Types of Portraiture- Corporate and Candid

Corporate Portraits

A corporate portrait is associated with a person or peoples' representing a respected position within a working business. The portrait should display a great insight into the person being photographed, what the business is about and also give a great perception to the intended client.

A great example of some powerful political portraits are from Platon's 'Portraits of Power'. A detailed description about the shoot is detailed on the below website;

http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/12/07/091207_audioslideshow_platon

All of Platon's images convey a strong aesthetic, displaying a distinctive use of the large format camera. The high majority of his sitters have been photographed from a low viewpoint thus giving the audience a feel of their authority and power!

When I think of strong portraits from the past my thoughts lure towards the works of August Sander (1876-1964) whose methods of portraiture have been described in a way to document and categorise humanity. I feel that there is a definite cross over between corporate and environmental portraiture within the majority of his images.

Candid Portraits

Are simply portraits of people who are completely unaware that you are taking a photograph of them, I'd say its very much like being a stalker in some weird kind of way, like the papparazi!

A great example of a photographer who is well known for just taking random photographs of people on the streets is Joel Meyerowitz, he greats himself as a street photographer on the below documentary, a very informative insight into his personal hints and tips on how to blend in on the streets and take fantastic street portrait photographs without hopefully the photographed not feeling threatened by your presence -

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://img.youtube.com/vi/5Qjym5uliDw/0.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bestonlinemedia.com/videos/streetphotography/&usg=__xikquSgf3mM8C1IbUabINXrvEyU=&h=360&w=480&sz=13&hl=en&start=6&sig2=L5VIUrqHGyb4XMu82QZ5Ig&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=QyPWDMk2gs7f1M:&tbnh=97&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djoel%2Bmeyerowitz%2Bcandid%2Bportraits%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=0m3wS4aUIIWoOMCijdwH

Types of Portraiture- Fine Art & Environmental Portraits

There are many different types of portraits within photography and within our 'People' brief we are asked to experiment and produce portraits of four different sub genre styles of portraits: Fine Art Portrait, Environmental Portrait, Corporate Portrait and Candid Portraits.

Fine Art Portraits

A fine art portrait is when the photographer is in full control of lighting and directing of the sitter, being able to show his artistic talents through the skilled use of lighting and background conditions of his/her choice. A great example of a fine art portrait photographer is Horst P Horst, whose photographic work still today inspires us up and coming photographers of the future. His mastery of lighting and printing techniques made it possible for him to produce some memorable images which were published by his employer in the magazine 'Vogue'. Although Horst died in 1999 his work will always be remembered as a huge importance within the history of photography.

www.horstphorst.com

Another more modern photographer who takes Fine Art Portraits is the American photographer Jody Ake. Although I say modern he prefers to use a very old style photographic technique, in fact it is actually just short of 150yrs old, invented in 1851 by Frederick Scot Archer and is called the Wet Collodion process. This is where a glass plate is coated in collodion and the plate is then exposed to capture a image whilst wet. Further detailed guidance into the collodion process can be seen on this informative website

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/pointsofview/videos/collodion/index.html

http://www.jodyake.com/portraits.html#l

Ake's portraits are very distinctive due to the old style photographic process that he uses, his prints all have beautiful artistic borders due the way in which the print has been produced from the glass negative. A very old school approach . . . this giving an air of authenticity to his modern day portrait masterpieces.

Environmental Portraits

An environmental portrait is when the photographer considers the surrounding of the sitter to be of equal importance to the person whom is being photographed and quite possibly the most important aspect is defining that person by their surrounding environment. A fine example of a master of environmental portraits is Arnold Newman.

It was in 1942 that Newman had conceptualized the basic philosophy of his future work, "to take pictures of people in their natural surroundings with a little stronger feeling about not just setting it up." In 1946 he worked on assignments for Alexey Brodovitch, and Harper's Bazaar and Life were his major clients. He took some of his most famous portraits at this time, including one of Igor Stravinksy sitting at his piano, which ironically Brodovitch, in one of the most noted gaffes in photo history, rejected.

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/N/newman/newman_articles4.html

Jackson Pollock, Long Island, NY, 1949

Frank Stella, New York, NY, 1967

Portrait of Man Ray, New York, NY, 1960

Marc Chagall, New York, NY, 1942

“We do not take pictures with our cameras, but with our hearts and minds.

-Arnold Newman

Salvador Dali, New York, NY, 1951

Woody Allen, New York, NY, 1996

Alfred Krupp, Essen, Germany, 1963

All of the above images photographed by Arnold Newman were sourced from the internet;

http://www.arnoldnewmanarchive.com/

http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Arnold__Newman/C/

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/85768354/Arnold-Newman-Collection

Another modern photographer who idealizes in taking environmental portraits, mainly of well known public figures and celebrities is Harry Borden,

"As a photographer the qualities that you bring to a portrait are multi-faceted. It is about observing people, composition and light: these are all the things that make a great photograph as well as creating a rapport with the individual" Harry Borden states in an interview with The British Journal of Photography

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=94876

Michael Hutchence 1997

by Harry Borden (b.1965),

gelatin silver photograph

Colour Calibration *WORKSHOP*

Certainly not the easiest of things is understanding about colour space in regards to digital aspects of photography, in fact after today's lecture with Mr Farrington it made me realise just how important 'algebra' actually is in being able to explain the things that most of us throughout our life times will never grasp!

