Theme 1 Research 1 Helmut Newton

So the 1st Photographer I have chosen to research is Helmut Newton, there is a couple of reason for this, first is he was on the list to choose from, and second I'm on a site called redbubble, and one of the photographers on there did a self portrait, which was similar to some of Helmuts work, and another photographer pointed this out, so I looked him up then, and like his work.
I'm going to write about the Person 1st, then I'll add the 10 images I have chosen to look at and analyse them.

Helmut Newton was born in Berlin in 1920,  his family were both wealthy and Jewish, He saved his money in order to buy his 1st camera at the age of 12. In 1936 he purposefully had himself thrown out of school, due to being a "hopeless student", and with the help of his mother, started working with Else Simon, A female fashion/portrait Photographer at her studio Yva.

In the early 1940's Helmut moved to Australia, where he enlisted in the army and served for 5 years, before moving to Melbourne, and determined to become a photographer for a living he opened a studio, and took on any photography work that paid.
Whilst in Australia, he met and later married an Actress by the name of June Brown.

In 1952 Helmut started working for Australian Vogue Magazine, which in 1957 meant a move to London sort term. However Helmut never felt that whilst in Australia and London his work was any good, and it wasn't until he arrived in Paris that he knew it was the place for him.

Whilst there he worked for many magazines, Starting with Jardin Des Modes in the late 1950's before starting a long association with French Vogue. (1961-1983)
During this time period he would also work for, The United states and Italian Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, Playboy and others.

Whilst in New York in 1971 Helmut suffered a heart attack, which would help trigger a change in his Photography, along with the encouragement from his wife.
He started to pursue more overtly sexual themes, and this helped him to become one of the most influential fashion photographers of his time. His images became more intense with his models being shown as members of the higher class, yet caught in compromising situations, and often shot in a realistic reportage style.


His work would also achieve him many honours from all over the world including, Tokyo art Directors' club prize, American institute of graphic arts award, and Germany's Kodak award for photographic books. In 1989 he was awarded Chevalier Des arts et Des lettres by the french minister of culture. in 1999 Life magazine gave him the Life Legend award for lifetime achievement in magazine photography. There are also many more.

For the last 25 years of his life Helmut and his wife June lived in Los Angeles in the winter and the rest of the year in Monte Carlo, which is where in 2004 after a tragic car crash he died at the age of 84.

So this is the 1st image of his I have chosen to look at.
To me it's quite a tight crop, the main focal point being the woman's face, mainly the eyes in the mirror. The contrast is quite dark, with a deep black in the top of the mirror, and not many whites, more greys throughout the rest of the image.
A shallow depth of field is also present, which helps to keep your eyes focused on the main subject, rather than the background.
 

This image is so I'm led to believe from my research, an iconic image, taken of one of Yves Saint Laurent's ladies suits, the Photo name I believe is Le Smoking.
Both Helmut and Yves were at the same time opening the eyes of the world to the fact that women were as powerful as men, and didn't always have to be wearing frilly dresses, and this was controversial at the time.
I can see how this image would of been so, not only is there a woman in "men's" style clothing, but then another woman, naked in the street.
This image uses straight lines, from the legs of the woman in the suit to the street going straight back and the buildings going straight up.
It's brightly lit with again the only little bit of black in the image really being the suit. The depth of field is deep to allow the street to be in focus, yet the focal point is definitely the 2 women. The tonal range, although it is a black and white image is quite wide, with Blacks, Greys and Whites all present. The framing is quite wide as well, allowing you to see the fact that there in a street, helping add to the controversy, yet still a fairly simple composition.

This image is probably only one of few that has more than 2 main subjects, the main focal point is the ladies legs, that lead your eyes upwards to them holding hands, then across to the man. I think the denotation of this is of strength in numbers, as the women are holding hands as if they have done something wrong and are about to be punished for it. It has a busier composition with a lot more of a detail background than a lot of his other work, this background can been seen due to the deep Depth of field.
The tonal range again for black and white has a lot of shades between the blacks and white, so I would say it has a fairly bright contrast. There doesn't seem to be a use of any shape in particular, though looking harder maybe there is a lot of straight lines?

