After looking through his class pictures, I’ve noticed that most of the students have a similar expression on their faces but with completely different pose that are unique to each student because thats how they feel comfortable. While some also had different expressions with different poses as well. It seems like he focus more on body language and hand positioning while the students who are the center of each portrait, all stare at the camera and never look away from it. Dawoud Bey always went through a process with each student to somehow get to know and understand them, as well as when taking a picture he makes sure they are comfortable at that moment so that the students look more natural in their element. I’ve noticed that every picture is using two point lighting where one is a light source on one side, and the other a reflector to reflect the light on the opposite side to soften up on shadows on the subject. The background in his images are always the element of a student to show what a school can look like and Foreground is always a desk and the subject. When it comes down to his framing its hard to tell but he uses the environment behind the subjects as a way from framing. One seem to use geometric framing, one of them uses shadow framing, and another felt like it was using colors of the background as a frame for the subject. He would study the students actions and attire during the meetings to understand where and how to photograph that person. To be able to understand what to put around them and what colors go with what they wear thats in the environment to be able to give a description of the students with whats around them, how they pose and with they wear.

After watching Dawoud Bey‘s photographs about Class pictures.  His works give people a very careful description of emotions and young people have different feeling about themselves and give a student a kind of mysterious color. Bey is very good at using body movements and faces to express the emotions of the portrait. His expression is relaxed and natural. The main forms are in the eyes and the overall body sounds. Each portrait has different poses, and different poses convey different messages. I think the most important thing is the hand movements, different hand movements represent different emotions. For example, the first picture of a girl’s hands is against her face. It gives people a very ethereal and clean feeling. He was also very careful about the use of light, he used Butterfly Lighting style to create shadow of the chin and aside. Also use Rembrandt lighting style to create triangle and shadow on the side of face.  His foreground is always the character itself, the background is illusory, but gives a sense of life. Each portrait makes good use of the relationship between foreground and background to express the main subject and other subjects. Most of his framing of portrait is in the center and part of the classroom scene. Let us know he is a student. Models always look at the camera, they all have different expressions and emotions on their faces. I can learn from his works that it is necessary to have a certain amount of time to get to know the model when starting photography. This will make the model relaxed and natural to accept the shooting. Having the models pose in a way that they are comfortable with will allow the photography process to progress quickly.

Looking at Dawoud Bey photographs I think that he uses facial expressions and body gestures to really give off a sense of attitude and personality from his subjects. When it comes to his framing, all of his photos of the young people are put at the center of the frame possibly  trying to show how important the subject is to the photo. The lighting of his photos give each photo a different feel and look especially the one with the girl with her hands crossed together, the light seems as though it is coming from the center while the background is dark which gives off this powerful feel almost like the girl is the boss of the classroom and she is in control. The foreground and background of the photos also plays an interesting role in the photos. The last photo with the kid with the fcuk sweater is a good example as the background goes hand and hand with the attitude with the young man himself, there is a blue tone that you can say gives off a chilling vibe and with the young man intense stare. Some ideas I got from his photos are to pay more attention to the expression of the subject because that is something that can really bring out the personality of not only the subject but the overall scene of the photograph. Also I think the setting of the photo is also important as he said in the video he moved them from where they were sitting in order to incorporate the setting with the expression and body language of the subject.