Jo's Foundation Photography Blog

Brighton City College Student

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This is my other final echo portrait that was inspired by Lee Jeffries HDR homeless images. I abused the HDR toning myself to really enhance blemishes and facial hair on my subject, although I mag go back to this as the gamma has proved a slight grey tone in the skin. I feel I have produced a relatively modern version of Jeffries portrait with a younger subject that I tried my best to model in a similar way. I also tried to reassemble the neck detail by my subject enhancing his adams apple. 

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This is one of my final outcomes, in response to the famous Migrant Mother, with my own impression. I reduced the gamma to similarity with the grey tones from the film tones, and slightly used HDR toning to reveal slight blemishes on my subject as the migrant mother has detail in her face. 

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This is my contact sheet for my second portrait shoot. I needed three models, obviously with the migrant mother is her children which I had no contact with at the time, but I positioned the boys slightly further behind my main subject so they reflected the children. I am really please with this shoot despite the time I had. 

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This is my studio plan for my second portrait. The light in Dorothea Lange's image is natural light, so I needed the softest light I could get as she also shot on film, so contrast wasnt strong. This setup was really basic, and I used a black reflector. 

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For my second echo portrait, I wanted to produce a more well known image. Lee Jeffries is known for is outstanding homeless collection, but he is still to be recognised as famous. 

I have always taken a great interest in the Great Depression, especially the works of the famous photographers that came out of it such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. The Migrant Mother was the iconic image that opened up Americas eyes out of the depression, and the emotion from the anonymous woman's face is speechless. So, I have decided to reproduce Langes image for my second portrait, which I don't think will be hard to reconstruct. 

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This is my contact sheet from the shoot impersonating Lee Jeffries homeless imagery. I am relatively pleased with the outcomes, although I found it really hard to get the right lighting that was shining on the backdrop. What worked really well was that my subject was wearing a cap that had relation to the originals attire, and similar hair. 

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This is my shoot plan for the Lee Jeffries reconstruction. As the original image relied on natural lighting shining down on the subject, I was advised to use a snoot like light shining down from a height. At the time, a snoot wasn't available so we improvised with back card around the light that minimalised lit features. I also used a basic dish to reflect on the black backdrop, as the image had a slight glow to it, so we used a snoot like tube for this as well. We ended up using two black reflectors by my subject as the backdrop wasn't quite there, and the other to avoid the sensor's from triggering the other studios lights. 

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This is the image I decided to echo of Lee Jeffries, purely because I love the detail that has been enhanced from the HDR editing, and the subjects impression. 

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Constructing ideas for The Echo two studio portraits

I have been really indecisive when it comes to deciding on what famous portrait I want to echo. Although, I have always liked the idea of reconstructing a black & white image that has been taken on film, but I will impersonate it using a DSLR. For my fmp research, I discovered Lee Jeffries who completed a whole project on homeless people that are all really HDR refined, and all in black & white. I think all of the portraits are really powerful and a really strong narrative, yet they are still to be recognised.  So for my first echo portrait, I decided to reconstruct one of Jeffries images. 

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Case Study

"a case study (or case report) is a descriptive, exploratory or explanatory analysis of a person, group or event. An explanatory case study is used to explore causation in order to find underlying principles. Case studies may be prospective (in which criteria are established and cases fitting the criteria are included as they become available) or retrospective (in which criteria are established for selecting cases from historical records for inclusion in the study)."

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From the sheets we were given of excisting famous portraits, we were challenged to reconstruct a few ourselves in groups, considering lighting, framing, mise en scene, and camera, but it wasnt necessary to use the exact same camera. This well known image of Errin Pen apart of his small trades series he took photographs of people representing their trade. So we kept this part of mise en scene by our model holding relative objects as part of her wanting trade, in the same postition. we used a grey backdrop like the one in Pen's as the studios black or white backdrop would give the wrong set up and effect lighting. In Pen's image his subject is centre of the frame, with a couple of inches from the edges, and a slight shadow down the left side of their face, so we tried our best to echo this.

[jonatwebb-blog]

We started a new project today called "The Echo" as part of our studio work. This will be our final project for studio lessons, and it actually sounds the most interesting.

"Many contempory photographers make very conscious reference to historic imagery in terms of form and content, but also use the imagery to foreground theortical concerns and contemporary issues." Basically we need to research well known historic portraits, whether its photography or artwork, and respond to it in an echoing way with our own interpretation.