my influences from the film

3 mins in Lightroom

the start of the film Donnie Brasco has some awesome portraiture shots
fantastic
awe inspiring
group shots
single person
close ups to the eyes
all with a lot of emotion

Final thing to sort is presentation of the 4 chosen images, with a few images printed from home and get the tiffs resized for the drop box.

BA (Hons) Photography – Portraiture

Evaluation

This project was a great learning curve for time management / digital workflow and I feel as though I broke the given timescale down into manageable sections to suit me, alleviating any pressure I would have put on myself to hit the hand in deadline.

I would have preferred to have been able to allocate myself more studio time, but there was a lot more to learn with Lightroom, managing raw files and actually editing my images down to the correct number before processing them ready for printing.

The first step was learning how to set up the studio and using the equipment, getting comfortable with everything to allow me to best utilise my allocated time within the studio environment.

There was a lot more research with this project as there are so many different ways for lighting techniques and could probably take a life time to master them all, so keeping the lighting simple was my best option and I feel as though it worked, allowing me more time actually taking the photographs.

Lightroom has now become the main software I use for all my images – importing, adjustments, creating a library and preparation. This again will take time and practice to master, but I find myself using it more and more, becoming more proficient with each session.

Although my home prints will still be acceptable to a certain degree, after seeing the quality of the c-type prints for presentation purposes, the quality was an eye opener.

I do believe that the images I have produced are of a higher quality than could have been achieved if I had used my Canon 550D. The equipment used does make a difference, as does the format of the image by which I mean shooting in Raw and not compressing the resulting data into “jpeg” format.

In conclusion I feel I have produced some of my best images and I can definitely say I learned so much and will continue to do so as I find myself researching more photographers each week. I really enjoyed this genre of photography and would like to pursue portraiture and studio work further, maybe trying to take it down the artistic route rather than the commercial and hopefully one day getting some of my prints on to a wall in a gallery or on to the cover of a magazine such as Hotshoe.

My final image
This was based on the N.E.R.D. video
One light was used with no light on the backdrop and I increased the shutter speed allowing me to darken the background.
I increased the saturation and red tones in Photoshop to get the desired effect
Quite pleased with the final print and overall composition.

My third image
Think this image works really well as a square crop.
The lighting was trying to emulate the rembrandt style, capturing a triangle shape of light on the right cheek - whilst at the same time capturing contrasting light on the backdrop with a very light area on the right and a darker light on the left.
Was very pleased with the final print and composition.
It may be said that the logo on the shirt is a little distracting - yes it could have been removed in Photoshop, or could have been a tighter crop, but after some deliberation i settled for this composition and feel that the left eye has enough pulling power to draw your gaze directly to the image after you scan around the rest of the composition.

My second image
Although during our class crit before christmas it was commented that this image may be a little cluttered, it did not put me off choosing it for submission.
I spent a lot of time looking at it, printed it off at A3 and kept going back to it, putting it in various positions, various walls and standing back to take the image in
I think it works very well as a portrait, very simple lighting once again, good focus and I personally like the composition.

My first image
This was very simple lighting with one front light positioned higher than the model and just off to the side, with a second light positioned just for the backdrop -  set at a lower setting as not to over power the front light.
The focus was directly on the eye and composed to fill as much of the frame as possible
Took about a dozen shots similar to this with slight changes to the position of the face/direction of eye line, but I kept being drawn to this image. Very pleased with the overall image and this led to me shooting more images with brighter lighting and getting the images which were as though they were from an old western movie and also the HDR image

Finished Images

All images have been resized for the web to 96ppi and longest edge of 800 pixels.

Wowwww

got my prints, although delivered next door and they kept them for 2 days, bloody idiots
anyway
Very nervous opening them - but was worth the wait
Love them, the feel, finish, look - hahaha I even sniffed them
Total work of art.
I'm not suggesting my images are fantastic, but I do feel the prints do look way better than my average home printer
very professional

This project was a great learning curve for time management and work flow.
I feel as though I broke the given timescale into manageable sections right to suit me and kind of alleviated any pressure I would have put on myself.
I would have preferred to have been able to allocate myself more studio time, but there was a lot more to learn with Lightroom, managing raw files, actually editing my images down to the correct number before processing them ready for printing.
Just have to wait now to see how the prints come back, will the colours be how I saw them on screen, will the exposure be quite how I expected and will the overall composition be acceptable with the framing I selected.

Metro-Print

London

Down loaded my images, took 25 minutes for 4 images.

Cost 50 quid, chose finish, border size and quality. Hopefully I'll find out at some point Monday morning whether I did everything correctly and if not, it gives me a reasonable time to change anything and get them back in time to label and get ready for submission.

C-Type Prints - 

Genesis Imaging

Lambda C-Type Prints are quite simply photographic technology taken to a state of perfection.

Lambda C-Type printing gives true continuous tone, ultra sharp photographic images with crisp and precise edge to edge printing and absolutely no distortion.

Lambda C-Type photographic technology has taken over from the traditional photographic process and uses three lasers merged into a single beam to expose images on to photosensitive materials up to 1270 mm (50 inches) in width, producing the whole image in a single pass. The photosensitive material is then internally "wet" processed in the same manner as traditional photography.

Lambda C-Type Prints can be produced from digital files, transparencies, colour or black & white negative.5s and printed on to photographic paper or backlit transparency film (duratrans), in colour or black and white.

Our Lambda C-Type photographic prints are normally produced on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. Because it is real photo paper, prints have the tactile look and feel of a traditional photograph but with all the benefits of digital control. Another option is Fuji Super Gloss, which has incredibly deep and rich colours thanks to its Super Gloss surface. We also offer a Metallic paper, which gives prints a unique, metallic look.

Lambda C-Type Prints are also ideally suited to large format imaging and high-impact colour graphic prints for exhibitions, displays or any circumstance where the finest quality photographic images are required.

Our Lambda C-Type Prints set the benchmark for image quality and are unsurpassed by any other photographic printing technology.

Finally got my images down to the final 4 ready for printing.
There are a few more I would submit, but at the cost of approximately a tenner per print, I think i'll just print the remainder out at home - this will also allow me to compare the 2 types of image and the difference in quality.

annie leibovitz

"Life through the Lens" DVD

The opening shoot with George Clooney just blew me away. Although it was filmed and you would have thought every image annie captured would also have been caught on film. Her finished image was mind blowing, she can see and capture a moment in time that just didn't look possible. Her vision through the camera is what can only be classed as real talent.

Her life is just photography, not just her job, but her whole way of life - and she loves it.

When you watch her she just makes it look effortless. She can tell within the first press of the shutter whether the set up is going to work and what will need changing.

Wowwwwwwww

A3 C-Type prints can cost anywhere from 7 quid per print up to just over 30 quid per print dependant on finish, type of paper etc, etc
LoL one company even charges 20 quid for a 15 minute consultation just to make sure that not only do you get the finished print exactly how you want it, but makes sure  it pulls yer pants down and rapes your wallet at the same time.
awesome, think i'll go for a bit of that.