Mark Galer is a very established photographer. My set will take inspiration from his set in Melbourne, where he captured the life of a homeless man living under a bridge, through his portrait photography, sharing a depth of this mans life, or “world” to the audience in doing so. In his photographs, he tends to focus on a single person’s face and significant features of them, a detailed view of a specific environment, or both at the same time. He tends to use a variety of formal elements in photography, such as tone/value, texture, line, shape, especially focus and rarely but occasionally, repetition. While he uses focus in a majority of his photographs, in more of his environmental photographs, he shows a focus on value/tone and repetition, like in his photo of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto or his photo of a bay in Australia while on a yacht. On the other hand, he tends to use more of the elements of texture, line and shape when focusing on people and their faces, like some of the photos he took in Sweden and Italy. In my portrait photography Identity set, I want to create photos with a main focus, being my dancing, while objects and settings in the background stand out enough to be recognized but not recognized as the main idea, especially like the last photo of his I chose as an example below.

This is a photo taken by Mark Galer that I will critique.

This is a photo Galer took in Italy of a man reeling a small boat onto shore. In the foreground, we as the audience see a older man in a raincoat with blue paint stains pulling on a thick rope cord connected to a potential boat, which we can infer from the line of other boats in the blurred background atop of worn sand with nets and umbrellas. By the man’s face, we can see that though he is focused, he is not struggling, most likely due to being seasoned in the service, almost acting on second nature. It is in strong color and has low contrast, using a blurred background and in focus foreground for a contrasting/focus effect. Because of this, though there is a lot of colors and objects in the background, the audience’s eye is drawn to the man in the center. While the most obvious use of the element of line is the rope, there are many other examples such as the wrinkles in the man’s face and the lines that separate his fingers, as well as the wrinkles in his jacket and the net in the background. The net also shows a use of shape and repetition through the repeated squares. The lighting within the photo also contributes greatly, because the sunlight directly above illuminates the man’s features from above and demonstrating the element of tone/value with the gradual darkening downwards. This photograph has a thriving mood due to this feature showing that his hard work is connected to the soft brightness of the sun it coexists with. I think the Mark Galer intended on making the photo this way and I want to take inspiration from this with my photo set, by setting a main focus of my dancing while incorporating the details of the background to the “story” my photos tell.

My Portrait Photography Set will surround my hobby and passion, Irish dancing, by capturing the different moves of one of my dances in different settings throughout the process of the competition. Some of these settings will be my room and practice room for the training and packing stage, the airport and parking lot for the traveling bit, etc.

• Dancing through oireachtas – describing oireachtas process through traveling to location
• Close up to toes, feet, ankles, calves, knees, etc upwards until full body at very end
• With people when can
  • Teachers
    • Ms Shannon
    • Ms. Chloey
    • Mr. Jacob??
  • Friends
    • Sara
    • Claire
    • Mariead and Emrys
    • Adult team
    • Foley Fam
    • Other dance friends (Alyssa, Ava,  Silke, etc)
  • Heros (if able)
    • Kate Sardin
• Camera settings:
  • 25 lens
  • (A) aperture priority, (S) shutter speed at big spinny top right middly
  • Aperture 1.4 (more blurry) – 2.8 (less blurry) – 2.2? – 1.8 so not blur for movement- twisty coggy thingy behind takeky pictue button
  • Shutter speed: movement- 200 – bright – keep more 200 – spinny cloggy in top right of camera seey facey look through, 200 still 10-15 movement
• Busy background – blurry
• Holding relevant things
  • Bags
  • Suitcase
  • Dress
  • Hair stuff
  • Food
  • Water bottle
  • Foley swag
  • ISB dragons jacket
• Slip, Treble, Blue eyed(?)
• Separate dance parts in different places
• Individual moves? Individual spots?
• Places:

1. Home studio
   1. Ms. Shannon class
   2. holding dress in front *NOT WEARING* -> “trying on dress” setting
2. Room (packing)
3. Car with bags
4. Airport (beijing airport if can)
5. Tokyo airport
   1. front of window with planes
   2. Lounge area front of gate
   3. Restaurants/souvenir stores – holding bag or suitcase handle
6. LA airport (if time)
7. Orlando airport – landing
8. Orlando airport – front of car pick-up area
9. Front of hotel
10. Hotel lobby
11. Front of hotel room
12. Unpacking in hotel room
13. Front of/in parking lot
14. In front of venue
15. Venue generic spots
    1. Elevators, halls, room doors, stairs, escalators, etc.
    2. Hallways
    3. Room/practice room/ball room doors
    4. Generic posing spot
    5. Vendors – various ones
16. Foley pizza party
17. Foley practices
18. Front of restaurants
19. In friends’ hotel rooms if can
20. Hotel room with wig
21. Hotel room with make up
22. Walking/driving to venue
23. In ballrooms
24. Resting spot in dress
    1. Half taped vs full taped
    2. One sock rolled down for sock glue vs socks up
    3. Etc
25. With number card
26. Pic during number check
27. Waiting for recalls
28. Recall number calling
29. At awards
30. Pic on stage (if recall)
31. Again with friends + Ms Shannon
32. Pic at shamrock (if can)