1st Portraiture Photo Shoot

This evening I took some photographs of my mum who is retelling me the story of giving birth to my brother. It was a stressful time as my brother went into distress and my mother felt very ill, however in the photo's immediately afterwards she is shown smiling with my dad into the camera in one, and alone holding my brother in the other. I booked out the Nikon D7000 and a flash gun, and considered booking out a portable lighting kit, but decided against this as I did not wish to make the whole process to formal. I wanted my mum to really get into describing the truth of her memories. Here are some unedited photo's from the shoot:




I asked my mum to hold the photographs up at face level and then asked her questions about the traumatic experience. I have heard snippets of this story before and so partly knew what to expect. My mum described the ordeal as an "out of body experience" and said she was terrified as many surgeons entered the room in scrubs and were rushing around. I am not fully happy with the positioning of this photo. My idea was to take from further back, to incorporate some contextual background, however I wanted to keep the camera level and so placed in on the table, but certain objects got in the way. I should have perhaps gotten out a tripod.

I like this photo as it is quite comical, due to the moment at which it has been captured and the presumption that my mum is about to swear, which she did when describing the pain. However, the positioning of this photograph is all wrong as I have cut off her head and the photographs. I wanted the photo's to be slightly blurrier to highlight the importance of the current emotion, but was frustrated by the slight glare on these photo's and by the lighting of the room in general as it wasn't very dramatic.

I experimented by turning on a lamp to the side of my mum and placing a white polystyrene surface next to her to counteract the amount of light from the key light. The white wall in the background acted as a "backlight" of sorts, thus creating an albeit simplistic 3 point lighting system. However the light was quite orange as you can see from the photo's below.

In this photograph I tried to effect dramatic lighting by dimming the lights and using the full light the key light. As you can tell it wasn't the best idea as the photographs are not visible and the shadows are very over the top.

I like the expression of my mum's face in the 2 photographs above as they are subtle and not over the top as some of the others are in this series. I feel they sum up the story my mum has relayed to me well. The things I do not like are the dark lighting and the fact that the focus has shifted to my mums hands holding the photographs rather than her face, whereas I wanted her face to be in focus as it symbolises the reality over the false.

Out of all of the photographs that I took today, this is my favourite. It is a little to orange and

the photographs slightly glared/in the way, however, despite all of this my mum and I feel that her facial expression is the most concurrent with how she felt at the time. If you stare at it you can see bits of all different emotions. On the right hand side her mouth curves up slightly portraying a half smile where as on the other side it curves down. Her eyes, although somewhat engaging with the viewer, seem to look past us into a different time or memory. I think it is one of the more visually complex photographs of the series and have used photoshop to edit it in different ways to make it even more so. Here are a few examples:

In this photograph I have muted the colours in terms of vibrance and saturation. I have also heightened the shadows to give the photo slightly more light, as well as to bring out the detail and lines in my mothers skin which I find really interesting. I have also altered the clarity and contrast to make the photo sharper and darker.

I personally prefer this version better as the orange lighting has been eliminated and thus I think it is more aesthetically pleasing. I also like how it could come across as more truthful as this aesthetic is synonymous with truth, evidence and reality.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Update: 26/04/2013

I was not aware of the different types of shooting until recently and unfortunately did not shoot these photo's in camera RAW and so they are compressed lower quality images that they should be. Since then I have been photographing in RAW uncompressed files and have been attaining higher quality photographs. However, I am still drawn to the photograph which I have chosen in this section and hope to use edit it effectively and use it in my project.

Photography week 9 - The Studio

On Fridays lesson we shot in the studio using highly technical equipment. I made the following notes on my mobile along with photographs to trigger certain memories for when I next use studio lighting.

General Memory Notes

• 50mm lens = wide, 80mm = standard. 

• There are little nobs on pro tripod to drop it down low. Two handles - one for tilt and pan. Can turn it onto its side into portrait mode. The metal plate that holds camera has an arrow with 'lens' underneath - point it to lens on camera. 
• Barn doors to clip on to lights. Make light directional. Also there are floor mounts for back lights (in 3 point lighting system) to twist onto! 

• Must use stairs to put lights up and use metal contraption to twist light on. Must use 'lanyards' too twist onto light - stops it from dropping if metal contraption fails. 
• Snoot = focus hard light! Directional. Honey comb filter diffuses light even more! Need clips and clamps. Examples below (snoot left, honeycomb right)

• Lighting table can be used for still life shots in the studio. 
• There are also Light tents for product shots. 

• Look at photo above of Summer with histogram - Tall white sections either side reflects the white background of shot - darker part = clothes. 

