Varying pose - photography

There were a number of challenges on the day:-

• The Museum of Childhood was not yet open and it was not possible to take photos there. We therefore moved on to Vyner Street where her studio is located.
• One of the commercial buildings in Vyner Street had a grey painted wall which I thought would be suitable as background. It was however raining fairly steadily and hence I did not want to stay long taking photographs. I took a few photographs with her standing against this background some with her own coloured umbrella and some with my black umbrella.
• Her studio is totally enclosed and has no natural daylight. It has a high ceiling lit with neon striplights. I decided to take photographs under this lighting, even though there could be a colour cast. If the colour cast was too strong I thought that I could convert the photos to black and white. Whilst I could have set up my flash to light the scene, it would have been difficult to set up a lighting arrangement in this high ceiling room which would provide suitable lighting for the subject. This was also would take time and make the photography more complicated.

I took three groups of photos:

• Outside with an umbrella
• Inside the studio sitting and standing
• Talking on a mobile phone

Pose 1 - Standing pose with umbrella

Nikon 18-200mm at 50mm: Iso 400 f6.3 at 1/30th second

My aim was to take a few straightforward portraits similar in pose to the photograph of Jenny Agutter in Woman & Home. Light levels were low and at first I tried using fill flash to ensure her face was illuminated. Even at a low level this resulted in pronounced shadows around the umbrella that I did not like. I therefore increased the Iso from 200 to 400 and 640 to achieve an acceptable shutter speed.

I asked Lizzie to look at the lens but to turn her face slightly to the side. I took photos from the front, as in this case, and from the side. She needed to move the umbrella back behind her head (despite the rain) to allow the daylight to reach her face.

She swapped to hold my black umbrella and I took some similar standing poses. Her pale skin and light coloured hair contrasted strongly against the dark background and I zoomed in to head and shoulders framing and closer.

Pose 2 - Head and shoulders with dark umbrella

Nikon 18-200 mm at 120mm: Iso 640 f6.3 for 1/40th second

I took a sequence of various gazes from different positions. I have selected this one as it is different to Pose 1. Furthermore, I liked her slightly serious gaze. There are slight shadows on the left hand side of the face from this position even though the daylight was very flat.

Pose 3 - seated full length portrait

Nikon 18-200mm at 28mm: Iso 200 f6.3 for 1/10th second

The studio is a large room with alcoves along the walls for each of the five artists who share it. I decided to start with a general view of Lizzie seated in her work area. I set the zoom to 28mm which is equivalent to a "standard" lens and found a position containing her seated figure, with some details of her bench and a painting around her. The light is coming from the centre of the room and I needed to ask her to look around towards the light. Her hands are not posed but she naturally rested them in her lap. As a result, they are not a feature of significance to the photograph.

Pose 4 - Seated painting

Nikon 18-200mm at 135mm: Iso 400 f7.1 at 1/10th second

I next took some photographs whilst she was working. I moved around looking for a viewpoint where her face was visible and the background was as good as I could find. The sides of the alcove prevented a camera position from the front so I opted for some photographs of her face in profile. I took some photos showing her hand which was using a paint brush and some without. I have selected this closely framed photograph as I felt it was a stronger image than the wider angle view including her hand.

Pose 5 - standing painting

Nikon 18-200mm at 26mm: Iso 400 f7.1 at 1/15th second

I then asked Lizzie to do some painting standing up in several poses. Again I moved around framing photographs from various positions and focal lengths. I felt this photo was one of the best of these as I like her expression and the side lighting on her face. Her pose is relaxed with one hand in her pocket. Her feet are outside the frame but this does not seem to be detrimental. A wider angle photo including her feet was less satisfactory visually because it also included more clutter in the foreground.

Pose 6 - talking on a mobile phone

Nikon 18-200mm at 70mm: Iso 640 at f7.1 for 1/13th second

For the final group of poses, I asked Lizzie to sit as if she was talking to a friend on her mobile phone. Again I moved around changing viewpoints and framing. I chose this photo as I wanted one portrait where she is looking away from the lens. The hand holding the phone does not seem to be a distraction, probably because we are accustomed to seeing people in this pose so much.

