These are some shots that inspire what I want to do with my portraiture. The difference for most of them is that I seem to pick black and white whereas the brief asks for colour.
I am using a male model who will have his bass guitar. I think I will use the bass in the full length and mid shots. The head shot will be high key, half body shot, mid key and low key for the full body shot. I have an image in my head of how I want the shots. Quite moody.
Beforef5.6 1/40 200
My subject for the Environmental Portrait will be my brother, who is really into cycling. I had an idea first of all for a picture of him where he goes often in Peebles but the shot I wanted I think personally, really only worked in landscape, not portrait.
I asked what he’d normally do on a break and he said they’d normally stop in a wooded area for a smoke and a coffee, so I went to Corstorphine Hill and had a look around the woods. I found some areas I thought would be good composition wise. I used my husband as the subject and have left space for the bike etc to be placed. These haven’t been processed – they are just recce shots for me to work out what I’m doing. The light could have been better, the sun was splitting the trees and there were lots of shadows but I will be using flash to light my subject in the final shots so that hopefully won’t be an issue.
I took a lot of shots, these are the ones I think could work – there are a couple of issues I can see – I need to fill the frame with my model a bit more in a couple (pics 3 & 5) and not have him with branches sticking out his head like in pic.5! Overall just now I’m leaning towards pic 2 for lighting, composition and depth in the image (bike would be leaning against the tree, biking gear used as props and model in biking clothes)
Magazine – Mountain Biking UK https://www.mbuk.com/
Image below by: Barry Orillia
I like the composition with the trees in the background although I feel it’s maybe lacking depth (like it could be a flat backdrop) The neutral tones of the trees are contrasting with her outfit to make her stand out. The good thing about trails and paths like this is they add a leading line on which to place your focal point. I personally think her thighs and that area of the bike look a little overexposed but that could just be my screen.
Image below by: Scott Markewitz
I like the shallow depth of field here, the soft tones, the light behind the model making him stand out. I like the composition also. I am wondering if that is the leg of a tripod at the back with flash bouncing off the bottom side of the tree?
Image below by: Steve Wyper
The Photographer here describes himself as a Graphic Artist. I think it shows in his work as it’s mostly quite heavy on post production. This is the opposite of the first image – here the background is more colourful than the model, who aside from a couple of pops of colour on the shoes, gloves and bike looks like he has been de-saturated the toned with platinum or something. I think there’s too much been done to this but it suits the image, which is quite cool with the tattoos etc. I can’t decide whether the light coming through strong at his neck is good or too much. I like the image overall.
We went out as a class to Edinburgh University (George Square) to learn how to use flash to make a subject stand out from the background.
We were to ‘make the buildings kiss’ i.e. using the buildings in the background to compose the scene and give depth to the image. Also using this technique to block out the white sky as the white in the image would steal focus.
I have my own speed light but haven’t used it much as I wasn’t sure how to really use it properly. I enjoyed learning how to use it. It gives a brilliant effect and I’ll probably start using it a lot!
f8, 1/125 ISO 100 – 105mm
f8, 1/125 ISO 100 – 98mm
f8, 1/125 ISO 100 – 48mm
f5.6, 1/60, ISO 100 – 45mm
I am pleased with how they turned out. Especially this last one of Walid. I used the Photoshop techniques we learned in class, tri-toning etc. It’s made the image look really good, although I think I’ve missed a couple of steps which I just couldn’t figure out at home. I wish we had got more triggers to backlight it, also we had reflectors and forgot to use them which is annoying, but we will go out and do it again and keep practising!
JillBarnett 
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