• Turn all lights out apart from back light and meter white background/reflective surface for a reflected reading as Paul is seen doing in the photo above. If it meters as f. 8 then background will be mid grey. (Concurrent with The zone system shades of light - either side of mid grey) 3 stops brighter = white. We are shooting over all at f. 8 and so we should make the background 2. 5 Fstops lighter (3 may be too strong and give Summer- the subject- a halo) 
• 2.5 f stops above f. 8 = 16.5. Put soft boxes over lights (seen in photo's above). 

• Screen on studio lights (seen above) merely represents flash power and not f.stops. We just need to know that flash power goes up and down to match the f stop that you set for the camera, from the light meter reading you got from the persons nose. 

V & A Museum Field Trip

We went to the V&A Museum and attended three exhibitions including A History of Photography (Room 100), Light from the Middle East: New Photography and an exhibition on British Photography. I have added some photographs and descriptions below which I feel are in some way relevant to my project.


Documentary Photography: A History of Photography

Paul Martin's photography deals with surveillance and reality as my first project did. I like that the simplicity of this photograph and low quality, as it shows that the meaning and representations or connotations in photographs are of greater importance than the aesthetic quality.

I love the personalities displayed in the photo's below and the respective eye-lines of the crowd of people looking slightly to the right of the camera, suggesting that there is life and action beyond the contextual frame of the photograph -adding further dimensions and thus reality to the picture. I like the different relationships that can be inferred from expressions and body language between the blonde cross legged woman, the man and the lady sitting next to him, as well as the couple to the right of them. The fact that the subjects attention are diverted by something else other than the camera also allows for more naturalistic reactions. In my project I hope to talk to my subjects and create a relaxed atmosphere, like a conversation, thus making the subjects almost forget that they are being photographed and help them to relive their memory more realistically. 

I really liked this photograph due to the neutral or 'blank expression' (referred to by David Blake) of the young boy. There seems to be emotion present but perhaps it is more due to the viewers projection onto this blank canvas. This is what Roland Barthes would term a 'punctum', a photograph which incites personal and emotional engagement between the subject and the viewer, as opposed to the 'studium' which portrays more of a contextual/cultural or linguistic understanding. I really hope to achieve something like this in my project, as a neutral expression would work at a parallel to the performed or non-naturalistic elements in the past photograph that my subject holds up. In saying this, I do not wish to direct the outcome of the subjects expression but hope that it comes naturally from their reliving of their memory. 

Henri Cartier-Bresson is an important person to include as he underlines the harmonic moment when a significant act or emotion is aesthetically pleasing. This is something which is greatly factored into my project as I have to capture a moment of realistic emotion from memory recall, to contrast against the performed emotions of the past photograph. In the image below I personally believe that the 'decisive moment' lays within the simultaneous stretching movements of the 3 women in the background, matched with the pulling motion of the women in the forefront. I also like the way that the rugs merge with the landscape in this photograph.

Eugene Atget's approach to photography was as an objective documenter. although it is debatable as to whether there is such thing as this, as reality and truth is a subjective notion, and a photograph is always to some extent subjective even in terms of the camera used to document a situation or the location of the photograph. However, I do wish to be somewhat impartial in my project, like Atget, by allowing the subjects to relive their memories with as little input from me as possible. I will ask questions to encourage the memory but aim to photograph the outcomes of this neutrally.

Documentary: Light from the Middle East: New Photography

This exhibition really gave me food for thought in terms of my project. It dealt with similar themes such as the reliability of the photography discourse and the photograph as memento and evidence.

The photograph below is an example of Photojournalism during the Iranian revolution. It serves to undermine the authority and power of photographic representations/connotations as the photograph of The Shah is burnt as to symbolise a challenge to political and social power structures. This made me question the power that the photograph asserts in terms of memory, and the extent to which highlighting a specific moment affects the reality of the memory on the whole. 

Portraiture: Light from the Middle East: New Photography

This photograph, taken by Jean Pascal Sebah for Thomas Cook is a classic example of documenting The Other. Wells writes that "images of 'the other' reestablished the West as powerful and progressive by comparison." and I feel that this photograph relates to this sentiment and the going away and "bringing back" of photographs of strangers or the unfamiliar, especially due to the travel context. The different representations in this photo serve to provide the Western public with information on the 'types' of people that inhabit Middle East, and as this is an advertising document these 'types' could have been presented as intriguing in their different culture and clothing etc. The elements which David Bate refers to in Photography: The Key Concepts, with regards to Portraiture (i.e. Pose, Face, Background Clothes) are all features which come to play in these photographs and are useful in helping me consider similar elements within my project.

