Kander’s portrait work has a pattern tight on the subject, edited on the cool side, and the subject looking away. For the most part this is what I observed. His style is distinct and can feel dreamy.
High Contrast, Dramatic Lighting
I would like to recreate an image like this. It’s high contrast but the sharp corners of the model’s body being highlighted by the light overhead while hiding her face make this image successful.
After reading up on this 20th century artist I am wondering about the conversations Yousef Karsh must have had with his subjects. They ranged from entertainers to governmental leaders and he made it a point to “do homework” on his subjects. His portraits have dramatic looks due to the artificial stage style lighting he uses.
Focus on the image on the left (man smoking)
This image on the left of the man smoking uses high contrast and broadside lighting to make the image successful. To help the subject to stand out from the background he lit the back side of the subject as well. Yousef was able to capture the subject in an expressive state, maybe they were about to take another drag from the cigarette or they were mid sentence. We will never know, but what we can tell is that is image is captivating. This is something I would like to create.
Yousuf Karsh’s portraits are predominantly black and white. They consist of mostly just the subjects head/chest in the picture. It is clear that many of these subjects pictures were taken many years ago. Shows how the quality and impact of photographs in that era are not effected by time. All his pictures are very similar in characteristics, he has a very distinct style. My favorite portrait that I saw is of Joan Crawford 1948. Despite the era in which it was taken it doesn’t look like an old photo, it looks so elegant and timeless. The contrast of her dark hair and dark clothing is very nice against the white/grey background.
Nadav Kandar seems to have more styles than Yousuf. He is not confined to one photographic look. Although he has varying styles he does have a series very similar to Yousuf’s style called the Holocaust Survivor series. In this series he is using the same characteristics as Yousuf’s black and white portraits. The predominant use of the subjects head in the photo as well as very dark background contrasted by their face. In his Solitary portraits he also has more photos portraying this specific style but also has portraits that look similar but has use of color. Nevertheless, the colors are dull not straying too far from black and white. My favorite portrait is the Barack Obama I, 2009. It’s very up close and personal with a very high contrast in the eyes making it the focal point.
For upcoming portrait assignments I definitely want to emulate the very close and personal portraits that seem to have a strong message or feeling of some sort like the Obama portrait. A portrait photograph that convey’s an emotion.
For my new assignment, I have to talk about two great photographers. Yousuf Karsh, a photographer from the 20th Century and Nadav Kander, a photographer from the modern days.
Yousuf Karsh, Armenian Canadian photographer known for his famous portraits like Albert Einstein and others famous people. The work of Karsh is really interesting because even if he had everything in black and white you could see the photos perfectly. For example the portrait of Albert Einstein. In Einstein’s photo, the background is dark and even his shirt is dark, but just because he had a really strong light on his face, that’s what makes a photo powerful. Lighting can be tricky and it is possible that you might get a lot of bad photos, but when you get the right spot, everything will get its place. For Karsh’s work, I also will have to say that his photos are based on facial expression more than the body.
Besides Karsh’s photographs, Nadav Kander’s photographs give me a different feeling. Kander is a London Photographer who takes photographs of famous modern people. He has a lot of different photos with color and without color. Some of the photos have people with plenty of makeup and some with none. Also, his work is based on the face and the body. Something totally different to Karsh’s photographs. The facial expression is important in a photo and it’s even better when you can get the right pose for that photo. Also, Kander’s work shows not only bright colors but, different cool tones and blurry photos.
One portrait that I love is from Nadav Kander “Missy Elliot, 2006”. This is one of my favorite portraits because you can only see half of her face in the dark and those bright green and yellow colors.
For this new semester, my goal is to take better portrait photos because I know that I have the potential to do it.
Dawoud Bey’s work it’s interesting because it’s really difficult to take photos of young students. Fist of all the lighting. Lighting can be really powerful and can give us good results. The first photo that we saw in the video we can see a young girl sitting on a chair in the middle of the classroom. I really love how the girl has confident about herself and she’s not afraid to look relaxed in the photo. Something else about this photo is the background. In each of the background, I saw how they obviously look like a school not like just a person sitting or looking at the camera.
