This is my final website design, I am happy with the way my website has turned out. I like the black background in contrast to the white it really brings out the images and makes the information on the page stand out. There are seven pages on my website these being; home page, the individual project outcomes, portraits, documentary, about me and the contact page. I have linked my contact information to my instagram account so viewers are able to contact me easily.
David Bailey is a British fashion photographer who has worked with a number of celebrities over his career. David Bailey is a fashion photographer who also has done lot of music photography over the years. Bailey is known for his amazing studio photography work and is most welcome known for his stunning studio portraits. The picture below called ‘Mick Fur Hood’ is one of my personal favourites, I love the soft effect the black and white has on the sitters face, clearing the face of any imperfections and just bringing out the features on the models face. The positioning of the garment on the model is really effective, I can tell the Bailey is from a fashion photography background just from the way the coat is wrapped around the model making the audience feel the softness of the hood.
It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer … it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary’ is a quote from David Bailey he made about his exhibition stardust. I can personally learn a lot from a photographer like David Bailey, the quote he made is relevant to my current project because imagination is a key element when creating a piece of artwork, before thinking about taking a photo its good to step back and look what you are actually taken a photograph of. Having a good creative eye is better than being a technical photographer. I personally see myself to be more a creative photographer then a technical one, this is something I can use as an advantage in my work.
Bailey also quotes “your connection with a subject is more important than your technical ability” I personally think this quote is a good example of what defines a good or bad photographer and is a quote I am going to use to inspire me in my future projects. Bailey includes his own personality into his photographs, this is something I am going to take away from looking at the work of Bailey. This individual project is all about reflecting my strengths as a photographer so adding my own personality into my photographs is a key part of making sure my photographs are different from others.
These are the edited outcomes for my Leybourne Lakes shoot. Overall I am happy with the results I gained from this shoot. The aim was to create a set of environmental getting the sitter in interacted with the environment around them. I have chosen to put the photographs in black and white because I just prefer how the photographs look in black and white, I think the black and white complements the nature of the shoot and goes really well with my chosen model as it brings out her features really well. These are just some of my final outcomes for this individual project and these are the photographs I am going to include on my website.
Nan Goldin is a well know photographer is is predominately known for her up close and personal documentary work. Goldin came to fame when she released her book ‘The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency’ released in 1986 was a book featured members of the LGBT community in a way the public had never seen them before. Goldin lived with the LGBT community for two years while documenting their everyday lives. Goldin has a very hands on approach when photographing her subjects, she often spends weeks living with them to really get to know them as people while photographing them. Living with her subjects gives Nan Goldin an advantage because her subjects don’t just see her as a photographer, they see her as a friend. Gaining her subjects trust is a big part of Goldin’s method of working. If the subject trusts the photographer the results are always going to be of a better quality.
Nan Goldin is one of photographs hardcore photographers, she put herself in the middle of difficult situations to get the photographic results she wanted. Goldin has put herself in many dangerous situations, in the middle of fights, abusive relationships and dangerous areas around the world. The most important part of Goldin’s method of working is to get to know and respect her sitters. In Nan Goldin’s photograph shown above from her book ‘Ballard Of Sexual Dependency’ I love the lighting technique Goldin has used in this image. The flash really highlights the most significant part of the photograph making the character in the middle the centre of attention. The low camera angle makes the subject look heroic and proud to be part of the LGBT community. Photographing this trans person in the same way work leaders and superheroes are photographed gives the subject a place of power. Goldin is showing the audience that this person is proud to be an individual and is happy to be showing the world who they are.
Nan Goldin is one of my inspirations for this individual project because I love her portraiture work. She makes her subject the centre of attention, bringing them to life and letting the audience see their story. I am going to use Goldin techniques in my upcoming shoot. I am going to spend time with the sitter before I photograph them. I am also going to let them express themselves through their own clothing and make-up, making sure the audience see the sitter for who they really are.
I have chosen to look at the work of sally Mann for my individual project because, Mann works a lot with using the environment around her to create her portraits. Sally Mann Mostly uses the outside elements when creating her stunning portraits. In my own project I plan to also use the outside elements and combine these elements with my sitter. Sally Mann does not travel to great distances for the locations of her photographs, she quite often uses the surroundings in her back garden for the background of her photographs. Mann uses medium formant or large format cameras to create her photographs, Mann also always uses black and white film. I love the effect of the black and white photographs. By using black and white film I think it gives Sally Mann’s photographs a real ageless quality, the black and white helps draw the audiences attention to the sitter in the photograph. Black and white takes away the distractions and lets the audience focus on the detail in the sitters expression. It makes the audience look into the soul of the model as our attention is drawn to the models eyes rather than being distracted by colour in the background or foreground of the image.
