Images of Inspiration:
Studio Portrait:
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| Photo taken by Joe McNally |
Environmental Portrait:
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| Photo taken by Henrik Knudsen |
Once again, I like the calm, solemn tone of this picture. I feel like the monotonous colours and simple use of the compositional device of lines(in the background) represent the subject's emotion of helplessness. The simple background also emphasises the lack of life which makes the viewer think that there is a history to this picture and a story to be told. I also like the idea of the small light directly above the subject as even though the whole image is lit, most of the light is focused on the center of the picture. In addition, the angle gives the feeling that the viewer is sitting at the table across from this man and is looking at this scene in real life. Lastly, I think that taking a photo in an ordinary place, like a coffee shop, but giving meaning to it through the emotions of the subject is an interesting concept.
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| Photo from Niche |
Maya Angelou // "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are."
I especially like how this photo is black and white because it gives the feeling of sadness. Mostly though, I love how the subject's hand is in front of her face because it's almost like she's unveiling herself to us. I think that it is also clever of the photographer to ensure that there was a gap between the subject's fingers so that her eyes are shown. Therefore, I may use this idea of unmasking in my project. Unlike the previous photos, in this one, the subject is looking directly at the camera which I thought made the viewer feel more exposed like they are being scrutinized. I notice that the lighting is on the right side of the photo which leads the viewer's eyes across the image. I believe that the compositional device used in this photo was fill the frame.
Detailed Plan:
Studio Portrait:
For the studio portraits I have already signed up to take photos on April 17th after school, since I want access to the studio alone so that I can use it more freely. My subject will be my friend, Sille, but I will also have two friends, Ella and Inara, to help me with the lighting. As for the style of the images, I will play around with the theme of identity as I'll take photos of Sille doing what she is passionate about as well as pictures of emotions that she expresses a lot. I want to try taking a few zoomed in portraits of her applying lipstick or mascara because make-up is a big part of her life. I will ensure that she is wearing fashionable clothes as well to portray her love for fashion. In addition, I want to play around with lighting the photo from the back to represent her love for being the center of attention. As for the software component I don't particularly have a technique that I want to use in Photoshop, but I will likely mainly edit the shadows, lighting, blacks, whites, and exposure. If I feel like it's validated, I may also try isolating certain colours.
Environmental Portrait:
For the environmental portraits, I will mostly take photos of my sister, Samara, since she has a wide range of passions that I can capture. I'll take photos in various environments like at the horse stable at the Polo club and in the study room where she paints. If I, for some reason, don't take enough photos, I'll go down to Arab Street and capture various portraits of vendors, waiters, tourists, etc. For most of these photos, I will use props that help represent Samara's passions. Some ideas that I have are taking a close up photo of her face next to her a horse's and her painting next to a window in the study room. Like for the studio portraits, I don't have any post processing techniques in mind but I will probably, again, adjust the exposure, contrast, and vibrance. I could also possibly use the isolating colour tool and gaussian blur tool.
Digital Contact Prints:
Studio Portrait:
Above is the digital contact print for my top ten studio portraits. I chose these photos from the large array of photos that I had taken because I feel like they either showcase certain lighting techniques the best or are taken in a unique manner. In addition, I chose these because I think that they portray my model well as they display my model's personality and passions.
In my print, I have highlighted four of my favourite photos with blue boxes. From these four, my two favourite ones are the photos highlighted on the top row. I especially love these because they portray interesting lighting techniques which set a meaningful tone to the picture. Later on, I will describe these photos further in-depth. As for the other two photos, I especially like the photo in the middle on the bottom row because it freezes the motion of the scarf in the air. I believe that this makes the photo more appealing to look at. In addition, I liked how this sets a playful tone to the picture, exemplifying the model's lively personality. Lastly, I also like the photo on the bottom row on the right because it captures my model laughing. Her face is well lit, as well, as the light is pointed directly on her face but melts into a shadow towards the very edge of her face.
Environmental Portrait:
Above is my digital contact print for my ten best environmental portraits. These photos are my favourite ones from my larger body of photos because of the different angles that I shot them at. For the three distinct environments that you can see, I captured my model from various views depending on the tone that I was trying to portray. In addition, I think that these pictures best capture my model's personality.
There are four pink boxes bordering my favourite four pictures. I especially like the photos on the top row because I like how I captured the relationship between the horse and my model. I also think that these photos are interesting to look at since you don't often see portraits of horses alongside riders. Below, I will further explain one of these horse portraits. As for the second row, I really like the portrait of my model sitting on a table outside. I like this portrait because I think that the lighting is bright and helps highlight my model's face. In addition, I like how this portrait shows the front view of my model as my other portraits are mainly side views. Regarding the last highlighted photo on the bottom row, I like how the light from the window illuminates my model's face. Furthermore, I like the expression of happiness on my model's face as it reflects her joy for drawing.