These photographs, taken by Newsha Tavakolian, entitled Mothers of Martyrs, in 2006, display elderly Iranian Women whose sons died decades ago during the Iran/Iraq War. The mothers have aged whilst their sons remain immortal in the framed photograph. The aesthetics of these images are very similar to how I want my project to look; utilising the same idea of a photograph within a photograph. I was worried that including a contextualised background would detract from the memory revival in my project but I feel that it works in this series as we can establish inferred meanings of the photograph better. Perhaps including a background, as opposed to a blank wall, would portray the personality of my subject and give greater depth to the emotion on their face. The expressions on these woman's faces are also quite neutral which is an element which I really like.

 Things I took from these exhibitions:
I was surprised to find that there was such a wide variety of photography and that the discourse encompasses elements which I wouldn't necessarily have deemed to be part of the photographic discourse beforehand. For example, the superimposed blanked out and censored faces of those at private parties in Iran, created by Amirali Ghasemi (2005, Party - below) portray cartoon like images which are hard to distinguish as deriving from a photograph. I had a similar idea to do with identity and photography which I created a test of at the beginning of my project, which can be found in this section of my blog:) However, I disregarded this as I felt it wasn't aesthetically pleasing and felt was straying from the photographic genre into the realms of something completely different. I have now come to understand that photographs are highly ambiguous and their importance lays in what they symbolise rather than their consistency with certain photographic conventions. I also learned that photography can come in many different forms such us on copper plates (early photography) through to graphically projected, video like footage. 

Amirali Ghasemi

 Jowhara AlSaud, 2008 Out of Line

Taraneh Hemami 2006 Most Wanted
Mugshots dowloaded from US government website after 9/11. Digitally manipulates faces through blurring/scratching so that they are indistinguishable. Information which can be gleaned reflect simplistic stereotypes of Muslims by the West (headscarves)

My depiction of facial expression elimination.

My Revised Idea

I have been considering my idea and have decided to change it slightly as I am worried that my photographs are not fixed to one genre (i.e. documentary or portraiture) and converge between the two. I also worry that my idea is somewhat contradictory as I aim to be as objective as I can in photographing, but I will always affect the photograph due to my presence as well as the fact that the subjects whom I approach are likely to be standoffish or awkward as they don't know me, and thus are going to act nervously in front of the camera in whatever situation thus undermining the objectivity and fairness of the practice. Graham Clarke supports this when he writes in The Photograph that "we must remember that the photograph is itself the product of a photographer. It is always the reflection of a specific point of view, be it aesthetic, polemical, political, or ideological. One never ‘takes’ a photograph in any passive sense. To ‘take’ it is active. The photographer imposes, steals, re-creates the scene/seen according to a cultural discourse.” (p.29, 1997) 

I had originally wanted to incorporate the idea of memory reality into my project but could not find the best way to execute this however I have come up with a way to combine the concept of performed/unnaturalistic behaviour with memory reality. I intend to photograph people in the portraiture style, with them holding up a photograph of themselves. In this photo they will be 'acting' in a certain way and portraying a certain emotion i.e. happiness/sadness, yet this 'act' will be a false representation of their true feelings at the time. I will interview them and ask them to recount the true memory that is in their mind, in a bid to recreate the true emotions felt at the time, in their facial expressions; thus comparing the false representation in the photograph taken at the time, with the real feeling. This provides the same rhetoric of Photographic reliability and behavourial practices with regards the camera and so still ties in with my idea for the 30% project.

This image from the website 500px, by Eolo Perfido, entitled Photo "Stories"  inspired me to question others memories:

I really like the neutral muted colours in this photograph, as they do not detract from the punctum/significance of the mans captivating stare. I feel that I may try to adopt this aesthetic in my photographs, or perhaps black and white aesthetics to signify truth. I also like the sharpness and heightened clarity of the lines etched into the mans skin which are representative of time in themselves. I may wish to adopt this in my photography to highlight how time has passed but suggest that the memories reenacted, and feelings that come with them, are still as present and significant as they were at the time. I think that I want my subjects to hold their photographs closer to their faces, to make the comparison between expressions clear within the photograph. I also really like the earnest and neutral facial expression adopted by this man, and his Intra-Diegetic gaze with the viewer, as it communicates ambiguous messages and provides  a basis for discussion with regards the mans emotion. I hope to capture subtle flickers of emotion and neutral expressions like this at adjuncts to the false emotions displayed in the photograph within the photograph. 

