Category Archives: Inspiration

Inspiration: Richard Avedon & Jonathan Mannion

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Richard Avedon’s portrait style is mostly black and white photographs with variations of white or grey backgrounds, to up close and out of focus shots. His portraits have a strong sense of character and message, or they are strong simply because of the influence the person in the picture possesses. A good portion of Jonathan Mannion’s black and white portrait photography is identical to Avedon’s white or grey background photography. Same concept and strong character. Looking at other photography by Mannion’s, I noticed he’s adapted a Avedon’s conceptual styling of fashion photography and added his own personal look to it, his are mostly color photographs while Avedon’s were in black and white.

Yousuf Karsh & Nadav Kander

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Yousuf Karsh; born in Mardin, Turkey. Was and American Canadian photographer better known for his important and beautiful portraits of famous and historical people. He photographed Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, President John F. Kennedy, President Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Princess Elizabeth and more. His portraits are gorgeous and the way he uses the light is incredible. One of his significant portrait is the one of Albert Einstein. In this portrait we can see that Yousuf Karsh uses a back light to pop up the subject from the background. Also, he uses some extra light for the sides to fill the dark areas; and of course, a key light which is almost on the side and high.

By Yousuf Karsh, 1948

Albert Einstein By Yousuf Karsh, 1948

Nadav Kander; born in Tel Aviv, Israel. His better known for his portraits and landcapes. Kander portraits looks more like a composition; an art that his creating using a photograph. It is incredible how Nadav Kander uses a projector or some reflector to add this pattern or texture to the subject’s skin. One of my favorite photograph of Kander is the one attach below. Here we can see how he’s using a projector to illustrate an emotion and create an art out of a photograph. Also using the monochromatic color scheme of green is beautiful and holds the composition together. I would love to try something like this because is eye catchy and I know that the model would love this type of portrait.

Eddie Redmayne, “Forest” By Nadav Kander, 2016

Inspiration: Yousuf Karsh & Nadav Kandar

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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.

 

Yousef Karsh, Nadav Kandar

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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.

 

Dawoud Bey – Anmol

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Dawoud Bey did portrait of high school students in their schools. His characterization in portrait style is framework and hand poses to focus. Every picture of students is eye contact with camara. He used students personal life to portray their personality. act image he is trying to different emotions of students through facial expressions and blurring the background image. He uses soft light on the face to have real environment. There is a lot going on in the background of each image as in student’s lives but to have focus the background is blurred. Th hands of each portrait work perfectly in order achieve the story of the portrait. I do like his work of portrait it’s amazing to tell a story of students.

Inspiration – Dawoud Bey

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In a short response to this work (300 words min), characterize his portrait style. How does he use expression, pose, framing, light, and foreground background relationships to create these sympathetic portraits of young people? What ideas did you get about how you might approach today’s in-class shoot from looking at this work?

Dawoud Bey is an American photographer who takes portraits to students. He uses lots of technique that makes the photographs appealing. He uses expressions, poses, framing, light, out of focus background, relationship of foreground and background, and the use of soft colors. For each student, Dawoud Bey uses a different expression to get the attention of the viewers. Bey combine the expression with the pose to make the photo unique, and reads as one composition. Framing is also very important in his photography; he makes the subject look straight at your eyes. Most of the time, he uses the rules of thirds; placing the main subject on the side, not in the center of the photograph. Light is also another technique that Bey uses. He makes the light reflect as natural light. Also he uses busy background but you cant tell is busy because of the out of focus.

In today’s class I might ask the person how you feel today, and depending on their feelings, I asked him/her to pose in a certain way. Definitely I will use Dawoud Bey techniques to enhanced my photography.

Dawoud Bey

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Dawoud Bey uses serious expressions in his photographs of the high school students. They all have eye contact, his photographs of the students is based on their personal lives on their stories and who they are or what they have been through. the lighting of his photos are focused on the face not harsh but just right for this series. The background is out of focus and which makes the students in the foreground more in focus. Like you can see their stories in their eyes there face is serious but their eyes is talking. The ideas that  I got were not a lot but some ideas were the person would be siting on the floor and looking at the camera with a serious face, or sitting on a chair with eye contact but with a smirk on their face.

 

 

Inspiration: Dawoud Bey

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After looking at some of Dawoud Bey’s portrait photographs in his classroom project I realized that photography doesn’t need to be super complex to be considered beautiful. It seems like his photographs are captivating to many individuals. The subjects in these photos are all posing differently but simple. The photos have great lighting despite the disadvantage he has in the classroom, they’re clear, and the aperture is just enough on each. He talks about how he takes these photos at a fast pace because of the environment he is taking them in. He has about 45 minutes before the class comes in. I find this to be very interesting as well as talented. He is able to take high quality photos with so much pressure involved. He mentioned that he feels his experience to make this happen comes from taking street photography. I think to be able to take great photos in a short amount of time is a good skill to have.

Inspiration Post

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Dawoud Bey’s portrait style can be categorized as Environmental Portrait photography.   Dawoud Bey uses natural lighting than is in the area of the image being taken. Instead of using forced lighting he adjusts to the specific person he is shooting. Ultimately the image that Dawoud is trying to convey is each person’s life story. The emotion in their eyes tells a person what they have been through and what they are trying to accomplish in their life. Some stories are more harder than others but at the end of the day everyone is trying to do better no matter the struggle they had. In my photoshoot, I will try to convey the same theory of making it in life and using the correct facial expressions and gestures to get an amazing picture that tells a story.

Dawoud Bey

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The way that children look straight forward to the camera makes the expression more realistic on the picture. He took medium shots and the way he blurred the background, bring forward the person. He did a very good job on framing, because nothing becomes lost on the picture and the make the viewer to focus in the middle. I see that he is really successful to control and manipulate light correctly in order to get the best texture, and the vibrancy of color.