One of the photos that caught my attention it’s the photo of the girl with the almost blue-gray color. I feel that Dawoud Bey focuses more in the eyes because the eyes can be one of the most powerful weapons of a human being.
Describing any kind of photography is easy. We can say immediately what we see but looking at the interview of Dawoud Bey I saw more than a photo. I could describe his work as emotional. For me, all of these photos have like a background story because that’s the feeling that each of the students give me on these photos. And why I think that they have like a background story because of their facial expression and pose.
One of the keys to a photo, in my opinion, is the facial expression. When a photo has the same expression is not really exciting to see, that’s why I think that Bey’s work it’s interesting because he gave us more to see in those photos.
For this class, I had some ideas about our assignment. I will try to take photos that can show facial expression and also I will show how having only a side view of the face can show like a story about the person.
Yousuf Karsh was an American-Canadian photographer. He was born on December 23,1908 in Mardin, Turkey. He was best known for his portraits of notable individuals and also known as the best photographer of the 20th century. Most of his pictures are black and white and are images that seemed captured at the moment. Most of his images seem like they were taken unexpectedly with out people noticing, which is better because it captures random moments and those are the best moments because you get to see exactly how people are feeling at that exact moment. I noticed a few things about his images which is that most of them he has people smiling. In almost all of his pictures there are people smiling which you could tell that he liked capturing happy moments. I also noticed that in most of his pictures the people are looking away, they don’t really look directly at the camera, this could be because he actually tells them how to pose or maybe because he captures the images at random moments. One portrait I love from him is the one he took from Audrey Hepburn in 1956. I really like this portrait because he really captures her beauty even though it’s a side view. This image has the perfect light on her face, you could see her jaw line in detail and its a nice and simple black and white portrait.
Nadav Kandar was born in Israel in 1961. His first interest in photography was because of his father. His father used to take pictures and had created his first slide show which nadav was there with him watching the process. Nadav began taking pictures when he was 13 on a Pentax camera. He was also inspired by a few photographers such as Strand, Stieglitz, Weston and Atget. In his portraits as well as in Yusuf’s most of the people are looking away, but in his pictures they actually look like he was directing them to pose a certain way. He also uses a lot of black and white images, most of his photographs look like paintings and they’re also more serious and straight forward. You could describe how people are feeling though his images specially the pictures where they’re more up close. My favorite image from him is the one that he took from Carla in 1999. This image is very up close, it’s in black and white and you could see a perfect detail of her face. The shadow on her face is also one thing i mainly like because it covers half of her face but you could still see the details in her face clear enough. You are also able to tell the way she is feeling by the deep look in her eyes, and i feel like its a great capture for an up close portrait.
Yousef Karsh is an American-Canadian photographer in the 20th century who is best known for his portraits of celebrities at the time. Karsh portraits are in black and white old school simple but beautiful work. His technique, is photographing them in a simple way whether if its looking straight at the camera or looking away smiling, no smiling but it all worked out and looks beautiful. And also his images has a smooth finish. One of the portrait that I love from Karsh’s work is the Audrey Hepburn, 1956 portrait. Its one of the first and favorite portraits that stood out to me, because its not like typical portrait of the subject just looking at the camera and smiling. She’s facing side ways not really smiling and closed eyes which to me shows elegance, beauty without even looking at the camera. Similar to an off guard pictures which I Love looking at and sometimes taking as well.
Nadav Kandar portraits were more new and with color and some black and white. The subjects in his portraits have serious expressions. Similar to Karsh, Kandar also photographed famous individuals. He uses light and shadows in his work and even some blurs like the portrait of Brad Pitt III, 2008 or Bobby Gillespie III, 2013; blur of hand movement across his face. Kandar’s portraits are not just colored or black and white portraits, he showed reflection, shadows, lighting, and colors on the faces, close ups, and zoomed out. The lighting wasn’t too much on their face but you know that some portraits did have lighting in one side of the face. My favorite portrait form his work is from his Solitary Portraits series and its called, Erin After Caravaggio,2004. The reason its my favorite because the subject stands out even though its not a close up, she’s on the grass looking at the water, with her eyes closed with her reflection. To me the image looks a little dramatic, serious, colorful and just beautiful.
