Photo2Q4.2: Study of Formal Portraiture

Q4 POST #2 Study of Formal Portraiture (not expressive)
Post Deadline/Closes by Sun. 14 APRIL midnight
MINIMUM # IMAGE(S) TO POST: 6 photos (from three different photographers)
View FORMAL portraits from local Hawaii Photographers/Companies:

Intro/Closing:
-Look through ALL of the links on the FORMAL portrait photographers and see what gets your attention the most.
-Choose 3 photographers & save two FORMAL portrait images from each.
-Post these on your blog, and answer the following questions under EACH photographer’s photo.

Credit the photographer, as always.
Why did you like this photo?
What purpose was this photo taken? (business, actor headshot, self-branding, etc.)
What about this photo would you like to emulate in your own portraits?

I think that the goal with any self portrait is to capture the personality of the person in a single frame with minimal additional elements. That's not to say that these elements can't be used, it's just that in my preference, a great portrait is great because you can tell who someone is with just a foreground (the person) and an extremely minimal background.

Jeremy Snell

This photo is perfect in capturing who this man is. I feel that the earthy green shadows that contour his face perfectly compliment his skin tone. I'm sure that there is some intentional color correction to achieve this. The blacks are lifted a tiny bit, the whites are crushed very in a subtle way, and the focus is incredibly tight–putting only the subject in view. When looking at this photo, I feel "respect" for the man. He reminds viewers of an elder. You can tell see that he is quite aged, through the positioning in his hand, his facial features and expression, and the general vibe from the photo that this man is knowledgable. Of course, one can't be for sure what exactly, but being able to communicate that much from a photo is such a wonderful ability that I'd like to emulate in my own portraits (and really any other portrait for that matter).

Jeremy Snell - Personal Portrait

I enjoy this photo for very similar reasons to the one above. Snell is wonderful at creating a feeling of home. The light going on in this photo is really interesting. It tapers off from initially being warm toward a dark greenish undertone. I'd like to emulate, again, the capability of portraying a lot in one photo, but also the creative lighting here.

Jeremy Snell - Personal Portrait

I enjoy the interesting darkening of the entire image and the lifted blacks/shadows. The whites/highlights are completely suppressed too, yet, the initial lighting must've been bright. In the end, we get an interesting portrait that tells me "this person has worked hard" (the subject).

Tracy Wright Corvo - Personal Portrait

I generally shy away from black and white photography, but I found this portrait to be really interesting. This man reminds me of Maségo. I like how straight-up this portrait is. His eyes are clearly framed near the top third row, and his body is absolutely centered. The framing is really simple, but really effective. I'd like to be able to replicate that.

Tracy Wright Corvo - Professional Branding

This body shot is really nicely positioned. I'm not quite used to posing people, as I just take photos of people as they would naturally pose and give them just a couple of vague pointers, but it's very clear that the photographer gave the model instructions on placement of her hands, shoulder leaning, etc. Very nicely done.

Kaveh Kardan - Personal Branding

Kardan tried something different here, but still stuck to typical standards of portrait photography. Kardan took away the eyes, which are arguably the most powerful portion of a portrait, but balanced it well with a personal narrative. Perhaps the woman here is a body painter of sorts. Whatever it may be, it leads me to believe that this photo was created with the intention of showing the type of person that this woman is, or what she does.

Expressions Hawaii - Personal Portrait

This photo is particularly interesting in displaying a personal narrative, much like Kardan's photo above. The chalk clap helps add another layer of dimension to the photo. I like this a lot.

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Photo2Q4.1: Finding Vivian Maier

Initially, I thought that her work was amazing. I enjoy street photography. I haven't done much in a while, but I enjoyed the candid intimacy and genuineness of capturing a moment that isn't necessarily posed. There's such a human aspect to it that you can't get if people are aware of being captured in a photo. I began to notice a lot of what critics were saying of her work too. Her use of a Rolleiflex camera was incredibly beneficial, because people weren't looking into the camera. They were looking toward Vivian, and the fact that people were looking "above" the camera (but not necessarily too high to be looking "up") only worked to give subjects a sense of confidence. Plus, the photos weren't just limited to a subject being framed in a single third or being a portrait. Vivian had diversity. The square format was especially beneficial in keeping the subjects really tight in the frame. If her photos were an album, it'd be 21 minutes long. Doesn't sound long–albums are usually 40+ minutes. But in those albums, there's a lot of filler. With Vivian, it's all killer–no filler. The images below appealed to me the most.

