Tag Archives: portraiture

Learning Log, Research & Reflection

Old Master New Classic…

In December 2012 I went to the Seduced by Art exhibition at the National Gallery. The exhibition explores early photography from the mid-19th century and the most exciting contemporary photographs, alongside historical painting. It takes a look at how photographers use fine art traditions, including Old Master painting, to explore and justify the possibilities of their art. The comparisons were quite strikingly accurate even considering modern styles and techniques. I have two main interest in life photography and motorcycles and there are a lot of us out there , based on the number of blogs I find that are about this pairing. So today I found a blog showcasing a photographer combining not only photography and motorcycles but adding into the mix “Old Master” style paintings – have a look here and some more work of Madrid based photographer Kristina Fender.

Learning Log, Research & Reflection

Lindsay Seers – Monocular

Lndsay Seers – Monocular – Derby Quad 

Lindsay Seers – Monocular4

Not strictly a photographic exhibition, more mixed media. While the artists was in Norway studying prefabricated structures when she met a man with a rare condition genetic mosaicism . This normally manifests itself as a person having eyes of different colours, usually one blue and one brown.

The installation was a tin shack , and inside there was a projection of a short film.The unamed man above was the subject of the film , the main theme being how he deals with issues he feels are due to having a half British and half Norwegian cultural heritage and identity  coupled with a belief that inside him was a twin and as the story unfolds he loses an eye which  transforms his inner dialogue with his “twin”.

 

Lindsay Seers - Monocular4
Lindsay Seers – Monocular4

As an addition there were also a series of portraits of other people with the condition taken by the artist during research for the piece . All images taken in portrait format with the face being the main subject. The eyes were all aligned with the top third which reinforced the feeling that the subjects were all staring straight at you. Also this meant that all the eyes are aligned when the prints are displayed.

Interestingly there was not a common theme to how the subjects were posed, some were clearly laying on their backs, others standing or sitting, the backgrounds were invariably neutral.

To see more work go to :- http://www.lindsayseers.info/

Learning Log, Research & Reflection

Cropping Guide

First post for 2013 and I have stumbled on this image from a series of info-graphics on DigitalCamera.com

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2012/03/30/free-portrait-photography-cropping-guide/

It clearly shows the optimum and acceptable crop limits for different portrait shots both landscape and portrait formats. I will try and experiment with this in the coming weeks and post the results here.