Final Portraits:
Below are my best portraits both in the studio and out in an environment. For all of the portraits, the first photo is the original picture and the photo directly beneath it is the edited version.
Studio Portraits:
I took this portrait of my friend, Camilla during class time when we were given time to use the studio. This photo show cases the lighting technique of split lighting. It is clear that this technique has been used because when you look at Camilla's face, half of her face is lit while the other half has a shadow. To take this photo, I set up a light at 90 degrees and directed it straight at the left side of Camilla's face. However, this created too much contrast so I further dimmed the light and placed a smaller light further away from Camilla but still directed at the left side of her face. After some trial and error, I finally achieved this lighting.
To edit this, I used multiple techniques, although they were all very subtle. I removed her baby hair, whitened her teeth, darkened her eyes, and removed most of her blemishes. I also used regular editing techniques like adjusting the exposure, shadows, and lighting, as these elements are very important to this specific lighting. I used these post-processing techniques to help send through the idea that Camilla was, in a sense, taking off her mask. I wanted to portray that the shadowed part of her face represented her insecurities while the lighter section represented what she showcased to the world. Therefore, her pulling back her hair from her face helps add to the feeling that she is ready to unveil her "darkness".
I captured this portrait of my friend, Sille after school. I wanted to test out the lighting technique of rim lighting to exemplify Sille's love for being the center of attention. I wanted to contrast this attention-seeking persona with a serious expression to acknowledge her many layers. Furthermore, I asked her to wear fashionable clothes to display her passion for fashion and to once again, contrast her serious expression with what she shows to the world. Going back to the lighting, I achieved the rim lighting by placing a strong tunnel-like light behind Sille directed at her head. I played around with the distance of this light from Sille to see how the size of the light on Sille's hair changed. In addition, I placed a box light in front of her to light her face up. I will explain the post processing techniques below.
This picture shows the editing techniques that I used for this image. The arrows each represent an editing technique and point to where I used these techniques the most. First, I edited the blemishes on Sille's face. I did this by zooming into Sille's face and using the healing tool in Photoshop to erase all of the blemishes that I noticed. After that, I edited the the hair sticking out of place. If you scroll up to the original image, you can see that the rim lighting really emphasises Sille's baby hair and reveals that there actually is a lot of it. Therefore, this process was painstaking as I, once again, used the healing tool to select each of the strands of baby hair. Finally, I edited Sille's eyes. I did so by using the sponge tool to saturate the blueness of her eyes and the doge tool to brighten them. However, I wasn't satisfied with the colour of her eyes. So, using the select and mask tool, I selected both of her eyes and refined the edges of them. Next, I dived into the hue and saturation tool to increase the blueness of her eyes.
Environmental Portraits:
This is a portrait of my sister, Samara, and was taken at Holland Village. I decided to take this photo from the front to make it seem like the viewer was sitting opposite Samara and having a conversation with her. I wanted to give the tone that Samara was bored of being with the viewer and was thinking about other things in her mind. I wanted to do so to represent how Samara loves adventure and how she, therefore, gets bored very easily when sitting in one place with no distraction. To edit this photo, I used the isolating colour tool in Photoshop to separate Samara from the background because the background was very noisy in both shape and colour. Next, I used a red overlay to smooth out her wavy hair as the selection tool made it very bumpy. After that, I used the healing tool to clear out any blemishes, mostly in the forehead region, that I saw.
I captured this photo at the horse stable at the Polo Club just before Samara had her riding lesson. I played around with different angles of her and the horse before settling on this photo. I especially like this photo because I think that it captures Samara's relationship with the horse well, as the expression on Samara's face is loving. In addition, I wanted to give Samara and the horse around the same amount of attention in the photo to demonstrate how Samara regards herself and the horse as equals rather than seeing herself as superior to the horse. In addition, I feel like the warm tones in the image bring out the feeling of comfort and joy. To edit this photo, I mainly used the spot healing tool to remove blemishes from both Samara and the horse, as there were some pieces of dirt on the horse. In addition, I used the sponge tool and dodge tool to adjust the saturation and brightness of Samara's and the horse's eyes.
Final Print Documents:
Below are two documents with my final portraits. These documents reveal how my photos would look if they were printed.
