Create a series of between six and ten photographs from one of the following options, or a subject of your own choosing:
- Crowds
- Views
- Heads
Use the exercises from Part Two as a starting point to test out combinations of focal length, aperture and viewpoint for the set. Decide upon a single format, either vertical or horizontal. You should keep to the same combination throughout to lend coherence to the series.
• Heads: Frame a ‘headshot’, cropping close around the head to avoid too much variety in the backgrounds. The light will be paramount and a reflector is a useful tool (you can ask the subject to hold it), throwing light up into the face, especially the eyes. The classic headshot is buoyant but neutral which is quite difficult to achieve, but try to achieve a natural rather than an artificially posed look.
All of the images were taken using a Canon EOS 5D mark IV full frame camera, it was set in aperture priority mode except for the double exposure image for which I had to have the camera set in manual mode. Most of the images were taken at F/2.8 except one which was taken at F/6.3 the focal lengths were between 70mm and 100mm, this was because the subject I had chosen to photograph meant that I had to be very close to the models to fill the frame.
Initial Ideas and thoughts.
When I initially looked at the brief for consideration of my next assignment, I thought the hardest subject choice would be “Heads”. As I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone, I decided that that was the subject that I would choose. My ideas for the project started when I was sat at home on my own, pondering about my life and looking at the photographs of my partner, Rocco who sadly passed away in 2015. I wondered how I could put “us”, our love and lives we shared together, into pictures. How can I show the raw emotions of love and grief together, this was going to be very hard.
Demonstration of technical and visual skills. Demonstration of creativity.
I set about the project by mind mapping my thoughts. If I was to start at the beginning, I would need to capture children, the children would represent the carefree, happy go lucky innocence of youth, so that’s where it all began. The children and I experimented with different lights, poses, props and of course the different focal lengths, apertures and viewpoints. The children enjoyed the morning, we all had great fun, it was a happy time with plenty of laughter. My next idea was could I possibly portray two people intertwining and becoming one, the meeting of two hearts, I was hugely influenced by the artist Pablo Picasso during his abstract period, and the way he reconfigured facial features, so I wanted to attempt to recreate a “head” as an abstract photograph. I wanted the next image to show the love Rocco and I shared, then I remembered Rocco’s favourite flowers, roses, a rose head, it had to be very beautiful and also very romantic, but I wasn’t sure it would sit well in this series so decided against it. For my next image I wanted to create an image of a happy family home, I thought about our pet cat Ziggy, pets were a large part of our lives, although trying to capture a good image of him was harder than I anticipated. He didn’t want to be photographed and wasn’t very photogenic so I had to persevere! As my series of images started to become my story, I had no idea of how I would illustrate Rocco’s death. Although it was, and still is, the darkest, most tragic time of my life, I didn’t want my pictures to be morbid as the love we shared was so beautiful. So the next image took a considerable amount of thought and imagination, I wondered if double exposure could portray my story of that tragic heart breaking moment in my life. I wasn’t sure how my camera took double exposures images so I watched various internet videos and decided to experiment. The silhouette images worked well for the first part of the double exposure, however, the second part, the overlaid images that I had in mind, just didn’t look fitting, so it was back to the drawing board to rethink. For the final images I wanted to display the raw emotion of desperation, sorrow and sadness I have felt. This was a very difficult assignment for me to take on as it’s a very personal subject and my grief is still very real, but I hope it does tell a story of love and devotion.
On reflection.
On reflection of my images, I would have preferred the emotion to be much more intense than it appeared, however hopefully as I develop my photography skills, I will find the answers to be able to illustrate my passion in a much more defining way.
What I have learnt.
Photography can be whatever you want it to be, although it is extremely challenging to achieve a series of images that sit together well and also tell a story.
Jo's Photo Blog 