For the final photo set that I’m choosing in the Portraiture unit of photography, I decided to use my set 3 pictures. Because I had a new intent for each of my sets, this set’s intent was different from my original one. My intent for these photos is by taking inspiration from Lee Kirby and using the concept of projecting an image onto the subject and backdrop that I’m photographing, I can convey the message that we should strive to live and enjoy the present moment, instead of constantly dwelling in the past or worrying about the future because we can’t change or control those things. Lee Kirby inspired my idea for this set because he created a project where he photographed subjects with an image projected onto them, and I really liked the concept of this, so I decided to challenge myself and try it. However, Kirby’s portraits were much more abstract, so I didn’t want to exactly copy his style of photography. This set connects to my intent because each of the final images represents “a moment in time”: the past, present, and future. Each photo depicts the subject and an image of the subject from the past, present, or “future” (this is just an image where the subject looks older) projected on them, symbolizing each moment. Hopefully, this set of photos will be able to convey that you can’t change the past or control what happens in the future, so you should try and live in the moment. When presenting these photographs, I want them to be shown as a typical triptych, but in the specific order of past, present, and future. This way, the audience is able to visually see the progression and the intended chronological order.

For my critique of these final photos, I think a strength of this set is its storytelling element. I’m really proud of how all the elements such as the pose of the subject, projection of the image, composition of the photo, and the final editing all came together to create cohesive images, and also how all the images work really well together to tell a story and convey my message and intent. Hopefully, the audience will also be able to connect to and relate to these photos if they see them and can maybe think back and reflect on their on life. However, one thing I think I could improve on is the composition of specifically the second photo. When put together and presented as a triptych, a progression could be seen in the subject’s height. However, because of how I composed the second image, the subject is “too short” and could be on a higher medium level to go in between the first two photographs. This way, the images would flow more when looked at in the correct order, and there wouldn’t be as much of a disconnect when the audience is looking at the photos. Overall, I really like how these images turned out, and I’m happy with how their storytelling component was able to convey my intent and message.

In my third portraiture set, I decided to take inspiration from Lee Kirby. Kirby is a London-based film director and photographer, and I specifically am taking inspiration from his “Pro-ject” project. In this project, Kirby projected abstract images with bold and vibrant colors onto a person and backdrop, creating an image that would “take shape” of the subject matter and be projected onto the backdrop. For this set, I decided to take this concept and create the final three photos representing the past, present, and future. The message I wanted to convey in these photographs is that we often spend a lot of time dwelling in the past that we cant change or worrying about the future that we can’t control, and we aren’t able to live in and enjoy the present moment. To do this, I would use a picture of my subject when they were younger, a picture of them in the present, and a picture of them looking older to project onto them and photograph. The final three photos I chose for this set would each depict one “moment in time.”

All Photos

Blue Photos

Because this set of photographs is highly dependent on the projected images, and I didn’t know what the pictures were until we started shooting, I couldn’t draw out a sketch or plan out my vision for the photos beforehand. Furthermore, I also didn’t need to plan or set up any lighting for this set because using a projector in the room would require all the lights to be off so that the projected image would be bright enough. However, once I started photographing, I also decided to use a small light to illuminate the subject’s face and allow it to be brighter. After photographing, I went through all the photos and chose my blue photos. To decide which photos to keep, I looked at whatever images had the best lighting, the subject matter was in a more natural and better pose and wasn’t blinking, and the projected image was composed well. Next, I narrowed down the images further and chose my green photos (Green Contact Sheet). For these photos, I deleted any photos where the subject had repeating poses. I looked at the photographs where the projected image was complementary to the subject matter and how the picture was composed.

For my final three red images (Red Contact Sheet), I chose the three best images from each “moment in time” where the subject matter had the best pose, the placement of the projected image fit with the subject, and the overall composition of the photo complemented the subject matter and the projection of the image. For these final three photos, I wanted to edit them to further represent the past, present, and future. For the “past” photo, I wanted the projected image to be more desaturated and almost black and white while the subject was in color to emphasize the contrast between the two and that the image is a moment that has passed and faded away, only existing as a memory. To achieve this, I first used Affinity to crop out just the model in the picture and delete everything around it. Then, I put a copy of the same original image that was adjusted to be more black and white into Affinity as a different layer, which became the background to the cutout of the subject. In Affinity, I then added a gaussian blur and a low opacity gradient to get a more faded effect on the photo. For the third photo, I did the same thing, but instead of making the background layer black and white, I adjusted the exposure, brightness, saturation, vibrance, etc., so it would look slightly brighter in comparison to the present subject. I just did some basic editing in the second photograph and adjusted the brightness, exposure, highlights, and saturation to make the image and colors pop out more. Through the process of refining my photographs, I was able to further develop my editing skills and practice editing and using different tools in Affinity. I think a strength and what works really well in this set is its storytelling element, and the projected image and the editing really helped convey the past, present, and future concept. Through these photographs, my goal was to be able to convey the message of living in the present moment, rather than dwelling in the past or constantly thinking about the future. Hopefully, the final result of this set was able to convey that message, and I’m really happy with how the photography component, the concept of the projected image, and the final editing came together to really tell a cohesive story behind the three images. When photographing, I intentionally had the subject’s level match the projected image. In the first image, the subject is on the floor to match the photo, and the subject is sitting in the second and standing in the last to show the progression “through time.” However, although the level of the subject has changed from the first and second photos, their height stays the same when the images are put side by side because the second image is composed differently. I could further develop this set by taking the second image at a lower angle, so the model takes up more vertical space and visually shows more of a progression.