As I gained knowledge on the people she cared for, the people she met, the societal rules she "broke"... I still had respect for her work. And personally, I tend to separate art from the artist when the art appeals to me. For example, I enjoy some of XXXtentacion's work. His music truly was genre-blending and unique, and his death was unfortunate. But I acknowledge that his history was awful. He certainly did not deserve to have the fame, money, and power that he had, but as his life was just turning around, making efforts to change his image, he was murdered. With Vivian, there wasn't an opportunity for her to change her life. It's very likely she had some kind of mental illness. Perhaps it was borderline personality disorder, where victims have severe instability in emotion and self-concept, alongside impulsive and self-destructive behavior. Or perhaps it was some unique form of schizophrenia and dementia. Or maybe she truly was just unique in her own way of thinking. Obviously, Vivian's history doesn't compare to the crimes X is criticized for posthumously, but the same idea applies. If the art is so great in it's magnitude and impact to society or to an individual, it's easy to forget or to put all of the negativity in the subconscious. The images I selected display such greatness.

My volume of work usually consists of upwards of 500-1000 images per month, with just 100-200 of them seeing daylight due to my selectivity in them, and just 10-50 of them being works that I'd legitimately publish. For some of them, I take them because it's of friends that enjoy having their photos taken. For others, it's part of my tasks in Yearbook. However, for the few that I take out of joy, I find that posting them on social media is preferable. In recent months that joy has conflicted with the difficulties of transitioning to college, but otherwise I take photos because they're pieces of art. You can share them with the world. For Vivian, I see no purpose in taking photos just to intentionally hide them away.

I can understand selectivity. I can understand having financial problems in developing film or getting your name out there. But for Vivian, she didn't have either of these; I truly don't understand why she did not share her work. Whether it'd be to the subjects themselves, in a gallery, in a book, to be sold to the public; her thousands of images are truly mind-boggling. I can't resist the urge to at least share it with someone. But Vivian shared it with nobody. Even if there were no IG or Tumblr or social media platform to share, I'd find a way, especially in a time where photography wouldn't be a digitally saturated market (like it is today).

One's mental health is absolutely influential to the type of work you'll produce, the style, the motivations–everything. You can still produce art (though there are some particular mental disorders that limit this capability, but Vivian's art clearly didn't suffer). Her questionable childhood, hoarding, and possible history of abuse definitely played a role in her photography. In class, Mrs. Takemoto was talking about a particular individual who had CCTV cameras that captured everything in a store. When asked why, it was because of a traumatic event, and that he didn't want to "lose the memory of something happening again" (or something of the sort). I believe Vivian had a similar motivation to her artwork, but perhaps it was a little darker. Perhaps, due to an estranged childhood, she wanted to expose the true nature of humanity. Sometimes, it'd be the innocence of childhood; something Maier's may have yearned for. Sometimes, it'd be homelessness. Her motivations are confusing, especially since all we have from her is her art–no specific accounts from her about her life story.

Personally, I am influenced by other artists. Students in this school like Aaron Quillopo or Janina Abdelehad take some remarkable portraits. I am influenced by styles all across Instagram, particularly those of a vintage manner. I'm inspired by vaporwave, street, geometric, east-Asian architecture. I'm sure the people I'm inspired by are similarly motivated by other artists as well. However, my motivations are out of the desire to capture moments that might not be recreated the same way again. They lie in the desire to capture everlasting moments.

I think that her work is experiencing the remarkable success it's having now due to multiple factors. Firstly, she had talent. Whether it'd be in framing, exposure, exploration, finding moments; she was capable of all the tangibles. In addition, I think that with visual art, it's harder to appreciate it if they're extremely recent. We've seen a dramatic change toward flat, "modern" design. It's in the operating systems of our phones, the designs of the most popular businesses and companies of products/services we use; the style harshly contrasts skeuomorphism, which is what the designs of yesteryears had. I think that her popularity is at a high not only because of her artistic and quantifiable prowess, but also because skeuomorphism in the photographic avenue is making a resurgence, the same way vintage/film photographs are making a resurgence. Thus, both cognitive and environmental influences are playing a part in making her photographs seem admirable.

After viewing the documentary, I'd definitely like to attempt to be more bold in street photography; to not be afraid. In her photography, she's always gotten admirably close to her subjects. She was not afraid at all to take pictures of people, no matter how they felt about their photos being taken. Looking back at the photos I've taken thus far, I dislike my photos of people on the street as they walk away because their faces reveal a lot about who they are. Instead, I think it'd be desirable to make the change toward being bolder and braver in street photography.

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Photo2Q3.6: Senior Homeroom Portrait

Prior to this shoot, I've never done group portraits, let alone arranging a formal one with people you've never worked with before. Generally, I wanted to keep things in a specific format; one formal, one comedic. And it worked, generally. Besides that though, many of the decisions me and Nicole made were somewhat on the spot to accommodate specific circumstances presented to us on the day-of-shooting.

Location/BTS

Lau

Pounds

Takahashi

All photos were shot at f/4.5, 1/640, and around 100-200 ISO.

Overall, the pace at which we were shooting was easy to manage. Everyone was willing and cooperative to the entire thing (perhaps because many of the students within each class were mellow and the classes were small). Teachers helped to keep everyone in check, so behavior wasn't an issue. Post-production needed to be used for certain things, especially in the photo for Mr. Pounds because of the komorebi (light leaking through the branches). We chose this as our classroom photo because it looked attractive, but with that came the consequence of dealing with that komorebi. Otherwise, I believe that it'd would've been beneficial to know the camera settings (as we were using a camera that wasn't our own; a T3i where I usually used a T5), as well as the complete height makeup of the groups we were photographing.

