5 Single Portraits Evaluation
Below are my five single portraits that I shot for my Location Photography project.
What Went Well:
- New Skill
Firstly mixed lighting was a new skill for me. It wasn’t something I was aware of, there we’re some instances where I took it for granted. For example when I was taking casual photos at my brothers wedding I was shooting with a speedlite at flash sync, this was an opportunity for mixed lighting which would’ve made my photos even better.
Not only has this course given me experience with the Elinchrom Quadras, it has also made me more aware of aspects like Inverse Square Law and reflections of light. Which are both things I’ve encountered when shooting but definitely known what they were or how to counter them.
Even though I’ve improved my ability with mixed lighting, I still feel I have more to learn of it.
- Confidence to communicate
This project was all about going and asking people to take a picture of them. I couldn’t of done this project without permission. Three of my five taxi portraits we’re shot on the spot with permission. None of the driver knew I was coming until I asked them to take their picture. With the other two, they knew I was coming to do a shoot. This project has taken me out of my comfort zone.
- Planning
I really had to plan each shot to point where I could shoot in an instant. Do be able to get these shots I had to seem confident, especially for those who we’re asked on the spot. So I’d planned loads of different poses and lighting set ups to which the first shoot the driver gave me a time to shoot him. So that time I could try every pose. That way I could dispose of poses that didn’t work and I now knew what lighting set ups to go with for the other shoots so I could get the other taxi drivers shot quickly.
- End Product
I’m very happy with the five portraits that I’ve come out with from this project. Some of the images are a bit darker than I wanted them to be, but I wasn’t only shooting with a new camera, I was also shooting with a new lighting technique [and a broken flash kit for most of the portraits] The portraits I feel are still mixed lighting and I feel work as a series.
Even Better If:
- Time Managment
I feel I left this project very late to do. Not only did this lead to me feeling nervous about getting five portraits but it also meant I had to wait a while for my risk assessment to be approved, this only added to the stress of the project.
- More Drivers
Mentioning back to the time management, if I had more time I would’ve shot even more taxi drivers. The flash kit was playing up on the day when I went to Suffolk Street so I didn’t really have a great choice of images to pick from.
- Social Media Interaction
I was a bit downhearted about my social media appeal to find taxi drivers. My appeal on my Facebook didn’t get any responses and neither did my Instagram appeal. Even though I feel the social media attempt was a bit of a disaster it was the next phase where I messaged my friends actually led to my first taxi driver that let me shoot and test my shots.
The shoot went alright. I must admit we did have technical difficulties. It was very overcast, a storm was on the way so the sky was very dark. This meant there wasn’t very much ambient light in the centre. Apart from the taxi lights and a few fluorescent tubes at the petrol pumps. This wasn’t helped by us have a faulty flash kit. We didn’t know this during the shoot, but it seems that the flash seems to be out-of-sync after it’s been fired 4 or 5 times. It sounds to stupid to be true but below is a video of me and Molly testing it out. The power was on 4.0 and the image was black. It was’t the camera settings because the image only picked up the ambient light.
Mentioning back to the technical problems. It meant that I was gutted because I felt it would’ve been very good to include an image of a female taxi driver. However the flash didn’t fire in sync with the exposure. So sadly I can’t use it with the project.
Thursday was the day for my latest tutorial for Location Photography. Celine started the by showing us a catalogue of books that MACK did. It was shown to make a point, which Celine said wasn’t valid for my idea because my book works with it. However Celine was showing us that not many photo-books are made in Landscape. In the Mack Publisher catalogue there was only one landscape book. Landscape is a very tough format to use, not only does it squash portrait images it’s very tough to use a Double page spread effectively thanks to it being turned into a panorama. This is something that was perfect for my photos but for other photos it isn’t good.
So we started by looking at my updated photo-book layout. Celine liked the improvements I made to the trenches. There now grey rather than a harsh black and there only on the end paper where the intro and outro are. This way the images can talk for themselves. Celine believed that I need to pay more attention to type. My intro and outro originally had lines that stretched across the entire page. After some thought I’ve decided to change this to a 1/3 of the page. It’s just too tough to read a line that goes across an entire width of a page, especially for an A4 landscape book. Celine also said that I’ve clearly realised that smaller type is better than bigger type. Case in point the front cover. I had the name A World Beyond The War stretching across the cover. Now I’ve changed it to Font size 12 and it is now much easier to read and take in.
Celine agreed with the layout of my book. It was felt that I had one of the few photo-books that works well in landscape. It really compliments the double-page spreads of the pivotal images. It really throws the focus onto why the images are pivotal, for example the two soldiers shaking hands.
The next thing I posed was the trenches I drew to put into my book. I liked the idea but I had one problem with them. We’re they distracting. Which Celine said they are prominent but so are the images. Gemma felt that i should change the colour, I shouldn’t use such a harsh black. Gemma suggested using a grey, maybe a grey that appears in the image. Are much discussion we came to the conclusion that I shouldn’t include them on the pages because they we’re simply too distracting for the images. Celine however did think that I should use them on the end pages. Which is what I’m planning to do, subject to changing the colour.
Celine recommended coming with an updated design to the next tutorial and then print it after that tutorial. I am however keeping my eyes on both Mixam and Blurb for how long it will take to produce and send. Mixam is currently listed as Tuesday the 29th for delivery which the following week has a bank holiday Monday so thats a further day. I might have to end up printing the tutorial.
1st my friends father said he has a taxi driver friend who will be available to shoot on Tuesday next week. The 2nd response was someone who has a taxi driver at work, unfortunately she won’t be seeing him until Wednesday next week. I’m still keeping that in my mind incase I can’t get five of them shot by Tuesday.
A 4th friend reply and it initially looked positive. However her and her husband feel that he wouldn’t be willing to do the shoot. However she did suggest looking at taxi ranks or going to cafes where they meet up.
the sequence of my images as-well. Maybe I might reshoot a couple of images but I don’t have to redo the entire story. So now I’m in the layout and design phase. Which layout of images I already know that I’m gonna have at least three double page spreads [maybe bleeds] as the three images above are the three pivotal images of the story, the start is the German surrendering, the climax is the soldier meeting and the end is explosion restarting the war. I was thinking of doing my book landscape which these images would look very good in a panoramic composition.
Next we mentioned about the design. I said that I wanted the design to represent the time of WW1, to which Celine replied “I don’t see this as being a stark white photo-book … maybe the pages are a browny/yellow colour“. I did say that I was considering basing it off of a WW1 diary. This could be shown in the colour of the pages and the type, maybe I could use a lighter print stock. I do however think that a diary would be too small for these kind of images but I can definitely take inspiration and make it on a bigger scale.
I did it on my Facebook page which was seen 37 people but got no interaction.
Ben Peters Digital Photography 