Narrative Portraits

My In Class Diptychs

 

These are all taken and put together by me.

Narrative Fashion Examples

These are all from the internet and none of them are mine. They all show some sort of narrative, a story in the process, in some it is obvious and in others it is up to the view to put a story to the narrative shown. 

Presentation

For the in class presentation I will be focusing on the topic of cosplay photography. I will explain what it is, where it comes from, who is involved and what it takes to be a cosplay photographer. Through this presentation I hope to teach others about a style that isn't very well known and possibly open up new and fun options for some that might have been interested in it had they known about it earlier.

My Environmental Portraits

Examples of Good and Bad Environmental Portraits

Examples of Good Environmental Portraits

I personally like all of these environmental portraits because they show the personalities and the pass-times of the people being photographed. They are straight forward although they feel a little too posed in some cases.

These two I consider good because you do get a sense of what the person is doing/ what they enjoy but they are not great, they are too close up and don't show enough environment.

Examples of Bad environmental Portraits 

These three aren't good environmental portraits because you are missing the environment -.- Only in the last one do you get some sense of where the person is and what he is doing, the other two are just mysteries to the viewer.

This portrait is simply too confusing, the main focus is the man in the suit in the center but how long can you actually keep your focus on him? Yes there is environment but there are too many elements in it.

I like the idea used for this portrait but for a PORTRAIT more detail is needed, the fence takes away from the image and distracts your eyes from the scene you're looking at. 

All of these images have been taken from other photographers, none of them belong to me.

My Emulations of Joe McNally's Style

Blur In Photoshop

In order to do this you must:
1- import your picture into photoshop
2- create a duplicate layer of your background
3- on your new layer click on the gradient tool
4- switch your colors from white primary to black primary
5- at the top next to the little gradient icon change it to the black to transparent option
6- on the gradient icon at the top change it to circular
7- go to filter > blur > gaussian blur and then adjust it to your liking
8- next create a layer mask on the layer you are currently on
9- click and drag creating a circular gradient
10- make another layer
11- create a layer mask for that one
12- click on filter > noise > add noise and then adjust to your liking
13- finally flatten/ merge and save your image

Assignment 2

My Chosen Portrait Photographer to Emulate

         The photographer I have chosen to emulate is Joe McNally. He was described as "perhaps the most versatile photojournalist working today" by American Photo. He has worked for many magazines such as Sports Illustrated, TIME, the Men's Journal, National Geographic and many others. Joe has recently written two books; The Moment It Clicks and The Hot Shoe Diaries and both of these books made it to the list of the top ten best sellers on Amazon. These are some of his images:

Assignment 1

Early 20th Century Portrait Photographers:
      Sally Mann

In many of Sally Mann's portraits the models are in or near the center of the frame and the lighting is very natural.

 

Yousuf Karsh

The models in these portraits are placed  and photographed casually and the lighting is very moody and specific, it is very minimal in many of the portraits.

 

 

 

Contemporary Portrait Photographers

Jamie Ibarra

 

 

Joe McNally









 

 

 

It is very rare that the models in these portraits will be looking at the camera, most of the time they are looking away to one side or another. The lighting is soft (soft shadows) but the lighting set-up itself is very specific. The shadow areas are very defined and they cover large areas that are not viewed as "most important" content.

 

 

 

I personally think these photographers are amazing and showed be remembered because they each have their own style. For example I enjoy Joe McNally's portraits because of the lighting that is used t create them, it is not lighting that is seen incredibly often. It is used by other photographers but it is not the "standard" which is what I like most about it. The same goes for Yousuf Karsh, I enjoy seeing different ways of doing things in a world that has so many possibilities.