Out of my three photographs, my favorite is the first photo. This photo is my favorite because I think the storytelling element is really strong, and it really conveys the message and concept of this set. Overall, the pose of the subject, the projected image, the composition, and the final editing of the picture work really well together and represent the “past.” I’m happy with the stylistic choices I made while creating the final product. I think that the higher angle this photo was taken at makes it more interesting and unique when compared to the other photos in this set. I also really like how the editing transformed the photo and further developed it to tell a story, and I’m really proud of how this image turned out. However, my least favorite photo out of this set is the second photo. As an individual photo, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with it. I actually like how it’s composed where the subject is in the bottom-left section of the image while the subject in the projected image is diagonally above her. Nothing is actually centered, which I think is interesting. I also like the leaves that were unintentionally projected onto the subject’s face and how the editing brought the image to life more and made the colors stand out. However, when this image is put with the other two, it creates a kind of disconnect between the first and third images. I feel like if I composed the image so that the subject was higher up in the picture, it would help further the storytelling even more of the set because you could visually see the progression in each photo and the past, present, and future.

Overall, I’m really proud of how this set turned out and how I conveyed a really strong storytelling element through it. I’m happy that I challenged myself to edit these photos in Affinity and improve my editing skills and the transformation of the final result from refining the original photographs.

For my third set of portrait photographs, I decided to take inspiration from Lee Kirby, who is a film director and photographer based in London. A project that Kirby worked on, which is what I will be specifically taking inspiration from, is “Pro-ject.” In this set of photographs, Kirby projected images onto his subject matters, which were often landscapes and abstract shapes and patterns. He then photographed this, which results in images in the shape of a person or images that overlay the subject matter and the background. This particular style of Kirby’s photography is very abstract and doesn’t very clearly depict the subject and their identity in the portrait. His pictures are taken in color so that the vibrant and bold colors of the image projected onto the subject are depicted. Kirby’s photos are very bright, glowing, and vibrant from the projected image, contrasting with the dark black or white background behind the subject. Kirby composes his pictures so that you usually only see the subject’s upper body and sometimes photographs in interesting angles. For example, in some photos, he captures them from an angle below the subject’s upper body, which creates a new and interesting perspective compared to his other photographs. Kirby’s sometimes also uses a slow shutter speed when photographing, resulting in a blurry effect. With a slow shutter speed, the subject matter can move, and the camera is able to capture that movement with a blurry image of the subject. Kirby also creates a blurry photo with the image that he projects onto the subject and sometimes uses an out-of-focus image or one captured with a slow shutter speed. I decided to choose Kirby as my inspiration for this set because I also wanted to incorporate the concept of a projected image in my photographs. My vision for this third portraiture set is to illustrate and depict the subject’s past, present, and future through the projected image in my final three images. I wanted to use a projector to project a picture of when the subject was older, a picture of the subject in the present, and a picture where the subject looked older onto the backdrop and the subject matter. Through this set, I wanted to highlight how people are dwelling in the past or constantly worrying about the future when instead we should be trying to live in the moment in the present. As high schoolers, there are many things that we continually worry about but have occurred in the past and many things we stress about in the upcoming future. But because we cannot change what has already happened and also cannot control what will happen in the future, we have to try and enjoy the moment we’re living in. Hopefully, by taking inspiration from Kirby’s photos, I can convey this message through mine.

From Kirby’s “Pro-ject” photographs, my favorite one is this one below. This photo is composed to show the upper body of the subject, who is also obscuring their face with their hands and is also the main focal point of the photograph. Projected onto the subject is a blurry and abstract image with warm colors of orange, yellows, reds, and some purples/magentas, and it is not clear what the photo is of. I really like this image because I think the vibrant and bold colors really help make it stand out and be more interesting, and I also really like the artistic choices that Kirby made when capturing the photo. I really like how the image is projected onto the subject so that the colors on them are the bright and bold yellows, oranges, and reds, while the background is the more desaturated and darker colors of purple. I think this really helps the audience’s eyes emphasize the subject matter as the focal point instead of blending the person in with the background, and the subject’s shadow cast onto the backdrop helps separate the two as well. I also really like how the projected image has the soft and light feeling to it because the image is blurry, and it’s almost like they’re just streaks of color blending in with each other that are projected onto the person. The subject matter’s face in the photograph is also blurred out. You can’t see any details about the person, which lets you focus more on the abstract colors and image projected onto the person rather than just the person themself. Finally, I also really like how Kirby chose to make the image dimensions around a square because it allows the photo to really focus in on the subject and frame their upper body really well, while also having the perfect amount of negative space around the subject for the colors to be projected on.