This image is another close cropped/framed photo, with another fairly simple composition. The main focal point my eye is drawn to is the smoke coming out of her mouth. I would say this image shows a definite use of curves, From the smoke to her wavy  hair, to the monocle and the string hanging from it, and even to the round end of the cigar, and the stones in the wall behind.
The depth of field is slightly more towards shallow, so the wall behind can be seen but isn't the main focal point of the image. Fairly bright, with again not many blacks, or shadows, but that's mainly due to the subject being the ladies face.
In my opinion I would say the Denotation of this is sex sells.

This image has a very deep depth of field, allowing the subject and background to be in focus, with the main focal point being the woman lighting the cigarette. Wide frame to allow the background to be seen, as the composition of it, is quite a busy background.
The tonal range is quite varied, right through from blacks to greys to whites, I think there is a use of shapes in the image, as the dancers arms and 1 leg are positioned to make Triangles which I think help lead your eyes away from the lighting of the cigarette, down to her feet/shoes making you aware that she is a dancer.
I'm not overly sure of the Denotation or Connotation of this image.

This image is for me has quite a strong Denotation, I think it is saying that there is a sense of being free and careless even in a big built up city.
The tonal range looked at first to be quite limited to just blacks and whites, but looking at it for longer, the top of the window is more grey then white, and so is the model herself, with just the lit up windows of the surrounding buildings being bright white spots in the background. The background itself is slightly out of focus, but not to the point of it being unable to be made out/understood. The framing of this photo is wide enough to allow the background to be seen, but still cropped tight to the models head and feet so she remains the focal point of the image.

This image is one of Helmuts later colour images, so there is more of a tonal range than the above images that I have looked at, though still not a lot of colours, as the model is wearing black and the wall she is leaning on almost white, but the sky is blue, and you get the skin tone coming through the black tights, and even a slight hit of green from the trees in the top left of the image.
The focal point is the legs that lead up to the models bottom, and these are position to go with all the other straight lines in the image, from the join of the wall to path, the line through the path, the top line of the wall and even the building in the background being square, so itself is made of straight lines.
The composition is fairly simple, with only the house/hotel/building in the background to complicate the image, but even this is not where your eye is drawn first, due to the depth of field allowing it to be slightly out of focus, so I would say a middle of the range depth of field.

This image I think has a deep Denotation/Connotation, it to me is portraying how we look at ourselves, and how we see others. So the model to me is holding the mirror and possibly looking down at it and herself,(how we see ourselves) though I can't be certain of this as the models face is not in view. And then for me the focal point is where the light reflecting off the mirror is lighting up the model, before your eyes the capture the mirror, so this is the way we look at others.
Due to the nature of the image it is quite tightly cropped, and has a shallow depth of field, to make sure that we are looking at the main focal point, which is the model and the mirror.
I don't think that any shapes or patterns are particularly used, though due to the use of the lighting and the mirror, the tonal range is quite varied for a black and white image, from the deep black of the telephone and the background around the models body, to the fairly bright white in the mirror and all the varying greys in between.

This image is different from the images from Helmut Newton that I have looked at, it is not only in colour but it is a bright Red colour, the dress which immediately becomes the Focal point, as it stands out from the darker (yet still colourful) background.
I would say the image uses curves, from Claudia Schiffer's body with her breasts being squashed and slightly on show, down to her smaller waist and then curving back out to her hips, and then the curve created by her dress from having one leg in front of the other, and even the street in the background has a curve to it.
Also un-like his older and black and white images, this one is not really that controversial, or revealing.
The tonal range with it being colour is very wide, there is obviously reds, then blacks, whites, yellows, and maybe even very light blues around the street lights, and on the road next to the models hips.
The depth of field is very shallow, to the point of the building just behind where the model is leaning, has become slightly blurred out of focus.
The crop and framing is middle of the range, so that you can see where the model is,(nt ajshe is leaning on something, it almost loo S;/#lcgm been cropped in a 2/3's way, but I think it is more that the model cuts through the image on a diagonal, it's give the impression of 2/3's.

In summary I would say Helmut Newtons images generally are black and white, controversial, feature women a lot more than men, use the female form, and imagery of sex/sexiness and sex sells.

Images from college shoot

The setting up of the shoot was a lot more simple and straight forward than I had thought, with a bit of technical input, the lighting, which I thought would be 2 soft boxes, to the left and the right of the model, turned out not to be.
It was instead a single Flash unit, positioned above the camera, pointing slightly down and directly at the model, attached to this was a ring flash type diffuser, and it was set t o continuous and flash mode. This enabled a continuous soft light, with the flash producing the shadows seen in the supplied image.