I also want to make the project more personal to myself and those that surround me as I will have more of emotional engagement with them. With the help of my subjects I have sourced photographs for them to talk about. First of all my mother will describe the traumatic birth of my brother, accompanied by a photograph of her smiling and holding him following the birth - thus using the smile to mask the pain and stress she felt at the time. My boyfriend will describe a time in his life when he was very unhappy and lost a lot of weight/struggled to eat, matched with a photograph of him on holiday on a beach in Ireland with his sister, smiling into the camera, again highlighting direalities. Lastly, my brother will talk about when he used to visit my nan in London and play in her garden: a contrasting happy memory from the others, yet in the photo he is frowning in my nan's back garden with his arms folded. He recalls that he did this following the direction for him to "Smile!!!" when my mum snapped him. I have booked out the Nikon D7000 and flash gun and hope to photograph my mother against the white walls of our living room on the 24th of March (Next week) I may also take some photo's which placate her in her personal sphere, however I wish for the main focus and attention to be on her expression and the photograph rather than the background information.

Weeks 6 - 8 Lesson Notes and Exercises - Landscape

15/02/13
In this lesson we outlined the conventions of Landscape Photography in terms of the industries that use it and the codes factored into this style of photography. (i.e. often to do with our [humans] coexistence within landscapes and organisation of space)

Akin to Portraiture Photography, Landscape derives from paintings, however, according to John Ruskin, the two differ greatly as he posits that the photograph cannot remake the picturesque and romanticised elements of  paintings, due to its crude and mechanical style and the fact that it is merely a recording. This suggests that the photograph is perhaps too objective to portray a landscape as picturesque as it can supposedly only portray the truth, however, Ruskin fails to realise the part of the photographer as someone who has carefully considered ideologies thus forming subjective representations. The idea of projection is also featured in Landscape Photography (as well as Portraiture) as we, as the viewers of the photography, input our own emotions and opinions into the landscape presented to us. Roger Fenton describes a type of Landscape Photography in which an idealistic landscape photograph of a suburban region/countryside is taken back to those in the city and portrayed as real. He also describes the man made landscapes that often feature in photographs, that are constructed to appear as natural and realistic. The idea of bringing something back to a separate audience is something that comes into play in Documentary Photography in terms of the idea of The Other.

Gardening is an important factor in Landscape Photography as it also deals with the organisation of scenery and land, which is then documented by photographers. Gardening was first inspired, however, by artists picturesque visions in paintings thus outlining the continuous reproduction of ideologies.

The idea of Pictorialism also comes to play in this genre of photography, which is adopted by photographers such as Timothy H O'Sullivan and Edward Weston, and involves being removed from factoring in ideologies and opinions into a photograph and taking an objective standpoint in which the photographer merely documents the landscapes presented to them. Many argue that it isn't possible to record in this way as choices are always made about what to document, even if subconsciously. 

Thus the 3 style of landscape photography include:

• Picturesque - evokes positivity/comfort (e.g. beauty spots/perfect views featured in post cards for example)
• Sublime - creates discomfort/unease 
• Pictorialism - simple documentation

Edward Weston deals with still life and landscapes, and created the F64 group (i.e. f stop with a large depth of field = less subjective) who photographs in a pictorialistic style.

I will explore Landscape Photographers further in the Research section of my blog:

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7154974702662515897#editor/target=post;postID=5888632896559593040

We also learned about Exposure in this lesson, and dealing with brightness ranges on the D7000, with the use of artificial lighting. The brightness range in a camera such as the D7000 can only partially capture the brightness that the human eye can see, and so, for example, on a sunny day, shadows will be extreme. To even this out an artificial light must be utilised, thus evening out the the brightness to something that appears more realistic to the eye. 

We also learned about the direction and diffusion of light. The more direct, the harsher the light, the larger the shadows and thus the more unrealistic the photograph (i.e. flash gun) To combat this a softer light could be used or a surface that softens the light, such as a filter. Also the light source could be placed further away, as there would be more fall off from the light as it travels a further distance.

We tried to artificially light a dark room with a bright window in this lesson. We did this by taking a light reading from the main light source (i.e. zooming into the natural light from outside) and then zooming out, ignoring the change in the light meter on the camera, and taking a photo with the flash gun on. This brought up the dark room to a brighter and more realistic range, whilst ensuring that the window view was still visible and not darkened/blacked out, as it would have been, had we not taken the previous light reading from outside. Therefore everything in the photograph is realistic.

We also learned how to experiment with flash and photography, by lowering the shutter speed on the camera and leaving the aperture open for a longer time, in order to be able to draw with light. Myself and a friend tried this out, using the flash on my phone. These are the results...

