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.
Corporate Portraits.
Corporate or executive portraits are becoming more and more of paramount importance in a world where communication plays a big role in the success and prosperity of a company. Initiating a visual identity for a company by photographing the people who work in it, will give it the human dimension that can help in getting new clients. In order to succeed in this area of photography I would need to know specifically what I was doing and i'd have to be prepared to work in any kind of predicament. There is frequently only an inadequate amount of experimentation allowed, as you need to give your clients exactly what they need.
Grantly Lynch
Grantly Lynch
I have been looking at the work of corporate portrait photographer Grantly Lynch. His corporate portraits capture humans looking professional, yet relaxed and informal. Lynch continuously looks for new ways to depict a corporate portrait. I love how he uses a range of factors to create a quirky corporate image. His portraits are commissioned by many of London's top Corporate companies. His portraits are captured digitally with a mobile studio lighting kit taken to the offices. This saves the client time and money.
These two images above and below are some of Lynch's recent executive portraits. They have been commissioned for a variety of different uses, from press release portraits, social media avatars, CV profile photos and executive portraits for annual reports. There is a trend in corporate portrait photography to have informal corporate portraits for use in different media, but the more formal style is still required when you have the executive portraits looking to the camera, and making eye contact with the viewer. When I am taking my own studio portraits I will be thinking about what angle to take the photos at and how the client should be posed.
There is a 'casual-ness' in the subjects facial expressions whilst everything else is streamlined and professional.
Stephen Potts
I have been looking at the work of Stephen Potts, he is not only a corporate photographer as his portfolio is extremely diverse. I decided to choose to look at his corporate images because They show the subject doing their job. This is what I am going to do when doing my own shoot, photographing my subject in their work environment. I want to create shots like Potts has that show insight and attention to detail.
I have chose to study the photograph above because of the way Lynch has incorporated the business's name within the photograph. I thought this was a very clever way of promoting the business and its staff in one photograph. He has used the rule of thirds and a good depth of field and has still made the photograph look professional which is what the client would expect. When taking my own photographs I will think about different ways of promoting the company name and the staff.
Stephen Potts
I have been looking at the work of Stephen Potts, he is not only a corporate photographer as his portfolio is extremely diverse. I decided to choose to look at his corporate images because They show the subject doing their job. This is what I am going to do when doing my own shoot, photographing my subject in their work environment. I want to create shots like Potts has that show insight and attention to detail.
I liked the shot above as It reminds me of my own workplace. I am going to photograph at the bar on my work as I think it will be easier to shoot in than the kitchen. I love the shutter speed and depth of field he has used to create the atmosphere the kitchen would have. I really like the image above and it could be used to promote the work place for advertising or it could be used inside the work place for customers to see. However I do think That studio portraits look more professional but I also think it depends on the workplace. I am going to test both of these out by photographing in the work place and in the studio to see which works best.
Above is another image taken by Stephen Potts. Corporate photography hasn't really interested me that much initially but after looking at these images I am going to try and have some fun with these images by using a range of angles and focal lengths but still maintaining the images as professional.
I have done two shoots for my own corporate portraits. I decided to do one at the workplace and one in the studio. The first shoot I did was of a bar man at my workplace in his normal everyday environment. This allowed me to photograph my subject whilst at work, these photographs actually show him working and are not posed. I feel the photographs produced from this shoot looked as if they could be used to promote the business by advertising them or putting them on a business card etc, or they could be used to be put up inside the workplace. The second shoot was In the UCBC studio. Our class photographed different members of the research team at our university. I feel these photographs were more successful than the ones I took at the workplace, as they appeared more professional. I found it was better photographing in the studio as we could choose what lighting to use whereas at the workplace I had to work with what lighting was there.
Contact sheets
I took photographs at Burnley Masonic Hall of a co-worker. I have reviewed and annotated these contact sheets and decided on which would be best to use as if the business were using these photographs to promote. I am not happy with these images as the lighting wasn't right and most of my photographs came out under-exposed and blurry. However there are a few shots that I think work well and i will display them underneath when showing my best shots.
Editing
The brightness and contrast tool has been helpful for slightly adjusting my images, especially the ones in black and white. I didn't want to create a high contrast because that takes away the sharpness of the image and also appeared to be unprofessional. So I decreased the contrast slider to prevent this high bold contrast and increased the brightness slider to add more luminance to the photograph.
Corporate photographs should appear to be sharp and not have any noise in, that is why I have used this tool in Light room. This tool allows me to control the amount of sharpness I want in my photograph and the amount of noise I want reducing. This is such a helpful tool for when editing any photograph as it takes out noise but still keeps the detailing of the photograph, which is what I needed for this corporate shoot.
Below I am going to present what I feel my best shots from my first corporate shoot.
Best Shots
Contact sheets
I am now going to present my second set of contact sheets from my second corporate shoot, shot in the UCBC studio of the research team. I am overall happy with a number of these images and feel they look professional.
Firstly I edited my photographs in Camera Raw before entering Photoshop. I love this software because it is especially for RAW files and lets me tweak how little or how much as possible to my files. I wanted my corporate shots to appear sharp and professional and without any noise, so this tool was great, I carefully adjusted the sliders to get the right amount of sharpness and noise reduction in my photographs.
In Camera Raw I can use a selection tool so I can adjust a certain part of my photograph, here I have adjusted the brightness as the flash has over exposed a little on the subjects face. This tool has allowed me to decrease the brightness in certain areas and has been useful for tweaking little details in my photographs.
I converted a few of my corporate photographs to black and white as I felt they added an element of class and sophistication to these shots. I used this tool in Photoshop and chose the tones carefully to create the perfect black and white image.
Cropping was nessacary in many of my photographs as the subject was placed a third into my photographs in numeorous shots. Perhaps this was the case because I was up a step ladder photographing so obviously it was difficult moving around as the lighting was set up perfectly to shape around the subject.
I am pleased with these images and think they have captured humans looking professional and serious about their jobs, whatever the job is. Below I am going to present my best shots from this shoot. I feel they worked a lot better than the images taken at the workplace mainly because of the lighting and having to be quick at photographing the subject whilst working.
Best shots
