Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier Bresson was a French photographer whose main reclaim came from his photojournalistic work. His work was a good representation of "real life" photography and his candid portraiture is what I will primarily be looking at. He also produced many portrait photographs designed to look like candid shots that were actually posed. Some of his subjects included Richard Nixon, Gandhi and Coco Chanel.
This candid photograph is I think well done as it is clearly focused on the pair of women, despite the busy background. This style of photograph typifies Bresson's work, espcially his candid photography. I like this shot as it gets across a message about the society at the time. For a candid shot the subjects are well positioned and also well lite, with the light catching the sides of their faces visible to the camera.

This photography of Richard Nixon, taken by Bresson, is a fine example of his candid style 'posed' photography. The way the subject is positioned, with the natural light from the window falling directly on his face, is too perfect for a candid shot. The lighting does however mean that shadows are cast over the rest of his body, emphasing his facial features. Bresson's depth of field perfectly captures the office scene. With enough focus to clearly show the face but also enough to show that he is at work and what is on his desk.




This photograph is nice in the way that it displays the scene of military uniformity, but because of the little girl looking at the camera it makes political inferences, espcially towards the communistical regime of which the subjects are part of. As mentioned before the fact that the girl is looking towards the camera makes the scene look less surreal, as it break the uniformity of all the other subjects. The depth of field perfectly captures the girl and the man next to her looking at the camera. The graduated lack of focus on those in black the further away they are fits the photo perfectly, as it makes them seem to fade away.

Portrait Photography

As I am going to do a portrait photography project I will look at the different styles and aspects of portraiture. I will look at the two main styles; candid and posed. For candid photography I will look at the work of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassai who are two of the most renowned photographers of this genre. For posed photography I will look at some contemporary photographers such as Tom Barnes and Yousuf Karsh, who have two very different styles and approaches to this aspect of portraiture.

A2 Project

Having looked at the various aspects of photography that I could use for my project I have decided to combine portrait photography and close up photography. I will use also photos of a candid nature and some taken in a studio setting. I think this will produce a varied group of images with contrasting light and shadow.

To help with this I will analyse the work of other photographers throughout the ages of photography. I will make comparisons between their work and my attempts to replicate their style of photography.

Summer Project Contd.

Here are the final two photographs from my project.

Summer Project Contd.

Here are some more photos for my summer project.

Summer Project

These photos are for my summer photography project. I decided to pick a theme of rather obvious nature and capitalize on the whole idea of sun and flowers. These photos were taken indoors by a window for optimum natural light. This photos have not been edited in Photoshop, although some could benefit from some tweaks to the levels. I enhanced my initial theme by taking macro photographs to capture the intricate pattern of the flower and petals. I used my Olypmus E410 with 2.5" of macro tubes with a 40mm - 150mm zoom lens and lens hood to cut down on glare.

Macro

This is a macro shot I took using my 40mm - 150mm lens combined with 2" of macro tubes. I really like the depth of field in this shot. Because of the macro tubes, the focus could only be adjusted through increasing/decreasing the zoom or moving closer to the subject. Overall I am very happy with this attempt.

HDR

This is an High Dynamic Range (HDR) image taken on Dartmoor earlier this year, during a workshop with Chris Chapman. I used photoshop to enhance the levels a slight amount before HDR-ing it. I like the way it has enhanced the blue and clouds of the sky.

Successful Day Today

Just got back from an excellent photography workshop done by photographer Chris Chapman. He taught us some really useful stuff about aperture, shutter speed and RAW files. We then went around a farm taking pictures of various animals cows and sheep etc... Really good time, just a shame Harriet had to leave early, abandoning me on own, she's lovely though :). A final photoshopping session was very useful aswell. Photos from today will be up shortly.

First few photo examples

This photo shows a BMW touring car. I took this photo in April this year at Thruxton racing circuit. I used a panning technique to follow the car down the track, taking several images as I went. This was the best one from the particular set. Through panning I managed to capture the car in focus, despite the fence in the foreground. The weather conditions at the time required a longer shutter speed so more motion blur could be captured.

Introductions

Hi,

Im Tom, im 17 and from Christow in Devon. This blog has been set up as a way of displaying my work for my photography A2 course. I use an Olympus E410 with a 17.5mm - 55mm wide angle lens and and 40mm - 150mm telephoto lens. In the upcoming weeks i will publish more posts and photos. If you wish to see my current photos on the web then just follow this link - www.flickr.com/photos/tomteign (you might need to put it into your URL bar).