At last the year has come to an end. Looking back through all my work from this past school year I have covered a very large amount of the photography spectrum. I have done abstract, action sports, black and whites, landscapes, portraits, team sports and many more. Though I have tried to do something new every week with my photography, I feel strongest in my portraits and landscapes. After looking back and seeing all the work I have done this last year, I decided to do my final series on portraits. The key things that complete a portrait to me are these things:

1^st – Facial Expression. This is what seems to make or break a shot. The photo could be perfect composition and perfect lighting, but if the subject has a bad facial expression it can pretty much ruin the photo.

2^nd – Body Language. If the subject is doing a stupid pose, it could ruin the photo. The photo could have the best exposure, composition, best anything but with bad body language, or a lame pose, bam, the photo is considered ruined (to me of course).

3^rd – Lighting. Regardless of what look the photographer is going for, lighting is key. If it is a silhouette portrait (doesn’t make a whole lot of since, for a portrait) the lighting has to be prime. If it is just a studio portrait, still the lighting has to be dead on. If it is a lifestyle portrait, more often than not, the lighting has to be solid.

4^th – Composition. Where you place the subject matters a whole lot also. A perfectly composed portrait is always nice to look at. Make sure there are not clipped/missing appendages or clipped heads. People want to look at a well-composed portrait and if it is sloppy, it is typically a bad portrait, let a lone photo in general.

5^th – Story. This is a very important thing to remember. People want to look at a photo and really see what is going on. It is very crucial for the viewer to see the story that the model/subject is sharing with them. Eyes are a big part of that. One can share so much just through the eyes and also with facial expression.

Those 5 concepts are something that I have tried my best to include in every portrait I shoot and for that matter every photo I take. So with my final project, I shot portraits. But I started noticing it is a lot harder to get those concepts perfect and in every photo. With this project I have tried to descriptively show the subjects story and demonstrate the skills that I have obtained shooting this last year.

I originally started out with about fourteen portraits, but I slowly go rid of a few and then narrowed it down to ten portraits. I used the fact that your project is as strong as your weakest photo. I wouldn’t consider the unused photos bad but defiantly not as strong. I was originally going the balanced contrast of 10 photos that five are black and white and five are color. With in that I was going for five that were horizontal and five that were vertical. It didn’t completely happen as planned but I ended up with six horizontal photos and four vertical photos. Also I have four color portraits and six black and white portraits. I realized that I have shot the majority of my portraits vertical this last year. It seems with a battery grip I got lazy and shot so much vertical that I forgot about horizontal shooting. So that is why I tried to shoot half of my portraits horizontal and half vertical. I ended up with the six horizontal shots and feel good about that number. It isn’t the balance that I wanted but it was close. I feel that I have a way better grip of shooting horizontal now and especially horizontal portraits. Something also that I noticed is a horizontal portrait (to me of course) is more powerful than a typical vertical portrait. Maybe that is because I thought vertical portraits were just a little boring to me.

When I first approached the final project, I was like “I am going to do black and white portraits! Yay!” Before I started shooting I thought that a black and white photo was more powerful than a colored photo. But once I did start shooting I came to the conclusion that it is not a black and white portrait that makes a photo powerful, but it is a combination of those five points I jotted down above. A colored photo can be equally as powerful and moving as a black and white portrait.

Here are the photos of the final project:

Bobby Gibbs

Essex Prescott

Lane Mehringer

Cody Schneider

Mario Martinez

Kyle Harris

Zach Black

Andrew Harder

Josh Tyvan

Michael Shamberg

For the very first one of Bobby Gibbs, I had my 540EZ flash focused at 50mm and at 1/2 power pointed down towards his feet. I had this idea for this portrait because almost every single portrait is in the top corners and I felt that this was a perfect angle for him. Flashing for portraits outside of studio is a lot of fun mainly because you have so much freedom with the lights and can get really creative. I have shot a lot more with my flashes and not the strobes due to the portability  factor and also it is so easy to focus the flash on just one section. But there are advantages to the strobes because a lot more power.