However, my least favorite image from Kirby is this image below. Although this is my least favorite image, I still really like the abstract patterns, colors, and shapes in this photograph. The background is also completely black, which allows for the focal point and attention to be entirely on the subject matter and the vibrant colors in the image to really stand out. A low shutter speed was used to create that blurry movement effect, which resulted in these different tones of blue and green streaks that move in a uniform direction of how the subject matter moved. However, because of this low shutter speed, the subject matter became very blurry, and it’s a very abstract representation of a portrait because you can’t really see the person or any part of their identity. You can vaguely see the face of the subject and make out where the person’s arm and body should be, but everything is really blurry and unclear, and it just looks like abstract shapes, patterns, and colors. To me, it doesn’t really look like a portrait and is really abstract, which is just a stylistic choice that Kirby decided to make. Although I think the low angle that Kirby photographed this was also really interesting, I think that the blurry and unclear photo takes away from the photograph being a portrait. Overall, I really like the artistic choices that Kirby made in both photos, along with how the bright and bold colors stand out, but I think that the second photo could be clearer in conveying that it’s a portrait and a representation of someone.

For my second set of portraiture photographs, I decided to take inspiration from David Hockney. David Hockney is an artist and photographer who has created portraits that are collages of pictures depicting the same subject matter but taken at slightly different times with different compositions, resulting in an abstract portrait. I wanted to use the idea of creating a collage of photographs and capturing subjects over the course of three days, editing the photos together to illustrate the different sides of themselves that one may present to the outside world. The message that I want to convey through this set of photographs is that people always look different at different times, in different environments and to other people, so we shouldn’t think that the side we see of someone is their entire identity.

All photos

Blue Photos

First, I did a basic sketch of what I wanted my final edited photo to look like, so I had a vision in mind while I started the photographing process. Because the main focus of the photograph is the collage element of it, the lighting wasn’t extremely important and didn’t need to be overly complicated. Over three days, I photographed three different subjects at different times and in different outfits, and afterward, I went through the photos and chose about 50 blue photos, which were the best of each subject from all three days. To decide which photos to keep, I chose the ones where the subjects were in the most natural pose, weren’t blinking, the lighting was right, the photo was composed well, etc. After this, I chose my green photos (Green Contact Sheet), which were the final 9 photos, 3 for each of the subjects. To select these photos, I picked the images with the best and most neutral lighting so that when edited, they would fit well together, and also the photos were composed straight and where the subject matter was centered.

For my final three red photos (Red Contact Sheet), I didn’t do too much basic editing for the images, such as the brightness, exposure, saturation, etc., because the lighting wasn’t the main focus or a significant element of my vision, and was also already very similar throughout the three days. I then edited the three pictures of each subject matter together by my first image of each subject as the “base” layer, then cropped out squares and rectangles from the other two photos and positioned them onto the relatively same area of the base layer. However, I also intentionally displaced the pictures slightly because, like Hockney, I didn’t want them to match up exactly with the base layer underneath to create a more “abstract” portrait. When I was first planning this set, I wanted to photograph the subjects in the studio to keep the background consistent throughout the days. However, during the editing process, I also pasted rectangles of the background onto the base layer because after creating the collage of the subjects, the background felt too plain and empty, and there was too much negative space around the person. By extending the collage element into the background as well, I thought that it brought the whole photograph together more and made it more cohesive. Through the process of creating my final red photos, I was able to further develop my editing skills, and I feel like I was able to bring multiple images together to create a cohesive portrait. The message that I wanted to convey through this set is that people always present different sides of them to the world, and we shouldn’t believe that the side we see of someone is their entire identity. Hopefully, through the collage of photographs, I am able to convey this message and show how each of these people has different identities that they present to the world. Something that I think I did well was being able to create cohesive and coherent portraits that convey my intended message through both the photography and editing process. I think my decision to make the lighting simple and consistent and how I edited the photos together really helped to make this set successful. It’s also a very interesting concept, and the final photos illustrate this concept well but don’t make the portraits “messy” or abstract. However, something that I think I could improve on is since I’m creating a collage in the background space as well, I could try photographing the subjects in different environments. Because all the images were photographed in the studio, the background shows slightly different grey values, which adds to the background but isn’t extremely interesting. If I photographed in other locations, the background would be more interesting and could tell more and different stories, and overall add more interesting elements besides just the collage of the subject. In the editing process, I could also take more inspiration from Hockney when creating my collage and overlap the photos. My final photos show the different outfits put on top of the base layer, but I could also try by cutting shapes from all the pictures and editing them together, so the photos are actually put together and overlap more instead of some pictures just being placed on top of the base layer. By doing this, it may make the portraits look more interesting and be more like a collage.

