5th Photograph

"Resilience in the Face of Adversity"

The central idea of this photograph was to capture the human quality of "resilience", a trait that the growing generation is beginning to lack, often giving up when things become tough.  I sought to make this picture somewhat inspirational, or at the very least encouraging, letting the light cast upon their eyes and on their face.

Photograph continues to contribute to my idea of emotions and moments of expression we experience in our life.  My idea expanded from a single person to a group shot, since some emotions are better expressed involving others.  I believe I will take more photographs involving a group of people, rather than all about one person, since it allows me to incorporate more dynamic elements to the picture.

This photograph also suffers from the high ISO picture noise and quality degradation.  I was too interested about the effect of the tungsten white-balancing, so I forgot/neglected the ISO settings :(

4th Photograph

"Melancholy"

The central idea of this picture is to capture the essence of long stretches of time when nothing happens and you simply live on, surviving the day-to-day routine.  I [accidently] used the "tungsten lighting"white-balancing option of the DSLR to create the cool, bluish color tone of the picture, making this picture rather "low energy-charged", even somewhat energy draining to look at.  I decided to let the shadows partially/lightly cover his face, to emphasize the "soft sadness" of the model's expression.

This image adds another negative moment/emotion that we may experience in life, since living is not always filled with happiness and joy, it is counter-balanced with troubles and issues.  With this photograph, it made me think about how the colors are presented in the photograph, since I was focusing more on the angle of my shots, pose of the model, and the interaction with light (in the process, neglecting other aspects).

However, in this photo, I realized my mistake of the ISO setting.  In the 3rd photograph, I used a high ISO to get the desired brightness.  Except, I forgot to change the ISO setting back down, so the photo suffers from noise and reduction in image quality.  :(

3rd Photograph

"Overwhelmed"

The central idea of this photo is to present a subtle dark mood to presented the stress of being overwhelmed (not necessarily the emotion of being stressed, but being overwhelmed).  I chose to bask him in darkness and shine light  upon his face at an angle to cast a shadow upon his face to emphasize the mood of the shot.

This photo continues my idea of presenting a mood/expression of human nature by showing a darker expression we may often meet in life, when you're in a situation over your head.  I had a small change in how I chose to present the model this time, using shadow to help create the mood/expression, since the shadow represents the overwhelming situation.  I think I should continue to find ways to create the atmosphere of the photo without directly relying on the facial expression of the model.

Artist/Photographer Biography

Biography of Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon was born on May 15, 1923 in New York City to a Jewish-Russian family.  After attending Columbia University, he started working as a identification photographer for the Merchant Marines in 1942 with a Rolleiflex camera.  In 1944, worked as a department store’s advertising photographer, but was discovered by Alexey Brodovitch, the art director for the fashion magazine iHarper’s Bazaar.  Starting from this, Avedon set up his own studio in 1946 and began providing photos for magazines such as Vogue and Life, also becoming the chief photographer for Harper’s Bazaar in the process.  He left Harper’s Bazaar to become the lead photographer for Vogue magazine in 1966, photographing many of the covers until 1973.In 1992; Avedon became the staff photographer for The New Yorker.  Richard Avedon died on October 1, 2004 of a brain hemorrhage in San Antonio, Texas.

Avedon’s reputation as a Fashion Photographer became known through his technique of taking fashion photographs.  It was standard during the time to photograph models, standing emotionless.  However, Avedon displayed the models full of emotion, often times smiling, laughing, or in action.  He was also known for taking portraits of people looking directly into the camera, posed directly in front of a white background, in a minimalistic style.  This sought to display the personality (and “soul”) of the subjects.  Beyond doing Fashion photography, he also took pictures of metal hospital patients, moments of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, protesters of the Vietnam War, and also during the fall of the Berlin Wall.  He also created the iconic portrait sets of The Beatles.  He was entranced by working people such as miners and oil workers, unemployed wanderers, and teenagers in the West.   Avedon is also differentiated from other photographers for his large prints (sometimes reaching three feet in height).

Richard Avedon’s work and style is greatly influential and inspirational to how I would like to take photographs, because he seeks to emphasize the same elements I wish to portray in my photos.  His portraits heavily focus on the expressions of the subject to display their personality.  However, another thing that Avedon does that I didn’t think of emphasizing is the pose of the models.  I often neglect to pose my models, just focusing on lighting to emphasize the expression.  He also tends to take photographs of his models from the waist-above, to display body-expression (another aspect I tend to neglect).  So basically, Richard Avedon is a great model of how/what I should focus on showing through my subjects in a portraiture style.

2nd Photograph

"Sincerity"

For this picture, the central idea was to present an expression of sincere laughter (we were making jokes in the dark and happened to get this shot at the right moment).  From snapshot photos in our youth, we were "trained" to smile in photos, establishing a fake mask of happiness just to make the picture less dreary.  So this is to show a moment of legitimate happiness, emphasizing (again) the face to portray this.

This picture continues to contribute to my theme, by adding another emotion that we often experience during life.  However, looking at this picture made me realize that I need to depart (or at least expand) from strict facial portraits and indulge into more full body shots with more dynamic posing (since the positioning of my models are rather "stiff").  I believe I should begin to incorporate the environment with my subject or at least diversify from up-close portraits.

1st Photograph

"Contemplation"

The central idea of this photograph was to capture an expression of contemplation and thinking, because that's what everyone should be doing, thinking about what they want to do next and what they desire to change and do differently.  I casted the light at an angle upon the face as a "[light] ray of inspiration" and to provide a contrast between the highlights and the shadow/darkness to emphasize the face and subtle pose (somewhat mimicking "The Thinker" pose).

This contributes to my idea of human expressions/moments of life (on a personal level, instead of a snapshot of what they do with others) because like every picture does, it makes people think about what it's about.  My idea was rather vague, since there are many ways people think, but I felt this captured an essence of thinking.  I believe this photo helped me grasp a better idea of how to take a portrait of a person, since just saying "taking a picture from the torso-up of a person" isn't a good way to describe an angle of a shot.