Photography Evaluation

I decided to take various portrait pictures of kittens, I felt that using Kittens in portraiture would evoke emotion in people furthermore I thought to take this on as a project because it’s something that I haven’t done before or had experience with and thought that it would good to experiment with photography. Although portraiture is of people or a group of people in their natural environment I wanted to use kittens, because images of them can be perceived with innocence and I wanted to create that shoot that conveyed that feeling.  

When I decided to do the shoot for the kittens I first looked at other photographers in the field to see how their pictures looked and to take inspiration for my own pictures. I looked into portraiture photographers such as Larry Clark for inspiration because I wanted to photograph subjects in their natural environment I also thought that taking pictures of younger animals would fit my target audience better because younger people as well as older prefer them.

My ability during the production was overall good but I would have to comment on the fact it was difficult to get my shots as I was photographing an animal which at times meant that the pictures would be blurry or not look right . I found that if I used the standard light in my room it made the photo come out dull and yellow looking so I used a flash to brighten the image and I found my shot came out a lot better.

 I think that the final images were perfect because they captured what I was looking for, Kittens in their natural environment, also the background fitted in because I used the smudge tool on the picture in Photoshop to make the kitten stand out. If I was to do this shoot again I will move the kittens to outside because they would look better under natural light. My management of time was good as well because in the time I had given myself, I managed to get quite a few pictures, some which I used in my portfolio but many I didn’t because I felt that they didn’t fit or there were technical difficulties such as the light or the images kept coming out blurry due to the fact they were moving. 

Photography Portfolio

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125951345@N03/

Photoshop- Healing Tools

Spot Healing Brush Tool (J)
Healing Brush Tool (J hold down left mouse button)

Spot Healing Brush Tool (J)
Patch Tool (J hold down left mouse button)

Photoshop All Sugar

L= Lasso
Q= Quickmask
Shift F6= Feather
Ctrl J= Duplicate Layer
Ctrl T= Change objects size
Ctrl J= Duplicate Layer
[= Change brush size down
]=  Change brush size up

Fashion Photography

Fashion Photography has been in existence since the early days of photography. In 1856, Adolphe Braun published a book containing 288 photographs of Virginia Oldoini, Countess di Castiglione; the photos depict her in her official court garb, making her the first fashion model. In the first decade of the 20^th century advances in halftone printing allowed for fashion photography to be featured in magazines. In 1905 Conde Nast brought vogue magazine and contributed to the beginnings of fashion photography, he then moved the magazine overseas and introduced it too countries like France, Spain and the United Kingdom. From there the magazine’s profits and publications increased and by 1911 it had evolved into the business it is today.   

A portrait is a picture of the person within the frame, whether it be manipulated by props or other means whereas a fashion photograph is a picture of the items in the frame not the model, an example of this would be that famous clothing brands like vogue will do a modelling shoot for their brand not the model.  

For a photograph to get into a fashion magazine they manipulate the image heavily, almost to the point where everything in the image is artificial. This is done by using a variety of techniques both before the photograph is taken and after. Even the models are manipulated because they have very strict diet and lifestyle choice, the very first thing they would do is to choose the right model for the chosen outfit; from there they would choose a theme for the shoot that would fit the product that they are trying to advertise. The model is then heavily altered with makeup more often than not to look artificial, the props are then chosen to collaborate with the theme and the lighting will either be natural if they were to be outside or could be artificial. When they shoot the model they often take a large number of photographs and normally only one maybe included in there magazine, sometimes even none of them are chosen because the editor may not like the colouring, the model or even the items of clothing that been chosen. After the photo have been taken they are often also heavily edited using computer software such as adobe photoshop, this may be done if the editor likes what they see in the frame but have queries with things like colour, the texture of the person skin, often models are airbrushed, this is too remove any imperfections they have and to also enhance certain features of them such as the neck, eyes and lips.

There is a clash between the creative side and commercial side of fashion photography because the commercial side wants to make money and would normally go with popular trends to achieve this. This hinders the creative side because creativity isn't necessarily popular especially in huge companies like vogue. The editor is normally the one, who picks the photographs for the magazine, and they will often reject loads of photograph on the basis that they would like to see a certain trend to be presented furthermore they could also rejects photographs on the basis that the model isn’t right, this could be seen as a biased attitude as they go with what they think will make them popular and don’t really care about how creative there shoots are. 

Portraiture- Larry Clark

Portraiture is photography of a person or group of people that display the expression, personality and mood of the subjects. When portraiture first started all the images where mostly artificial, the subjects almost puts on a mask so they appear almost divine and thus when portraiture first started it was only the rich and powerful who could afford to have portraits, this could be seen as a symbol of status but with the invention of the camera portraiture became accessible to everyone and anyone. This slowly evolved into a more natural art as many photographer's such as Tony Vaccaro only took pictures when his subject's were unaware. There have been many prominent portrait photographers such as Tony Vaccaro, Diane Arbus and Larry Clark. Larry Clark started his photography career as he documented him and his friends abusing drugs, having sex and violence, he then produced these photos into a book entitled 'Tulsa' and the the book is seen almost as a visual diary. These photos exposed the world to the real face of youth during that time period of drugs, violence, underage sex and a lack of concern towards for there well being. In my opinion Larry Clark's Tulsa photos are the best example of portraiture as in each image the subjects are completely natural, no poses and it conveys the attitude of youth in that time period as living in the moment.

Photojournalism (War Photography)

Robert Capa/Tony Vaccaro

Robert Capa and Tony Vaccaro were both photojournalists during world war 2. Robert Capa worked for life magazine and was sent on assignments to get photos. Capa's work is regarded amongst the best of war photographers due to how close he managed to get to the action. In 1943 Robert Capa went to Sicily with American Troops to capture the action of America trying to free it of German occupation, the pictures show the Sicilian population's sufferings under German bombing and their happiness when American soldiers arrive.  Tony Vaccaro was an American solider in Europe in 1944. He was on the front lines and took some of the most shocking and horrifying pictures of world war 2, some of the photos where destroyed by his officers because they showed a side of the war that the army didn't want the public to see. The main difference between these two prominent war photographers was Robert Capa could pick and choose when he went to photograph the war therefore he only saw and portrayed one side of the conflict, In essence his pictures almost glorified the Germans loses and so the photos he took only showed the public that the Americans were slaughtering the Germans and not portraying the reality that America too was taking heavy loses; this is where Tony Vaccaro's photography was different, his pictures portrayed the harsh reality of war, from comrades dying to the poor quality of life the soldiers had to live.       


Robert Capa-  Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936



Tony Vaccaro- Dead German Solider



Eddie Adams

Eddie Adams was a war photographer. He photographed 13 different wars in his career, his most prominent image 'Saigon Execution' was taken during the Vietnam war. His photo of the execution in 1968 was one of the most shocking war photos ever shown to the public. The picture features a general shooting a prisoner without trial. This shocked and appalled people because this was against basic human rights; The photo was more shocking for the general public than footage of the execution because the photograph brings out emotion furthermore the picture shows another side of war to public that they had never seen before as it portrayed a complete disregard to people's rights. The photo itself could be considered only a 'half truth' to the event that occurred, its a still, capturing the moment; but that moment can be deceptive and misleading.

Eddie Adams- Saigon Execution

My Photography

My preference in photography would be nature and landscapes. I prefer to take pictures of these because they are capturing a passing moment of beauty forever as a still. The camera I would use, to do this would be a Cannon D500.