Conceptual Portraiture: Editing Techniques

Rankin's photograph which we were trying to recreate:

We tried to recreate this image in the studio by connecting the camera to a laptop so the image was enlarged on the screen so anything wrong could be corrected. 
The lighting was from using a beauty dish with additional filters such as snoots and honeycombs. 

 Teacher's edit:

We were told to select the image and then edit it to replicate the teacher's edit without being told what or how to do it.

Here was my edit from the image before to after:

Conceptual Portraiture: 5x4 Camera with film and lighting

During this lesson we looked at some more photographers who used 5x4 large format camera's. 

Cecil Beaton:

He wasn't known for his skills as a technical photographer but from how he focused on staging a model for the perfect shutter-release moment.

Horst P Horst:

Although I hadn't heard of him until now I think his photographs are fantastic because of the way he captures elegance, glamour and the beauty of women. 

Phillipe Halsmann:

Phillipe Halsmann's photographs of Salvador Dali are surreal and his photograph of Albert Einstein portray him as a relaxed man. Phillipe is capturing people's character being natural without posing and photographing them. 

Irving Penn:

Irving Penn's photographs especially his black and white photographs are known for their deep contrast, clean-cut and neat feel.

Erwin Blumenfeld:

Erwin Blumenfeld's photographs are different because he was an experimenter and after he took his photographs he hand painted some of them. Other work he has done his photographs are surreal.

These photographers work seems different from other fashion photographers because the images they produced seem so simple and effortless yet so beautiful and effective.

We then went on to using the large format camera's and we worked in groups to create four images. We took it in turns to have different jobs e.g lighting, model, focusing and taking the photograph. 

We got a bit confused on how to determine the aperture and shutter speed. 

Working with the camera was good because when we I was taking my photograph I had time to double checked that the focusing was right because I had more time to think, its different to a 35mm camera where you can take lots of photographs. 

I learnt from using these camera's that I have been taking advantage of my digital camera by taking picture after picture until something is right instead of composing it all getting my settings right and by slowing down and not rushing into getting it done as quickly as possible. 

Conceptual Portraiture: Early Portrait Photographers

In 1839 Robert Cornelius took a daguerreotype photograph of himself and was credited for taking the first portrait of a person. 

Although in 1840 John William Draper was credited for taking a clear picture of a person's face. 

The person in the picture is his sister. 

Napoleon Sarony was born in 1821 in Canada but then moved to New York in 1836. He became an apprentice to his brother Oliver a photographer in 1864. But in 1866 Napoleon moved to New York and opened up his own photography studio on Broadway. During his photography years he photographed many people but he specialised with actresses and actors. 

Joseph Jefferson 1869

Cora Adriana 1870 

Adelaide Neilson 1870 

Oscar Wilde 1892

Oscar Wilde 1892

Wilkie Collins 1873

Sarah Bernhardt 1891

As photographers paid to photograph the famous people it was said that Napoleon paid $1,500 for actress Sarah Bernhardt to pose for him which would be more than $20,000 in today's value. 

Napoleon Sarony was best known for the poses and facial expression his sitters produced on camera. 

George Washington Wilson was born in 1823 in north east Scotland. In 1840 George trained as a portrait miniaturist which then led to in 1850 he went to Aberdeen and became and artist and a photographer. Just after 4 years he photographed the Royal Family and then was appointed the Scotland Royal's photographer. 

Queen Victoria, Prince Arthur, Princess Beatrice 1876

Queen Victoria on ‘Fyvie’ with John Brown at Balmoral 1863

Mrs Donald Stewart & children 1861

 His Family 1861

These are some more of his portraits with his trademark. 

His business became very successful that in 1862 his work won prizes at the Great London International Exhibition and then in 1880 his company that he founded became the largest and best known in Scotland.

Conceptual Portraiture: 5x4 Camera's

During this lesson we were introduced to a large format camera. The size of the camera was 5x4 and these cameras were used by many photographers before technology advanced. 

First we started off by learning the different parts of the camera.  None of these images are mine, they were found on Google images. 

When looking through the glass screen the subject that is standing in front of the camera is upside down. This makes you think even more about the photograph being taken such as lighting, what's in focus and the composition as every shot is valuable and crucial to get it perfect the first time. Whereas with today's camera's people take as many photographs as they can thinking it can all be fixed with some editing. Another reason why a large format camera is different from a 35 mm camera like today is that when you take a photograph you have to spend at least 15 minutes developing the film, then fixing the film for 5 minutes and leaving the film to dry in  heat for 10 more minutes. After this then you have to make contact sheets then develop and fix that which seems to take forever whereas with a digital camera you just plug a lead from your camera into a computer and all your images pop up. Although it is faster its nice as well to go back to the old ways. 
Another thing I didn't know about large format camera's is that their image quality is so much better than the camera we use because of the size of the camera itself but also how big the film holder is. 
It was interesting using the 5x4 camera because its fascinating learning how photography has changed. 
We didn't use film straight away we started with photographic paper which we loaded in the dark room. Then we took it in turns to use the camera and because we were in a bright room we had to put our coats over our heads in order to see what was on the screen. Then we went back to the darkroom to process the images we took. 
Here are the images I took:

My images are quite blurred because it was hard for the model and all of us to stay still for longer than 5 seconds. 


A photographer called Julia Margaret-Cameron received her first camera in December 1863 a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. Julia was 48 years old, a mother of 6 and a deeply religious person who was friends with many of the greatest people in Victorian England. Some of them are G. F. Watts a painter, Robert Browning who was a poet and Alfred Lord Tennyson who was her neighbour brought a lot of friends to her house to be photographed. Her photographic career only lasted 11 years but during it she documented each of her photographs by registering them with a copyright office where records were kept.
Her first photograph was taken on January the 29th 1864. Named 'Annie, My first success'

"I began with no knowledge of the art, I did not know where to place my dark box, how to focus my sitter, and my first picture I effaced to my consternation by rubbing my hand over the filmy side of the glass."  Her photographs developed with blur due to long exposures and the subjects moved and the lens being out of focus intentionally. 
Her photographs were not liked by professional photographers at the time the Photographic Journal said "Mrs. Cameron exhibits her series of out-of-focus portraits of celebrities. We must give this lady credit for daring originality''. Her photographs were influenced by art and religious themes and her style was soft-focus which David Wilkie Wynfield had taught her. Julia Margaret Cameron wrote "to my feeling about his beautiful photography I owed all my attempts and indeed consequently all my success". 

Angel of the nativity 

 Mary Ann Hillierby - Mary Mother 

 Actress Ellen Terry aged 16

Sir John Herschel                                                                           Zoe, Maid of Athens

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Margaret_Cameron
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/camr/hd_camr.htm

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lenses-primer/
http://mikeaddisoncollege.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/studio-portraiture.html