I really like the result of all three of my portraits, however, my favorite photo is the third one of Morgan. I chose this as my favorite because there’s enough diversity in her outfits for each photo, and I like how I composed the final edit of the collage. Although I also really like the first portrait of Bernice, the collage of Morgan’s face really distinguishes the images for me. I also really like the composition in how I edited Bernice’s different outfits together and the parts of different images you see. But because she’s wearing a black mask in both of the images of her face, the two overlaying images aren’t as obvious. However, I really like that in Morgan’s portrait, it’s obvious that her face is edited with two separate images. I really like my decision to edit the picture where Morgan was wearing a beanie without a mask onto the base layer where she was wearing a mask and wasn’t wearing a beanie because it really emphasizes the difference in how she looks, which helps convey the message of my set. However, my least favorite image of this set is the second photo of Abella. Because Abella wore the same outfit on two separate days and also wore a black hoodie on another day, it’s harder to distinguish between the different photos in the collage. I tried to create a more obvious difference in her face by editing one side of her wearing a mask and the other side not, but I could’ve tried to emphasize the difference in her outfits by adjusting the lighting. By changing the lighting on a specific day, the value and tone of her black hoodie might be slightly different from the other photos, which will create a more drastic and noticeable difference in the collage.

Overall, although there are always some things I could improve on, I really like how this set turned out. I’m proud that I challenged myself to try this concept and take inspiration from David Hockney to create a collage portrait, and I really like the final result.

For my second set of portraiture photographs, I decided to take inspiration from the photographer David Hockney, a British painter, photographer, and artist. Hockney is mainly famous for his paintings that were huge contributions to the pop art movement in the 1960s. However, he was also a photographer, and I will be taking inspiration from his photo collages. Hockney would create photo portraits that he called “joiners,” which were essentially multiple photos of a subject in slightly different positions at different times that were cropped and put together to form an abstract representation of a person. Hockney also created these collages with landscapes, but most were portraits, which I will be taking inspiration from. Hockney photographs in both black and white and color; however, it’s also harder to see his photography style in the photo collages because each portrait is composed of many image fragments, which makes it difficult to see the overall style of each photo. Hockney’s portraits typically feature the subject’s face more up close rather than further away and have edited the collages in a way that the features of the subject matter in different photos don’t line up and look “coherent,” which is part of his style in editing these portraits.  I chose Hockey and this particular style of his photography as my source of inspiration because for my next set, I wanted to create portraits in this style to convey the message that each person always looks different and have different identities to them at different times when they are in different environments, and we don’t always see those different sides to them. With social media so prevalent in our lives now, people’s perception of someone can be very easily misled, so I wanted to highlight that people aren’t always how they present themselves to the world and have many different sides. For my set, I will photograph three different people on three different days and edit the photographs from each of those days in Hockney’s collage-like style to show the different looks of a person. However, in contrast to Hockney’s photographs, I’ll edit mine so the photos look more cohesive together and less abstract or “messy.”

My favorite collage-style portrait photograph from Hockney, I chose this photo below. Since this is a portrait, the subject of this photo is the person lying down, and the photograph was taken from an aerial view. The subject also has their hand resting on their face and their tongue sticking out. I chose this photo as my favorite because although Hockney edits photographs that are very different in how they are composed and the posing of the model, he is still able to create a very cohesive image. Although there are multiple image fragments that depict the same body part, such as multiple hands, noses, eyes, eyebrows, etc., that don’t entirely line up with each other, the image still looks coherent and still very much resembles a person. Moreover, on the right side of the portrait, Hockney included the subject’s side profile, which is different from all the other photos. However, this isn’t distracting from the overall portrait because it’s added in very subtly and blends in really well with the other photos. I thought it was really interesting and cool how Hockney connected the edge of the lips in the side profile with the front of the lips in the adjacent photo. I also like how this collage was more unique because the photographs weren’t just all put horizontally or vertically and instead had photos framed at different angles. This makes the portrait more interesting and also helps guide the eyes to the subject’s face because the photos are “pointing” in the same direction.

