Category: Portrait

 

As soon as I found his work, I knew I wanted to experiment with how Adde Adesokan creates his work. Adde Adesokan takes three personality matching images of complete strangers, and displays them as a Triptych. One person who I was unfamiliar with was my flat mate’s new carer. I had seen him a couple of times prier to these photo’s being taken, so felt it would be convenient and appropriate to ask him to be part of my photography project.

On interviewing him, I found out that Cameron’s carer Brian has only been doing house visits for a couple of years, and his attire on this particular day mirrored his youth. Because of this personality trait, I asked him to pose with the keys to Cameron’s room, making the item relevant to his job. I pitched these three images together to create similar images to that of Adesokan’s work.

 

 

Using Lightroom, I was originally going to bleach, however as I eventually used this technique on my self portrait, I chose to follow Adde’s lead and make the images black and white. This ended up looking better than I had initially planned, giving the photo’s a better chance to highlight certain points in them, for example

 

 

 

 

 

 For my self portrait I decided to follow the style of Timothy Bailey.

I began by taking two pictures, one of myself face on, and one from the side. In photoshop, I then proceeded to cut around my side profile using the magnetic selection tool, leaving only the wall with my face cut out of the photo. I then removed the background from my head shot, and duplicated the background from my profile, using the stamp tool to airbrush any imperfections. This ensured the background was the same shade and blended seamlessly into the other image’s background.

Once I had these three layers set, I began resizing my headshot so that both the nose and lips matched up on both layers Once this was done, I merged the layers together before bleaching it and adding a vignette to the image in Lightroom.

Using my self as a model for this style meant I could retake any pictures as I need them, and I am glad I did so as it was very difficult to align the two pictures up perfectly.

Before settling on this artist as inspiration, I also experimented with the style of Massimo Corvaglia. The results, however, were not clear, and they didn’t have the effect I hoped they would.

 Because I had already done two of the three images required, I decided to make my third one slightly different. In my self portrait and portrait of a stranger, I kept the background rather plain, focusing on the subject rather than their surroundings, however when it came to a photo of a friend, I wanted to make it something the model can take away, rather than something solely for my purpose.

I asked my friend Isobel to pose for the following pictures, instructing her to just stand there and talk to me. As she talked, I would hold the camera to her, taking pictures whenever she paused for breath, or as I answered her back. By distracting her, I insured the images would be as natural and comfortable as possible.

 

In Lightroom, I increased the contrast and lowered the highlight levels, creating a neutral effect. The day I took these pictures was very sunny, making the photo’s come out rather over exposed in certain places. Lowering the highlight levels brought out the detail in Isobel’s shirt.

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]