Assignment 2: Portraits

For this photograph I photographed myself in the photo lab while partially covering the flash. I really enjoyed taking the eye pictures from the first assignment, so I wanted to have at least one photograph with a continuation of that idea. It is interesting to me how much emotion can be conveyed in the eyes, but I thought that including the lit up hands also added a dramatic element to the photograph. I stumbled upon this method by simply trying different things in the photo lab. The reflection is actually off of the computer monitor.

The next three images are somewhat in the same set; however, I did have some varying intentions with each of the photographs.

Post Critique:
I think after listening to the critiques in class, I would like to try and recreate this image some time with a few minor changes. I would really try and get it to be as sharp as possible. While I strove for that in the original image, I think absolute clarity would make the photograph "pop" much more. 

For this image, I really wanted to get an action shot of someone longboarding. I have been looking at a lot of longboarding photography lately, and it has really piqued my interest. Therefore, I decided to do an action portrait. For this image, I wanted to show not only the action but the emotion on his face (something that seems to be fairly standard with longboard photography). In order to take the photograph, I layed down on the cement and followed him with the camera, waiting for the right moment to take the picture.

For this image (and the next one) I chose to take the portrait in a slightly different direction. I omitted the face. I think this was an important decision, for it then become more of a portrait of longboarding itself rather than the individual. I really liked this idea of making a portrait of the sport, and so I tried to capture some of the “personality” of the sport in the photograph. Taking this photograph was also a fun experience. I was skating next to him and taking pictures as we went. It made doing some of the more technical photography aspects a bit harder to do (I had to rely on more automatic settings), but I think the different perspective made it worth it.

This image is similar in spirit to the previous image. I again omitted the subject’s face with the intention of drawing more attention to the act itself and the overall feel of longboarding. I was again following the subject on a longboard in order to keep up with him. I am trying to convey the feeling of longboarding through the photograph, so  I also decided to rotate the photograph in order to emphasize the lean you feel when doing these kinds of maneuvers. Unfortunately, since I rotated and cropped the photo the image could not be printed as big as I would have liked.


Post Critique:


I am honestly not entirely sure what the class thought about these longboarding photographs. I am not entirely sure I explained my reasoning well enough as to why I thought they were portraits (or maybe my reasoning was not good enough?) I have slightly modified these photos based on some suggestions in class. For example, in the first photograph I photoshopped out the bus stop sign so it did not look like the subject was about to eat the sign. Also on the second photograph I took out the handicap sign right above the subject's head for similar reasons. I have also received some positive feedback from some longboarding stores who are interested in this kind of photography. This is definitely something I hope to continue doing in the future.