However, this contrasts with my least collage-portrait from David Hockney, which is this image. For me, this image is almost the opposite of everything that I liked and thought was interesting in the first image. In this second portrait, although this may be the style Hockney was aiming for, I felt that overall it was too abstract and “messy” and didn’t look like a coherent enough portrait of a person. There’s a drastic difference in the size and scale of the subject in every photo, so when put next to each other, the subject’s facial features don’t match up with each other. The difference in scale of each photo also doesn’t create any kind of cohesive or distinct shape of a person’s head. In addition to the multiple mouths, eyes, and parts of hair, overall, the image just looks very strange and odd, and you don’t really know where to look. There isn’t really any sense of unity or togetherness with this portrait, and it doesn’t resemble a portrait of a person very much. Furthermore, the different brightness and change in tones and values in a few photos also adds to the incoherentness of the portrait. Each of the photos is also arranged horizontally and vertically, which doesn’t make the overall photograph as interesting as the first portrait did. Overall, I really like the small and subtle details in the first image that made it a much more interesting portrait and how the photos were arranged and composed in such a way that a cohesive and coherent collage was created. Although Hockney may have been trying to achieve a particular style, the overall portrait was very abstract and didn’t have an overall togetherness that brought all the individual photos together into one collage.

For my first portraiture set, my original plan for my photos was to depict marginalized groups and illustrate the discrimination against Asian females, which is a part of my identity. However, after drawing a sketch of what I wanted my photos to look like, I didn’t really like my idea as much anymore or thought it was something that I wanted to do, so I changed my idea. One of the photographers that I took inspiration from originally was Lindsay Adler, an American fashion portrait photographer. One of my favorite photos from her is this photo where there is a circular spotlight behind the subject matter while very little of the subject was actually lit. I thought this was a really interesting concept and wanted to challenge myself to recreate this in my own way, so I decided to try this concept in my set. The vision and message that I want to convey through these photographs are that you should never judge or assume things about someone without knowing the whole story because you never know what someone might be going through.

To start, I planned what I wanted my photographs to look like by visualizing them in Set A Light, which helped me know the lighting setup I needed for my photos. To get the spotlight effect on the backdrop, I had to hide the spotlight behind the subject matter so that it only illuminated the backdrop and not the person. I also wanted to incorporate contrast into my photos through lighting, so I also had to make sure the lighting setup created contrast in the light on the subject matter. My idea for the final three photos was to have different brightness levels in each image, so I also showed that in my Set A Light plans.

Blue Photos

After taking my photos, I narrowed them down to the ones I liked better. I chose about 40 photos that I thought worked the best for my blue photos. I looked through all the photographs that I had taken and deleted the ones where the lighting wasn’t right, I didn’t think it was composed well, or the subject was blinking, etc. and chose a couple of the best photos where the subject matter was also in the same pose. After this, I further narrowed down the blue images even more to the green photos (Green Contact Sheet). To decide which photos to keep, I deleted all photos with the same pose and lighting, so there weren’t any repeating similar photographs. I also looked at which photos were lit and composed the best and how well all the different elements were incorporated together in the pictures, and also how well the image fit my vision and message that I wanted to convey.

For my final three red photos (Red Contact Sheet), I chose the images from my green photos that I thought fit my vision and statement of intent the best as a triptych set. Through my photo set, I wanted to convey the message of not judging someone because you never know their whole story and what they’re going through. To incorporate the component of contrast in the lighting into my photos, I decided to have my first photo not be lit at all, so all you see is the silhouette of the subject, and throughout the second two pictures, the subject matter is lit up more so you can see more and more of their identity throughout the photographs. Hopefully, through the lighting, the message that you shouldn’t judge or assume things because you never truly know the identity of someone is conveyed. After choosing these final three photos, I decided to edit them. First, I made some basic adjustments to the brightness, exposure, black point, saturation, etc., so that the photos would look better and the subject wouldn’t look as washed out. I adjusted it so that the background was more black in contrast to the spotlight, the matter would stand out more and wasn’t overexposed and emphasize the contrast in light on the subject. Next, I then played a bit with the spotlight and edited it to be a different color than the original blue light. I experimented with different colors, the saturation, and the luminance of the spotlight by editing it and eventually landed on the purple color. I also purposefully changed the saturation and luminance of the spotlight throughout the different photos to reflect how much of the subject you see in each picture. Hopefully, this can also depict how one’s true colors are slowly revealed, but even though you can see the subject matter in the final photo, you can still never completely know what they are going through. Through this process, I learned more about the different functions you can use in editing and further developed my editing skills and knowledge. Something I think I could improve on, however, is being able to convey my vision and message through the photos but still making them look more interesting. Although all three images together can convey this message, individually, the first and second photos aren’t extremely interesting and could be improved technically. The first photo is not very interesting because there isn’t much contrast, as most of the background is black while the main focal point, the silhouette, is also black. The spotlight is also not a very vibrant color, so it doesn’t stand out either. The second photo is overall decent, but the entire image is too dark, so the background and the subject matter sort of blend in together. If I could improve on this set, I would try to make sure that the photos work cohesively together as a set and are also interesting and well-composed photos individually.

