Photography
Task 1
Create a page for a website intended to give an introduction to photography for BTEC students. Your particular page will explain the different types, purposes and uses of photography (advertising, fashion, journalism and so on.) Produce a draft of the text and a mock-up for the design, then produce the finished product using the most appropriate tools and method.
D1
critically evaluate different applications of photography with supporting arguments and elucidated examples, consistently using subject terminology correctly
Types uses purposes
Photographic applications: advertising, promotional, fashion, photojournalism, portraiture, high street studio work, architectural, medical, illustration, fine art, documentary, nature, fashion, landscape.
D- Definition
P-Purpose
U- Uses
Photography
What is Photography?
D: Photography is basically recording a series of images created through a camera capturing light into a lens.
P However, photography purpose is to be used to create emotion for that audience that could relate and understand. Factors such as: people, expressions, actions and events are taken to create emotion in each photograph.
U:The use of photography can be used for different purposes such as advertising, promotional photographs, fashion, photo journalism, architectural, medical illustration, fine art and documentary.
Portrait photography
Wiki-
"Portrait photography or portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that captures the personality of a subject by using effective lighting, backdrops, and poses"
Definition- Portrait photography focuses on capturing details of the subject such as the expressions, clothing, lighting, background, poses and other details that creates a personality or emotion.
Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz is one of the most famous portrait photographers in the world most well known for taking John Lennons photo before his assassination. Her work continued to expand taking photos for multiple celebrities and famous people. Her purpose of taking portrait photos is to capture emotion when taking a photo.
The uses for her portrait photography are used for famous magazine brands such as Vanity Fair's, Rolling Stones and Vogue.
LeBron James & Gisele Bundchen – 2008
This portrait photo was shot for the Vogue magazine and is one of the most controversial magazine photos in Vogue magazine. Many criticised this photograph as the celebrities were shown in a way that would connote dominant racial stereotypes in the media.
The setting of the photo has been manipulated intentionally by the photographer such as the background, lighting, subjects clothing, selection of actors, physical actions and actors poses. All these factors are intentional to create a photo that reflects what the photographers want the audience to feel about the photo.
Lighitng
For example the photographer has clearly used three point lighting to light up the actors fairly well on the left side as the key lighting, the right lighting as the fill lighting and the third light as the back light. The key and fill lighting is lighting up their entire body with warm lighting to make the actors look gleaming and healthy looking, to make them look visually attractive. The backlighting is lighting up most of the grey background. The reason they used a grey background is it connotes to “cool, neutral, and balanced” which could imply the two celebrities balance each other out.
Camera Shots
The photo was shot at a low angle wide shot in a portrait composition. This gives the audience a sense of distance as lens used makes the actors look further to the audience positioning, and the low angle is used to make the actors look dominant. This type of composition and angle could give audiences a sense of personal identity as the actors are well known and attractive but yet feel so far to the audience.
Composition
The portrait composition and centring the subject in the centre is also because when people walk by a magazine cover, audiences will most likely notice what is in the centre as eye-catching .
Appearances
In terms of the actors appearances, the photographer has intentionally asked the actors to use specific set of clothing, items and poses to create a representation that would be attractive to audiences.
Representation
LeBron James is shown as a dominant representation of a black male. LeBron appeared to be tall, showing muscles, dark skinned, tattoos ingrained on skin, wearing short sleeved basketball clothes and a crouched open posture. These denotations connote dominance, aggressiveness, rebellious and masculine which is a very typical representation of black males in the media. He is also shown bouncing a basketball which could connote he is in best in his game.
Gisele Bunchen is a dominant representation of a young white attractive female. Her appearance such as her slim body, golden hair, white teeth and posture exaggerating her waist. These denotations connote attractiveness, fit and beauty. Her blowing hair in particular exaggerates on her attractiveness and beauty as blowing hair tends to make women look stunning in most photos.
The overall representation or connotation of the actors appearances is what audiences consider to represent a iconic photo of King Kong holding a women by the waist as it would connote that LeBron James is a dominant male and Gisele Bundchen as a dependant heroin.
The representation of the actors are clearly to attract both men and women to give audiences a sense of personal identity as audiences want to be like the actors. These audiences are most likely mainstream audiences as audiences are attracted by the actors star appeal.
