Sophie – Page 3 – Sophie Rowson's Photography Blog

‘Home’: Photo Development

Sophie / April 11, 2016April 13, 2016 / Home

Image 1

Screen Shot 2016-04-10 at 17.05.53 For my first image, I began by cropping my dog’s nose out of the frame, allowing the photo to focus more on the seating area and place the chair completely to one side.

The images taken in my conservatory had a heavy orange tint to them, something I originally wanted to alter, however as I did I ended up preferring it with an exaggerated warmer tone, and kept the orange tones even higher than before. This created a more comforting feel to the image, removing this tint only made the image colder.

I also used the auto white balance feature, where I used the eyedropper tool to select a neutral colour. This made my image slightly less saturated by the conservatory light, and softened the brightness without loosing the integrity of the natural light. Increasing the contrast and brightening up the highlights for more detail, I then set this as a custom preset for the rest of my pictures.

Screen Shot 2016-04-10 at 17.06.03

Image 2

I used the preset from my first image in an attempt to match each image, however due to this photo being taken on a different day, the lighting was cooler. To alter this, I simply increased the saturation of the image until I felt to matched the image before. I also increased the highlight brightness in order to bring back some detail in her nose and eyes.

Image 3

Screen Shot 2016-04-12 at 20.39.19 tv-uniformity After using the preset, I decided to remove the image on screen. My mum was watching TV as I took this photo, so to make it look like the screen is blank, I cut out the screen in photoshop, and placed the image of a blank screen behind the layer. I then darkened the screen and added grain, helping it to blend in.

Images 4-6

For each of the above photos, editing was rather simple. Because of the preset I created when altering my first image was on an image with the same camera settings, lighting, and day, It matched rather well. I cropped the images to match the rule of three, and with slight alterations to exposure and brightness where I felt necessary, these images were rather simple to edit.

Portraits Research: Optical Illusions

Sophie / March 10, 2016April 13, 2016 / Portrait

On typing illusion photography into a search engine, I was flooded with unique and creative portraits. From mirrors, to intense photoshop jobs, and even jolted reality, I knew I wanted to create something inspired by one of the creative beings I was about to discover.

Timothy Bailey

Timothy Bailey is a commercial advertising photographer in New York City, specializing in humor, entertainment, celebrity, and portrait photography.

– Timothy Bailey Photography

Despite not showing up in my initial search, Timothy Bailey’s work caught my eye immediately. He places ‘normal’ people in front of plain backgrounds, and merges their headshot and profile shots to create one almost disturbing creature like image. His work is comical, yet the components are rather intense and specific, something I hope I can bring to my interpretation of the brief set.

References:

Bailey, T. (2014) Timothy Bailey: Commercial Advertising Photographer specializing in humor, entertainment, and portrait photography. New York City, New York. Available from http://www.timothybaileyphotography.com/OVER-VIEW/1/thumbs/ [accessed 13 April 2016]

Portrait & Triptych Research: ‘Triptychs of Strangers’

Sophie / March 10, 2016April 14, 2016 / Portrait, Triptych

ADDE ADESOKAN

“Triptychs of Strangers is a continuing series by Adde Adesokan, where the goal is to “meet total strangers – get to know them - take three personality-matching body shots - make them one.”

All encounters took place in cities such as Hamburg, Paris, London, Berlin, Hongkong, Sapa and Ho Chi Minh City and comes always with a story, so make sure you are reading those too.” – Adde Adesokan, Street Photography

Adesokan presents his work with narrative and order. He takes pictures of members of the public he finds interesting, and focuses on three particular points- their face, their hands, and their feet. The strangers tell him certain facts about themselves, let him take three photos, and from these images, he and anyone who sees them take the overlall picture and attempt to decipher their personalities, with so little to go by. I find his idea of searching for interesting people, as well as ‘normal’ everyday members of the public, and making them each a part of a huge and beautiful project.

Reference:

Adesokan, A. (2004) Triptychs of Strangers – Adde Adesokan Street photography. Hamburg, Germany. Available from http://www.adde-adesokan.de/albums/triptychs-of-strangers/ [accessed 14 April 2016]

Portraits Research: Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

Sophie / March 10, 2016April 13, 2016 / Portrait

Our third brief was to create three different portraits: one self portrait; one portrait of a family member or friend; and one portrait of a stranger. One simple google search lead me to find a multitude of photographers famous for their portraits, meaning my choice in research was very broad. Focusing on both artists mentioned in lectures and interesting concepts I found online, I set to looking for different ways to complete this brief.

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

“Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir is an Icelandic photographer who was named the “Web’s Top Photographer” by the Wall Street Journal on July 29, 2006. She began her career by posting her photo’s on the online image sharing site Flickr, and the popularity of her photography lead to an opportunity to create and star in a Toyota advertising campaign. Although her images are not that popular in the public eye, her website consists of portraits of herself, people, and other categories include scenery, dolls, film and animals.”

–

Looking through her categories, I begun in her self portrait section, filtering through and choosing the photos I found the most interesting. There was no coloration between each self portrait, which gave me a chance to explore different ideas before pinning my idea on one. Her self portraits didn’t focus so much on herself, but where she was, and what she was doing. Unique locations and props made her gallery stand out, and the cleanliness of indoor photography brought colour and focus to the subject, something I hope will become apparent in my work.

Rebekka 2

The category ‘people’ provided me with many more ideas for my portraits. The locations and props would make it relevant to my family member/friend brief, or even to my self portrait. Rebekka focuses on the innocence of the relatable. She takes women and children, two things she is/has been, and puts them in unfamiliar locations, making the viewer instantly compare their surroundings to the subject. The above image of a woman in a swimming pool both allows the audience to see where the lady is, but still be drawn to her face. The image of a child in the middle of a field with his teddy bear makes us see the unrealistic situation, but still avert our eyes to the child’s sad and worried expression. Placing everyday people in places we don’t always imagine them to be in can take attention away from the subject, but Rebecca cleverly made the location strange and also added realism. None of the locations or props her subjects are with would shock her audience into missing the person in the image.

Reference:

Guðleifsdóttir, R. (2011) Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir. Iceland. Available from http://http://www.rebekkagudleifs.com [accessed 13 April 2016]

Triptych: Development

Sophie / February 16, 2016April 13, 2016 / Triptych

In order to ensure I got the best shot of my chosen items, I originally experimented with both a light and dark backdrop. The dark backdrop was rather difficult to work with, and because I wanted a textured background for the item to be sat on, the lighting became difficult for me to alter for the larger item.

With the lighter background, the lighting became easier to alter. Because the background was rather faded, It had a negative effect on the item, making them darker and losing a lot of the detail.

I wanted to make sure The final images I took were as high a quality as I could possibly get, and so spent a good few minutes altering the ISO and exposure, but as I had to use artificial light to gain the result I was looking for, It was hard to get a decent result. I moved the lamp multiple times, holding it closer, further away and making it direct.

It was then I decided to use different backgrounds for each item. I noticed that one of the items looked better with a brighter coloured background, where the others stood out on a darker one.