For the second one of Essex Prescott, it is all natural light which I really like. After shooting with flashes for a lot of things it becomes like an addiction. It is just so easy to use the flashes and makes it a lot easier to expose photos. But going back to natural light is a lot of fun for me right now. It was shot at ƒ/ 1.8  and I did that primarily to get a perfect bokeh. The background is all grass that was swirling so it was perfect for a bokeh shot. This shot just seems like a perfect photo for Essex because it fits for his normal environment because he is an out-doorzy person.

For the third shot of Lane Mehringer, I had him in the studio which doesn’t really seem like it would fit for Lane, but I used a black back drop for his shot because almost every time I see him, he is in black, so it fits. But I shot wide for this one so I could get a little disproportion in him. It doesn’t make him look as tall and seems to fit him. I tried to incorporate his long hair as much as possible and this was the best shot of him with his hair.

For the fourth one of Cody Schneider we were out at the golf course and though this isn’t really who Cody is, I really like the photo. Shows the story of us out there. The bokeh is perfect for the shot, really reminds me of golf. This one was natural light also. I did try this one with flashes so I could light up the background a tad but stopped using the flashes for this shot of him.

With the shot of Mario Martinez we were down town shooting some skateboarding and he was just looking at me so I snapped this photo and I wasn’t really intending for a portrait but it came out really good and I love it. I was shooting portraits of somebody else in this same spot but Mario is very photogenic so I really like it. It really fits in for rule 1 and 2 of mine so I am pleased with it.

Kyle Harris is one of the best models I have ever used and it is partly because of a nice face and a grungey beard and ear rings. I love the exposure and composition of this. With the horizontal photo like this one, it really makes this shot strong so I am quite pleased with it.

With the photo of Zach Black, I had a flash behind him lighting up the door way to bring out all of the textures and giving a very proper amount of back lighting around him. I had Mike Shamberg hold another flash to left of Zach and point it at his face so the viewer can really see the facial expression.

Back to the Avadon photos. I shot the photo of Andrew with the Avadon style. Why? Because he was the king of portraits and Andrew is the perfect person for a studio shot like this one. I tried to incorporate his dreds in with this shot because he is quite proud of them. This to me is my most favorite photo in the whole series because it just has so much power. It also shows the progress that he has in his dreds and how long he has been growing them which is something the “dred-heads” are proud of I have been informed.

Josh Tyvan is fun person to photograph. He is a very serious person so it makes for a good shot. I usually only shoot skate shots of Josh but this was a shot that I got of him after he was done skating. It shows the good expression and color contrasts so I love those factors. Playing with bokeh is a lot of fun because you can do so much with the textures. The trees and folliage in general in the back ground of Josh’s shot really stood out to me so I thought “bokeh?!?”

Last but not least, Michael Shamberg. Taking photo of photographers is probably one of my favorite things to do. They understand what has to be done, where they have to be, and just know how to pose. It is fun shooting with fellow photogs because we can discuss the photos and come to a steady medium and combine our skills and create a great shot. So I have to give Mike some props for helping compose this shot. When I looked back through my blog I saw a photo of my friend Tim in very close to the same spot so I thought that I should come back there and re-do it. Going back to spots that I have shot at is fun because I can re-create an image that I have already done and compare them. This one of Mike I like a lot more because I feel like a composed it better and it has better exposure.

The inspiration for this project was mainly sparked up by looking back through my blog and finding something that I feel strong with. But there is this one photographer, Corey Perrine, who is a photo-journalist that I have been following his work ever since we came in contact via Sportsshooter.com when I contacted him about a lens. But seriously his work, portraits specifically is just amazing and I love viewing it. Thank you Corey for being my inspiration.

That is my final project, think you for viewing please comment.

-Steve

P.S.- I will continue to blog throughout the summer so please check weekly