The piece of checker plate was stood on a wooden box and leaning at a slight angle against another bigger box, to prevent it from falling onto my model, I clamped it to a metal frame, more commonly used for hanging cloth studio backgrounds from, with the legs opened out wide at either end it had very little or no chance of falling over. The model was then positioned on a stool in front of this.

My camera was mounted on the stand and turned to a profile shooting position, and I set it in full manual mode, To aperture F5.6 Shutter speed 1/60 sec and White balance to flash mode.

So this is the 1st test shot I took of the model, and it turned out pretty much spot on, and I felt quite happy there would be not much need for adjustments.

So then I took one more Test shot whilst waiting for the models nails to dry! and this is it.
Her head is slightly tilted to give a better impression of the shadow that will be present when her hand is in the same area as her face.

Still happy with the lighting, and her nails now dry, the model grabbed her make-up props and we tried our 1st attempts at replicating the shot she liked and had taken her inspiration from. (seen here)

And this is the result, The model is a none smoker and said that it felt more natural to her to hold the lipstick in her right hand, which is the only reason for it being different to the comparsion shot above.
Apart from this I think it is a close match, the subject is to the right of the image,  both heads are slightly tilting towards the left of the picture, and they both have a hand holding lipstick in front of there mouths.
I think the only thing to do now is to convert to black and white, keeping the colour in the end of the lipstick.

However Striving for a closer match we, looked at the reference image, and at out 1st image, and made a couple of adjustments.
The main one in this image is the models look/eyes, they are a little more closed, mainly due to her head being tilted slightly backwards. And we also got rid of the brush she was holding in her left, which in the last shot is visible in the bottom left.

So this is the 3rd attempt of the shot, and a bit of a compromise between, the head being tilted back and the eyes being slightly more closed.
The leaning of the shoulder is there, and a nice yet not over powering shadow under her chin.
Both being fairly happy with this we moved onto other aspects of the shot.

After looking at the last shot we took and comparing it to the image we were working from, we decided that, The model should have the lipstick in her mouth, and took this shot.
This was the 1st and only one we took like this, after deciding it didn't look right.
However looking at it now, the models hand is better positioned, all fingers are straight, which is closer to the reference image, and the position of the lipstick in relationship to the mouth is better.
The only thing that it needs in my opinion, is the model needed to be positioned closer to the right of the image.







On seeing this the model made a comment about the background being slightly blurred, I said I could try and adjust the Aperture and Shutter speeds accordingly to make the dept of field shallower.

So this was the aperture adjusted from F 5.6 to F11 but for some reason only adjusted the shutter speed to 1/40 from 1/60.

 So this is the Aperture turned back to F9 and the Shutter speeds stayed at 1/40.
I showed these 2 images to the model, and asked if she preferred the background how it was before, or how it was in these shots.
After talking about it, we decided to stick with the deeper depth of field.
Also at this point in time both me and the model decided that we had got the shots we were after in regards to the reference image, opted for a prop change and went for a make-up brush.

This is the 1st shot we did with a prop change, nothing else changed on the camera or lighting front.

This is the second picture with the prop change, and all we have changed is a closer cropped zoom, and the position of the brush as it looked a bit awkward in the previous image.

So in this image I have kept the crop close and tight on the models face, but put the brush back on her face. Only this time a different angle, more of the side of the brush against her face, rather than the tip of the brush on her face. Also tilter her head slightly to the right of the image.
This looks better than previous, but both me and the model  felt there was something missing, or not looking quite right.

To try and get the something that was missing into the image, we tried introducing the other hand, to even out the image. Instead of bringing in another prop, we just went with a playing of the hair.
The other main difference is the brush is again off the face, but now pointing it in the opposite direction and centralising it to make it more of a feature of the image.

Liking the above image with the other hand now playing a part of messing up the hair, we took it 1 step further and introduced a compact mirror, to compliment the brush.
This is the 1st one of these, and we played aorund with hand positions with these 2 props.

This was the next position we tried, I like this one alot. The zoom crop is wider allowing more of the checker plate to be seen. I also like the way the cross over of the arms creates a nice V shape.

Theme 1 Studio shoot planning

So for this shoot I was presented with an image by my Make-up Artist.

She is setting up a website, saw this image and thought it would make a good homepage image for her site, She didn't want to copy the image, but to take inspiration from it.
The general things to take from it will be her against a contrasting or complimenting background and the use of make-up as props. Being a make-up artist she will be bringing along her make-up to use as  props.

