The title of my final set will be “Whisper.” Whisper can be defined in various ways; speaking quietly, a whisper as a small portion of something, gossips, and so on. Among these definitions, I decided to define it as a small portion of hope in our lives, teenagers lives. These days, globally, one in seven 10-19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder, accounting for 15% of the global burden of disease in this age group. The consequences of failing to address adolescent mental health conditions extend to adulthood, impairing both physical and mental health and limiting opportunities to lead fulfilling lives as adults (World Health Organization). I want to convey the message of how teenagers are under such stress, but that’s not it, there is still hope in our lives, and the hope is the whisper. To show the hope, I aim to use some lighting in a dark background; the black showing all the pressure and stress, with the whisper of light giving the mood of hope, and dream. The basic mood will convey the message of darkness of life, with the addition of my subject’s facial expressions. I decided to take photos of Emma, my peer, who is a teenager, who is in the targeted age of adults high expectations, who is actually experiencing the situation. I also aim to focus on her facial emotions; sadness, emptiness, weakness, etc. Besides the usage of color and light, the viewpoint matters, too. I plan to use a normal viewpoint, a viewpoint that allows viewers to actively engage with the photograph and feel real empathy with it. I got my inspirations from Yousuf Karsh, a photographer known for his portraits of notable individuals. He has been described as one of the greatest portrait photographers of the 20th century. His monotone based photograph’s with close ups and clear focus helps convey the hidden message behind the photograph, which I also aim to do. Most of the subjects in his photograph aren’t smiling, or they even look like they don’t have any emotions. Also, they are not viewing directly to the camera, but somewhere else, increasing mysterious and curious mood. These characteristics combined together is my aim.

This is my mood board, and my focus is teenager life. The major tone is monotone, which includes variety of shades of black and white colors. The white color grab the viewers attention with its contrasting lightness with black, and black can show the depth and dismal atmosphere as black symbolizes death, mourning, and evil magic. All of the photographs in my mood board are taken by Yousuf  Karsh, a photographer who influenced me to take these close-up portraits. I also really liked the idea of using additional objects to deepen the mood of the photographs, for example, using smoke for the top right one, and using a paint brush for the top middle one. These objects can also convey a message with the symbolism of the object; same as the usage of color. I feel like these close-up shots really deepens the empathy of the main subject’s emotions, which is one of the most important part of my intent. I also want to focus on some natural lights that naturally leads the focus to the subject. For example, I really liked how the photo on the bottom left gives the feeling of having the light behind the subject so that it centers and gives the focus on the main subject. As the main color focus will be monotone colors, I’m looking forward to see some contrast between the light and the background as I feel like it will increase the interest and also deepen serious atmosphere by showing the level of lightness in black and white color tones.

The context hidden behind the photo matters a lot in deciding the quality of a portraiture besides how much the visual is attractive and really grabs the viewer’s attention. It shapes how viewers interpret the subject, mood, and the photograph as a whole. Having a clear context can convey a clearer message with an increasing engagement. The composition, light, color, frame, background, or even some objects within the photograph can increase the specific atmosphere. For example, a photograph that captures a person’s face, expressions, or emotions leads to the idea of personality. A photograph with various matching color tones or shapes with just one contrasting feature can represent independency that stood up among contrasting elements, or an idea against unity.

I wanted to focus on a photographer called Yousuf Karsh, who mainly captures portraits with monotone colors. Yousuf Karsh usually intents to create a collective visual memory of 20th century’s influential figures, such as artists, musicians, actors, and celebrities, and so on. Some of the famous photograph’s he took includes Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Einstein, and others as the main subject. Most of his photograph’s are in eye-level point of view with the main subject not looking directly at the camera, which makes his photograph’s more interesting by having the viewers think, “What is the main subject looking at?” I really liked how his photograph’s look really natural but intended at the same time with the mysterious usage of lighting. Also, the monotone color usage grabbed my mind with how it deepens the overall mood.