Studio Portrait:
Environmental Portrait:
Personal Reflection:
Overall, I really enjoyed this project and discovered that I thoroughly enjoy taking portraits. However, I did face some difficulties during this project. For instance, in the beginning, understanding how to set up the lights in the studio and connect them to the camera was quite challenging. Specifically, it was difficult to take a photo that used split lighting as there was often too much contrast or my model's face wasn't perfectly divided in half. Through trial and error though, I was able to finally achieve this lighting. As I used the lighting more often, I got more comfortable with it until it was no longer challenging for me to adjust the lighting. A second difficulty that I faced was taking unique environmental portraits as I didn't have too many ideas that I was passionate about. What I didn't capture in real life though, I made up in editing. This is especially the case with the first environmental portrait above as I tried to make the photo more interesting by adding in a black and white element to it. This brings me to my final difficulty which was isolating Samara from the background in this environmental portrait. This proved to be hard because her hair is so wavy and frizzy, but after spending some time on it, I managed to achieve the look that I wanted.
During this project, for the first time I learnt how to take studio portraits, leading me to discover how much I enjoy taking them. In addition, I learnt valuable skills on how to take portraits in the studio. I also learnt a wide array of editing techniques for portraits like whitening teeth, removing blemishes, reducing baby hair, and adjusting the eye colour, which will also be useful in the future. Regarding my action plan, I mostly followed it for my studio portraits, although my idea of taking close-up make up shots didn't work very well. As for my environmental portraits, I followed my action plan quite well but didn't end up using as many props as I wanted to nor did I take as many photos as I had thought I would.
All in all, this project helped me enhance both my photography skills and Photoshop skills, both of which will help me as I carry on taking photographs in the future.
Detailed Plan:
Studio Portrait:
For the studio portraits I have already signed up to take photos on April 17th after school, since I want access to the studio alone so that I can use it more freely. My subject will be my friend, Sille, but I will also have two friends, Ella and Inara, to help me with the lighting. As for the style of the images, I will play around with the theme of identity as I'll take photos of Sille doing what she is passionate about as well as pictures of emotions that she expresses a lot. I want to try taking a few zoomed in portraits of her applying lipstick or mascara because make-up is a big part of her life. I will ensure that she is wearing fashionable clothes as well to portray her love for fashion. In addition, I want to play around with lighting the photo from the back to represent her love for being the center of attention. As for the software component I don't particularly have a technique that I want to use in Photoshop, but I will likely mainly edit the shadows, lighting, blacks, whites, and exposure. If I feel like it's validated, I may also try isolating certain colours.
Environmental Portrait:
For the environmental portraits, I will mostly take photos of my sister, Samara, since she has a wide range of passions that I can capture. I'll take photos in various environments like at the horse stable at the Polo club and in the study room where she paints. If I, for some reason, don't take enough photos, I'll go down to Arab Street and capture various portraits of vendors, waiters, tourists, etc. For most of these photos, I will use props that help represent Samara's passions. Some ideas that I have are taking a close up photo of her face next to her a horse's and her painting next to a window in the study room. Like for the studio portraits, I don't have any post processing techniques in mind but I will probably, again, adjust the exposure, contrast, and vibrance. I could also possibly use the isolating colour tool and gaussian blur tool.
Digital Contact Prints:
Studio Portrait:
Above is the digital contact print for my top ten studio portraits. I chose these photos from the large array of photos that I had taken because I feel like they either showcase certain lighting techniques the best or are taken in a unique manner. In addition, I chose these because I think that they portray my model well as they display my model's personality and passions.
In my print, I have highlighted four of my favourite photos with blue boxes. From these four, my two favourite ones are the photos highlighted on the top row. I especially love these because they portray interesting lighting techniques which set a meaningful tone to the picture. Later on, I will describe these photos further in-depth. As for the other two photos, I especially like the photo in the middle on the bottom row because it freezes the motion of the scarf in the air. I believe that this makes the photo more appealing to look at. In addition, I liked how this sets a playful tone to the picture, exemplifying the model's lively personality. Lastly, I also like the photo on the bottom row on the right because it captures my model laughing. Her face is well lit, as well, as the light is pointed directly on her face but melts into a shadow towards the very edge of her face.
Environmental Portrait:
There are four pink boxes bordering my favourite four pictures. I especially like the photos on the top row because I like how I captured the relationship between the horse and my model. I also think that these photos are interesting to look at since you don't often see portraits of horses alongside riders. Below, I will further explain one of these horse portraits. As for the second row, I really like the portrait of my model sitting on a table outside. I like this portrait because I think that the lighting is bright and helps highlight my model's face. In addition, I like how this portrait shows the front view of my model as my other portraits are mainly side views. Regarding the last highlighted photo on the bottom row, I like how the light from the window illuminates my model's face. Furthermore, I like the expression of happiness on my model's face as it reflects her joy for drawing.