I’m happy with how my first portraiture set has turned out for these three photographs. Out of the three, my favorite photo is the last one in the set where the subject matter is fully lit. I like how the edited purple color of the spotlight compliments everything else in the photograph and adds a pop of color to a very “dark” image. I was happy with how the lighting came out because even though the background was black and the subject was wearing all black, she still stands out and doesn’t blend in with the backdrop. I also like how the contrast in lighting on the subject’s face turned out, where one side of the face is primarily dark and shadowed while the other side is bright and lit without completely hiding one side of the subject’s face. However, one thing I could further improve on is maybe adjusting the brightness and exposure of the light on the subject’s face, because even though it accentuates the contrast in lighting, at first glance, it almost seems overexposed and really bright, so I could see if I could adjust that to be less bright in editing. Overall, I really like how this photo turned out and how the spotlight very clearly emphasizes the subject matter as the image’s focal point. However, my least favorite image of my set was the first photo, because overall it’s a really bland and uninteresting photo on its own. There are only two tones and values in the image: the really light and faded purple and black. Because the silhouette of the subject and the background are both black, they blend in completely, and you can only see some of the silhouette of the subject in the spotlight.

Furthermore, when I took inspiration from Lindsay Adler’s photo, her subject’s silhouette had a really interesting shape, whereas mine is much less interesting, which I think adds to the overly simplistic quality of the photograph. The color of the spotlight was made faded and unsaturated intentionally to fit the overall messaging, but it makes the photo much less interesting because there’s no pop of color that adds a more interesting quality to the image and draws the audience’s eye. Overall, this photo doesn’t have anything that stands out and catches the viewer’s eye. Because there are really only two tones and very simple shapes in the photo, it results in the image looking very “flat” and two-dimensional”. Overall, I’m really happy with how my final set turned out, but I also feel some improvements could be made to make each individual photo stand out more as well.

For my Set A Light simulation, I first went online to look for inspiration for the post that my model would stand in. After finding this picture that I was happy with, in Set A Light, I created a light setup in the program to simulate the lighting for a photo I could take. I also created a model and the pose that they were in so that I could also see how the light would interact with the subject matter for the photo. When I was happy with my setup and simulation of the photo, we went to the photo studio to recreate it. Although in the simulation the photo was taken vertically, I later changed my mind and took the photo in landscape form, because I thought that looked and fit better with everything else. I also changed the direction the model was looking in because when looking the other way, there was too much shadow covering the model’s face. After testing my original lighting setup, we changed some of the positions of the different lights and got an outcome we were happy with. For example, we moved one of the lights to the back so that it would only light up the backdrop, and create the gradient in values of the background that I thought looked really interesting. We also adjusted some of the other lights so that we could get the perfect lighting that would be projected onto the subject’s face. Overall, I’m happy with how the picture turned out and the contrast in lighting incorporated into the photo.

For my portrait photographs, I decided to take inspiration from the photographer Lindsay Adler. Lindsay Adler is an American fashion portrait photographer, and her photographs are known to have a clean, bold, and graphic style which is the signature look of her photographs. Adler’s photographs are prominent, bold, and stand out, and the element of light is a significant component in all of her photos. She mainly uses bright, colorful, artificial lights in her photographs that illustrate contrast, especially in colors, through lighting. However, some of Adler’s photos are also taken in black and white, and she also uses light to emphasize specific features of the subject matter. For example, there could be bright lighting on the subject’s eye, while the rest of their face is dark and in the shadows, which highlights that specific part and draws attention to it. Most of Adler’s photographs also only feature the upper body of the subject, and the subject is also never directly facing forward to the camera. The most significant element in her photos is tone/value, and I want to be able to take inspiration from her incorporation of this element into my own photography. I decided to choose Adler as my inspiration because I really like the way she incorporates different tones and values, and the contrast of colors into her photographs through lighting, and she is also able to depict how the light can interact with the subject matter in interesting and different ways. Hopefully, this would be something I can take inspiration from and incorporate into my own photographs.