Techniques

Several points relating to technique arose in this project:-

• The colour cast in the studio photos was not as bad as I expected and, after adjustment of the white balance settings in Lightroom, I was reasonably happy with the colours. I did try out conversion to black and white but I was happier with the colour originals. I have read that black and white is generally suitable where there is a broad tonal range, and hence it would probably not suit these photographs where there are large expanses that are very pale and very dark.
• The shutter speeds for all of these photos were less than ideal. Furthermore, the poor light levels and higher ISO settings meant than most of the photos were quite grainy. I was concerned that the resulting lack of sharpness would be apparent when printed. I was however pleased with the photos when printed on A4 paper at reasonable size (9" by 7"). The grain was also not an issue as this resulted in smooth looking skin textures.
• I slightly desaturated the colour of her pink chair. I liked the little bit of colour, but did not want this to be too strident. I also burned in some bright areas in the background and edges of the frame.

Conclusions

I found this exercise quite demanding as I was working at an unfamiliar location and needed to adapt to suit the prevailing conditions. I was therefore happy that I came away with some nice photographs. In this, I was helped enormously by the photogenic qualities of my subject, her dress and personality.

Having reviewed the resulting photos and the guidance for this project again, I feel that I did not explore the placement of her hands and limbs enough. I liked the variety in the portraits: the different poses and different angles of view (a consequence of the techniques covered in the earlier portrait projects). I should in future think about using hand and leg postures to enhance an image, rather than just ensuring that they do not detract from it.

Varying pose - preparation

I looked at portraits in a couple of my wife's magazines in preparing for the "Varying Pose" project;Vanity Fair and Woman and Home.

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

BP Portrait Awards 2011

Whilst at the National Portrait Gallery a few weeks ago, I bought a small book showing the prizewinners and fifty other entries in the 2011 BP National Portrait Exhibition. This was very good value at only £8.99 and I envisaged that this could provide some ideas on portraits, poses and expression. Anyway, I liked some of the pictures in it.

My impressions of these portraits are noted below.

• I was astonished that so many of the painted portraits have adopted a "photo-realism" style. Relatively few seemed to have chosen to use a "painterly" style. One of many examples of what I have labelled "photo-realism" is the portrait of Jade by David J Eichenberg. It is not just the detail of the representation, but also the monochrome background and fleeting glance of figures in the background that are particularly reminiscent of styles current in photography. One of portraits,, "Daniel" by Mark Bush is an acrylic painting that mimics the use of black and white photography. On the other hand, I thought that "Sergio" by Annalisa Avancini and "Abi" by Nathan Ford are examples of the looser and more timeless style of painted portraits.
• The artists also seemed to make use of what in photography is labelled wide angle perspective, for example "David Carter" by Richard Brazier and "Head 16" by Shona Chew.
• In most cases, the paintings were relatively large, although there were a few in the same range as is customary for photography - e.g. "10x8", "14x10".
• Comparing the paintings selected for this exhibition, with the photographic portraits displayed at the Taylor Wessing Prize exhibition, I felt that many of the painted portraits were more interesting visually.
• I was puzzled by the choice of "Distracted" by Wim Heiders as the overall winner. Whilst this seems an attractive portrait, I could not identify a particular quality that made this painting stand out above the others. Possibly, the reproduction in the booklet does not do it justice.

Focal length and character

In order to make a comparison of focal lengths, a simple head and shoulders portrait would seem to be all that is required. I therefore used the opportunity of a visit to a small church to take photographs of my wife at differing focal lengths.

Image 1: Short focal length (full frame equivalent to 27mm)

Nikon 18-200mm at 18mm: Iso 400 f6.3 for 1/30th seconds

Image 2: Mid-range focal length (full frame equivalent 72 mm)

Nikon 18-200mm at 48mm: Iso 400 f6.3 for 1/30th seconds

Image 3: Long focal length (full frame equivalent 300mm)

Nikon 18-200mm at 200 mm: Iso 400 f6.3 for 1/30th seconds

In image 1, the wide angle setting distorts her face, making her mouth, nose and glasses seem to bulge out unnaturally.

I found it difficult to identify any significant difference between image 2 and image 3, and her face appeared natural in both despite the significant difference in focal length and angle of view of the lens.

I was surprised by this. I would expect that the features closest to the camera would become less prominent at longer focal lengths. Taking rough measurements with a ruler, I compared the width of her features closest to the camera relative to the width of her face at the narrowest point which is further away from the camera. I found that there was the expected progression using the width of the frame of her glasses:

- Image 1, her glasses are 119% of the width of her face

- Image 2, her glasses are 112% of the width of her face

- Image 3, her glasses are 108% of the width of her face.

