Environmental Portrait.

The Human Condition.

In my photographs for ‘The Human Condition’ portraits I am going to investigate in what I believe makes us human. From the way we look and act. I want to explore every detail of what forms us as humans. My initial ideas for my photographs are to focus closely on facial features and facial expressions to depict human emotion as everybody has feelings and emotions. When I come to portray the way humans act I think this will be best to display in my candid shots as every human is inevitable to attend certain events in they’re lives from shopping to attending a party. These busy places will allow me to be innovative with my candid shots as I can shoot a range of contrasting individuals trustfully without them acknowledging my presence, as I want these portraits to be completely natural. My goal is to produce honest photographs as I am aiming to photograph humans in they're general state. All Humans have feelings and emotions so my aim for these photographs is to show a range of different mental states. I am going to explore works of several photographers for more inspiration and ideas.


Environmental Portrait.
Quoted from Wikipedia 'An environmental portrait is a portrait executed in the subject's usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject's life and surroundings.' I thought this definition was perfect for describing an environmental portrait. This definition states that the subject is within their usual environment such as home or work. My initial idea is produce several images of the same person but in their usual environments. My idea is to photograph someone when they’re at home, at work, with their friends and whatever else fills their daily routines. I am going to look at several photographers work for inspiration on how to develop this idea. 
I think taking these environmental portraits will be interesting because taking photographs of a person in the place they live in or work etc says something about who they, whereas taking them in a studio would not. I feel these portraits are going to give the viewer a real insight to my subjects lifestyle and personality. 
I am going to choose somebody I really know well and that I am close too to be in my photographs as then I will already know appropriate locations for my images. I can add an element of their personality through the photographs perhaps by the way I edit them or by the angle I take them at.  


Arnold Newman 

Arnold Newman is credited for populating a style of photography that became known as environmental portraiture. His thesis is that a persons environment, they're personal belongings say a great deal about themselves and should be depicted in a portrait. 

A quote by Newman - “I didn’t just want to make a photograph with some things in the background,” Newman told American Photo magazine in an interview. “The surroundings had to add to the composition and the understanding of the person. No matter who the subject was, it had to be an interesting photograph. Just to simply do a portrait of a famous person doesn’t mean a thing.”

Newman's work and life were inspired by a number of great artists and photographers that also inspire my own works. I am going to show images below of works by artists and photographers that inspire both Newman and myself.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Man Ray

Pablo Picasso - influenced the way Newman 'structures' a photograph.

Henri Matisse

Newman's love for the arts never escapes him, as he has a strong interest for the arts and studied drawing and painting in 1918, after visiting the museum of modern arts in New York he switched from painting to photography and had to leave the university of Miami because of financial reasons due to the depression.
Newman has photographed Presidents, photographers, actors, painters, writers and composers etc such as John F. Kennedy, Harry S. Truman, Ansel Adams, Marilyn Monroe, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and many more inspirational people.

I am now going to show some of my favourite photographs by Arnold Newman and discuss the images below.

Jackson Pollock 1949

I instantly loved this image because of the perfect composition and perfect props. All the mess created by the paint pots and brushes is obviously representing the composition of Pollocks own work. Pollocks action paintings are done with violent brushstrokes using sticks, cans and also he splashes the paint directly onto the canvas. Newman was inspired by this form of abstract expressionism as it is reflected in his work, the foreground has a mix of colours, shapes and forms just like the work of pollock, he blends into the background perfectly in this photograph. I think that Newman could of taken this photograph after Pollock had finished creating one of his pieces because of the empty paint pots and this photograph shows the artist in his environment with objects that describe him perfectly.

I will carefully consider what props to use in my own environmental portraits to show my subjects personality and interests, just like this photograph does for Pollock. I find Newman's photographs so interesting because of the amazing people in them and the way he portrays them.

