Theme 1 - John Swannell

John Swannell stared his photography career as David Baileys assistant. Born in 1946, he left school at 16 and spent a few years in a fleet street dark room churning out thousands of photos for use in the press. After he had secured the post of David Baileys assistant he was thrown into the world of fashion photography. After working with Bailey for a number of years he managed to branch out on his own. David Bailey even gave him a years salary to help him on his way!

 His solo career accelerated when some of his images were used in Italian Vogue and he was launched into the world of fashion photography in his own right. Fashion was always John's main source of income, but from 1975, he was at last able to indulge his own artistic inclinations on a private level. He began to experiment with the female nude, a genre which captivated his imagination and for which he is now particularly renowned.

I love this portrait of Maureen Lipman because of its simplicity. There is no glamour or sparkle, it is simply an honest picture. The 'high key' lighting converted to black and white has produced a wonderfully balanced shot with minimal facial shadow. It has an interesting composition as Maureen is positioned off centre and not looking at the camera. The tone, however, works really well with her dark hair, patterned top and stark background.

This picture of the princess of Wales and her two sons is very informal and relaxed. This style of portraiture allows the true character of the subjects to shine through. It is a style that I have personally adopted during my portrait shoots. It was unusual at the time to have such a relaxed and natural picture of the royal family and must have been a complete breath of fresh air. From this picture in 1994, he has since gone onto to photograph every Senior member of the royal family.

Swannell was commissioned to take this picture to mark the Queens Golden Jubilee. Again, it is unlike traditional portraits in the fact that the Queen, although dressed in formal robes, is posed in a natural way. The positioning of the queen in the picture is original and allows the viewers eye to be drawn into the distance.

This picture of Joanna Lumley in 2000 is again, very natural and un posed. The black of the top has created a silhouette effect. The low key lighting has produced a dramatic and defined effect with obvious shadow to the one side of her face. Her hand breaks up the silhouette effect and creates more detail in the shot.

Theme 1 - Annie Leibovitz - Monarchy

This video is a fascinating insight into the personality of the Queen and how Lebovitz deals with the pressure of the shoot. The resulting images are fantastic, however, I was suprised to learn how they were created with so much post production work.

The top image is highly dramatic with muted colours and shapes. It is a dominating image of the queen as she is positioned centrally in the photograph and is wearing a dark, strong colour. The bottom image is a little lighter as the queen is sitting and is not taking up so much of the frame. The colour of her clothing is much lighter and the use of highlights is much greater then the previous image.

Theme 1 - Other inflences

Once you consider the issue of 'cross dressing' the boundaries disappear and your can have complete creative freedom over the types of images you want to create. The following images are by a very famous and main stream photographer  - Annie Leibovitz and were published in a very famous and main stream magazine....'Vanity Fair'.





Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz was born in 1949 in Connecticut, USA and originally studied art and painting in the San Francisco Art Institute. After travelling with her family to Japan, she finally discovered photography and started taking night classes. Leibovitz got into the 'big time' when she approached the editor of rolling stone magazine and 1970 and showed her, her portfolio of images. By 1973 she was the chief photographer for rolling stone magazine.

The magazine started printing in colour in 1974 and Leibovitz followed suit with her photographs. Originally she was only ever taught how to take black and white pictures, so in 1974 when rolling stone magazine was printing in colour, she followed suit by taking colour images for the likes of Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Patti smith. in 1975 she was the rolling stones official photographer and went on world tour with them. while on the road, she produced her iconic black and white portraits of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger.

In 1980 Rolling stone magazine was sent to photograph John Lennon and Yoko Ono who had recently produced a joint album. For the portrait she imagined that the two would pose together nude, however, Ono was not happy with this and it was only Lennon who was prepared to disrobe. after taking a Polaroid of the portrait, she knew that it was an amazing image.

 Several hours later, Lennon was shot dead in front of his apartment. in 2005, the American Society of magazine editors named it the best magazine cover from the past 40 years.


In 1983 Leibovitz joined Vanity Fair and was made the magazines first contributing photographer. At Vanity Fair she became known for her wildly lit, staged, and provocative portraits of celebrities. One of the most famous is Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a bath of milk.

Apparently, this image was a mistake (as stated in Annie Leibovitz 'at work') as Whoopie slipped and Leibovitz just managed to capture the moment before Whoopie was completely submerged! I think that the image is fantastic, with a wonderful humorous element and obvious contrast between Whoppies dark skin and the white milk of the bath. It truly captures Whoopies personality.