There is still some flattening of perspective in moving from image 2 to image 3, even though this effect was so subtle that it was not obvious to the naked eye.

Best of a sequence - photography

Even though the flash lighting was set up in a similar way to project 5 Eye Contact and Expression, I still needed to experiment with several positions and angles for the flash before asking Val to take up position. I have given a description of the set and settings in the "techniques" section below.

Shooting process

In general I followed the process suggested in the course notes:

• The camera was on a tripod, and I was using a cable shutter release to trip the shutter as she moved into different positions. I could therefore talk and keep eye contact with her during the session.
• In the first position, Val was standing leaning against a chair, with her arms behind her back resting on the chair. I asked her to move her head and gaze to various positions, and reviewed the results on the camera screen. In this position her shoulders seemed slightly stiff and I asked her to move her arms in front to relax her shoulders for a second series of different gazes.
• I then asked her to sit on the chair sideways resting her hands on the back of the chair and took a further series with different gazes.
• I started to notice that some of the photos were coming out significantly underexposed. This was puzzling as the camera exposure and flash settings were fixed on manual settings. I eventually realized that I should occasionally be checking the "ready" light on the flash unit, as the flash had started to take longer to recycle, and I was tripping the shutter before it was fully charged.
• I then asked her to sit on the chair in the normal seated position, but by this time, the sun had set and it had turned too dark in the room to see her eyes and her face. Instead of turning the room lights onto a low level, I continued to take photos in the darkness.Whilst the exposures and focus of the resulting photos were still OK, we could not see each other and I was unable to guide her positions as I had done before. I therefore stopped the session.
• I could see on the camera screen that the normal seated position was less pleasing than the sideways seated position, so we changed back to the sideways position and tried some different hand positions.

I realized soon afterwards that it would have been better to turn the room lights onto a low level, which would have given enough light to see each other. With the dimmers switched low, the room light would probably have been too weak to be seen in the photos.

Overall sequence

I reviewed the sequence of photos using Lightroom to select the reasonable photos and reject the failures. I ended up with a sequence of twenty and this is the contact print for these twenty.

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/60th seconds

I would categorize any of these photos as acceptable, so to fulfill the requirements of the project, I was left with the task of identifying the "good" and the "best". I have found that I need to have in mind a specific purpose before choosing photographs. In this case, I decided to select a photograph that I would like to display in a frame at home.

My approach to this is to use Lightroom to compare a few photos at a time. I started with the standing poses with the face flat to the lens and picked the best one of these.

Selection 1 - Facing lens

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/60th seconds

I then picked a best one from those with the face facing left and right:

Selection 2 - facing left

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/60th seconds

Selection 3 - facing right

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/60th seconds

Of the seated poses, I eliminated the three photos where Val is seated normally on the chair as she looked slightly slouched over. I picked the best one of the other seated poses.

Selection 4 - seated pose

Nikon 18-70mm at 70mm: Iso 200 f8 for 1/60th seconds

These selections I classed as "good" and from these I decided that Selection 3 - facing right would be the best overall as a framed photograph.

When looking at the photos on the camera screen during the shoot, my aim was to judge which poses seemed to work the best visually. I then tried to use this information to guide the model in other poses.

When reviewing the photos subsequently on the computer screen, I was looking at all aspects of the photographs to decide which had the best mix of pose, expression and general composition.

Techniques

I modified the flash lighting used in project 5 so that the subject's face was illuminated more from the front, as shown in the diagram.

The flash head was also angled upwards so that some light bounced off the ceiling. In this position, the reflector seemed to serve no purpose and I therefore left this out.

I used the Nikon 18-70mm lens instead of the 18-200 mm lens that I have used in the previous portraits. Exposure mode was manual and focus was set to manual. I used an aperture of f8 to allow for some movement of the models position, and I reset the focus when she changed position. The SB600 flash was set to manual. I found that I needed the flash on full power to provide reasonable light at Iso 200.

Conclusions

The project enabled me to get some valuable practice at planning and executing a portrait session with a subject:-

- in a way it was good experience to have the unexpected exposure problem, although this was a distraction from directing and taking the photos.

- I will know next time that I must keep a low background light level (daylight or artificial) even when using flash as my light source.

