| Familiar Individual Portrait |

This monochrome triptych of my friend James against a black backdrop instantly communicates his personality to us through the use of clothing and props in the form of his smoke trails. The triptych details the different stages of a smoke exhale from the initial escape to the happiness immediately after, which I think it nice as the shadow cast over his face in the final image draws the attention to his face and his smile – juxtaposing with the almost noir-feel to the rest of the image.

| Self – Portrait |

My self-portrait was heavily inspired by the theatrical work on Jean-Baptiste Mondino who often used props or set dressings to craft a story within his portraits. With this in mind I wanted to create a psychotic story, which is why I used splattered fake blood to represent danger whilst the clean studio backdrop and plain clothing signified a clinical element – almost bringing across the idea of intelligence within the psychotic feel which is amplified by the striking vibrant colour of the blood and the piercing blue of the left eye.

| Unfamiliar Individual Portrait |

For this photograph of a stranger I wanted to capture the awkward and self-conscious feel of Rineke Dijkstra’s beach portraits. I made the man hold pieces of rubbish within the photo and allowed him to attempt to cover up himself with them, as he was obviously uncomfortable in front of a camera. I like how he is framed within the image, and the suburban backdrop blends into his actions and props. Although I wasn’t able to control every element of this image as much as with the others, I’m still pleased with how it turned out, though next time I would try and make the pose of the person more uncomfortable to evoke a stronger reaction when looking at the image.

For my final section of the Portraiture brief, I needed to take a photograph of a stranger, or someone I’m unfamiliar with. This immediately worried me as I have trouble approaching people I don’t know at all which meant that walking up to someone in the street was virtually impossible for me. With this in mind I tried a different approach, during a brief trip home one week I asked around the road where my newly moved-into house is, I stumbled upon a neighbour carrying pieces of rubbish out of their house and down the road. I took the opportunity to ask for a few quick pictures and proceeded to then take my unfamiliar portraits…

 

I was inspired by the work of Rineke Dijkstra, in particular her beach portraits where the subjects are made uncomfortable because of the presence of a camera, as can be seen above, my first few images were the same. This can be seen by the slanted posture and the hands hidden away within the pockets – my subject wasn’t very keen on being photographed but I used this to my advantage. I asked him to stare into the camera, adding another layer of discomfort to the image.

Technical-wise I used my Nikon D3100 camera once again, this time with an ISO of 320 as the grey sky outside provided me with a soft light throughout all of my images. The physical discomfort of the individual eventually rose so much so that I needed something for him to concentrate on within the image. I asked him to hold some items of rubbish which he was taking out and instantly I knew I had the idea for my portrait.

I began by telling him to hold the rubbish in a way that made him a bit more comfortable in front of the camera, he held two large polystyrene blocks awkwardly by his side and in front of his leg, almost shielding himself from the camera’s view. I then took the above image, and asked him to keep the pose so I could get a profile photo in case the full length one wouldn’t work too well. Although I like the construction of the above shot, with the subject centered within the gate I felt like it was too impersonal to be used as a portrait. This is why I chose to move the camera closer and higher to the subject.

I feel like, even though some of the discomfort and awkwardness is gone from the image, the pose and props almost create a realism feel to the image. The man is well-focused (for once with my camera) and nicely framed with a suburban backdrop to match the clothing. I increased the saturation of the colours to eliminate the bland soft lighting and increased the shadows within the image to add depth. The facial expression isn’t cheerful, yet is kind of between discomfort and happiness and strikes a nice balance that resonates throughout the rest of the image.

Jean Baptiste-Mondino’s work also heavily influenced my work for my self-portrait image, as I also wanted to be photographed with a particular prop or distracting element to create a sense of theatricality within the image. I was most inspired by Mondino’s image  of Daniel Craig, featuring small scrapes and blood stains on his hands – giving the image of a recent brutal exchange. The idea of blood appealed to me personally within the portrait, as I’ve always been fascinated with the workings of an unhinged brain, and with this in mind I decided on trying to evoke a psychotic/serial killer-esque portrayal of myself within my self-portrait.

