Evaluation

For the assignment I was looking forward to starting; I liked being in the studio and was eager to be able to expand on my range of knowledge with new equipment. Going into the studio with the group for the first time was a little awkward as there was so many of us and we didn’t really get a chance to do much, we watch the demonstrations and tried to take most of it in. But when we got split up into smaller groups it was easier to get to grips with the equipment as I got to play around with it a bit more.

          

I also went to a talk on Steven Pyke and I really liked his way of photographing and his end results. From watching this I new I wanted my prints to be in black and whit because I think it bought out the emotion in the image more but that is just my opinion. So I started to research portrait photographers that mainly worked in black and white, then the name Lee Jefries came up and I was drawn to his work with all his models pulling faces at the camera. I decided I wanted to do something similar with my images but trying to capture a reaction rather then a funny face.

          

I went back to the studio with this in mind but rather than a few of us being in there to set up there was only me and one other. This was a good thing as it made us concentrate, as there wasn’t anyone else around to rely on. We got the studio set up with just one frontal light and two of the black polystyrene boards either side of where the model was going to be sitting. This was because I wanted a black background and a heavy contrast. It was then linked up to capture one, which was also new for me but I really enjoyed using the software as I had seen it being used on programs like Britain and Irelands next top models. I felt quite professional using it. My models then arrived once it had all been set up. This worked well at thy didn’t have much waiting around and all I needed to double check on was if the eyes were in focus using capture one with the icon that highlighted everything green once it was in focus.

          

Once I was happy with the photos I choose six that I wanted to work on further. I uploaded them onto Photoshop and changed the levels of the shadows and highlights to add a heavier contrast that I wanted from the start. When I was happy with them the last thing to do was to send them to get printed. I had to think of what type of paper I wanted them on. So I had a look at all sorts like metallic and pearl that I had never seen before but I did really liked. It wasn’t really what I needed for my black and white portraits though. I realised that I needed to keep in simple and went for a plain gloss. My initial thought was to use ‘Digitalab’ as I had used them before and was happy with the results. I also think it’s important if you can to keep the trade local.

Now that the assignment is almost over I feel that I have now got a much better understanding of what portraits are, and I am much more confident with the studio equipment, such as setting up the lights and using the Hasselblads with the digital backs.