Journalism
is recording events by writing about the event and how the author felt about the event. In Photo journalism, the record of events and emotions felt is expressed through the actual photo of the event showing people, colours and the surrounding environment. In this photo, he is trying to convey the harsh reality these Africans have to endure: men and women young and old working tirelessly for hours digging on the ground. The photographer wants to position the audience in the perspective of the photographer to make audiences feel subjected, regret, pity, sadness, fear, mystery and other mixed feelings that the photographer felt.
Composition
The photographer has used a horizontal composition and a wide lens to give the effect that the audience is positioned in the photographers perspective. This composition and the lens used positions the audience into feeling in a vulnerable position as it shows the the full landscape, details and depth of the surrounding area such as the many working men and women, ground, sky, path lines and dig marks. This is suppose to make that audience feel overwhelmed through looking at a new perspective of life which is the tragedy of these workers. This makes the audience feel a sense of pity and distance as the lens distances.
Lighting
The background shows a deep ditch of many working men and women digging the same ditch. Leading lines of the noticeable paths that the people are standing on lead down to the large hole. Repetition is seen as there is many workers in the background. The photo is using ambient lighting without any external use of lighting. The photo has deliberately found the right time to take the photo, most likely at day time.
Background
This lighting does not light up every person in the photo making the workers from the mid ground and background shadowed from a distance almost looking like a silhouette. This gives the photo a sense of enigma and darkness the photo connotes. Because most of the workers look the same as they are shadowed in a silhouette effect, it could connote their life is like a robot, all the same people mindlessly working a hard job to earn a living. The repetition of workers emphasises on the scale of mass production giving a sense of fear and overwhelmed to audiences especially the mainstream audiences that live in a good society.
Mid Ground
The mid ground shows two men sitting down. This connotes to the audience that the workers are working to the point of exhaustion.
Fore ground
The foreground presents a child digging up dirt which is in the centre of the photo, the mid ground shows two men sitting down on the right side of the photo and the background shows a repetition of men standing and digging. The paths that go deep down into the pit are considered leading lines and how the photographer photographs multiple men is a repetition.
The main subject appearance is a black child wearing ragged causal clothes, holding a adult sized shovel and not wearing shoes. This would connote that the child is a poor and working for a underpaid job. This is a typical representation of many poor children that tend to take adult jobs in order to earn a living in life. The lighting is naturally lit on the child, this associates with pure and innocence which is a dominant representation of children.
Color pallate
The colours are intentionally black and white as it associates with plainness, emotionless and sadness. There are many vibrant colours such as blue, green, yellow, orange and red that connote strong positive and negative meanings. However the black and white colour show the audience that there is a balance, there is no positive nor negative emotions shown.
Landscape
Landscape photography is taking photos of your surroundings, usually photos of the environment. Landscape photography tend to focus on taking photos of the vastness of the environment capturing for example, the beautiful scenery of nature capturing vibrant colours of trees, plants mountains, man-made buildings and lights and irregularities in the environment.
Trey Ratcliff
The main purpose of these photograph is to make the audiences feel positioned in the photographers perspective. The perspective of feeling immersed in the beautiful nature, texture of mountains, rivers and trees and show how vast the scenery was.
The photographer showed this perspective through using a wide lens taking a horizontal composition, a low angle extreme wide shot. The lens and composition makes the mountains far and judging by how the river looks stretched out away from the mountain. The lens and composition also shows audiences how vast and detailed the scenery is. The low angle extreme wide shot makes the mountain look tall and dominant giving audiences a sense of awe.
The photographer framed the river in the photo to show the reflection of the mountain, not only is this repetition of the mountain it also provides the river more depth.
In terms of the color palette, the colours are have more depth than vibrance. The river has colours from white, blue progressively darker blue.
The ambient lighting is warm lighting naturally lighting up the mountains to make it look more shiny or healthy looking.
Although the photograph does not blur out the sides of the photo, this shows that the photographer is focusing the camera on the entire scenery.
Reference
https://iso.500px.com/portrait-of-a-photographer-lee-jeffries/
http://resourcemagonline.com/2015/01/12-top-tier-portrait-photographers-you-should-know/47073/
https://filtergrade.com/best-portrait-photographers-to-inspire-you/
http://time.com/3785517/portraits-of-the-homeless-by-lee-jeffries/
Task 2