My first attempt at my self-portrait was taken with my own equipment – a Nikon D3100 with a standard kit lens, a piece of equipment that regretfully is very temperamental and half of the time will not focus due to overuse throughout the years. Nevertheless I took the images in front of a black card backing which I had placed against my wall, and illuminated my bedroom with warm lighting to try and evoke the passion of madness within the colour. I purchased fake blood and then began to splatter it across my face in large strokes, giving a messy and unhinged look. At the time of taking the images I thought that another prop was needed, as the blood needed context behind it. It was then that I obtained a small blade (an antique letter opener)  from one of my flatmates and held it up as if it were the cause of the blood.

 

The result wasn’t particularly pleasing. The warm light made everything within the image look soft against the backing, meaning that the blood didn’t stand out as much as I would have wanted. I imported the images into Photoshop and began to increase the contrast and aperture in an attempt to make the image more vivid, but it only highlighted the poor focusing of the equipment. Although the presence of a blade was nice, I felt as though it perhaps wasn’t needed if the blood was more present within the image. I also felt as though light clothing and backing were needed to highlight the vivid colour of the blood and to give off a ‘clinical-clean insanity’ feel rather than a gritty, unhinged feel I was going for here. More Hannibal Lecter and less Jason Vorhees in a way.

I then decided to take the self-portraits within the photography studio, allowing for a clean and professional feel to match the tone of psychotic I was going for – the professional pristine quality of the image juxtaposing with the messy blood stains on my face. Two white studio lights were then placed facing a grey backing in the studio to provide a clean feel behind me, I deliberately wore brighter, grey clothing that would blend in with the background too, which I thought highlighted the main attraction of the image – the blood on my face which juxtaposed the rest of the image colour-wise.

The off-center image above is something I quite like, as I made sure to be staring at something off camera sustaining a sense of dark mystery which, combined with the violent nature and the casual look on my face would make the photo thematically interesting. The shadow across half of my face also brings to mind the psychotic nature I wanted to get across, the stereotype of a ‘split personality’ is almost in full flow here.

This is something that I used to my advantage within the next image, a side-on portrait only depicting the illuminated half of my face. This image features the most clear visuals of the blood, whilst again my posture and monotone expression convey the idea that this may be a usual thing to happen – furthering the enigma behind the portrait which is something I wanted to convey. The way the backing darkens towards the border of these photos is something I like, as it signifies the isolation of the individual within the image. The colours in this photo, whilst slight, remain vibrant, the small blonde streaks in my hair are nicely littered whilst the change in colour on my clothing is also present more than in the previous image.

However, this is the image that I decided to use for my final self-portrait. The closer camera works with the blood-marks and the eye contact with the lens to hopefully make the viewer uncomfortable, whilst the one bloodshot eye evokes a shining example of madness, similar to the eyes of David Bowie. The casual pose combined with the almost ‘shhh’ action over the lips indicates that something bad has happened – again linking to the blood which is an effect I really like. The image seems to tell a very film-like story which is something I really wanted to capture. The image is well centered and the exposure is just short of becoming too much on my face, though this works nice too as it fits the white colour of the background. The only fault in the image is the inability to see the blood that was ran through my hair at the time too, as I feel that would have made the image even better.

 

 

For my familiar individual portrait photo I decided on taking a picture of my friend James. I knew I wanted both my self-portrait and familiar portrait to follow a theatrical theme as seen in the work of Jean-Baptiste Mondino by featuring specified props, decorations or clothing related to the subject of the photo. Therefore to match James’ personality I asked him to dress in suspiciously casual clothing and to bring his electric cigarette machine – the idea of mine being that James would be able to leave a smoke trails within the image, alluding to his personality as a smoker and laid-back individual.

