Evaluation

Portraiture Evaluation


Starting this project the first inspiration i found was shown to me by one of my tutors. This was a spread in ID magazine, love edition. After being given the briefe and knowing we had to produce a series of black and white portraits first of all, our tutor showed us this spread which consisted of black and white images of couples. This straight away got me thinking as i had never really considered capturing a portrait of two people. My instant thoughts on portraiture would just be one person. In these images the models or people stood against a white background expressing all different emotions and standing in different stances. This style of portraiture seemed really relaxed and as though it would be fun to create. The magazine spread reminded me very much of the work of Richard Avedon. 

For the first part of the brief we had to use a large format camera with 5x4 film to capture images of strangers. At first i went and captured images of couples swell as individuals after being so inspired by ID Magazine. Something which straight away stood in my way in this project was having the confidence to ask strangers to have their photograph taken. If i were to do the project again i would want to somehow find to confidence to speak to strangers as i would have liked to have captured more images, meaning i would have had more images to chose from. Also as part of the brief we had to hand in one exhibition sized print and three other prints, showing different ranges of depth of field, ranging from up close, mid-length and long distance. The experimentation with depth of field was something which i came to really enjoy. As at first i felt i was only interested in capturing mid-length shots as i felt these images looked best, i actually came to throughly enjoy capturing long length shots capturing the full length of the model or chosen person. Out of the three images handed in for this part of the project the long distance shot i produced was by far my favourite. I felt i had successfully captured my model in focus and positioned her well in the image. I also really liked how the back ground was out of focus, this created a really nice contrast between the setting and the individual. 

For my final exhibition image which was enlarged, i chose to print an image of 3 people stood together however only two of the people are fully in the image. What i felt was most successful about this image and what made me chose it as my final exhibition style print was the way in which i had filled the frame using the people i had selected. I felt the composition of the image was really interesting as the viewers eye is not just drawn to one area of this image. I also think what makes the image so successful is the way in which it is a slightly candid photo. I had asked the people to stand in front of the camera to have their photography taken but managed to capture them whilst they were mid laughing and talking. this gives a really jolly kind of feeling to the image. 

For the next part of the project we had to capture coloured portraits, again of strangers in the street. For this we used the hasselblad camera and coloured film. This part of the project was what i enjoyed most as i found it much easier using the hasselblad as it was more portable to take around the streets. I also really like the quality of the images produced by the hassleblad. For this part i chose to capture individual portraits of people, with the street in the background as appose to being up against any kind of wall or back drop like many of the photographers i have researched. I chose to do so as i feel the setting a person is in can add to the portrait and create more of a story or perception around the person. 

Ive thoroughly enjoyed the fact this entire project has involved using film as this is the format i prefer to work with as appose to digital as i enjoy the process of being able to process, develop and print all your own work. Literally the only aspect i would love to change about this project, being something which i think would have improved my work would have been to have pushed myself more out of my comfort zone in oder to ask more strangers on the street for their portraits so that i would have had more images to chose from.