Truman Capote 1977

I have chose to look at this image of Truman Capote because I think the props used illustrate Capote's sense of style and personality that I can sense through his writing. Truman Capote is my favourite author which is why I wanted to include this image in my work. After reading Truman Capote's books and watching a film named 'Infamous' which is about Capote writing his book 'In cold blood' I get a sense of his quirkiness and style. I think the props used in the photograph not only represent his style but also represent his sexuality. Newman must have got to know and took great interest in all the people he photographs as he has got the props perfectly, the composition perfect as Capote's pose goes hand in hand with the objects. I am in love with Arnold Newman's photographs because of all the inspirational people in them and how well he portrays them through objects, posing and location. This has given me more of an idea of who to photograph, perhaps someone in my life that is an inspiration to me. I am going to continue reviewing some of his images of people that I find interesting and inspirational as I feel I can really connect and understand his works.

Otto Frank 1960

This photograph perfectly captures the essence of Otto Franks life. This was photographed in the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam in 1960, he has captured Otto Frank in such a familiar and personal surrounding and the emptiness of the house hold and the lack of props reflect that he was the sole member to survive the Holocaust. This photograph was taken 15 years after he was released from Auschwitz and when he had found out none of his family had survived. I read in an interview with Apogee photo magazine that Newman was sometimes at a loss of how to photograph Otto Frank, Newman didn't ask Otto to pause he took this photograph when Otto went into a pensive mood. I think this photograph is such a sad and meaningful image as Otto concluded after reading Anne's diary that "You never really know your children" as he read the deep thoughts about her life that obviously no one else knew about. The Black and white and the emptiness of the house reflect Otto's life completely. I am extremely interested about the history of Anne Frank and her family which is why I chose to look at this photograph.

Francis Bacon 1975

I have chosen to talk about the above photograph of Francis Bacon because of how this photograph reflects his life and his paintings. Perhaps some of Newman's photographs may not look environmental but they are if you know the history of the subject he's photographing. Francis Bacon's portraits show anxiety and Alienation through the way he portrays the faces of the characters in his works. Francis Bacon did not have the best relationship with his father because of his sexuality and because of his love of art. The faces that are displayed in Bacon's work express his personal feelings, and in the photograph above Bacon is expressing his feelings through his facial expression and is also expressed because of the lighting as one side of his face is dark but the other exposed to the light, the big dark shadows created and the way Francis is posed. Newman considers the lives all the people in his photographs have lead and shows his subjects in their environment expressing true emotion.

Harry Borden

I have chosen to look at this image of Sir Paul McCartney by Harry Borden as it is an perfect example of environmental portraiture. The background to this type of portraiture is just as important as the person being photographed. The elements in the background tell the viewer about the subject, about his interests  and his profession. I am thinking about photographing my subject at home, their workplace and out with their friends. I will have to think about what props to use to convey my subjects profession, personality and interests. 

I was very inspired by the work of Arnold Newman because of his subjects and how well he portrays them through the use of props. I am going to photograph someone who has made a great impact on my life and who has inspired me. I am considering photographing my mum or dad because of the impact they make on my life. My mother has several jobs, one being a lollipop lady which I think will be interesting to photograph as her uniform and the environment she's in will show her profession perfectly. If I do photograph this I will do it when she is working so I can capture my subject in her normal environment. 

I also plan on photographing at home, I can use a colour palette throughout my photographs that describe  my subject and also use a number of props that convey my subject and how she feels in the environment. After taking photographs at the workplace and at home I will consider other photographs and places I can portray my subject.

Contact Sheets

  

The above contact sheets are of my mum working. Obviously she is a lollipop lady and the bright colours of her uniform reflect her bright personality, I tried using many different angles posed and unposed, I also considered the backgrounds and will talk about this below.

In this photograph I got my mother to pose. I placed her to the right of the photograph as I wanted to capture the houses in the background as one of them is our home, also I waited until a car was coming past because the purpose of my mothers job is to stop the traffic for other people. I thought the composition of this photograph worked really well.

For the composition in this photograph I wanted to capture some of the people my mother interacts with everyday in her job. I also feel the composition has worked well because of the line she is stood on in the road.

I also think the composition of this photograph works well as  have framed my subject with the lines on the road and the houses drawing into my mother. This is the road we live on and the road where my mother works so i think shows her environment perfectly as she has spent decades here.

