Mini-Task Portraits- Initial Shots.

I decided to experiment with a wide lens to take the portraits.
I took my model Owen Hayes and told him to just talk to me as i took pictures of him. this gave me a wide range of different poses i liked, although the lens did not suite what i was trying to do in some cases as i needed to be very close to my subject to take a face portrait.

Further more using the wide lens made a vignette around the photos, and I was not aware that i could take of a cover around the edge of the camera to remove this but as it turned out it draws attention to the subject more but are very distracting.

I was going for a urban look with my subject. The Subjects name is Owen Hayes, and is a very good friend of mine, so I thought that he might not mind a camera close up in his face. 

In all the pictures have a medium sized aperture, between f/7 and f/13 with a fast shutter speed from 1/50 to 1/200 with an IOS of 400. This was due to me taking the pictures outside where was a high intensity of light.

After showing the 12 pictures to the class I received feed back about my work. First off I was told i love to use tricks that were clique such as the wide lens. This was because I was attempting to try the new lens. Although I should have taken some with other lenses to get a contrast in the selection. I found that my model in a few shots looked scared of the camera,using the new lens didn't help as to get a whole face shot i needed to be extremely close, which could have made him uncomfortable. I was advised to take another photo shoot and attempt to make the subject look more at home and natural. 

In the Top left most photo was one of the only one that made him seem relaxed, which made it a better photo. He looked more relaxed due to him leaning into the shot and not standing up straight so looked more natural. This is what i have to do when i do it again. To me he first on the left is the worst due to his blank expression and how posed he looks. Further more he normally wears glasses and he looks very odd without them.

The picture I appreciate the most is the one where he is staring at the camera with a confused look (middle left) , this is because it was taken quickly as i called his name and he turned, which is when i took the shot. It has its flaws due to his large nose that was produced from the wide angle lens.

 For a re-shoot i need to think less about the camera lens and try to talk pictures with less tricks. Also need to have better convocation skills with the subject to get them to relax more and make them feel more at home having there picture taken. Then i need to spend more time taking the picture and setting it up. So I have borrowed a 50 mm lens to take pictures of a new model as the previous one was unavailable. Also was given a lens baby to try out.

This next set of photos I have taken of Jessica Owen. I got her to go and collect all her musical interments she could play, as i thought that if she was playing them she would not concentrate as much on the camera and more on what she was doing. I was going for my image of her, which is very musically talented.
As i was taking pictures I first got her to play the piano and the concentration of her playing made it look like and a candid action shot which gave her a relaxed feel which is what i was going for. And in my opinion it worked quite well so i stuck with this theme through the whole shoot.

Next Jessica used her violin which as she was getting out i took a shot of her which made the depth of view focus on the violin and bits of her are blurred out which adds to her personality. It focuses on the violin with her on the edge of the photo, with a bit of blur as she was just in the depth of field. 
The ones with the Harp are the most interesting as her face has been taken out of the depth of field with her hands left in. I this this shows how intently she is playing and is hardly taking any notice of the camera.

There are two picture where my subject is staring at the camera, this because i was talking to her as i was taking the pictures and she looked up to talk back. Which has produced an iterating effect with natural look.

The pictures were taken with an aperture between F/1.8 to F/5  and a shutter speed of 1/1250 to 1/400 with and IOS of 1000. This was different from the first set as i did all of them inside.





From my initial shots I have discovered that to get good portraits in need to get the subject relaxed and at home with a camera pointed at them, I think that my first subject found this hard where the second found it much easier to do so. In my final shoot i will need to combine the candid type look to distract the subject and take influence from other photographers such as Platon and Bresson such as using different angles and use candid photography.. This should improve my work.