Vanity Fair is not a magazine she regularly reads but I was happy to find that one of the articles was "In Lady Gaga's Wake" - photographs by Annie Leibovitz. Whilst the article was billed as photographs taken on a visit to Lady Gaga's childhood home, the photographs were not, with one exception, looking at the "person behind the persona". In the others, Lady Gaga is dressed in fantastic costume, posed as a mannequin in various locations: in a crowd, in a deserted launderette etc. There is just one photograph of Lady Gaga where she is portrayed as a person more than an icon. The photograph is not shown on the magazines website and I have included a small thumbnail here as it is not readily possible to describe this pose verbally.
Lady Gaga by Annie Leibovitz
From Vanity Fair January 2012
The crouching down pose is not one that I would ever have thought of. It is striking by being unusual (at least for me) and I rather like the composition with the diagonal lines of her torso and legs. She has cut off the subjects hand and feet, but the hand in particular may have been eye catching and disturbed the composition. The lighting appears to be studio lighting with separate background and subject lights.
The photographs in Woman & Home magazine are distinctive as many appear to be relatively straightforward studio portraits in quite natural poses. The photographs do not appear on their website, so I have included a thumbnail of the page so that my comments can be understood.
Jenny Agutter
From Woman & Home February 2012
This portrait appears to have used photographic lighting in front of a coloured background. There is some soft shadow on the background suggesting that the main light was highly dispersed and placed high (possibly bounced off a ceiling). There may also have been a fill light on the shaded side of her face, as the illumination of the shaded side of her face is quite bright. The magazine had photographs in a similar style in a number of the articles.
Plan for the taking photos
I have been thinking further about choosing different people as subjects to provide some variety in the character and location of portraits. I decided that I would prefer to take photographs of relatives and friends because these photographs could be of some use for ourselves or as gifts. Taking pictures of strangers would equally well fulfill the requirements of the course, but the resulting photographs would have no other use. The downside is that it has taken some time to arrange to visit the people concerned.
For this project, I asked my niece who is a graphic artist whether I could take some photographs of her at, and around, her studio in London. I had not visited her studio nor the area of Bethnal Green where it is located so it was not possible to do much specific planning.
I used Google street view to look at the streets and noted some possible buildings e.g. Museum of Childhood where it might be possible to take pictures. I also thought I might take my umbrella which could be useful to provide a plain background or to fill part of the foreground (Jean Loup Sieff style).
For the studio I hoped that there would be natural light, but I brought along my flash in case I needed this. I listed down various postures that I could work through: working - seated, working - standing, posed standing, sitting with a coffee/mobile phone.
I also wrote down a checklist of the issues I should check before taking a photograph at any location:-
- Location/background
- Lighting + direction
- Posture
- Gaze and expression
- Frame
I thought it might be better to establish a fixed list of priorities that I could easily keep in mind.
In anticipation of assignment 1, I also noted down some styles of portrait that I might have an opportunity to take:-
- Active
- Strong sidelight from a window
- Back light from a window
- Profile
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