The Portrait Element - Male

For my male shoot for the Portrait Element brief, I decided to shoot a contemporary craft student, Garnett Douglas whilst he was in the workshop working on a new project making a sword.

Formal Portrait:
I chose this image for my formal portrait because I think it best portrays what Garnett was doing - working in a workshop. We tried several shots with and without the goggles and ear defenders and in different positions and we both decided that this was the best one. It does not distract us from Garnett but does add extra important information to the image.

This is the only image I shot with a flash. At first I just used natural light from a large window that lit the right side of Garnetts face well but the other side of his far was very dull and in poor light. Therefore, we moved closer to the side of a large machine and I used this to bounce my flash light off to evenly light the whole of my subject.

The part of this image that I do not like is that I think the flash is a little sharp on my subjects face. I am fairly new to using flash and it took me a while to get this result so at this stage I think its the best I could have got in the environment I shot the image.



Detailed Portrait:
I really struggled to decide on which shot out of the two I have show here to chose for my detailed portrait. After discussing it with others, I decided on the top image. The angle and tighter framing I think makes the image better than the alternative.

I shot the image at a fairly modest shutter speed of 1/160. This is to show the motion of the belt sander but freeze the slightly movement in Garnetts hands and fingers. I really like the contrast in this image between the motion blur and frozen action. This was only possible due to the huge differences in speeds.

This is one of the reason why I nearly chose the other image below. I love the motion on the sander I think more in this one because you can see the sawdust getting thrown off the end of the belt and the contrast of this to the vibrant colour of the untouched half of the sander. Having said this, I do have an element of this in the top left of the chosen image and along with the preferred angle and framing, this is why I chose the top image over the bottom.
















Observed Portrait:

I shot this image for my observed portrait using an 85mm lens for the same reason as I used this lens for the Detailed Portrait. They were both taken next to a potentially harmful machine. When I am concentration on getting the shot and looking through the viewfinder of my camera, using a shorter focal length lens may have proven to be hazardous. Also, the lighting in the workshop was not very good. I had looked at the location before the shoot so I knew I'd need a lens with a low f stop in order to let as much light into the camera as possible. For this reason, I used a 50mm f/1.4 and a 85mm f/1.8 throughout the whole shoot and both being shot fully open the whole time.

I think that this image really shows Garnett working clearly and I shot from the side to achieve this allowing all of the relevant information to be contained within the one photography which is why I chose to use this as my observed Portrait.

This shot was also taken whist Garnett was working on the same machine as the Detailed Portrait (the belt sander). I wanted to include the motion blur as before but include the concentration of Garnett's face as well which I think I managed to achieve in this shot.

Environmental Portrait:
This is the image I have chosen to use for my environmental portrait. You can clearly see the Garnett and the machine he is working on and some of his surrounding environment.

I chose to leave all of the images in this set in colour because I feel that the few bright and vibrant areas of the image add to it and make it more interesting. I think it would be quite flat if it was converted into black and white.

The only part of this image some have said could be changed to possibly make better would be pulling the background back into the focus point. At the time of the shoot I thought that although it was an environmental shot, I wanted to have Garnett as the main subject still. Also, the lighting was very poor in the room meaning I had to shoot with a very high f stop so I had to be fairly selective on which part of the image would be in focus.