We have had a meeting about the background she would like to use, and we came up with a few ideas,
1st is to use metal checker plate, not painted, just as the raw metal colour.

The other idea was to paint the wall in either the complimentary and/or contrasting colours, but due to the short amount of time available I've decided to use plain Lining paper and Pre-Paint it.

The model liked several different colours, All from B&Q these were: Malibu Beach, a light Blue, Fireburst a bright Orange, Pink Splash, a deep pastel Pink, and Warm Terracotta. Due to time restrictions in both before the shoot and studio time, I have opted for a complimentary and a contrasting colour, the Fireburst Orange and the Warm Terracotta.
I also found whilst shopping for the colours, a Silver Glitter Glaze, and I have done 2 versions of the Fireburst Orange, 1 just plain Orange, the other Sliver Glitter Glazed.

      Warm Terracotta                                                                                                         Pink Splash

          Malibu Beach                                                                                                    Silver Glitter Glaze

                            Funky Fireburst

Having Pre painted the Lining paper, the idea is to stick them to the false walls, take the shots, doing a few at a time with the 1st colour, trying to imitate the shot at the top of this page, letting the model view them and then discuss changing the pose/lighting if need be, when were happy we will simply put up the next background and do the same process.
The hardest I think will be the sheet metal, as it's quite heavy and we may have problems attaching it to the wall. My only thoughts on how to get round this are, to simply stand it on the floor, lean it against the wall and have the model sit down in front of it, and try to gain the same pose.

For the shoot I will be using my Sony A300, and using my standard 18-70mm lens, I will also take along my Tamron 70-300mm, but I'm not sure if I will need it/use it.
The other piece of equipment I will no doubt be using is a hot shoe adapter, so that the flash trigger will fit on my camera, as Sony have a different connection to the more popular Canon/Nikon type. 

I think for lighting the shoot, I will use flash light over continuous light, but I'm not sure about this, and will find out on the day. If I use flash I think that it will consist of a minimum of two soft boxes, placed in front and to the left and right of my model, the one to the right will be just above head height, pointing down at the model, and the one to the left will be about head height, pointing straight at the model.
If I use Continuous I think the set up maybe very similar, only further away to give a softer more even coverage of light.


I will also be using Adobe Lightroom for Post Production purposes.

Keri Hilson - Behind the Scenes - No Boys Allowed - Photo Shoot

The Masters of Photography: Rankin Edition

2nd Studio shoot research.

So for my 2nd attempt at studio photography I am going to try and replicate a Keri Hilson album cover, This was at the request of the make-up artist, for her website.

http://gnlstudios.com is the Web address of the guys who took the above shot.

And here is a short film of the shoot they did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxWUSZe-v9s&NR=1 , however this isn't a great deal of help,  due to it being more about the start Keri Hilson, rather than the Photographers.

The cover she showed me was the top one of these 2 photo's, I'm unsure as to whether or not she would like to keep the background in colour or not, so I will confirm this before the shoot.
After doing a bit of research, I have found that the original shoot was done by a company called, Gomillion and Leupold.

My model has dyed red hair, but fading slightly back to brown at the roots (see below picture(the lady with her back to the camera)), so unlike the above picture where the Bright Pink back ground makes Keri's blond hair stand out, I will have to find a different colour that does the same for a darker hair tone.
I would say white would make the dark hair stand out, but I would like to inject a bit of colour into the image.
After comparing colours on the Internet I think that a light Blue would be a complimentary background colour.

I used this photo to get a rough idea of  her hair colour, and then I used the website http://www.colourlovers.com/ and I found these colours that go together.

The models hair colour is close to the second red in from the right, so I think for shoot I will use a green or blue,  like the colour second in from the left, as I would like for the model to stand out, so to have an almost contrasting colour should achieve this.
And think for the shoot I will go with either a plain painted background, or a wallpaper with a slight pattern to it.

For the lighting set up I have watched a video of the photoshoot, (on youtube and also I have posted this to my blog) but due to the way the video has been edited, it doesn't really give any clues as to how the 2 guys shot it.
I think from looking at the photo, the amount of shadow under her chin/behind her hand holding the lipstick, it has been done with continuous lighting to the left and the right of Keri. but i'm not 100% sure, and I think that this will be a case of trial and error, and maybe trying both continuous and flash.