 

Within my room I created a makeshift studio, I purchased black backing paper which I stuck up on my wall and used two bedroom lamps to illuminate James in front of it. One lamp featured white light whilst the other emitted casual warm light from a normal bulb. Because of the small size of my bedroom, I had to work around the limitations of space and stay close to James, though whilst maneuvering the camera I accidentally came across the off-center framing I would go on to use in my final image. I then directed James to create smoke trails in various positions, such as leaking out of his mouth and rising up out of frame. Here I felt the warm light was too harsh, almost intruding on the laid-back feel of the image I wanted to create so I removed the warm light and began to take images with just the white light instead. These gave off a nice, studio-esque effect in my head giving me something to edit in the limited space of time I had to take the images.

 

I increased the contrast of these images to enhance the black background and changed the aperture in post production so that the smoke was more clearly visible. The lack of warm lighting within these images made them appear more clinical, juxtaposing the image James is giving off within them and is something I like. The framing of James partially out of shot to the right is something I like too, I don’t like conventional portraits as they don’t resonate in my head as interesting. The foreign framing is in-keeping with the theatrical theme, though I still wanted to try something different with the images I had taken…

 

The clinical feel of the lighting made me want to match the colour of the image with the colour of the smoke from James’ trails. I desaturated the images and placed the three I thought came out best together, noticing that the three create a full circle of smoking (the initial escape of smoke, the upwards drizzle and the reaction). The smoke, particularly in the second and third images made the images look like they were taken on extra long exposure, providing a ghostly feel which is something I also like – the smoke being akin to something like a soul escaping or fighting its way back in. The shadows cast by the light trace nicely alongside James’ neck, whilst his posture changes between images depending on the smoke in a nice evaluation of natural movement when placed together. It was because of this effect that I decided to make my familiar portrait a triptych piece of these three images placed together, much like the work for the previous project.

My only issue with these images is that for some unknown reason my equipment wouldn’t allow me to fully focus on the subject, though again the slightly hazy, dizzying effect this creates matches the tone of the images perfectly. The patterns on the clothing look particularly hypnotic with this effect and it’s something I really like about this portrait.

 

 

As part of our photography workshop, outside of the studio session we were suggested to try and take photos using natural lighting for our portraiture pieces. With this in mind my group mate Lewis asked me to be the subject of some of his images in front of a black paper background beside a window that was letting in soft, natural light…the photos came out looking better than the previous attempts at self-portraits.

For example I already prefer this image to the rest of the other ones as it doesn’t feature me reluctantly playing a character I wasn’t comfortable with. The person in the picture is actually a representation of myself and it’s something that I quite like. The natural light casts a shadow across half of my face, causing the other half to shine in comparison, just shy of becoming overexposed. It’s an effect I like and even though it’s imperfect, it highlights the bumps of my nose as that is the main feature that casts a shadow on my own face. 

For the remaining images, Lewis moved the camera closer and began to take images that only featured the black backing, making me stand out within the image. He then gave me direction to portray different emotions and trace my eyes in different directions to see what effect they would have on the image. For example above I was asked to simply display happiness whilst below I was told to notice something out of shot to raise an enigma to a viewer, making them wonder what I was in fact looking at.

Whilst I was center of the images that Lewis took, I then grabbed copies of the photos and cropped them to position myself off balance, as seen above. I like the quirky, off-balance feel that it gives the overall image combined with the fact that I am glancing at something unseen. The fabric of my coat is also nicely focused on, with the individual fabric strands remaining noticeable, though slightly at the expense of some detail around my face (though this may be due to the lighting). The black backing gives the image a studio-feel even though it’s all natural, which is something I quite like. The framing of my hair within the photos is also something I quite like, as it added to the half-and-half shadow effect on my face whilst also demonstrating the power of the natural light source – something that I will probably end up using with my unfamiliar individual portraits.

 

The only problem I have with these images is that they don’t follow my theatricality idea of portraits. They lack other points of interest apart from myself and although I like the photos, I think they’re more of a showcase for Lewis’ work instead. Back to the drawing board… (my camera’s nickname is drawing board)