Portraits – Matthew Welsh Photography

April 15, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Final Portraits

The portraits I have chosen for my final three portraits are as follows:

For the stranger portrait, I took this image which was quite a challenge as taking a picture of a stranger is something that comes with a challenge. I managed to find someone ad take this image which I am really happy with as it isn’t just a straight on the image of a face it has shadow and depth. I don’t really like boring images of a face straight n it doesn’t really excite me very much whereas images where the subject is facing away from the camera and more artistic seem to capture more of the person. the colours in this image are very muted and work really well in this context with this image and how it looks with the bricks in the background and how industrial it looks.

For the second Portrait, it was my self-portrait.

Self portrait- Take Two

The third image is my familiar portrait and it is of Alice.

Now I had a hard deciding which portrait to choose for this on as I had a few to choose from but I think this one is probably one of the best that I have taken for this brief. I liked the Rembrandt lighting, which really adds depth to the image and how the lighting looked with the snoot modifier and the strobe light. what I enjoyed about this image was that the isolation with the black background making it low key and something I really enjoy. It has a feeling of Penn’s work and that is also something I really enjoy about this piece of work.

March 15, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Self portrait- initial shots – wip

March 13, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

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.

IMG_9200-2 — 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.

IMG_9199-1 — 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.

IMG_9792-11 — 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.

March 11, 2016Matthew Welsh No Comments

Socialising

During a break in a lecture I pulled out my camera to take just some random portraits of some of my friends just for fun, the resulting images are quite effective and have a very casual feel about them.

IMG_1871_e111 — The light in this image was coming from behind creating a very harsh light. I have had to edit this image quite a lot as it was highly over exposed but looked okay. I added a vignette to add some interest into the image also, this draws the viewer’s attention to the centre of the image.

IMG_1738_e1 — Looking out of the window looking into the world. I thought this was interesting in the way that the light was hitting the face and how that created some interest in the image. The contrast between the orange of the wall and the brown of the coat and hair makes a really interesting juxtaposition and something I really like.