- for assignment 1, I will need to think of the style of the portraits. This may entail planning the location, clothes and postures. The photos I have taken for this project are quite plain, with a blank background, frontal lighting style, and everyday clothes.

Best of a sequence - planning

My plans for this project were intended to build on the things I had learned in the previous exercise:

- I wanted to improve the flash lighting set up so that the areas surrounding the eyes were better lit.

- I wanted to have another go at directing a model.

For some tips on using camera flash units, I looked at "Digital Field Guide" for Nikon D200 by David Busch and Michael Freeman's "Light" from Collins Photography Workshop series (my copy is the 1992 edition which is old but OK for this type of question). I also attended an evening on Lighting held by Guildford Photographic Society last week in which one of an experienced club members demonstrated various set ups using both continuous and flash lighting units.

I decided to do another session in our living room as I could bounce flash off white walls and ceilings to give a diffuse light. I wanted the light source to be close to the side of the camera this time, directed towards the subject so that the eyes were fully lit. I planned a couple of lighting arrangements, one with an upright chair for the subject to sit on or stand by, and another where the subject would be seated on a settee.

My wife agreed to be my subject for this session. I hoped to take a sequence of standing poses, followed by a sequence with her seated on the upright chair. Depending on the outcome, I could also take some different poses using the settee.

I also thought I would try using manual settings for exposure, flash power etc as I hoped that this would result in less variability in the photographs.

Eye contact and expression - photography

As planned, I took a sequence of self-portraits in which I changed the direction of my gaze, and experimented with role-play with and without the use of a handphone. I selected some of the better photos and record my observations below.

I have cropped theses photographs close to the face in order to focus on the facial expressions. I wore a dark sweater and used a black background to make my face stand out prominently.

Following my comments on the photos, I have included a brief description of the flash lighting set up and what I learnt from this.

Portrait 1

Nikon 18-200 at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 for 1/60th

My eyes are turning to look to the side of the camera glancing down just a little. My head is tilted so that the eye line is just slanted. I look as if I am thoughtful and at ease.

Of the various test photos that I took during the preliminary steps of arranging the lighting, I particularly liked this one:

Portrait 2

Nikon 18-200mm at 62mm: Iso 200 f4.8 at 1/60th

Whilst my gaze is similar, my head position is at a slightly different angle. With this change, I look more attentive, as if I was listening to someone standing besides the lens.

This pose seems familiar from studio portraits and school photographs when I was young. There is possibly something inherently pleasing or flattering about this pose.

Portrait 3

Nikon 18-200mm at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 at 1/60th

In this photo, it looks as if I am looking directly at the camera. In fact, this was a photograph where I was looking down at the tripod head, but this slight downward glance is not noticeable.

With my face filling the frame, this direct gaze seems slightly intimidating. My expression is neutral, but, as a viewer, I feel that the subject is rather too close to me.

Portrait 4

Nikon 18-200mm at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 at 1/60th

I needed to look down quite obviously, as in this photograph, for my downward glance to be noticeable. The effect is to make me look as if I am deep in thought or alternatively feeling sleepy. There could be some feeling of unhappiness, but this does not seem particularly strong.

This picture is significantly less engaging as a portrait compared to the other pictures.

Portrait 5

Nikon 18-200mm at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 at 1/60th

I am looking to the other side of the camera away from the light and slightly upwards. It is interesting to compare this with Spencer Murphy's portrait of Peter Crouch exhibited in the Photographic Portrait of the Year competition that I referred to in my preparation for this project. The head position and gaze are somewhat similar, but the visually impact is quite different:-

• In Murphy's photograph, the eyes are far more prominent. They appear bright and translucent. Whilst this may be partly a result of the shade cast by my spectacles, it is clear that lighting the eyes is important and needs thought. In his photograph, the light is falling more onto the front of the face whereas in my set up, the strongest light is on the side of the head (see below for set up description). I did use the "iris enhance" brush in Lightroom, but this cannot compensate for inadequate lighting when the photo was taken.
• Peter Crouch's head is slightly angled forward, whereas mine is slightly angled backwards. A backward angle seems to convey a feeling of passivity whereas a forward angle seems to convey a more edgy/active posture.
• The background and shirt colours in the portrait of Peter Crouch match and accentuate the blue colour of his eyes. His pale skin and hair colours seem quite pallid creating an overall cold tint to the portrait as a whole. Looking through Spencer Murphy's other portraits on his website, I noted that he uses a blue or cool tints in several of them. In others, such as the portraits of Rowan Williams, Gael Gabriel Bernal, the colour palettes are harmonious and must have been carefully selected. In my self portraits the skin colours are warm and reasonably saturated. I should see if lower saturation levels would be more striking visually.