So here is what I believe to be true in what I now know in regards to Colour Space although please bear in mind this will be a very brief explanation as the depth of being able to understand everything in regards to this one subject I feel you'd have to be a specialised expect!

Gamut Diagram - A gamut is the colour field which can be created by a certain digital system, such as DSLRs, scanners and printers.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.firefly-editions.com/firefly/images/gamuts.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.firefly-editions.com/firefly/ffScanningServices.shtml&usg=__oxiZa38mdz2xL-GDYQzzzCUD-Fw=&h=331&w=400&sz=40&hl=en&start=18&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=qvmO1sXmhGBkqM:&tbnh=103&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgamut%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

There are three types of colour space formats which are:

1. sRGB (This colour space type should be used when uploading photographs to the web)
2. Adobe RGB
3. Prophoto RGB (This colour space type should be used for ultimate printing)

To understand the differences in colour quality of the three types of colour spaces in regards to uploading to the web we where asked to photograph our model George setting our DSLRs to capture images in both RAW and J-PEG formats, firstly shooting with colour space sRGB then with colour space Adobe RGB which are the only two options in regards to colour space set ups available on my Canon D50.

We then uploaded our photographs into Lightroom however before importing via 'External Editing' set the settings to view them in both RAW and J-PEG formats.

Then via the use of Adobe Photoshop we saved x2 of the images shot via sRGB as a Prophoto.jpeg and AdobeRGB.jpeg. We saved a further image which was shot via Adobe RGB as a sRGB.jpeg.

Please refer to my flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/43546527@N06/ and view the set titled 'Colour Workshop' to see the differences of colour quality.

I plan to go through this process again after photographing an object showing a vast majority of colours to which the difference will be a little more dramatic, therefore watch this space for further testing within the near future!

Portrait photographer to inspire

Sally Mann

Is a well known American portrait photographer who works solely with a 10x8 large format camera producing fine art photographs mainly of her children, the everyday and the ordinary. After watching a documentary about her work on you-tube

- What remains: The life and work of Sally Mann

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ4PftQZqo0

I feel somewhat connected to the views that she has in regards to her ways of working through her quote "the things that are close to you are the things you can photograph the best . . . . unless you photograph what you love your not going to make good art"

Regardless that Sally Mann's work may now seem old fashioned I see them still as a breath of fresh air from the norm. Beautifully mastered use of the large format camera has given Sally timeless quality pictures of her cherished children to keep an emotional attachment to each of them during many stages of their childhood to which every mother would want to hold onto. The fear of your children fleeing the nest can only pursue your thoughts on your age to that after possible grandchildren could be the point of your untimely death! I know very deep here but could this possibly be a thought as to why Sally decided to depict death within many other of her photographs, such as her self-portrait below??

Landscape photographers to inspire

This is one of my favourite photographs by Fay Godwin. I love the way the trees form an artistic pattern to the photograph, so much so I portray it like a fine art drawing or painting as from my viewing interpretation a fine art photograph! The pattern of the trees in the water suffices you to the beauty of reflection and then leaves you into wondering exactly what is the view behind the curtain of branches? It also reminds me of a similar way in which Eugene Atget captured a shot of Notre Dame in 1925 giving a surreal effect just by the way in which he framed his image using the trees to give an artistic acetate in front of the landscape attraction.

Fay Godwin

Although Godwin originally started as a portrait photographer by the late 1960's she became interested in producing mostly monochrome landscapes of the English countryside especially as her work was being illustrated by the writing of the poet Ted Hughes.
Renown for her keen eye and engaging her skill to portray environmental politics her work has shown similarity to that of the American photographer Ansel Adams. He too as well as Godwin depicted the aesthetic beauty of the landscape as well as highlighted the effect of man in environmental change.

Fay Godwin Biography - (1931–2005), Remains of Elmet, Land

Ian Beesley

Was born and bread in Bradford and is known to be one of the leading and most acclaimed photographers in the UK today. He takes the majority of his photographs around the heart of his home (Bradford and West Yorkshire) and has a passion for photographing water, showing what the eye can not see in regards to water movement via the effects of lighting.

"What I was interested in was exploring movement and light."

Ian Beesley

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/content/articles/2007/09/13/ian_beesley_water_calderdale_feature.shtml

"With movement, particularly if you start using long exposures, multi-exposures, fast exposures, the camera produces an image that the eye doesn't actually see and that's the thing that really fascinates me. When you get the light sparkling on water, depending on how you photograph it, you can get quite startling images. It's an exploration of the fact that to some extent you are shooting blind because often you don't know the results until you actually see the thing." Ian Beesley