This photograph the ‘Candy Cigarette’ is one of Mann’s most well known images and one of my personal favourites. I love the girls expression and her body language, this really makes the photograph into a story rather than just an image. I really like the way the light hits the girl so draws the audiences eye towards the main character in the photograph, I think this is a really effective use of lighting and is something I am going to try when creating my own photographs for this individual project. I can learn a lot and take a lot of inspiration from the work of Sally Mann and am going to take this into consideration when completing my own project for this unit.
For this individual project I was asked to create a website displaying my work and a new body of work which is up to me to create. I am going to focus on portraiture for this unit so I am going to look at photographers who work in and outside the studio. I am going to at portrait photographers such as Damon baker, nan Goldin, David Bailey and Sally Mann. I will also be doing a lot of research into other photographers websites to gather ideas for my own website. By researching these elements I hope to gain inspiration that ill carry me through the project and give me some good end results.
This is the edited version on my studio shoot I conducted. overall I am happy with the results, this shoot was about getting my confidence up in using the studio independently. After hiring the studio out with. friend I now feel more able to use things such as lighting and flash independently.
This unit is different from my previous projects because I have been given complete freedom to pursue whatever topic I come up with. I decided to stick to my strong points as a photographer for this unit, I want to work with creating some environmental portraits as this is an element of photography I really enjoy. I like creating environmental portraits because I love working with different people. I feel that as a photographer I can really draw out the personality of the sitter in an environment outside of the studio. I find when working in the studio the sitter often feel under pressure to make the right faces and sit the correct way, being out of the the studio helps the sitter relax and really come out of their shell. I have a number of locations in mind one of those being Leybourne Lakes. I want to shoot at Leybourne lakes as this is somewhere I have never ben before so I want to test my skills as a photographer to shoot at a location I know nothing about.
I am also planning to conduct a few portraits in the studio, it will be interesting for me to compare the results of the sitter in a studio environment to the sitter being outside. I am not following a strict set of rules for this project, I find I work better when I have more creative freedom so I am giving myself lots of time to come up with ideas and improve on my initial ideas. Overall I am looking forward to this unit as I have never been given the chance to have so much creative freedom in an assessed unit.
Damon Baker is a well known photographer who specialises in portrait photography. He works a lot with high profile celebrity’s. Baker is one of my favourite photographers, I had chosen to research him for this image making portraits because I lot the way he pulls emotions and new appearances out of his models. During this unit I am going to include some portrait work so I thought it necessary to research at least one or two portrait photographers. Damon Baker works with celebrities and models like no other photographer I know of. He photographs them as if he is photographing their alter-ego, bringing out the darker and the inner depths of the sitters personalities.
As a photograph this is something I aspire to do. When looking at other photographers work I often see a lot of the same thing, however with Damon’s work we still see the model/celebrity that we all know however we as an audience are seeing them in a whole new way. Baker dropped out of school at the age of 17 and moved to New York to peruse a career in photographer. At the age of 18 he was spotted by Jet Root and made his debut as a professional photographer in 2008. He has since photographed numerous amounts of very well known celebrities and models.
Baker uses numerous techniques to get the photographs he wants, Baker said in an interview for TCD films that he often likes to spend an hour just talking with the model before he even begins the shoot, just get a feel for their personality and their background. Baker says that his ‘trick’ for getting the photographs he wants is to talk to the model, let them believe that they are best friends in order for the sitter and himself to feel completely comfortable with one another. I think this is a great technique to use in portrait photography as the sitter is more likely to feel more comfortable having their photograph taken if they feel a connection with the photographer. This is defiantly something I will try in the future in my own photographs.
Damon Baker is known for his use of black and white photographs, in an interview he stated that he thinks that black and white photography just has this time less look to it. This is something I can defiantly relate to as most of my photographs especially my portraits are mostly in black and white, I personally use black and white for my own photographs because I think it takes away distractions so the audience are just focused on the persons expression and facial features. For this image making unit I am going to take the work of Damon Baker as part of my inspiration for the portraits I am going to feature in my photo book ‘people and places’ I feel that I can learn a lot from Baker and will continue to look at and follow his work.
Grace Bontoft's reflective journal 