Portrait 6

Nikon 18-200mm at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 at 1/60th

Looking upwards, the area around the eyes is better lit and hence more prominent. I appear to be active and interested in something, but the picture seems to lack charm or character as a portrait. The upward position of the head seems a bit like chinese or soviet pictures of "workers striding into the future".

Role-play portraits

Whilst I took photographs imagining that I was feeling various emotions (sadness, anticipation, exasperation), the resulting photographs were not distinguishable from the other photographs that I had taken. Either I was not expressive enough to portray such emotions, or the visual effects were too subtle to capture.

Hand-phone portraits

The idea for using a hand-phone as a prop occurred to me from a photograph I took a few years ago. I had been trying to take a photograph of a tour leader on a group holiday a few years ago. My best photograph was taken in a quiet moment when she was chatting to her kids on her mobile phone. Her face lit up as she listened to them seated comfortably on a bench. I thought that this may be a useful idea to try for a subject who is not experienced as a model.

I therefore tried a few self portraits pretending to use a hand phone. I have included them here even though they are more of an active portrait in character.

Portrait 7

Nikon 18-200mm at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 at 1/60th

Portrait 8

Nikon 18-200mm at 75mm: Iso 200 f6.3 at 1/60th

The subject can be in more exaggerated poses than would be the case if the person were doing nothing.

Techniques

I decided to use flash for this project as this would be a good refresher in using photographic lighting. I hardly ever use flash for my general photography and this is the first time I have used my own flash unit to create a portrait lighting set up.

I was using a Nikon SB600 flash unit linked by cable to the Nikon D200 camera. I used a cable shutter release with the camera set to autofocus. I used a black mounting board as the backdrop, which was big enough for the close to the head framing. It would have been a little restrictive for head and shoulders photos at these focal lengths.

I spent a couple of sessions reading the manual and guidance which came with the flash unit and experimenting with different flash positions. I had the idea of attempting to create a moody picture with dark shadows and hence opted for a low sidelight rather than bouncing flash off the ceiling. Having reviewed the photos, I think it would have been better to have moved the set around so that the light direction was more on the front of the face. In addition, the reflected light on the shaded side of the face was not strong enough relative to the bright side of the face.

I tried a large wall mirror and a piece of flat polystyrene as reflectors. The mirror gave a stronger effect, but it was heavy and difficult to hold in place. The polystyrene was far more practical.

Acting as the model, I noticed how useful it is to find something to fix ones gaze on in the various positions. Mentally, it is useful to have some thoughts in ones head of various poses.

Conclusions

This project has provided valuable ideas on various matters:

- some ideas for directing subjects/models

- some ideas for better presenting photographs - stronger lighting of eyes and lower colour saturation of skin.

- some ideas of how to use camera flash to light a portrait.

Eye contact and expression - planning

My plans for this project were influenced by my experience at a studio photography workshop in May 2011 organized by my local photography club. My efforts at directing the models were largely unsuccessful because I had not decided beforehand what sort of photographs I wanted to take. Furthermore, whilst I asked the models to change their gaze towards and away from the camera, this was a scatter-gun approach, without any clear idea of how these changes would visually effect the picture.

I decided to use this project, together with projects 6 (sequence) and 8 (posture) to experiment with different options.

For this purpose, I wanted to be the model for this project, so that I could see for myself the situation from the models viewpoint. I also decided to use photographic lighting instead of natural daylight like the previous projects.

I planned to explore various ideas:-

1. Changing directions of gaze as if the subject were totally alone and without any express emotions: what is the visual effect of these changes?

2. Changing expressions of emotion: could suggest to the model a sort of role play:

- on hearing bad news: head maybe lowered?

- watching passers-by: neutral and candid glance?

- greeting a close friend or VIP: showing anticipation or even excitement?

- feelings of anger/exasperation?

In these, the model would pretend that there is someone else in view, but not visible to the camera. I thought that such role-play might be a way of communicating to a model ideas for expressions.

