PART 2 - PROJECT 2 - COURSEWORK
For this exercise I chose to do a photographic session together with my wife Cristina.
On a saturday morning we went out and I shot a couple of hundreds images along two hours in our city.
On a saturday morning we went out and I shot a couple of hundreds images along two hours in our city.
While I was walking and shooting, I developed the linking theme around which select the final five portraits.
At first I had tried to isolate the sitter from the people and shoot in an empty context, but after several unsuccessful "try and shoot", I decided to embrace this "populated" context.
At first I had tried to isolate the sitter from the people and shoot in an empty context, but after several unsuccessful "try and shoot", I decided to embrace this "populated" context.
After this experience I believe that this choice was wise: portraits of my wife well in focus and occasional, defocussed people around, by my opinion are more powerful.
The title could be "I live here".
In order to better isolate the subject, I used a long focal (320 mm full frame eq) and large aperture (from F4 to F6.3).
The choice of black & white is familiar to me, but I made it even because in this season colors are pale: black & white, on the contrary, move attention to composition and subject.
The more, black & white give to images a connotation of "unaware" portraits, at least to those shot where there is no returning gaze to the camera.
The more, black & white give to images a connotation of "unaware" portraits, at least to those shot where there is no returning gaze to the camera.
The use of sunglasses and the serious pose are not occasional: this express choice is made in order to arise a contrast between the title "I live here" and the possible desire of the subject to be discrete, be enigmatic and mantain detachment from the context, the people.
Could I change the title in "Do I live here?"?
For this exercise, first of all I focussed on sitters' selection.
Some of my colleagues know that, above all, I am passionately fond of photography. Therefore they where not really surprised when I asked them if I could make their portrait just for exercise.
Here following is a selection of three sitters on six I contacted and portraited.
The location I chose it's one of the offices, where there is a long line of windows with venetian blinds. I could then position each sitter with his shoulders facing windows, and turning his head (and eyes) towards the camera.
I used this lighting method and venetian blinds' orientation in order to avoid harsh shadows and create a "gentle" Rembrandt effect on each face.
The more, sitters were not blinded by light.
I selected a very large aperture (from F1.7 to 2.5) and a short focal (from 20mm to 36 mm eq) in order to blur the background but not the sitter.
I am confident that, by the selection of a short focal, I could limit the blur and obtain a correct focus on the entire face, providing that the sitter is not facing completely the camera.
Should I have the face on the same plane, with a very large aperture, I believe I would use a longer focal (at least 70 mm eq).
Alessandro is an engineer, expert in industrial automation and databases.
Despite the fact that his work is mainly done of interaction with computers, he is supposed to spend a part of his working time directly in the plant's field.
This is the reason why he shows this strange outfit: in plant's field you are very cold in winter and very warm in summer.
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| Alessandro (F 2.5, 36 mm eq) |
Massimo works in the back-office and is a part-time singer in an heavy metal band. He always wears black clothes, so black & white fits perfectly for his portrait.
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| Massimo (F 1.7, 20 mm eq) |
Alessandro works in ICT department. Providing that there are not harsh shadows, glasses do not cast disturbing lines on his face.
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| Alessandro (F 1.7, 20 mm eq) |