In Weeks 7 & 8 we learned how to set-up and use the Bowen Portable Lighting Kit and Flash Gun effectively. The following are my notes from this lesson

• The process of altering the brightness range by light metering from brighter source to artificially light an area is called shooting at Parrity.
• Altering the exposure to maintain the shadows and brightness. Using a flash gun or artificial light to light the shadows, thus effecting more of a realistic representation.
• When using auto-focus you should half press the button to focus on face/place. You can move the camera physically and face/place is still remembered when you press the capture button fully.
• When photographing on a bright sunny day, to get a consistent light reading, find a mid-grey surface (i.e. concrete floor) to get a consistent reading throughout the day.
• M = Manual (set shutter speed and aperture manually), A = Aperture Priority (you can control aperture and D.O.F manually, camera controls shutter speed for correct exposure) S = Shutter Priority (you can control shutter speed, camera controls aperture) P = Auto (but can control ISO manually)
• When you press the display button on the Nikon D7000 (up button) Histogram representations of the photograph are portrayed. If the white in the histogram is more centered it means a more balanced photograph in terms of exposure/brightness
• On flash gun make sure mode is set to TTL (Through The Lens) and when particularly bright set to ( ) icon on the right hand side of the flash unit.

[Bowens Portable Lighting Kit]

________________________________________________________________________

• Bowens Portable Flash Kit - uses full stops whereas NikonD7000, for example, uses 1/3 stops. You must decide what aperture and shutter speed you wish to use on the NikonD7000 and use the handheld light meter to measure the light intensity at the position where the subject is sat in the studio set up, and change it accordingly via the dial on the flash light. You must match up the 1/3 stops on the Nikon with the full stops of the flash, and can refer to the Making Sense of F-Stops diagram below to do this. The decimal points between the full stops increase following the pattern of 3,6 and 9 so, for example, using a 1/3 stop of 3.2 on the Nikon would mean a full stop of 2.8.3 on the portable flash light.
• Tip: Capture photographs further back = more room to crop later on.
• Choose aperture for Depth of Field - all cameras have a preview button on front of camera next to lens. Look through viewfinder to see preview of depth of field that you have chosen.
• Can put camera in portrait angle on tripod. Twist and tighten it accordingly.

• Take the first meter reading from main light (Key Light) on right hand side of person. You can place the main light front-on to achieve a more flattering effect called the butterfly light. This creates shadows either side of the face and thins it out, and is often used in fashion photography.  The more to the right that the Key Light is placed, the more dramatic the shot becomes due to the heightened shadows and highlights.
• The 2nd light, on left, (Fill Light) is used to even up the shadows created by the Key Light. 
• The 3rd light (Back Light /Hair Light - to wall or back of persons head/hair) If you turn this up more than the key light, it becomes a back light shot. The Fill and Back Light do not necessarily have to be professional studio lights; could be flash guns, windows, polystyrene, white sheet/surfaces to reflect the light from the Key Light.
• Place light meter in front of subjects nose when taking the first light reading from the Key Light.
• You must 'dump' flash when turning the dial down. Just flash button on light before turning the dial down to save battery/power.
• Must connect lead of the hand held light meter to the flash
• Light meter the Fill Light at a lower intensity than Key Light e.g. if Key Light is f stop 5.6 and wanted to make 2nd light one full stop lower you would set it at f.4 (consult Making Sense of F Stops diagram)
• Following on from this, you must change the aperture on the camera because there's more light in the room. You should take another light meter reading from subjects nose when both lights flash, before you change the camera aperture. 
• Press 'cell' button on back of Key Light so that it detects Fill Light flash, when it goes off, without having to be connected to camera (Fill light should be connected by lead). 
• When metering light from a window/bright space change mode on light meter to sunshine button. Can change shutter speed to make background/window brighter.
• Make sure mode on hand held light meter is a flash icon and the letter 'c' 

These are the results from our experimentation with the Bowens Lighting Kit:








We didn't use a back light for this shot, but I feel that this draws focus to the subject.

We were shooting at parity in this photograph as there is a window in the background. Thus there isn't need for a back light. I feel this photograph could benefit from a change it white balance to bring out the colours a tad more.

This information is useful for my project as I am taking portraiture photographs, however, I am still unsure as to whether I will use a formal studio lighting kit or just a flash gun. The reason being that I aim to interview my participants in a sense, with regards their memories and as my project is concerned with memory truth, I fear that a highly formal nature to shooting may evoke a false recital of these memories as the subject are likely to be highly aware of the camera, and the staged nature which may in turn evoke a tense or uncomfortable atmosphere. This is all very good knowledge to have, however, as I will be able to hopefully use it in future projects.