Food Photography

The difference between a menu at Pizza hut and professional food photography is a lot to do with the set up and theme of the image. Professional food shoots usually consist of a lot of preparation. The lighting and placement of everything is essential to get a good shot. Places that are taking pictures for menus rarely think about how the set up looks, the background lighting etc. It's mostly about the food, but even then, most of the restaurants don't go as far as professional photographers when fixing the food.

Michael Ray

Shawn Taylor

Wedding Photography - Photobooths

http://www.shutterbugbooth.com/booth

The link above is a photographer who provides the service of a photo booth. It's traditional like other photo booths that you see in malls. You are able to rent the booth for most events. How it works is you go in the booth and press the start button, pictures will be taken every few seconds, with a count down so you know when to pose. There's no photographer actually present in the booth, its all mechanical and performed with the highest quality equipment. After the photos are taken the pictures are printed out at another station, again with no one present. At the end of the event the images are all posted onto a website so people can view them. This is only one form of the photo booth, some are actually more like studio sessions with props etc.

Narrative

                                                              Link To My Images

Environmental Portraiture

Link to Good images

 The images I chose for good environmental portraits are images that have an expressive background. Looking at the background and back to the subject you're able to know what the subjects interests are. The background can also tell you what kind of person they are, if they are calm, fun, ambitious people.

Link to Bad images

The images I chose for bad environmental portraits are images that have irrelevant backgrounds. They don't have anything to do with the subject and basically are placed there just because the background is nice to look at. Looking at the subject and the background together you get confused about what the photo is actually about.

Link to My Images

Assignment 2 Part 2

My favorite images out of the five, are the first image, and the fourth image, because I think they best emulate Sally Mann's work.  The original images are down below. I tried to get the depth of field like Sally Mann's but because of the different background it was hard to achieve. I should have done more post production to get the soft focus around the arms. Overall I think that I did a pretty good job, I really enjoyed this project and I think i'll continue to emulate some of Sally Mann's photos. I really like using natural lighting, and she uses such interesting subject and contexts that it makes it so much fun to emulate.

Assignment 2- Research

Sally Mann

            Sally Mann's portraits really stand out to me. I like her use of DOF and lighting. Her subjects are always young, and although they mostly look beautiful and angelic, she uses a different approach than most photographers.  Her photographs are mostly candid I find, or have a candid sense to them, her subjects never smile or seem to know that the camera is there, they are naturally posed.\

            Her backgrounds/sceneries usually consist of something that would be realistic to the subject. She often took pictures near and around the water. Her lighting is very soft and natural. Her subjects are 90% of the time her children, or young adults. A lot of the time they are photographed naked or with barely any clothes on. Her shallow depth of field is very nice in her photos, I think depending on the background she uses 5.6 or lower.

                                                          

Old Images Tutorials

Original

Attempt 1

This photo is really grainy, but I don't like the effect because its so even, you can tell its post production. Also the photo is very flat, with little highlights and shadows, its mostly mid-tones.

Attempt 2

This photo looks really old and grainy, Its very bright and almost blowing out the face of the model. Its also lost sharpness in the eyes. Its my least favorite of the photos.

Attempt 3

I personally find this is the best one, other than the specks underneath her chin, although it does add an effect of it being old and battered.  The sharpness is all the same within the photo, but the background is blurred. I added slight grain to the photo, and made her face very pale and smooth, while her jacket adds more contrast to the photo. 

Assignment 1- Portrait module

        

   Diane Arbus

         

I started off with this photograph, because it really demonstrates Arbus' demented ways of portraiture. Here you have this nice kid playing in the park, and she twists it, to make it look strange and abnormal, and almost disturbing. Available light, to me, is the most beautiful lighting, and yet even with her use of it, the portrait is everything but beautiful.

Portraiture is to display character and tell a story about a person and their personality. This picture has a lot of character to it, but I don't think the model would want to display themselves as this. The person's makeup, outfit, and positioning, is all unflattering. Im not quite sure if this is a man or a woman, it seems as if one leg has been shaved and one hasn't been.

         

You can tell in this portrait that the person was trying to glam themselves up. With the curlers, long nails, lipstick, penciled in eyebrows etc, but this portrait isnt glamourous. Again I cant even tell if this is a boy or a girl. The nails and hair tell me one thing, then the hands and face tell me another.

Overall Diane Arbus

She uses lighting that doesnt flatter the model, mostly one light source. She's not interested in capturing beauty within the people shes photographing. She wants to create a depth within her photographs, that looks more at what the person is thinking, rather than what their personality is. They're not meant to be fashionable or a pleasure to look at.

Edward Steichan

 

As you can see here, in contrast to Diane Arbus, Steichan uses multiple lights that flatters the scenery and the models. The models are posing unnaturally for the scenery, all to make themselves look elegant.

Im not quite sure if this is an available light portrait, but even so, its still quite beautiful, Steichan makes sure to make his subjects looks good in their environment and displays fashion and glamour throughout all his photographs.

This image is a fashion shot meant to show the beauty and elegance of the model. The model looks beautiful. She's positioned in an attractive way. The lighting shows her femininity. The background compliments the foreground. Everything in the frame is intended and well thought out.

Overall Edward Steichan

His portraits are more about the beauty of the person within the image, not the personality. He uses multiple lights that flatters the models. positioning, facial expression, background, foreground and props are all considered and done well. 

Steichan vs Arbus

These two artists are complete opposites in their ways of portraiture. One is beautiful and the other is repulsing. Their lighting patterns are different. Steichan is very consistent with his lighting patterns. Whereas Arbus just uses the light thats available, or used light thats unflattering. Arbus doesn't use unique backgrounds to convey beauty in her models, but uses them to get a better understanding of the models surroundings, so you look more into what they are thinking. Steichan is all about beauty and fashion, he uses props and surroundings of a princess, or high class person, to make them look more glamourous.


Sally Mann

Sally Mann often photographed her children in natural settings, and made the photographs unique. Like this photograph here of her daughter swimming, was transformed into an almost abstract image. She places her children exactly how she wants them.

Her photographs were regarded as strange when so many of them contained her naked children. She was able to turn it into a style, and work with her surroundings. Each of her photographs looked posed, but in an almost natural way. 

Lighting was always very important in her portraits. The children probably stood in the water for hours to wait for this shot to be just perfect.

 Overall Sally Mann

Her portraits were well thought out and amazing. She perfected her lighting and composition. Her subjects are used in a less traditional way. The portraits weren't about the happiness and beauty of children like most shots would be. She put more of an artistic view into the composition and meaning beyond the children.

Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman's style was similar to Diane Arbus'. He puts his subjects in odd scenarios, and his portraits are more about the composition and thoughts of the sitter, rather than the beauty. Although in this image there is some beauty coming from the composition and lighting. The image is nice to look at, so that's a contrast with Arbus. Also I think that the images look like they are influenced by Steichan because if the environmental composition.

These images are very nicely lit, and the composition compliments the portraits as well. Although the expressions and positioning of the models leans towards Arbus, you can clearly tell the different between the two artists. Also Newman has a more related background with his subjects. Arbus' models didn't seem to belong in the scenario they were in, whereas Newmans do, they look strange overall, but natural in their environment.