Photography 11
Lesson #8 - The Faceless Portrait
The inspiration for this assignment came from a challenge that Marie McGrory (Producer, Nat Geographic Travel) put out in February of 2015 called - The Faceless Portrait Challenge - check out link for inspiration
The Un-Selfie: Taking Back the Self-Portrait By Marie McGrory
"Our eyes are often attracted to the face first. Being very social beings, we read emotions and stories on faces all day long. But what we may often neglect in our portrait photography are the clues that seep into us more subconsciously —the context clues. While elements like what a person is wearing, their body language, the scene and objects around them often tell us much of the story, the face may tell us how they're feeling about that story.” Marie McGrory
Big Idea : To learn how to photographically describe or represent “people” in photographs without taking an actual image of their face. What does the context, colour, lighting, body gesture say about someone’s identity or their story?
Assignment: The assignment calls for you to go out and photograph images that represent identity without representing the face in the image. We are drawn to faces and generally they are the focal point of our imagery when included. When you do not include the face that requires the viewer to visually travel about the entire frame to find meaning. Photograph images that conceptually, theoretically or abstractly represent your subject. You should incorporate the figure in some way but it can just be parts of the body, a reflection or shadow. Do not forget to actively use of rules of composition and depth of field when capturing your subjects.
Presentation:
1 contact sheet (20 images, your best! - must include date, aperture, shutter speed and ISO), order images so the ones that you are most proud of are at the top of your contact sheet :)
3 final edited images - sized 8.5" by 11" at 300 dpi (resolution), exported as jpegs
Part 2: Nothingness
Objective: Learn about pre-production work in planning a creative photo shoot, taking the planned photos, and editing them. Also, learn how to use layer masks in Photoshop.
What is due? 1 photo, which is made up of at least two photos (subject and then background).
How to do this?
1. Set up your camera on a tripod, pose your subject with an environment that will aid in your vision of Nothingness, and focus your camera on the subject.
2. Make sure your settings are correct. Use MANUAL focus so your auto-focus doesn't change between pictures. Go into WHITE BALANCE and make sure you find one that works (pick a higher number to warm up the photo colours; pick a lower number to cool down the photo colours)
3. Take one photo of the background WITH the subject
4. Then have the subject step out of the shot, and photograph the background without changing any camera settings, ESPECIALLY the focus.
How to edit this on Photoshop?
1. Open up your two pictures on Photoshop. Drag your image to the other file, so you have your TWO images in the same project.
2. Bring the opacity down of your top layer so you can see both layers at the same time. Line them up so they are exactly matching. (Remember, in order to make a selection bigger or smaller withOUT the aspect ratio locked, you can hold down SHIFT while you expand - this will help you line it up perfectly).
3. Mask your top layer with your subject. (click the button with the circle inside of the square).
4. Use the Quick Select tool to select the areas from the person you wish to erase. Paint with a black brush (on the mask layer) all of the parts you would like to delete from the person. Voilá!
