Self portrait- Take Two

I decided to re-shoot my portraits for the self-portrait portion of the brief, this was because I wasn’t entirely happy with what I had created for the portraits, they seemed flat and lacklustre which led me to become very critical of my work in general. I didn’t know where to go or what to do, I felt like I needed to leave it for a couple of weeks until I had recharged myself. This led to me thinking about colour and shadows, I have recently purchased an LED bulb that is colour changing, because of the nature of cheap products they aren’t the best for colour reproduction, making some of the colours have multiple tints of colours which work really well for this type of photography that I wanted to try with this brief, I wanted to step away from the plain old portraits that I have created for the friend portrait.

Self Portrait reshot

The coloured light I decided on was a ‘white’ light setting which turns out to be just mix of red, green, and blue, giving a mixture of colours that can be manipulated to get results such as pictured above, now this was something I enjoyed creating as if you move the light ever so slightly you can get a different look from it.

I decided that to get the most dramatic image possible I would go into the corridor in my flat and turn the lights out and try and almost rake the light across my face to give this low-key look without being in a studio. The light just catches my eye which makes it shine a bit more.

Processing this image all I did was up the clarity and dropped the saturation and made the dark bits smoother as there was a slight grain on them parts after it was saved.

Studio Session 1

During the first workshop in which we were in the studio, we experimented with the lighting that was available in both low key and high key. This was enjoyable to work with as we got to collaborate as a team to help each other create something a bit different to just a ‘school portrait’ which is what most people think of when in the studio with lights and a white backdrop. I have had a previous experience in the studio at A Level but with much less equipment and less help. This experience has opened me up to more studio shooting which I thought wasn’t for me because I like the more candid outdoor shooting with little instruction, capturing the little moments that I see.

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I took a few like this image but this one stuck out to me because of the way in which there is a catch light in the eye which adds dimension to the whole piece. The shadows that are cast across the jumpers also are really interesting to me, they give you something else to look at more visual interest.
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The second portrait I chose to show is the one which is similar to the first, but this one is more solemn as we changed the lighting and how I was directing Callum, the resulting image is quite a nice thing to see, it is subtle and soft, I decided to make the shadows in the image a lot darker in post-production to make the image stand out more. The shapes that are created in this image are flowing and move you through the image. The colour palette is really complementary nothing sticks out too much and the image seems to fit itself in without too much pull from the viewer.
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Although her love of fish is not real this image captures the love that is shared between a person and the environment, keeping the fish safe from the fishermen. Shot with a snoot this image had very directed light that made it a good low key image, the use of shadows to create a more structured face is also a good point of this image with a strong connection with the emotion of Alice and how she is portraying being attached to the fish in a stronger way than just food.

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