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Final Evaluation 458 Studio Portraiture

NCL 458 Studio Portraiture

Final Evaluation;

 Module 458 Studio Portraiture provides the opportunity to explore and learn more about studio portraiture, understanding the relevance to the photographic industry. Resulting in producing professional, high quality photographs. It is split up in two parts.

Part one is to research thoroughly, choose a painting you want to recreate in the studio, being as accurate as possible.

Part two is to reshoot with the same model, setting etc, adding a twist to it, e.g. subject taking a selfie, subject painting themselves, wearing different clothes etc.

In summary, from researching paintings and artists, gathering information, practice shooting, and brainstorming the twist, my two final photographs would be a recreation of an painting by Emil Nolde “Junges Friesenmädches”.

This particular painting does not have a lot of background around it to support it, all I could find was the basics; who painted it, the price and the girl in the painting was Frisian. This was unfortunate as the painting drew me in when researching which painting I wanted to recreate. The bright colours, the posing of the subject, the highlight and hollows of her face, overall making the painting pleasant to look at. When researching Nolde, I admired his other work; his paintings were unusual and original. His imagination seemed endless. There have been no recreations of this painting and I wanted to be the first. The perfect model for this would be my Mother; she has the same hair cut, similar facial features and was available to shoot. Therefore, I booked the studio and starting shooting for part one of the module.

Firstly, I purchased similar clothing the girl is wearing in the painting, using blue ribbon for the collar as I looked for a similar blouse and could not find any so I had to improvise using a white tee and ribbon for the same effect. Once she was dressed, I applied her makeup, looking at the painting while doing so to get the face as exact as possible. In the painting, the subject looks like she is wearing blue eyeliner, light brows, dark hollowed cheeks, so I followed that as my guide. Setting up the studio, I asked advice to which lighting would be the most suitable for the recreation, I was told to use a beauty dish facing the subject on the right side, and a soft box facing the left side to lighten everything up as I was not much concerned about the backdrop as I was going to add that in separately. When positioning the model similar to the painting, I began test shooting to see if the lighting was fitting. Half way through the shoot, I drew a blue line down the subject’s temple as the girl in the paiting has one too. This was to experiment with different looks, gathering different imagery to choose from when choosing my final. To conclude, the first shoot went so well, I am proud of the outcome.

As the result from the first shoot, I began part two of this module; the twist. I wanted to pursue the look of the model being painted. The first photo is my hand over the camera; brush facing the model which did not work at all, the brush and hand was blurred and did not look pleasing. So I instructed the model to hold the brush off lens so it looks like another person is paiting her. This result looks amazing, the twist worked well and we shot different positions until I felt like I had enough imagery.

For the backdrop, I took photos of the sky on a clear day to create the same blue/white wash which is seen on the painting, and taking photos of a blue bath bomb just to gather and experiment with more backdrops. The sky photos worked perfectly.

To follow, I looked through all photos, comparing detail to the paiting and finally choosing the final two. I masked out the subject when editing on Photoshop, adding in the backdrop afterwards.

As a result, I am pleased with the outcome; I believe this is the best portrait shoot I have shot as I took in as much detail as possible. It fits with what the module has instructed me to achieve.

To improve, I could have shot more times for a wider range of images to choose from, had more time planning the outfit and finding a blouse similar to which the girl in the painting is wearing.

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458 Studio Portraiture Final Images

Part 1; recreate the painting as much as possible

Part 2: recreate the same painting but add a “twist”

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458 Studio Portraiture

For this module, I researched paintings that have never been recreated before and that I generally like the look of, being authentic as possible. To conclude, I chose this painting by Emil Nolde which is not very popular in the “Art” world. I have a model in mind and want to recreate it as much as I possibly can.

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NCL 410 Digital Skills Acquisition

Second and final video I shot. Edited and shot by myself

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NCL 410 Digital Skills Acquisition // Part 2

Video I shot and edited as part of the 410 module in my college building

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NCL 410 Digital Skills Acquisition

Final evaluation:

 For the first part of this module, we were given the brief to shoot a sports themed studio shoot, including upsizing an object/body part for a humorous look.

In summary, from researching ideas, gathering information/imagery and practice shooting, my final idea would be to shoot a Basketball theme, upsizing the ball.

For my first shoot, I shot with a “Runner” theme as I was siding between this or basketball. My model was a classmate as it was a practice shoot to find out which idea I was gravitating more towards. I set up two coffin soft box lights, directed facing the backdrop, and a beauty dish in front of the subject. I chose the model’s attire; a grey tank top, sprayed with water. I chose the colour grey purposely as it shows the “sweat” marks more when shooting, and earphones as this is what the majority of models wore on the campaigns I researched, such as Nike.

Firstly, I took test shots to see how the lighting looked, and adjusted as it looked too dark and casting a dark shadow behind the subject. Afterwards, the model got dressed with the themes clothing and we began shooting. To conclude, the shoot went well, I got the theme across, several of the photos I can work with. The only problem with this shoot was that there were dead pixels on the images, I checked to solve this problem when shooting. I checked the lens which was clear. However, the camera itself must have been causing this, so when editing a handful of images, I used the Spot Healing tool on Adobe Photoshop to fix this issue.