3. As an alternative, I thought I could ask the model to talk on a mobile phone again expressing a range of emotions.

On this topic, I was interested to read in someone's blog that Nadav Kander in his photographs of White House staff and Richard Avedon were unwilling to provide direction to the people they photographed. They expected the people to compose themselves as they wished to be seen. I was also struck by a portfolio of portraits of computer game players. A few had blank expressions, but others showed high drama of elation and excitement.

Using myself as the model in this project 5 meant that I would be unable to practice keeping eye contact with the model. However, I plan to use someone else as a model in subsequent projects once I have a better idea of what I want them to do, so I will cover this part of the project elsewhere.

Eye contact and expression - Taylor Wessing Portraits

Just before Christmas, I went to see the exhibition of entries and winners of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait competition 2011. As I was thinking about the "Eye Contact and Expression" project 5, I was looking particularly at the portraits where the subject was not looking at the camera. My notes on some of these photos are below.

Peter Crouch by Spencer Murphy

Peter Crouch is a footballer (Wikipedia says he is striker for Stoke City) and according to the exhibition notes, the photograph was taken soon after he came off the pitch from a match. His eyes are looking to the left and ever so slightly up and there is no indication that he is looking at anything in particular. His head is not quite upright and his facial expression is relatively unexpressive as if he is reflecting on something or maybe just waiting. He certainly does not seem conscious of the camera. Possibly he is drained of energy and adrenaline, or alternatively, maybe his team had been beaten and he is reflecting on missed opportunities.

Looking through Spencer Murphy's website, portraiture is a major part of this work, and for example, he has done commissions for a number of magazine covers. The majority of the portraits on his website are men, and most of them are looking away from the lens. I was surprised how often he uses a plain offwhite background. Also, it is unusual that in some of his portraits of sportsmen, he uses a strong sidelight on the "narrow" side of the face or figure, away from the camera.

Lola's husband by Frank Balbi Hansen

I could not locate a website for this photographer or photograph. The portrait shows the head and shoulders of a mature, smartly dressed lady on the left of a landscape shaped frame. In the right background is an old fashioned photograph of a man, presumably her husband. The lady's eyes are looking up and away from the camera, as if she is reminiscing about her husband and past experiences. As in the previous example, there is no sign that she is looking at anything.

The slightly unnerving feature that I noticed in this photograph is that the eyes of her husband appear to be looking directly at the lens.

Terry by Simon Bremner

In this photograph, we see the head and shoulders of a woman seated at a table next to the window of a cafe. She is looking sideways out of the window but it does not appear that she is looking at anything. She seems wistful, maybe slightly troubled, maybe just waiting.

Looking at Simon Bremners website, his photographs are almost all photographs of people. A prorportion are not portraits of individuals, but rather staged scenes portraying a narrative, for example a boy at the edge of a fairground with a sack over his shoulder as if he is leaving home.

Conclusions

Looking at these portraits and some others during this course, I feel that the impact of eye contact or lack of it on a viewer can be understood if one imagines how a viewer would react if he or she were in the room with the subject:-

• There were a number of portraits in the exhibition of couples looking at each other or with one looking at the other. Even though neither subject was looking at the lens, there was no feeling of social tension in my mind whilst observing the subjects together.
• Similarly, in one of the active portraits of my brother in law, Keith, he is looking down at the hoe, not looking at the camera lens. There is similarly no feeling of strangeness watching him at work.
• Where an individual subject is looking at the lens, there seems to be an interaction between the viewer and the subject somewhat similar to meeting another person. In most cases the interaction is interesting rather than disturbing.

In contrast, where the subject is an individual looking away from the camera lens, I get a feeling of discomfiture or edginess. It is like being in a room with another person who is in their own private world. Staring at someone in this condition is not something I would normally do.

It also struck me that an individual can be seen more as a physical object when they are looking away from the camera lens. This struck me most forcibly looking at a fashion photography exhibition "Northern Women in Chanel" by Peter and Ingela Farago at Fotografiska in Stockholm last August. The models are hardly ever looking at the lens and hence the clothes and stance of the model draws the viewers attention, rather than their faces. Where a model is looking at the lens, however, the visual impact of the clothes seems to recede and the models personality comes to the fore.

I thought that Spencer Murphy's portraits showed a similar effect. Where his subject is looking away from the lens, the physical features of the head and face seemed more important visually, than the individual. There is no comment by Spencer Murphy on the reason for using this style of portrait quite frequently.