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Photo2Q3.5: Matting Photograph Prints

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Photo2Q3.4: External Flash

Coming into this project, I've never comfortably used flash accessories. I've seen using photographers use external flashes often, but I've never found use for them as I've utilized natural light a majority of the time. Still, they seemed "professional" so having this project definitely is an opportunity to expand my knowledge.

1a Before

1a After

1b Before

1b After

It seems as if that the flash needs to be within a certain distance for the built-in flash to function well. The shadows appeared to be filled out quite decently, but fall off beyond 5-6 ft in terms of luminance. 

I am currently missing task 2 as I've misplaced the files :/ However from what I remember, the external flash definitely seems to allow for far more distance. The luminance is far stronger and is quite successful in filling in the excess shadows that come with having harsh natural lighting.

3a Direct White

3a Direct Black

3b Side White

3b Side Black

3c Ceiling White

3c Ceiling Black

3d Card White

3d Card Black

3e Soft Box White

3e Soft Box Black

4f Direct 24mm

4 Direct 105mm

5 Before Reflector

5 After Reflector - Silver

5 After Reflector - Gold

After playing around with the different environments, uses, and capabilities regarding external flash, I found that it's incredibly useful for filling in shadows and providing that extra bit of light for a scene, or perhaps even being the primary source of light for a scene. I can definitely see the potential in using it for a variety of events, including the senior homeroom photoshoot. It's uses are definitely applicable to more closed in locations where you can bounce light off of various surfaces, preferably places with low ceilings. Backdrops can matter too in terms of giving off a particular look (I prefer black). The zoom can give a vignette effect to your image, or you can keep the zoom wide. There's so many different things you can do with external flash, and I believe that I only touched the surface of what you can do with it.

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Photo2Q3.3: Group Portrait Practice

I've never been the type of photographer to take group photos. Since I've stuck with using a f/1.8 50mm for a large majority of my photographic career, I didn't feel the need to expand beyond that. When practicing in class, I was working independently and to be honest, it was interesting, but skewed. I worked with all of these people in some way or know them somehow, so it was pretty easy to "talk" to all of them. We all have a shared passion for photography, so we all understood what was going on. Much of this wouldn't necessarily translate to real-world group photography. Still, it was great to have control over a situation and ask people to pose a certain way or to move here or there. It felt as if I was truly modeling people, just on a smaller scale.

 

Due to unforeseen circumstances, these are the only BTS photos we have. Perhaps the greatest difficulty was getting the proper lighting that would fit all individuals in the photo. It's a lot easier when you're photographing 1-3 people, but once that group grows, the light has to hit each face in just the right way. Having harsh shadows definitely doesn't help (this is where flash comes in to fill in those shadows, but I still dislike the harsh look of built-in flash). However, finding the location was relatively easy as we have a lot of beautiful spots on campus.

Thus, when planning for the actual group portraits for the senior homerooms, I think it'd be advantageous to A) Find locations that have beautiful settings but are balanced with lighting that's easy to work with, and to B) Not be afraid to command people and directly talk to them to get their positioning right in the photo.

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Photo2Q3.2: Pow Wow 2019

Pow Wow is a wonderful opportunity for artists to come down to various places around the world and to just create. Sure, it's quite typical for the artists to only paint murals and such, but in recent years that has changed. We've seen different mediums emerge (the wire guy from last year) as well as controversial and highly intriguing new concepts from up and coming artists (like Tran Nguyen). Hawaii has always been known for being a melting pot of culture as well, so it's wonderful to have top artists in the international world merge ideas with artists local to Hawaii. Jasper Wong has done a great job in bringing together the right types of people together to create a spectacle in Kaka'ako, a place whose change I've personally witnessed (from a homelessness hot spot to a colorful [albeit gentrified] area for creatives).

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey

I plan on going to Pow Wow on a couple separate occasions with my friends to check out the artwork there. As we all know, the great Shepard Fairey is going to be there, so I'd definitely like to check his work out while I'm there. I respect his work for Obey and the famous "Hope" poster featuring Barack Obama.

How Nosm

How Nosm

When I look at their artwork, I am reminded of multiple themes that merged together, which I'll title: Abstract, Japanese, and psychadelic geometrics and aesthetics in a outrun landscape, complimented by vaporwave-esque colors. I've never seen such a wide array of themes merged together in such a unique way. I love their pieces and I hope to see it at Pow Wow.

Amy Sol

Amy Sol

In a lot of ways, Amy Sol's work reminds me of Tran Nguyen from last year. It's got this interesting realism aspect, but explores fantasy themes and colors. Her color palette in her artwork is on the duller side, but it works so well to her artwork. I'm intrigued to see how this will translate to Pow Wow Hawaii, where the canvas will be much larger than what she's often working with.

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