Secondly, I wanted to change the theme for the second shoot as I wanted to explore more than one theme, having more options for choosing my final image. I chose to use the same lighting, and model. The attire I chose was a basketball jersey and a ball as a prop. When shooting, the first handful of images were still shots, then I instructed the model to move and do ball spin tricks for action shots, so the images aren’t posed, but natural and artificial.  

Overall, this shoot undoubtedly preformed better than the first. There was certainly more poses to do with the prop, and more colour. The ball tricks to capture were difficult to get just right, but I am pleased with the photos I shot as portraiture is not my strongest field in photography.

To follow, I looked and scrutinised each photo of both shoots to choose as my final image. Also thinking about which part of the image I could upsize. I chose an image from the Basketball themed shoot (slide 43 on module), brightened, spot healed, and upsized the image to make sure it fit perfectly with the brief.

As a result, I am pleased with the final image I have chosen. It fits with what the module has asked me to produce, visually pleasing to look at and edited well. Especially since portraiture is not my strongest field in Photography.

To improve, I could shoot and explore further with the lighting, using different soft boxes and lights, as the images when imported on the Mac look a lot darker than they did on the DSLR viewfinder. I could explore more themes; shoot the themes on my class presentation, with different models and clothing choices.

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Red Brick Series from March 17′

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Guardian Online Art Review task

‘A jury has ruled that a real estate developer broke the law by destroying a swath of graffiti art in New York City, in a verdict that could provide legal protections for street artists across the US.’

‘ But in 2013, when Wolkoff decided to demolish the building and replace it with apartments, he whitewashed the graffiti art in the dead of night.’

‘ Graffiti is hot property as art now. And if you’re a property owner who is interested in having graffiti in your courtyard or a mural on your wall or someone who’s going to decorate pieces of your property, the parties can avert a lot of problems by proactively on the front end of the project laying out what their rights and obligations are going to be’

New York graffiti artists triumph over developer who destroyed their work Guardian online

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/nov/09/new-york-graffiti-artist-win-lawsuit-5-pointz

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Final Evaluation of ‘Creative Hat’ shoot,

Final shoot evaluation;

  For my final shoot, I perused a 50/60’s era to recreate the Breakfast at Tiffany’s ensemble. The shoot was successful in some aspects, however, could be improved.

First, I double checked with Christian which lights would be suitable for the ‘Hollywood soft glow’, he advised me to use 3 lights; a beauty dish, and 2 back lights. I have never had experience with working with a beauty dish so this was a challenge in itself to get just right. I chose to shoot with a High Key setup as the majority of Hollywood glamour headshots are shot high key, I wanted the black clothes to stand out against the background, contrasting against each other and wanting the final shot to be in black and white.

After setting the lights and camera up, firstly I found it quite difficult to get familiar with using the Nikon D610, as for the past two years; I have shot with the Nikon D5100. I shot several photos to begin with to test the lighting on the viewfinder and seeing how I can position/frame the model. The lights worked well to emphasise the subjects’ facial features, such as the jawbone and cheekbones.

The creative hat was quite hard to work with as the model had to pose while the teacup and saucer was balanced on her head, so for her to obtain a youthful, elegant pose was difficult. I changed around the accessories, I had the pearl necklace around her neck on the first few shots, then wanted the pearls ‘dripping’ out of the teacup as I thought that would be more interesting. As for the décolletage to be simple and minimalistic with the Tiffany’s necklace on, so the audience would have a better idea of what my idea is about. This visually improved the model’s look.

To photograph different angles, I directed the model to place her hand on the teacup, not as if she was trying to make it stay in place, but to make it look like she is mischievous and playful.

  Final print;

When editing, I wanted to leave her skin as natural as possible; softening the complexion but also leaving flaws, as I want texture. I added the Vignette effect as this was popular in the glamour days. I chose to print matte A3, as I believe matte looks sophisticated and proper when recreating Hollywood Glamour, the shininess of satin paper will distract the photo.

 To improve this shoot, I would;

1. Glue the teacup and saucer on a black plain hair band as it was very time consuming to reposition it every couple of shots.

2. Change the outfit, the black top she was wearing didn’t sit very well at all, I would choose a laced dress or a black polar neck as that is what the woman in that era wore.

3. Take more time styling the hair and makeup; applying demi lashes and wrapping her hair in a beehive. However, as I was limited to a couple hours, I had to work quickly and effectively.

4. Reshoot until I have the desired final photograph.

 Overall, I believe I have done a great job in shooting the model and having the creative hat idea come across to the audience. Portraiture is not my strongest field in photography so I am proud of achieving the final outcome.

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My final photo from the “Creative Hats” brief I have done for uni, with my sister in the shot. For this brief, I wanted to recreate an 1960′s theme, with that, I chose to get inspiration from the classic movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, using th idea of tea as the ‘creative’ hat. 

19.10.17

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