50 Faces: Alexis Lemus
I want to note that the photos in this 50 face project will not all follow the same format, I am not limiting myself to simple professional portraits, conceptual portraits, or any specific category of portraiture. They may all be different depending on time restrictions, location, the model, etc. The photo of Brys was taken quickly and meant to be a simple portrait. These images were taken over more time and some were a bit conceptual in that they used the environment and the harsh light of midday sun in a very purposeful way.
I should also note since these photos are of my boyfriend and he's easy to bug to model likely will not be the only photos I take of him for this project.
While hiking in Blue Hills this past Saturday (6/18) my boyfriend, Alexis Lemus, was kind enough to model for me and allow me to work on a few ideas I'd been wanting to try. Once Behr had finished swimming in the pond and we began our hike, I started looking for interesting areas to use as our location for photos. At first the paths were well traveled and any spot we might like would be often interrupted. After walking a bit further we found some odd rocks that had a dip in them you could imagine sitting it. I worked with alexis and this rock for some more simple portraits.
If you took a photography class you were probably told midday sun it terrible lighting for shooting especially for portraits. If you never took a class you might also have noticed when you take selfies on your phone that there is really harsh lighting on your face, lots of deep shadows, and funny shapes. In class you would have also been taught that if you had to shoot in midday sun you should look for shade or use diffusors to avoid such harsh lighting. All of this is very true but I love playing with harsh light and the strong contrast and highlights you can get from midday sun. While doing so I do my best to make sure that light doesn't touch my models face and adds to the photo instead of working against me. It is still not ideal lighting but you can get some really interesting highlights and shapes you just have to be careful it isn't distracting from your concept.
After I used the odd shape of the rock Alexis climbed on top of them just for fun but when he was up there I notice the light raked across his abdomen and worked to keep that light off his face while I shoot some more.
This is an example of where the location and lighting just didn't work out as well in camera as it looked in concept. We kept walking for a bit after the first photos and I saw this broken tree with lots of branches coming out of it. I began to imagine how I might use the lines of the tree and Alexis's body to make an interesting composition. I worked to have his body create a continuous line in a bit of an odd shape while still looking natural. While I took this shot I thought it would be the most interesting one conceptually and to edit. However, once I began to edit I realized the lighting here had been less than ideal, it didn't do anything for him, or set the tone of the image. I may try to continue editing this image but I believe the concept ended up being more interesting than the final image.
I have to say this is my favorite image! It also was a struggle to edit, I think I am happy with this edit but I may play some more and I may post another post with all my attempts. I also saw this as a huge opportunity to work on my black and white photos as I've mentioned before I am particularly picky about black and white and you won't often find it in my work.
For this image we found another fallen tree with branches in odd shapes. I asked Alexis to get into a bit of an uncomfortable position to make interesting shapes between his body and the fallen branches. I loved the angles of the tree and his body made as well as the shapes of leaves on his chest and abdomen the harsh lighting made. The bright midday sun light his body through the trees but also the background where it filtered through the trees. This created a strong push and pull between background and foreground which I wasn't looking for in this particular image. I worked hard to keep the tones of grey I loved in the foreground but flatten the background so it was less distracting. How successful you think I was probably varies based on the styles you like but I do love this image.
And lastly I found more fallen branches and tried a few simpler shots but we were short on time and starting to find ticks on us so here's just one quick shot!
50 Faces: Brys Scotland
Beginning the 50 Faces project (which I wrote about in another blog) this time I told myself I wanted to do more than 50 photos of faces but rather 50 different individuals. It makes the project larger in scope while also implying there is one that stands out above the rest in all the photos I might take of that person. This means that there will be at least 50 blog posts featuring faces, and in the end you will see many more than 50 photos, but I will do a few blog posts at the end that identify 50 favorites for different reasons, 1 per person... if I can stick to that.
To start the 50 faces project I took a photo of my co-worker and friend, Brys Scotland, before she moved from MA back to Colorado. I didn't have much time, it was her last day at work, so I grabbed my camera and brought it to the mall with us on lunch. On the way back to the office I noticed some trees covered in vines by the mall and stopped to shoot a few photos at that location really quickly. This photos was unplanned, not conceptual in nature, and intended to be a simple portrait. While shooting I moved her around the area a bit until at the end I found the spot I liked and caught a moment where the wind gave her hair some movement and her expression was natural.