The following image of Martina Navratilova is intriguing. It portrays a masculine athletic woman moving a huge cog.

The use of light has created and image that contains clear definitionn of different tones and shapes. I love the way the light defines both the strength of the cog and the strength of Martina's arms and legs. It may portray the challenge Martina had with the Media at the height of her career in the 80's and 90's.



Theme 1 - 'Family day' photoshoot

Overview - Shoot 1

Prior to this course I did a photoshoot in a local church hall to take some pictures of a friends band, since then, I have done several more shoots and for the purposes of this course I wanted to document the planning, implementation and post production and key learns from carrying out a photo shoot.

Planning phase

In order for the shoot to be successful, several key elements had to be planned and organised. The subject of my shoot was 'family' which would give me the opportunity to take pictures from all ages. The initial step was to arrange the date and obtain a venue. I chose the same place that I had used previously as It had great facilities and was very reasonably priced! From then I was able to secure the booking and start advertising the event to local friends and family.

I booked groups into slots of 30 mins, 20mins shooting time and 10mins break inbetween shoots. Prior to the event I texed everyone to ensure they were still able to make it. Unfortunately, due to a sickness bug, 3 out of the 7 were unable to attend. In hindsight, this was a blessing as it allowed me more time inbetween groups.


Equipment

1X lastolite highlight 6ftX7ft backdrop and train
4X light heads and stands (inc leads)
2X shoot through brollies
1X nikon D80
IR transmitter
1X 18-135mm lens
1X 50mm prime lens
1X lightmeter
masking tape
ipod and speakers
balloons
soft toy


Implementation

I arrived 1 hr prior to the first group to allow myself to set up the portable studio, take light readings and ensure all of the health and safety aspects had been covered. The lighting rig looked like this:

2 of the flash heads were placed inside the lastolite highlight to produce a uniformly lit backdrop. The other two heads had shoot through brollies attached to them and were placed either side of the backdrop train. The purpose of the brollies was to diffuse the light to create a softer and more uniform effect on the subjects. The meter readings were taken from the backdrop and facing the light.

In order to comply with health and safetly issues, I taped the cables and the backdrop train to the floor to avoid tripping (especially as yound children were going to be present)

The purpose of this lighting rig was to create a high key effect. (see link)

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

The shoot

When the first groups of people stared to arrive, I did a couple of test shots to check the levels. The following shot was taken using:

Shutter speed - 1/60s

Aperture - f1/16

ISO - 200

Focal length - 38mm

The apperture was f1/16 because of the strength of the lights in the backdrop. They only had a half power setting (200w) or a full power setting (400w). So in order to match the power with my front to lighting heads, I put them on full power in order avoid the halo effect around the subject when the background is lighter then the foreground.

http://www.entheosweb.com/photoshop/halo.asp

The above link will take you to a site that demonstrates how to produce a halo effect. I certainly didn't want the effect in my shoot, hence the small f stop.

The resulting shoot went well, with the production of a number of final shots that I was happy with as they reflect the subjects that I was shooting:

Post production/Key learns

I used lightroom 3 and CS5 to boost the levels and convert to black and white. My key learning during tghis shoot was to re-meter when changing lenses. On the last set, I photographed the following picture, without re-metering which resulted in the final image being over exposed:

Although the final image was better (see below), I struggled to improve it sufficently for complete satisfaction.

I learn't a valuable lesson during this shoot and used it on my next shoot the following week.

Overview - Shoot 2

A friend of mine has a friend who is the Matron at Oundle School near Peterborough who was very keen to have a photo shoot by me after seeing the results of a photo shoot that I did for my friend in June. The following link provides an overview of the school, it's grounds and local area. I used this in my research so that I could plan the day. 

http://www.oundleschool.org.uk/

Planning phase

The main areas that I had to consider in my planning were the following:

• Location and traveling time
• Available space for setting up the equipment
• Talking to the Client to determine the types of shots she wanted, who will be attending and how much time was available to complete the shoot and pack away the equipment.
• Equipment planning, did I need to borrow any pieces of equipment in order to complete my shoot?
• Health and Safety - what are the health and safety considerations in the venue?
• What sort of final image does she want? e.g. disk with final images, canvases, prints etc...

Equipment

1X lastolite highlight 6ftX7ft backdrop and train

4X light heads and stands (inc leads)

2X shoot through brollies

1X nikon D80

IR transmitter

1X 18-135mm lens

1X 50mm prime lens

1X lightmeter

masking tape

ipod and speakers

balloons

soft toy

Implementation 

I arrived an hour early as I had a distance to travel and wanted to allow time for traffic. After meeting the client, I set up in the allocated room using the above listed equipment.