For my favorite photograph, I chose this black and white photo by Lindsay Adler. Although Adler is known for her contrast in bright colors in her photos, I decided to choose this photo because although it’s black and white, Adler still uses light and the values it can create in an interesting way in the photo. The person obviously is the subject of the photograph, however, you can really only see the silhouette of this person, and the main focal point of the photo is the eye of the subject matter. This photo is very simplistic, and it can be inferred that it was very likely to be taken in a photo studio with a plain white background. Because you also only see a small part of the model’s face, you cannot see much of their personality or characteristics. Adler has “reduced” the subject matter down to a very basic and simple form so that the silhouette of the subject has clean and clear lines. Everything else like the background is also very clean and uncluttered, and the purpose of that is to draw attention to the subject’s eye, which is the only part of the photo that shows details and a wider range of values. The most significant elements in this photo are tone/value and shape, which go hand in hand with each other. Through the use of different and contrasting values, shapes in the photo are created. Adler utilizes lighting to create shapes that are projected onto the subject matter and can interact with them. The contrast of the value of the background and the light projected onto it creates a circle that then illustrates another contrasting value of the subject’s silhouette. On top of that, light is also projected to only reveal part of the model’s face, which again is a contrasting value. This layering of different values is what I think makes the photo really interesting, and the choice to make the photo black and white instead of colors is what really emphasizes the layering of these contrasting values. You can also see that Adler specifically chose for the subject to be in focus while the background is slightly out of focus, because the silhouette lines of the model are really clean and clear, and you can see the texture of the subject’s hair even though it’s just the silhouette of it. However, the lines of the circle of light in the background are slightly blurry and unclear, which shows how it may be out of focus, and the purpose of the light circle is just to highlight the focus of the model. I’m not sure what message Adler had intended this photograph to convey, but I think an intention while capturing this image was to showcase the details of only a specific part of the subject, and I think she was able to achieve this through the lighting and contrast in values created. Overall, I think that this photo uses a lot of interesting techniques which is what makes it interesting, and hopefully, I can take inspiration from how Adler captured this photo in my own photos.

However, although I don’t have photographs from Adler that I don’t like, there are some that are less favored than others, or that I just don’t find interesting or cool. For example, this simple photo just depicts the subject matter whose hair may be emphasized in the image, in front of a black background. Although there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the photo, there’s also nothing inherently special about the photograph either. Lindsay Adler is a fashion photographer, and on her website, there are different categories of her portfolio of the different styles of photos she has taken and the things she’s taken them of to maybe advertise for something. For example, categories include makeup, skin, and hair, etc. so since this photo seems to be emphasizing the hair of the model, it could have been taken to advertise a hair product. However, since the style of this photo is different from the style of Adler’s other “hair” photos, this could have just been a photo Adler was hired to take of this person. Overall, this is just a pretty generic photo of a model, and there isn’t anything that especially stands out or makes it special and interesting. The background is just a plain black background, so there isn’t anything specific that the audiences’ eyes draw to other than the only other thing in the photograph, which is the model. The model is in focus and there isn’t anything that is out of focus because there’s nothing else in the photograph. This photograph technically hasn’t done anything wrong and has followed the rules of photography, such as the rule of thirds or centering the iris, or putting the eyes in the upper third of the photo, but it’s also not doing anything interesting at all. I think that you can also tell compared to Adler’s other works, that the intention of this photograph wasn’t meant to be anything that stood out or was really interesting, and is just meant to be a simple headshot of a person. Overall, although this is a good photograph, there isn’t anything too interesting or special about it, so that’s why it’s my least favorite photograph from Lindsay Adler.

A portrait in the genre of photography is a photograph of a person that typically shows their face and may depict a representation of a part of the subject’s identity. I think that a selfie is a portrait because there are no criteria of who takes the picture in order for a photograph to be a portrait, just as long as it’s a photograph depicting a person. Typically, a “good” portrait consists and focuses on a person, mainly their face, and usually represents part of who this person is. The background of a portrait usually is also quite simple and uncluttered or out of focus, so that the focal point of the photograph can be the subject and would be what the audience’s eyes are immediately attracted to. Usually, in a portrait, you wouldn’t want to be focusing too much on the background, foreground, or have any other parts taking up too much of the photo that isn’t the subject because ultimately the subject is the focal point. However, many of these rules can be broken and still have a photograph be a portrait; for example, a photo can only show a hand, but someone may still count it as a portrait because it depicts an aspect of a person’s identity through the photo. For example, Anton Corbijn photographed John Lee Hooker, and although the photograph doesn’t show Hooker’s face and only shows the hand, you are still able to tell a lot of Hooker’s identity and the life he had just by observing what his hands look like. I also think that whether a more abstracted representation of a portrait ceases to actually be a portrait can be up to interpretation by anyone. To me, I think that as long as a photograph is specifically focusing on depicting someone and/or displays an aspect of their identity in the photograph, even if the subject matter is blurred, or the photograph had been torn, ripped, or faded, etc, the photo is a portrait. This can also apply to if a person is represented through objects in the photo, or if the portrait is a sequence of images instead of just one. All of these can be up to the interpretation of each individual person and whether they view it as a photo that conveys the identity of a person or not, and it’s also largely up to the photographer and whether they intend it as a portrait or not.