Doing some searching about I found this wallpaper which I think might go well, but not sure the blue is stand out enough.

After talking with the model about the shoot and what image she wanted from it, we decided that the above wallpaper isn't right for the shoot, and have disreguarded it as an option.

We talked about the option of using a neutral toned colour and/or patterned paper, and adjusting the colours to suit in post production using Photoshop.

But we have decided on pre painting lining paper, and hanging that on the day of the shoot, the colours that me and the model thought would go well and/or contrast with her hair colour and skin tone would be, Malibu Beach (Light Blue), Funky Fireburst (Orange), Warm Terracotta and Pink Splash.

Due to funds and time restrictions both before hand, and on the day of the shoot, (changing backgrounds) I've decided to go with the Warm Terracotta and the Funky Fireburst. I also found A silver glitter glaze, which is basically is clearcoat with glitter in, which I am going to try ontop of the Funky Fireburst.

We also found some wallpaper with pictures of Marylin Monroe on, which I would like to try.

And the last idea is to use some Checker Plate metal hung on the wall.  

Research images

For my research I will be using the following Photographers and will be doing a seperate more detailed Blog for each Photographer and the images I choose.

1) Helmut Newton

2) Perry Curties

3) Andrea Massari

4) Julia Kennedy

5) Richard Warren.

Images from the Studio

The following images are from my 1st ever time in a studio shooting a model, the Equipment used was; My camera a Sony a300, with the standard 18-70mm lens, 2x Coreflash CF-D400 flash units, http://www.viewfinderphotography.co.uk/products/CoreFlash-CF%252dD400-Digital-Control-Studio-Flash.html with white umbrellas. 

These were positioned to the front and to the left and right of the model. 

For the main part of the shoot I used my camera on a Camlink TP2500 tripod,  http://www.camlink.eu.com/products/tripods/value/TP2500.html 

For the rest of the shoot I did it freehand.

The last few shots in the shoot (at the bottom of the page) I had a fan low down on the floor blowing up towards the model, which is how I got the movement in her hair.

Ok so here are a few (none edited) photo's from my 1st ever studio shoot. I will start with the 1st (and not the best) photo of the model, and work through to the others. I think I took somewhere in the region of 500 photo's. Not all good but hopefully a high percentage will be good enough.


Being my 1st shoot I a bit nervous and not very accertive with the model, but as the shoot when on I became more confident and was asking the model to hold certain poses for me.
The rest of the time the model kept moving and changing position for pretty much each photo.

 

This is the 1st test shot I did whilst the Make-up artist got ready, being self critical I thought for a totally white painted studio the background was a little dark and Grey looking, So I changed the f stops on the lights from 3 to 3.5. and the next shot is what I got.

So slightly better light, and the background is less grey but I still wasn't happy, so I then adjusted the Shutter speed to 1/80

 

So this is the setting I used for the pretty much the rest of the shoot, ISO 100 Shutter1/80 and apature f14 on these 1st few shots, I did play around with this and dropped it to f9 later on in the shot.
On my small 3.5inch camera screen the background didn't look this grey, but as I adjusted the apature later on the background did become a bit more white.


So that was the test shots done, and the make up artist did her thing, and the next photo is the 1st after make-up (I think the make-up applied was very suttle at this stage, so not a big difference).

So looking at my settings, I must of realised the background in the test shots wasn't great, and I had adjusted the shutter in this image to f9. But the next shot I adjusted it back to f10, as I felt that this was a little over exposed.

 So this is adjusted to f10, which looks on here, but I must of thought at the time still a little over exposed as the next shot I adjusted again.

This is now adjusted to f11,  and I think this may of been at the request of the make-up artist, as she was worried about shine on the models nose/cheeks/forehead.
Not sure if I adjusted again for the same reason as above, or just to try it, but thsis next one is back to f13!

So I think as this point I said I was happy with the settings, and the model started to try different poses, not at my request, as I stated earlier, I was nervous and a bit unsure, so the model and the make-up artist decided on most of the poses. Any that i asked for I will highlight this as I get to them.
I will now put on a few pictures in a row, to show the different poses and the shots I like, mainly the pose, as the settings didn't really change.

There were many many more diffrent poses, so I will now move onto the next outfit change that happened, If I remember rightly, the Make-up stayed the same untill later.

The last set of photo's i'm now going to put on from the shoot is the last change, the model changed he clothes and the make-up artist changed the make-up quite dramatically.