Final Portraits:
Below are my best portraits both in the studio and out in an environment. For all of the portraits, the first photo is the original picture and the photo directly beneath it is the edited version.
Studio Portraits:
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| Divided. 30/4/2019. Nikon D3400. |
I took this portrait of my friend, Camilla during class time when we were given time to use the studio. This photo show cases the lighting technique of split lighting. It is clear that this technique has been used because when you look at Camilla's face, half of her face is lit while the other half has a shadow. To take this photo, I set up a light at 90 degrees and directed it straight at the left side of Camilla's face. However, this created too much contrast so I further dimmed the light and placed a smaller light further away from Camilla but still directed at the left side of her face. After some trial and error, I finally achieved this lighting.
To edit this, I used multiple techniques, although they were all very subtle. I removed her baby hair, whitened her teeth, darkened her eyes, and removed most of her blemishes. I also used regular editing techniques like adjusting the exposure, shadows, and lighting, as these elements are very important to this specific lighting. I used these post-processing techniques to help send through the idea that Camilla was, in a sense, taking off her mask. I wanted to portray that the shadowed part of her face represented her insecurities while the lighter section represented what she showcased to the world. Therefore, her pulling back her hair from her face helps add to the feeling that she is ready to unveil her "darkness".
 |
| Illumination. 24/4/2019. Nikon D3400. |
I captured this portrait of my friend, Sille after school. I wanted to test out the lighting technique of rim lighting to exemplify Sille's love for being the center of attention. I wanted to contrast this attention-seeking persona with a serious expression to acknowledge her many layers. Furthermore, I asked her to wear fashionable clothes to display her passion for fashion and to once again, contrast her serious expression with what she shows to the world. Going back to the lighting, I achieved the rim lighting by placing a strong tunnel-like light behind Sille directed at her head. I played around with the distance of this light from Sille to see how the size of the light on Sille's hair changed. In addition, I placed a box light in front of her to light her face up. I will explain the post processing techniques below.
Environmental Portraits:
 |
| Focus. 30/4/2019. D3400 |
This is a portrait of my sister, Samara, and was taken at Holland Village. I decided to take this photo from the front to make it seem like the viewer was sitting opposite Samara and having a conversation with her. I wanted to give the tone that Samara was bored of being with the viewer and was thinking about other things in her mind. I wanted to do so to represent how Samara loves adventure and how she, therefore, gets bored very easily when sitting in one place with no distraction. To edit this photo, I used the isolating colour tool in Photoshop to separate Samara from the background because the background was very noisy in both shape and colour. Next, I used a red overlay to smooth out her wavy hair as the selection tool made it very bumpy. After that, I used the healing tool to clear out any blemishes, mostly in the forehead region, that I saw.
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| Galloping. 28/4/2019. D3400 |
Final Print Documents:
Below are two documents with my final portraits. These documents reveal how my photos would look if they were printed.
Studio Portrait:
Environmental Portrait:
Personal Reflection:
Overall, I really enjoyed this project and discovered that I thoroughly enjoy taking portraits. However, I did face some difficulties during this project. For instance, in the beginning, understanding how to set up the lights in the studio and connect them to the camera was quite challenging. Specifically, it was difficult to take a photo that used split lighting as there was often too much contrast or my model's face wasn't perfectly divided in half. Through trial and error though, I was able to finally achieve this lighting. As I used the lighting more often, I got more comfortable with it until it was no longer challenging for me to adjust the lighting. A second difficulty that I faced was taking unique environmental portraits as I didn't have too many ideas that I was passionate about. What I didn't capture in real life though, I made up in editing. This is especially the case with the first environmental portrait above as I tried to make the photo more interesting by adding in a black and white element to it. This brings me to my final difficulty which was isolating Samara from the background in this environmental portrait. This proved to be hard because her hair is so wavy and frizzy, but after spending some time on it, I managed to achieve the look that I wanted.
During this project, for the first time I learnt how to take studio portraits, leading me to discover how much I enjoy taking them. In addition, I learnt valuable skills on how to take portraits in the studio. I also learnt a wide array of editing techniques for portraits like whitening teeth, removing blemishes, reducing baby hair, and adjusting the eye colour, which will also be useful in the future. Regarding my action plan, I mostly followed it for my studio portraits, although my idea of taking close-up make up shots didn't work very well. As for my environmental portraits, I followed my action plan quite well but didn't end up using as many props as I wanted to nor did I take as many photos as I had thought I would.
All in all, this project helped me enhance both my photography skills and Photoshop skills, both of which will help me as I carry on taking photographs in the future.
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