford it would get one to show their status to everyone else. They wanted to become well-known. It was a way to get compliments and to get yourself noticed. They are a way to represent someone. For example, photos of Kate Moss show she is a dominant female.

Now a days, portraits are used for advertisements and promotions. It's the easiest way to get a product or person noticed. For example, brands like Gucci show photos of men surrounding a woman to show their product gets people noticed.

Portraits are also used to show memories. You don't need a professional to take a portrait any more. Any one can get hold of a camera and take a photo of someone. People do it to remember people and events. It doesn't last forever so having a photo to look back on is great for looking back at memories. For example, having a family photo is something the family can look back on to show how much they've changed.

Moodboard

Experimenting

I experimented with portrait photography by having Joanna become my model to take portraits of. At first I was trying out the lighting and I love this first photo as it shows her being completely natural waiting for me to do the lighting settings, yet her facial expression makes it seem like she's trying to tell a story; as if she knows something we don't. I like how the lighting is only on one side of her face because it makes it look like she has an innocent side to her and a dark side to her.
I like how the image leads your eye to the light side of her face as it represents people wanting to find the positives in people before seeing their 'dark side'; it gives the image a nice meaning.
The composition of the image is not quite in the middle, it's slightly to the left. It makes the image look better as no ones face is completely symmetrical so if it was in the centre it wouldn't have been as dramatic. 
The techniques I used were an aperture of F/11 and a shutter speed of 1/125 sec. This is because I was in the studio for this shoot using the lighting so there was lots of light coming through, resulting in me not needing a slow shutter speed to get all the light in.
The colours in this image are black, brown, blue and nude (her face). The black is of a high contrast so it makes Joanna stand out due to you not being distracted by creases or marks in the background; your full focus is on Joanna. The other colours are of a high and low contrast because one side of Joanna is high contract (the light side) and the other is low contrast (the dark side) which is really helpful when showing the contrast of her personality.
The texture of the image is soft because the background is smooth due to there being no background, and her facial features seem soft due to it being skin. The only other texture is her clothing as denim usually has a rough kind of feel to it.
The improvements I would make to the image is to make the image brighter because it looks quite dull so the image doesn't seem to have any life to it. It also doesn't make her features clear enough so I would prefer there to be a bit more lighting to show them off.

In this next photo I love the position Joanna made of one eye showing behind her hands; it made her look like she was hiding away from the camera like she's shy. The tape around her hands give a hidden meaning making people question what has happened. It's like a representation of someone who has lost all of their freedom.
Your eye goes directly to the tape due to it's high contrast so it leads your eye up towards her eye due to her hand pointing it out. I like how it's done this because it shows the main part of the image (her eye) because people always say that the eyes show how someone feels.
The composition of this image is to the right which shows off Joanna even more by being the only thing in the image. If it was in the centre it wouldn't have been as good because there is no symmetry to it.

The techniques I used were an aperture of F/10 and a shutter speed of 1/125 sec. This is because I was still using the lighting in the studio so I did not need a slow shutter speed to let all the light through. I also only wanted the light to get to one side of her face so I didn't need it to reach the other parts of the image.

The colours and contrast are the same as before because I wanted Joanna to stand out.
The textures are also the same, but there is tape now which gives the sense of tightness and stickiness. This is a great way of getting people to feel like they are trapped too.

The next image is like a follow up on the last one with the idea of someone who has lost their freedom. It's like she's reaching out for someone to help her be free, and her facial expression looks like she's desperate.
Because of the narrow depth of field, your eyes get drawn to her hands because it's the only thing that is fully in focus. This is great for this image because it helps build people's imagination of someone reaching out for their help; it gets them emotionally involved.
The composition of this image is to the right so people can see Joanna is the background. It allows the image to get to all the angles of the hands to give a 3D kind of feel to it.The techniques I used were an aperture of F/10 and a shutter speed of 1/125 sec. This is because I wanted it quite narrow to have only her hands in focus, and also so the light was able to reach all of Joanna.
The colours are the same as before because I wanted Joanna to stand out from the black background.
The texture is also the same because it's showing her skin which is a soft touch.
To improve this image I would get it from a different point of view like from above so it's like she's reaching up to heaven or to someone at a higher status than her, or I would get it from below so it's like she's trying to help someone else.

In this photo I really like how she looks ghostly. It's like she's about to attack something; as if the demon is coming out of her. 
Your eyes are drawn to her face because it's the most dramatic part of the image. This is great because it's the main part I want to express to people.
The composition of the image is slightly in the middle to show her arms in their positions. It allows people to see her whole image. I like how it's not completely in the middle because if it was it would look too staged so it would give a fake feel to it.The techniques I used were an aperture of F/29 and a shutter speed of 3 sec. This was so Joanna could create the position and then move out the image so we created a ghostly look.
The colours of the image is white, brown and cream. The white is of a high contrast so it's perfect for representing ghosts because it's the colour we usually associate with ghosts. The other colours are of a low contrast to make the image look soft so it's like you can't touch her. The texture of the image is soft and air-like because of Joanna hardly being there; it's like if you tried to touch her you'd go right through her.
To improve this image I would want the white line on the left side to be removed because it's distracting from Joanna.
I would also want the bottom part of Joanna to be improved by having Joanna properly move out of the picture so you can't see where she has bent over. 

 

Response

After experimenting I wanted to respond to some of my photographers I looked at. I decided to respond to Rankin as I gained more inspiration from him, and I also did this at the weekend so I did not have the studio to create the look Richard had.

The first image I liked was this one of my brother using a torch to create weird faces. I like how the image creates the mood of memories as it reminds me of how people tell ghost stories. It responds to Rankin because he creates weird faces on his models like on the last image I posted of his work, and this image shows my model pulling a weird face.
Your eye leads towards his mouth due to it being lit up. It doesn't follow rule of three because it's in the middle but I feel it's still effective because it makes it look weirder by showing all the different angles.
The techniques I used were an aperture of F/22 and a shutter speed of 4 sec. This is because I did this photo shoot in my room so the lighting was really bad meaning I needed longer to let all the light through the lens, and I also wanted a narrow depth of field to keep my image looking sharp.
The colours in this image are black and nude with them both being at a high contrast.
The mood created in this image is horrow because the facial expression looks scared so it gives me the impression the boy is telling a ghost story.
To improve this image I would remove the light in the background because I find it too distracting, and I also think it will make the face stand out better. I would also re-take this shoot so it wasn't out of focus. As this would be quick to do, I went on Photoshot and removed the layer of the background to replace it so it's completely black. I feel this improved my image by making him stand out, although you can see a bit of his ear missing.

This next image shows a girl with material over her eyes which I did to respond to Rankin. He did loads of photos with models having things over their faces so I tried to do it myself using a lace material.
The composition is in the middle to make the face jump out at you to capture your attention. You get drawn to the lace material because it's at a higher contrast than the brunette hair.
I used an aperture of F/22 and a shutter speed of 1/200 sec because I wanted the detail to be shown by having a narrow depth of field.
The colours in this image are black, white and brunette, with the black being the highest contrast to show it's the main focus.
The mood I get from this image is suspicion as it makes you wonder why the material is over her face. Is she hiding something? Is it to represent emotion or the fact eyes lead to your soul?
The textures in this image include the lace feel of the material and the softness of the hair and skin.
To improve this image I would make the background brighter, and would cover up the distraction of the end of the wall in the bottom left corner. I chose to improve this in Photoshop by using the 'Dodge' tool to make the background lighter. I also though cropping the image may look better so I also did another version of the photo cropped. You can see that the first image didn't look so good because it was streaky, although I feel the second image looks much better.