Editing

One problem with these photographs was the reflection caused by colour and brightness of the subjects uniform. The reflection caused problems for me when editing as I had to use several tools to try and remove the green/yellow mark. This reflection was on my subjects face, I didn't actually notice this until reviewing my photographs on the computer, so I was quite disappointed with some of my photographs because of this. Underneath I will show how I attempted to remove the reflection and what else I did to adjust my images.

Before and after editing.

I found it quite difficult to edit this mark out and am quite disappointed with the outcome. I tried my best to edit this mark out my photographs but hopefully my images will look satisfactory after more editing.

In Aperture I used a combination of these tools to try and remove the green reflection. Firstly I used the dodge tool to lighten the reflection and then used the skin smoothing tool to smooth out the skin and to make it look less obvious. I then used the definition tool to bring out other features of the photograph so the viewer would be focused on those objects. I then de saturated the image slightly as the mark caused by the reflection was still quite obvious.

Other than that I didn't edit these photographs that much as I was focused on removing the green reflection. Some adjustments I made on Aperture not only changed the reflection but the whole image so there was no need for me to place these images in Photoshop. I thought by using simple editing techniques it wouldn't change anything major to my images because then the realism of the photographs can shine through.

Best shots

Contact sheets

In the following set of contact sheets I have photographed my mum at home. I took these in the front room whilst she has a cup of tea, like she does everyday after work in her favourite mug. She also has both our cats in the photographs as my mother loves them both to bits and they both sit on her knee also. These photographs are not posed so I didn't think it mattered about the image being flattering because I am photographing her normal everyday routine. I wanted to keep the background pretty simple because I wanted the focus to be on my subject. I have reviewed and annotated each image to see which will fit the brief and my aims best and which will be best for editing. I am going to think about what else I can photograph my mother doing in her daily routine.

Editing

Again with these images I didn't feel there was a lot of major editing to do. As I want them to be completely natural and un posed I want my editing to reflect this. I have just made some small adjustments on Light room as I think Light room is good software for making small and large adjustments to the whole photograph. In the screen shot above I have used the sliders to arrange how much light and darks I want in my images and adjusted the shadows and highlights also. 

The screen shot above shows that I have used the sharpening tool as I wanted to sharpen my main subject to make her more in focus in my photographs but also used the noise reduction tool as some photographs turned out slightly grainy because of the shutter speed and aperture my camera was set to.

I feel these images have been successful and I am going to display my best shots underneath. Below those best shots I am going to create another set of images of something else my mother does in her daily routine, this could be getting up, getting ready, doing the washing up, running a bath etc etc. I then think I may present a multiple image of three of my best images from all three shoots to sum up my environmental portrait, I will decide on this after I have taken some more images.

Best shots

Contact Sheets

I decided next I wanted to photograph my mother doing something that she does everyday in the house. I  thought I would take pictures of her doing the washing up. I thought images of my mother at work, having a brew and doing the washing up show three things that she does everyday perfectly. 

These photographs were not posed, I shot these images whilst my mother was actually washing up. I have reviewed and annotated these contact sheets and decided which would be best to edit.

Editing

When editing these photographs I simply adjusted the noise reduction, sharpness and lights and darks. I didn't feel there was a lot of editing needed for these images as I wanted the photographs to be simple and natural.

I slightly adjusted the Highlights, Lights, Darks and Shadows to get the right amount of each in my photographs. These photographs were very quick and easy to edit as I think not a lot of editing needed to be done to them.

I decided to add a vignette to some of my images because I felt this helped centre and add more focus to my subject. I think this worked well in my images and I will show the outcomes below in my best shots.

I didn't want my images to be noisy but wanted my subject to be sharp and stand out from the background. 

I am happy with these images and think they have turned out well as I have thought about the colour scheme, props and the angle I wanted to portray my mother in. Below are my best photographs from this last shoot and below that I will show my final photograph combining my best shots from all three shoots.

Best shots

Final Edit