The subject of the photograph is this guy named Humphrey Bogart. We can see that he is holding cigarette with smoking going up. His eyes are towards a point out of the frame, which increases curiosity, and the smoke coming out grabs the viewers attention with its contrasting color with the background and the fading texture. The man seems kind of confused in my perspective, which also makes me question, “Where is he looking at? What is he looking at” I feel like photograph’s that questions the viewers are actually unforgettable and interesting. The time period of the photograph taken was in 1946, and the antique mood is illustrated in the photograph with the monotone colors and the bit of grainy feelings. There is no direct lighting in the photograph, however,  we can observe the light parts in the photograph, for example the smoke and some parts of Humphrey Bogart’s face as there is color contrast between black and white. However, I feel like it’s a low contrast as it naturally shows the difference in color as there is a contrast making some parts look even lighter, but overall, the monotone colors blends well with each other.

In the photograph, maybe Humphrey Bogart was smoking while Yousuf Karsh was taking multiple photographs of him as we can observe the smoke from the cigarette. I believe that the photograph fit within social or historical context with the interpretation of the cigarette. In the past, lots of people were addicted to drugs, such as tobacco, which is the main component of cigarette. This leads to both social and historical context of how in the past, when the photograph was taken, in the 1900s, there was a social issue of tobacco addiction, which is shown directly in the photograph.

The photograph has an eye-level point of view, and the viewer’s attention is drawn towards Humphrey Bogart’s face first, and then, it leads to the smoke. The usage of the cigarette really increases the interest and engagement of the photograph, especially with the lines used. The white color of the smoke showing contrast with the plain black background leads the viewers attention and the bit of movement blended in the fading lines increases the naturalistic mood. Besides the cigarette, we can also see the shadow in Humphrey Bogart’s face, especially on the left side, which we can guess that there was some light on the right side, outside of the angle, and that bit of light created shadows.

The overall mood, lighting, colors, shapes, texture, and the subject makes me think deeply on once again some historical context, and the facial expression of Humphrey makes me think of the seriousness as he is kind of frowning at something. The monotone colors and minimal lighting also leads to a low, dark mood. The intended effects of the photographer’s choices were mainly about the lighting. He wanted to convey the message of various types of lighting and how there isn’t just two simple concepts of direct and natural lighting, instead, different lightings can lead to different messages and moods, influencing how the viewers feel, think, and believe about the photograph.

• To define the vocabulary “Portraiture” in my own words, I would say that it is a genre of photography that focuses on capturing a person’s identity, personality, mood, and some features that reveals something, both external and internal part, about who they are. Portraiture may focus on the top body of the person, bottom half, just their face, or many other parts of them. With the lens of portraiture, it captures a story of the person with the usage of composition, color, and frame as well.

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• photograph taken by Annie Leibovitz really captures the person’s facial features with the usage of greenish color’s with the addition of perfect clarity, leading to a better completeness of the photograph as a whole, too. The texture of the skin with the brush marks creates a mood of a not perfect, flawless photograph, but rather one that contains deep meaning within that texture. As the color green represents nature, growth, and freshness, I feel like the photograph focused on the human’s nature, which can relate to natural moments with natural brush marks. The lighting feels really natural, I believe that there is a bit of light on the right part of the subjects face, which makes the viewers look deeper at the photograph.

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• This is also Annie Leibovitz’s photograph that focused on blue tones. Comparing to the photograph above, it shows 2/3 of the woman’s body with some paintings in the background. As the color blue symbols calmness, peace, and stability, but also sadness and coldness, I feel like the photograph was meant to kind of represent the sadness and coldness as the woman’s emotions seems to be worried and anxious. Also the background seems creepy in some views as it looks like a museum, but a really empty, hollow one just with some large images. Also, the lighting isn’t really direct, I feel like there is halo light which makes the overall mood deeper and more mysterious.