To get inspiration for my portrait photographs, I created a mind map to organize all my thoughts, ideas, and inspiration, and to see how my different ideas may be connected. To create this mind map, I first looked at photography portraits, and found different elements and aspects of specific photos that I like, and could possibly take inspiration from in my own photos. Some things that I added to my mind map were light, and how light interacts with the subject matter of the photo. I looked at photos where the light was projected onto the subject matter’s face, and specifically the contrast of dark and or light lighting, or lighting that is contrasting in colors. The photos would depict one side of the subject model’s face illuminated by the light, while the other side was dark and shadowed. Some other smaller characteristics that I found interesting were when photographers would use the environment or different objects to frame the face, and one photo I found even used light to frame the face. I also found many photographers that I was inspired by such as Lindsay Adler, Marco Grob, or Manny Librodo, but one photographer’s work that I was especially interested in was Diane Arbus.

(Mind map link: app.popplet.com/#/p/6808127)

Diane Arbus was an American portrait photographer who photographed marginalized groups to normalize them and highlighted the importance of the proper representation of all groups. This message behind Arbus’ photographs is something I want to take inspiration from and incorporate into my own photographs. I think that I could relate this message to something more personal to myself and my own identity, for example, depicting the marginalization and discrimination against female Asians, and illustrating the struggles they face in society. Hopefully, I can take inspiration from Diane Arbus and incorporate this message into my own photographs.

For my photography portraits, the societal and cultural issue I want to highlight through my photographs is the discrimination that female Asians face, and I want to be able to depict the struggle they may experience being a part of two different marginalized groups in a medium that the audience may find more appealing. I want the audience to be able to see from a new perspective that is different from theirs and to gain an understanding of how society may treat people in marginalized groups differently. I will get inspiration and develop this message by looking at photographs by Diane Arbus, so I can take inspiration from how she is able to depict these marginalized groups in her photos, but also looking at photos that emphasize the aspect of contrast, and specifically contrast in the lighting of the photo, which I can incorporate with my message to produce photographs that all have a collective theme and vision.

For my final triptych photoset in the abstract unit, these were the final three photos that I chose. They’re the same photos as the final red photos I chose for my third set, but I made some adjustments to them. First, to give my photographs more unity, I cropped all of them so that their dimensions would be the same. Secondly, because my first photo was black and white in the red photos for set 3, I reverted it back to its original form with color and adjusted its tones slightly so that it was more cool toned like the other photos but also with the right amount of warmth. I also adjusted and edited the colors of the third photo, making it more cool-toned to fit with the other pictures and decreasing the amount of orange in it. This way, all three photos would look the most cohesive together. Finally, I put all three photos into Affinity Photo to create my triptych, which is shown below. I chose these three photos specifically for my final triptych set because I felt that I still could’ve furthered these photos after set three, and could have improved it and made some changes so that it would be more cohesive, and I decided to do this in this final set.

For my triptych, I decided to name my photoset Illumination, which connects back to my vision and statement of intent which is to photograph light and illustrate how it may interact with the world around us. Specifically for my third set, I wanted to focus on artificial light instead of natural light, and I think that the title Illumination helps convey that idea because I think that its connotations lead one to think more about artificial, man-made, or “industrial” light rather than the more “light” or “soft” feeling that natural sunlight may have. Furthermore, part of my statement of intent that I wanted to achieve through my photos was to show the beauty in a basic, everyday, yet important thing in our lives that we often overlook, such as light, and present it in a way that people can develop a newfound appreciation for it. My title also connects back to this idea, since hopefully, my photos can “illuminate” a new side to the complex concept of light.

The artist that inspired my work is Vicki DaSilva, who is an American “light painter” photographer. She photographs light utilizing the effect of long exposure, which results in photographs of light weaving through the air and creating shapes, patterns, and sometimes even words. DaSilva has inspired me through how she incorporates light into her photos, and how she can depict the different ways that light interacts with the world around us. I took how DaSilva incorporated light into a technically very simple image to make it much more complex and interesting. I also really tried to emphasize the shapes, lines, and patterns DaSilva created in her photos with the light and took inspiration from it to incorporate into my own photos. With these photos, although I originally didn’t intend to, I tried to use the new technique of long exposure with light to capture the movement of light. My original idea was just to photograph artificial light in an interesting way like I did with natural light, but I decided to try and experiment with the long exposure effect on my phone. Although the effect on an iPhone is different from it on a professional camera, I like the way it furthered the purpose of my photographs, and how it can depict light in an interesting way to my audience. Some strengths of my final project are that I think all the photos come together really well and look like a very cohesive set through the colors/tone, patterns, composition, and dimensions of the photos, and I think the adjustments I made to achieve this really helped. I also like how all my photographs are different in their own and unique way, but all are able to achieve my vision and mission statement for them. However, something I think I could work on or try in future projects is to try using different effects such as long exposure with a more professional camera, so that I could further experiment with this effect and see what I could do with it. Overall, I’m really happy with how my final set turned out in this unit, and I really enjoyed the process of creating all my abstract photosets.