An american photographer who was raised in Queens New York w/ Harlem roots. Bey was specialized in portraits and a lot of black and white photography. He is known for photography with the subject having direct eye contact with the shot. I have also noticed in all of his portraits the subject has a way of placing their arms which brings out the emotions of which the model is trying to express.
Yousef Karsh, was a Canadian photographer best known for his portraits of famous individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century. Karsh lived in Ottawa and opened his first studio in 1932 named Karsh of Ottawa. During his time there his taste in how he envision his composition of these models are dramatized and sets the scene for his models. One photograph that immediately caught my attention is the one he took of Betty Low, 1936 the reason why is because it’s black and white and i’m a huge fan of it. The second, reason why it caught my attention is because of how here face is composed in the most simple way, just by looking at it you’ll see that her eyes are wondering off into the distance which give us the viewer the curiosity of what she’s looking at. Karsh, has a way of telling a story in his photos in such a cinematic style and I want to emulate how the cloth around her head carries the eyes down onto the subject neck. Form follows function.
Nadav Kandar, was born in Israel on December 1st 1961. When he was 13 Kandar, started taking pictures on a Pentax camera that he had bought with own money from his Bar Mitzvah. He, began to look deeply at the work of Strand, Stieglitz, Weston and Atget, all of which the feeling that each artist was exploring their respective lives. So being that him and his family came along way to start a new path with photography the influences that he gained rubbed off on him and made him form his own style today. As I was looking through his work I stumbled across two of his work that made me feel excited to emulated I couldn’t pick one of his work so maybe ill try to combine it somehow. The first photo that Kandar, produced was named Sadiq Khan, 2017 even though this picture is recent it still gives you that nostalgic black and white movie feel to it and he invoked it really well. What I admire what he did was bring attention just only on the subjects eyes. the light source is coming the right of the picture. The movie theme photo might be a theme for me. The second piece was the double expose photo of Eddie redmayne and nature taken in 2016. The reason why it draws my attention is because it has the mysterious emotion going on with the mixture of blue and green, but now that i think about it I realized that the double exposer photo isn’t what it seems. It’s a photo project on the subject face to make it seem like it.
Film vs digital. Old school vs new school. Colour vs black and white. These are some of the many titles that can be used to describe two different masters in the field of photography ; Yousuf Karash and Nadav Kander.
Yousuf Karash was an Armenian- Canadian photographer who was active during the 20th century. He was mainly responsible for photographing the 20th century celebrities and icons of the era. He has photographed the likes of Wilson Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa and even President John F Kennedy. His style of photography is rather quite simple and straight forward due the technical limitations of his time. However, his limitation became his strong-point. One portrait in particular I feel an attachment to is the portrait of John F. Kennedy (JFK). In this portrait, Kennedy has is body position to the side with his hands clasped, looking upwards with a glint of light hitting is right side of face. This is powerful moment that I read has Kennedy’s dream and hope for the future. This idea of sending the viewer an outlining message is what I would love to accomplish in the next class.
Nadav Kander is British Israeli photographer who is active in the 21st century. Like Yousuf, he photographs celebrities and icons in today’s media. His work is focuses on using colour, shadows, depth and slow shutter speeds to create an unique style I found unthinkable. He also has a strong interest with double exposures and using a screen projectors to display an optical illusion of an image upon an image. One photograph that I find powerful is of Rosamund Pike from the movie “Gone Girl”. In this photograph Nadav utilized colour, depth and the use a projector to display an image of tree branches. I would love to play around with this idea in my next shoot with in conjunction of Yousuf style. Together, both of these two different styles would hopefully create something powerful.
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
