Friday 8 March 2013

People and Place - Research - Other photographers

My reading has taken me to various books from the reading list, some of which I have struggled to get hold of as local library copies have been lost over the years!  I have purchased a couple and I am currently looking at magazines, newspapers etc to see how people have been posed in various printed material.
 
A few posing and lighting techniques that I have taken from magazines
 
Torso and full body poses
 
Torso with arms

Relatively close face crop
 
Lighting – side lights, showing half face/body in shadow
 
 
another technique is having some empty space on the left of the image with the subject on the right, a closer crop of this would have improved this image, by having the eye closest to the camera on the dividing line (rule of 3rds)!
 
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A lot of people associate portrait photography with women and young women, because those are the images that are most likely to be seen on advertising campaigns within the media.  Budding photographers lean towards using this strategy to build their portfolio of beautiful woman, however by doing so, they ignore other possibilities, such as young children and older subjects.
 
Julia Margaret Cameron (a British Photographer from the Isle of Wight - 1815–1879) was frowned upon for her style of photography in her time, however, the image she took of Sir John Herschel (1867) was characteristic of her style, the Scientist had freshly washed hair and was drapped in black - a simplistic image emerging from the dark, with great side lighting to one side capturing the texture of his weathered skin, whilst leaving half the face in shadow!
 
 
 [Online image] http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/L.1997.84.6 [accessed on 08-03-13]