Unit 57: Photography and Photographic Practice

Selection of final images & review (P4, M4, D4)

Portrait Images

Theme or focus of images & reasons for choiceI took inspiration for my images from NME and tried to take and edit my photos so they would fit into the style of NME images. The images I looked at previously were by a photographer called Daniel Harris who contracted for NME by going on tour with bands and taking photos over the space of maybe a month of gigs. The photos I looked at by him were of a band called Darlia and I saw that Daniel Harris concentrated on close ups of the band to capture emotion and often used black and white to give it a simplistic feel so I replicated that in my work. I also wanted to take them with a backdrop because I saw them regularly being used in NME. I created a backdrop just using a green blanket and made it look reasonably professional. So the main

focuses of my images is obviously the main subject and focus is the model throughout all of the images but the theme of the photos all the way through was emotion and simplicity and I tried to capture all of these in my images. I also tried to draw focus to the eyes in my images because I think in my opinion that should be the main focal point for a portrait shot.

Techniques usedWhen taking the images I had to use certain techniques to achieve the images I wanted to, for example the use of depth of field, applying rule of thirds to frame the shot, changing the ISO to optimize the shot, shutter speed to make the brightness of the image right, among other techniques.On the first and third image there is a clear use of the depth of field technique, the model is in focus and clear and green backdrop is more blurred. I used this technique obviously to concentrate on the model and the emotion in the face of the subject. Also in most of the images there is use of rule of thirds to frame the shot so your eye is drawn to the subject.Strengths & suggested improvementsI feel the strengths of my images are the simplicity and framing of the shot. I think the simplicity brings out the emotion of the subject and the framing draws your eye to her.I think the weaknesses are the clarity of some of my images and I could possibly have some more diversity and multiple locations to make the photos more interesting.Editing detailsFor the majority of the images all I did to edit them was add the black and white filter and pick out the colour green and make it more of a grey backdrop. But for image 1 and 3 I made a separate layer just the subject’s iris and played around with the colour balance and vibrance to make the blue of her eyes brighter. I also removed certain marks from the subjects face on these photos.Capture LogSetting Shutter Speed ISO ApertureManual- Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

Image 7

Image 8

Image 9

1 / 4 second

1/60 second

1/60 second

1/ 4 second

1/ 4 second

1/ 4 second

1/ 4 second

1/ 4 second

1/ 4 second

1/ 4 second

3200

450

640

3200

3200

3200

3200

3200

3200

4.7

3.6

3.6

4.7

4.7

4.7

4.7

4.7

4.7

4.7

Image 10 3200