Chuck Close

Since the 1960s, Chuck Close has focused on faces and portraits, using paint, Polaroids and daguerreotype, a process of photographing introduced in 1839. A studio daguerreotype usually requires a long exposure, often more than two minutes. Close and daguerreotype artisan Jerry Spagnoli made the process instant, "...by having a billion foot-candles go off all at once.". They achieved the unmistakeable effect of daguerreotypy, the pitch blacks contrasted by the silvery shine given off by the faces Close photographs.

To create a style similar to Chuck Close's "Lorna" jacquard tapestry image I took the photograph with a 55-200mm zoom lens as to create a softer touch. I also used a lamp to the left of the person in the image which created the lighter side of the face. In Photoshop I decreased the saturation completely to make the image black and white and I cropped it so that the focus is primarily the neck and face (like Close's). To finish I added 4 tilt-shift blurs to blur out the edges of the image, progressively blurring stronger from the face outwards which can also be seen in "Lorna".

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Edited