Tag: brief 3 : portraiture

Street photography is something that I have had a secret love for many years, living in a bustling environment for a couple of years Newcastle has always inspired me to try my hand at this, I have created a set of images in the first year of college which was portraits of people walking away, I would stand in a location and wait for someone to pass me that looked interesting and I created a set of six images like this. It was a different approach to a portrait brief but it felt like I t would fit, having done this before I wanted to recreate this with what I have learnt from doing photography for much longer now and since I have learnt so much since I last did this sort of thing. Since moving down to Lincoln where the pace is much slower, I feel like this is a challenge to take pictures of people from the shadows much like Frank.

What I love about Frank’s work is the way he captures America at that time, nothing screams more real than this. His work has a roughness to some of the images with wonky composition, which I presume is captured on the fly when trying not to be noticed in some locations and others seem to be more controlled and though about, thinking about what he was capturing and why he was capturing it.

Sources:

Frank, R. (1978). The Americans. Millerton, N.Y.: Aperture.

Capa whose work is iconic to many photographers, and his photo essay on the Spanish civil war is an amazing, inspirational and personal look on this war. Most of his work is very crisp and sharp for the most part, but since he shot on film some of his shots capture an extended period of time, and movement of people. An iconic shot from this essay, is a photo of a woman running from the raid alarm and trying to find shelter the look of panic swept across her face and a dog in her path. The way that Capa has captured the movement and how Capa has panned with the woman to get the buildings to blur and her still be sharp.

This image is quite iconic and I feel like this is a striking image as it shows panic and movement of this unknown woman and a dog. I feel like this image is moving as it shows how the fear and panic in this person and in Spain at the time.

Capa shows through the photo essay the physical effects of the civil war and without the images he took we wouldn’t have any documentation of this, and the human effect that the war, or any war can bring and if most of these images were shot today in Syria or Iraq they would be showing the same message, which shows that Capa’s images are timeless, and can be related to throughout time, I feel like an image that would stand the test of time from this essay would be the one of the refugees from Malaga, the old woman crying with a small child hiding behind I feel that Capa is trying to show how war effects people and the town or city. I think that these images are really captivating and powerful, I really like these images and think that I would love to have assisted on some of these outings as it would be quite the experience to have seen the real world effects of war, and how I as a photographer would shoot these images differently to Capa, how he could help inspire me to try and get different details of the world.

This is just one of the photo essays that Capa has done, and this one has really inspired me the most as it shows the real world instead of the constructed world the media want us to see. I feel Capa will have inspired countless photographers to abstain from the rules and mediation processes, putting images out into the public that challenge the ideas that are put out to the public.

Many people don’t like Capa’s work, feeling like that some of the images like the ‘falling soldier’ are faked, but it will still be an iconic image that will be studied for many years to come.

American born Avedon was a Fashion / documentary photographer who liked minimalism in his work, capturing the raw emotions of his subject he was sitting, revealing so much about them, rather than other more conventional portraits.

A moment that solidified his wanting to be a fashion photographer went as so: “One evening my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue looking at the store windows,” he remembered. “In front of the Plaza Hotel, I saw a bald man with a camera posing a very beautiful woman against a tree. He lifted his head, adjusted her dress a little bit and took some photographs. Later, I saw the picture in Harper’s Bazaar. I didn’t understand why he’d taken her against that tree until I got to Paris a few years later: the tree in front of the Plaza had that same peeling bark you see all over the Champs-Elysees.” (biography.com, 2016)

His style of photography was essential humanity and showing vulnerability, showing the person, not the shield that they put up. Avedon was highly skilled in capturing that little moment where the person lets their guard down and loses their character that they are portraying, capturing their raw emotion. An example of this would be the iconic picture of Marilyn Monroe, where she lets her guard down and let’s go of the character of Marilyn that the media was used to seeing.

Avedon’s other works are highly dynamic and show a more high fashion aspect to them, showing a concept rather than a person, his work oozes a certain quality that I aspire to achieve through my work. To get some angular poses that are large and seem completely natural. An image that sticks out in my mind when I think of Avedon is the image of the man with bees, a stark white background, and a really pale man covered in bees creating a contrast between white and black. This image is a truly iconic piece of imagery, something that people have and will come across, an image that is really well shot and composed. The way the eyes connect with the camera and finally you is quite striking to see, I can imagine this image being blown up to be on a large wall and this figure would be imposing on you as you look at it, I feel it would be something special to see in person to see this figure stare into you, blank expression, covered in bees.