The Shoot


The shoot lasted 3 hrs and consisted of a variety of people with age ranges from 4 months to 84 years old!





Theme 1 - Justina Photo Shoot - Behind the Scenes @ Easy Studio in Manhattan, NYC

Theme 1 - Re creation of a Dave Willis portrait

I found a portrait by Dave Willis of Skin (Skunk Annansie lead singer) that I was drawn to in Steve Bavister's book, 'Lighting for portrait photography'.

Dave Willis is a photographer who shoots portraits, fashion and music stars. The image below is that of Sharon Osborn:

This image portrays Sharon a strong and powerful figure as she is positioned sitting at the head of the table, clasping her hands. It looks as though the photographer has used a spot light on her face and body to make her stand out of the background and become the main focal point of the picture. The background is out of focus and is framed by the use of the curtain, surrounding the window. The window provides a 'grid like' effect with a series of squares and there is a soft reflection of light cast on the highly polished wooden table.

The position of the camera is slightly below eye level that reinforces the appearance of dominance. Sharon has also been dressed in a shirt, jacket and tie, which again, adds to the effect. Once seen, the viewer of this picture is left with the impression that the subject is a dominant figure who is strong willed and in control, very much like Sharon Osborn!

The following picture portrays a nearly angelic image:

This is a taken from a fashion shoot. 

The model is topless, however, the positioning of her body has produced a tasteful and evocative image. the main focal point is her back and shoulders. The light has created subtile tones on her skin and the 'garment' is loosely draped over her shoulders. The image is tightly cropped as the model takes up the majority of the frame. Her pose draws the eye to the shape of her body as the light has created highlights on the front of her chest without being obvious.

'Skin portrait'

The photo was produced using film that was cross processed with colour negative chemistry to boost the contrast. The image was produced using a single light with a soft box, placed directly in front of the subject. The highlights on her arms are the result of light bouncing off the ceiling and off the wall she is leaning on. Her dark skin accents this. What I find interesting is the use of a curved slopping background that produces a significant curving effect that is enhanced by the slight shadow cast upon it. The subject looks as though she is about to take off and has a determined expression in her face. The tone of her skin has produced startling contrast against the white background. The use of the black and white clothing has also exaggerated this, producing a dramatic effect. The trousers are super wide and cover the shoes so that the subject's feet nearly vanish into the floor. The image looks over exposed as the contrast has been boosted post production. The following lighting plan was used:

The re-created image was shot at the college studio using the following equipment:

• Nikon 700
• Single Bowens flash head
• Large rectangular soft box
• Sekonic lightmeter
• Interfit IR trigger
• Fixed solid and curved backdrop
• Post production - lightroom 3 and photoshop CS5

The bowens head was attached to the ceiling by a extendable rig. This was moved in accordance with the health and safety requirements of the college (The rig was moved by the Tutor when required). The camera was securely fixed to the mobile stand, as instructed by the tutor.

Step 1 - set up

The image above picture shows the set up that was used to create the shot. The camera was positioned on the stand on the right hand side of the set which enable me to shoot at an otherwise impossible angle.

Step 2 - The addition of the model

Maggie very kindly offered to pose for me. I directed her to adopt the pose of the model in the original photograph. Once in a suitable pose, I metered her using my sekonic flash meter. The chosen camera settings for metering were a shutter speed of 1/60 and an ISO of 200. It took a number of measurements to get the desired image as the original image looks over exposed. The following images were taken to achieve the desired effect:

 F 7.1                                    F 8.0                                 F 3.5

The final choice of aperture setting was f 3.5, because it produced the slightly over exposed effect that was essential for the picture.

Post production

The f 3.5 image was imported into photoshop, where I cloned in the white background to produce a seamless effect and added some noise using the addition of a filter:

I then used adjusted the curves to create the extreme over exposed look to match the original photo situated on the right of the screen:

The final image:

The original image:

Reflection:

There were obvious restrictions on what I could achieve with this project, the most obvious being the look of the model. My model had a significantly different look to that of 'Skin', however, what I have tried to do is re create the look of the picture that Dave Willis produced by using the correct lighting set up, correct use of equipment and the use of post production tools. 

Because the model was different and I didn't have to option to use the same clothing, the size and shape of the shadow is different and my image doesn't have the startling 'burnt out' look with skin's trousers.