I was very happy to start the project off with this picture especially given that we only worked on it for 10-15 minutes. It was a simple portrait but a successful one. I was happy with the composition and scenery, her expression, and the movement in the image.
CDIA: 50 Faces Project
When I started the part time photography certificate program at CDIA in Waltham one of the first projects they assigned us was to shoot 50 faces. It was an assignment created to help us get comfortable shooting portraits and start to learn what to look for. We learned even if you captured the right emotion if the lighting was off it wasn't a good photo, that if you didn't connect with the subject there was no emotion, how distracting your background could be, ways to adjust the lighting with simple props, and so much more.
Here are a few of my more successful images, several of which were taken after the project was completed because I knew more about how to take a successful portrait.
The above photos are of my brother and my mother taken on a sail boat several summers ago. They worked well as a pair. When you are shooting candids sometimes you can't avoid some technical errors because you aren't setting the scene. These family photos were candid and a boat limits your movement. The photo of my brother has some lighting on his face that is a bit off, it would have been best if it was completely in shadow like my mothers. Both images also include glasses which can cause reflection issues and also obscure the eyes, which as human indicate emotion. In my mothers photo it would have been best to move the "lifesling" guide that was behind her, it can be distracting especially because as humans we try to read text when we see it. But over all these images work well as a pair, both individuals are wearing sunglasses, hats, and grey sweaters and clearing on a boat; they both appear happy, relaxed, and to be enjoying a vacation. Sometimes you can't get the perfect image technically but doesn't mean you can't take a good photo.
The above photo is of my friend Carlos. When I first started the 50 face project my classmates and teachers remarked upon the quality of my photos of men being greater than those of women. This confused me a bit as I didn't think I had many male friends or an affinity for those images. Trying to see what my classmates saw I realized a few things about my work. I would overlook technical quality if the expression was right and men looked more at ease, weren't trying as hard in my photos than a woman. I was better at shooting the photos of men while having a random conversation and putting them at ease, while a woman was cognizant of the camera the whole time and I wasn't as good at distracting them. This photo was a favorite of mine because it is such a candid moment and had a beautiful soft rim light from the sunset.
During this time in the 50 faces projects, because it was so intensive and we just had to shoot 50 faces, I was just asking people if I could photograph them and doing it when they had free time. It was done without much thought as the best time of day or location for an image. I just happened to be leaving my house with my friend and stop him to take this photo. Doing this project the way we did made us evaluate why some photos worked and some didn't but forced us to work with the time we had and see what we could do.
As we worked through the project we were also learning in class. The above image of my friend Cassandra was taken in my drive way during a bright sunny day. By this time I had learned way to deal with that sun. We had her back to the sun and she used some white foam core to bounce light back into her face so it was not too dark.
The above photo was taken much later in the project of my friend Ian. He knew of an old foundation in the woods we could visit and use for a shoot. This was more intentional and planned than the initial 50 faces. We gave thought to the surroundings, time of day, and lighting more than before.
This project was a great learning experience and forced us to quickly learn how to deal with people and different situations while shooting. I highly recommend this project and hope to come back and post another 50 faces project in the near future.
Miniature Horse's
My obsession with animals when I was younger was not limited to specific animals, however, that's not to say I didn't play favorites. As many people say as the stereotype of little girls, I wanted to do horse back riding and was especially enamored with horses. These incredible animals have so much strength and can run forever. This also affected my reading choices and I read many horse books (especially the Thoroughbred series and the classics, like Black Beauty).
When I was still fairly young I was lucky enough to have an uncle who let my family stay at his house on Martha's Vineyard in Edgartown every summer for a week or two. One summer a large dog standing on his hind legs came up on the back porch and scared me silly, I thought it was a bear he was so big! Another summer a goat came to visit the backyard and would run away from my brother, it was fun to watch. I soon discovered my uncle's neighbor owned miniature horses as well. The neighbors name was Sandy and she was kind enough to allow me to visit every summer and take photos of the animals she had at the time. These are some photos from my visits when I was in high school.
Here three babies, a foal and two fillies, had just been born. One of the mothers had Heterochromia, one blue eye and one brown, which she passed on to her baby. I had so much fun visiting these horses, you will photos of them again.
