Portrait Photography

Annie Leibovitz (1949-Present)

Annie Leibovitz is one the most famous portrait photographers alive today. She developed her trademark use of bold colors and poses while working at Rolling Stone. She photographed John Lennon and Yoko Ono in December 1980. 5 hours later, John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman.

Edouard Boubat (1923-1999)

 

Edouard Boubat was called ‘peace photographer’ by poet Jacques Prévert. He is a poet with a camera. His work is part of the great tradition of French photography that includes such masters as Brassai, Bresson and Doisneau. He is quoted as saying, “my favorite photo is always the last one that I took“. He died in Paris France in 1999.

These are some of my Photographs of Portrait Photography.They show the progress of how I developed on my Photography, how I experimented with natural lighting in the first shoot, trying to get the perfect balance, and then going into the studio for the other two shoots.

Shoot 1

In this first shoot I struggled to get the right natural light to photograph in. I first tried it near a window with a lot of sun light coming in, which as you can see didn't go so well as the light was much too bright and made shadows on the other side of her face. You can also see that she wan't comfortable as she was squinting her eyes as the sun was in her eyes. The second photograph as you can see, clearly is much too dark. But for the last photograph, I found the perfect light near a window but with the sun not directly on the model.

Shoot 2

For my second shoot of Portrait Photography, I was shooting in the studio. This was my favourite shoot of all the other shoots I've done, enjoyed moving experimenting with the lights moving them around and seeing what would happen. I found that the Photographs on this shoot looked the best as the black background made it look professional and clean cut, rather than the white background. I tried putting the lights on one side of the model, which had a more dramatic effect. I then put a light each side of the model as found it gave a softer, lighter look to the photographs, which I liked.

Shoot 3

I found this shoot the hardest out of the three, as I just couldn't get rid of the shadows in the background and get the brightness right of the photographs, as it was just too dark. But I eventually go some decent looking photographs. I was to use props in this shoot, so I brought in a hat, which is a bit of a cliché. I also brought in a mask and pearls, to go with the theme of the portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz, who does fantasy, surreal photography. I enjoyed the theme, shots and props of this photoshoot, but I would have loved it if the technical side meaning the lighting and aperture where right.