For this project we have been asked to produce one black and white and one colour portrait taken in a studio setting. For this we are to use either 5x4 large format cameras or medium format cameras. I was very excited to use the 5x4 camera as some of my favourite photographs are taken using large format negatives. I was less excited by the prospect of having to do a studio portrait as it combined two things which I do not usually use in my photography, studios and people. I started thinking about what I could with this project to make myself excited by the idea of photographing a portrait. To do this I first had to decide on what I thought constituted as a portrait, was it simply a person’s head and shoulders or could it be more suggestive. As with my colour project I started to think about the idea of making a portrait absent of a person. I looked at the word portrait, it is defined as
“A likeness of a person in any medium”
Richard Avedon is one of the most famous users of 5x4 photography. one of his most famous projects is "in the american west", where he went across america documenting people of interest. although the idea is a common one seen before avedon took a new twist on it by using a portable studio to remove the subject from the surroundings. it is of a beekeeper and i feel this is the most powerful image from the series. it shows strength yet vulnerability at the same time. the paleness of subject and background in contrast against the bees
makes me feel like neither one is dominant and that there is an understanding between the two. in this way i believe avedon is able to suggest dignity in the people he photographs whatever they may be or do.
this is part of a project by Mark Laita called "Created Equal". the idea of the project was to photograph opposing lifestyles yet linked in some way. this is a photograph of the ceo of a company and a cleaner within the same company. he has also photographed a french chef with a cook from a greasy spoon, a homeless man with a property developer and amish teens with teen punks. these photographs started me thinking about how my photographs where going to relate to one another and whether they will flow together with the concept or show opposing sides.
Martin Schoeller has a similar style to Avedon, using blank backgrounds to bring out the detail within the subject more obviously. In Schoellers case the detail is used to some extent to disgust the audience. This is from a series he did of female body builders. Taking simple photographs of these women yet using the 5x4 camera he was able to suggest things whilst leaving a large amount of the assumption on the viewer.
I have planned to use the same ideas behind Oliviero Toscani's "bosnian soilder". The idea of photogrpaghing a person through what they have left behind which in a way is the only way to photogragh the dead. i will take my grandfathers clothes, i never knew him as he died before i was born.and explore the connection between me and him by photogrpaghing us in the same way. is there a connection deeper than blood. can two people who never met be linked and to what extent do our choice of presentation say about us. i feel that this would work very well with the confines of this project, the studio setting and extreme detail of large format film giving the clinical edge to make it a study of a person and thus more of a portrayal.
i have now done my shoot which went as planned despite the complexity with using large format for the first time. however once i got used to the way it moves and the process one must go through in order to expose the film i found it a very therapeutic way to work and although i do not usually enjoy working in a studio setting i found working with this camera a very gratifying way to work.
once the negatives where developed i realized the complexity of a large format camera and the error i had made in the movements. even though i had applied the correct movements i had mis-calculated them slightly an had a horizontal band of focus. as annoying as this was at first i didn't mind as much once i had thought about it and in the end felt that in some ways it complimented the picture having the unfocused running parallel with the focused. it summed up the nature of the relationship between me and my grandfather, with the clear distinction of blood line in contrast to the uncertainty of our relationship to one another in respects to us having never met and with him never learning of my existence.
i decided to print the photographs in a darkroom rather than digitally. i thought that this would strengthen the role of humanity behind the piece and thus decided to make obvious flaws within the printing of it. with the colour i made used fogged paper to give the colours an off quality and the machines chemicals were old making this more noticeable, i also brought the edges of the negative into. with the black and white i was able to get all of the negative into the neg carrier and thus show the definitive shape of the exposure upon the negative. i also had to burn in the top part and i did this slowly leaving areas lighter than overs, also with the shoes having them fade out. the most difficult part of the printing process was making the photographs look as if they belonged together and weren't to separate pieces.
i feel my final prints works well together and more than that support each other in the uniqueness of the way they were printed. i set out on this project trying to capture something in relation to myself and i feel i have succeeded in this. it seemed to me that the guidelines for this project were about the process we undertook in photography as much as the final outcome: and i feel my decisions on how i went about things added to my final images in a positive way. i have come out with two prints which i am pleased with. yet i have also come out with a greater understanding on the many ways photography can seem to be one thing whilst being another. i took a still life however the reason that they are aren't disconnected from reason means that they become a portrait.
