Herbert "Herb" Ritts (August 13, 1952 – December 26, 2002) was an American fashion photographer who concentrated on black-and-white photography and portraits in the style of classical Greek sculpture. Consequently some of his more famous pieces are of male and female nudes in what can be called glamour photography.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Ritts photographed notables such as, Christopher Reeve, Michael Jordan, Dalai Lama, Mihail Gorbachev, Francesco Clemente,George Clooney, Cher, Mel Gibson, Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt, Ronald Reagan, Julia Roberts, Steven Hawking, Nicole Kidman, Edward Norton, Tom Cruise,Madonna, Michelle Pfeiffer, Dizzy Gillespie, Elton John, Annette Benning, Antonio Banderas, Richard Gere, Jack Nicholson, Cindy Crawford, and many others
He took many fashion and nude photos of supermodel Cindy Crawford
He also worked for the magazines, Interview, Esquire, Glamour, GQ, Newsweek, Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, Time, Vogue, Allure, Vanity Fair, Details, andElle
Photography Blog
Monday, December 6, 2010
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Yousof Karsh
one of the most famous and accomplished portrait photographers of all time.
He grew up during theArmenian Genocide
Karsh was a master of studio lights. One of Karsh's distinctive practices was lighting the subject's hands separately. He photographed many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation. Throughout most of his career he used the 8×10 bellows Calumet (1997.0319) camera, made circa 1940 in Chicago.
Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant of his portrait. As Karsh wrote of his own work in Karsh Portfolio in 1967, "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize."
He grew up during theArmenian Genocide
Karsh was a master of studio lights. One of Karsh's distinctive practices was lighting the subject's hands separately. He photographed many of the great and celebrated personalities of his generation. Throughout most of his career he used the 8×10 bellows Calumet (1997.0319) camera, made circa 1940 in Chicago.
Karsh had a gift for capturing the essence of his subject in the instant of his portrait. As Karsh wrote of his own work in Karsh Portfolio in 1967, "Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can. The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize."
Monday, November 22, 2010
portraits
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant.
A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.
Second… Notice how the background appears to be darker as the light got to be closer. The reason for this all explained in the “Inverse Square Law”. As the light got closer it became proportionately farther away from the background.
A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer.
Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002)
Yousuf Karsh is considered one of the most famous portrait photographers of all time. The Canadian photographer of Armenian descent is best known for his portrait work of dignitaries, politicians and celebrities. Some of his most famous subjects include:
- Muhammad Ali
- Humphrey Bogart
- Fidel Castro
- Albert Einstein
- Dwight Eisenhower
- Robert Frost
- Clark Gable
- Ernest Hemingway
- Audrey Hepburn
- Pope John Paul II
- Helen Keller
- Grace Kelly
- Jacqueline Kennedy
- John F. Kennedy
- Laurence Olivier
Diane Arbus (1923-1971)
Documenting society's rejects was a passion of American photographer Diane Arbus. She is best known for her portraits of individuals, who lived on the fringes of society, including dwarfs, giants, prostitutes and transvestites. Arbus also won accolades for capturing ordinary people in extraordinary poses and settings. To this day, historians credit Arbus for pushing the boundaries of "tasteful" portrait photography.
Elsa Dorfman
American portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman possesses a skill invaluable to her profession-she can connect with a subject in record time. Dorfman stands out in the world of portrait photography because she uses a 20 by 24-inch Polaroid camera, rather than a sophisticated digital device. Film costs about $50 per exposure, so she limits herself to two exposures per subject. This means that Dorfman must work twice as hard to capture the essence of a subject's expression. Dorfman's artistic success as a portrait photographer has been displayed in major museums around the world.
Portrait Lighting for photography
The three pictures above and beside this, illustrate a couple of interesting details… First, take a look and see how the length of the nose shadow is shortened as the light source seems to wrap around the subject as it gets closer. Yes, I had to adjust the light intensity for this illustration, because as the light got closer, it also became brighter.Second… Notice how the background appears to be darker as the light got to be closer. The reason for this all explained in the “Inverse Square Law”. As the light got closer it became proportionately farther away from the background.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Vocab
Kalliprint
Kallitype printing follows similar procedures and uses many of the same chemicals as Platinum and Palladium Printing. Kallitype is a great process for students and beginners who want to practice their handcoating and printing techniques before moving up to Platinum or Palladium printing. Contains: 25 ml - Silver Nitrate 10% Solution 25 ml - Ferric Oxalate 20% Solution 25 ml - Ammonium Dichromate contrast booster 250 g - EDTA Clearing Agent 250 g - Sodium Thiosulfate fixer 1 Quart - Black tone developer Droppers For Bottles Instructions Van Dyke PhotographyWhat I am going to talk about right now is this tool, this machine that is used to make Polaroid transfers. Now, Polaroid transfer is technically an image that you take and you put onto this Polaroid film. You can actually use Fuji film. Fuji film makes a nice instant pack film now too. You can use either or. They are both just as good as each other. Kind of expensive though. This film roughly costs about $25 a box for 20 sheets. So this process is not one of the cheaper processes. But definitely one of the most fun processes you could possibly do. The idea behind this process and this machine is that essentially you can have a flat color image. You could even have a color digital image that if you make a print out you could put flat on this piece of glass right here. You close this down and in here is where your film goes. This film is very fragile. There is no film in here right now but if there was the pack goes right in like this. Close it, shut it CyanotypeCyanotype is a photographic printing process that gives a cyan-blue print. The process was popular in engineering circles well into the 20th century. The simple and low-cost process enabled them to produce large-scale copies of their work, referred to as blueprints. Two chemicals are used in the process:
Pinhole Camera A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture — effectively a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. The human eye in bright light acts similarly, as do cameras using small apertures. Up to a certain point, the smaller the hole, the sharper the image, but the dimmer the projected image. Optimally, the size of the aperture should be 1/100 or less of the distance between it and the projected image. A pinhole camera's shutter is usually manually operated because of the lengthy exposure times, and consists of a flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Typical exposures range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days. A common use of the pinhole camera is to capture the movement of the sun over a long period of time. This type of photography is called Solargraphy. The image may be projected onto a translucent screen for real-time viewing (popular for observing solar eclipses; see also camera obscura), or can expose film or a charge coupled device (CCD). Pinhole cameras with CCDs are often used for surveillance because they are difficult to detect. Camera Obscura The camera obscura (Latin; "camera" is a "vaulted chamber/room" + "obscura" means "dark"= "darkened chamber/room") is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography. The device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside where it is reproduced, upside-down, but with colour and perspective preserved. The image can be projected onto paper, and can then be traced to produce a highly accurate representation. Using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version (illustrated in the Discovery and Originssection below), it is possible to project a right-side-up image. Another more portable type is a box with an angled mirror projecting onto tracing paper placed on the glass top, the image being upright as viewed from the back. As a pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, but the projected image becomes dimmer. With too small a pinhole the sharpness again becomes worse due to diffraction. Some practical camera obscuras use a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus. (See pinhole camera for construction information.) Sandy SkoglundSandy Skoglund (born September 11, 1946) is an American photographer and installation artist.Skoglund creates surrealist images by building elaborate sets or tableaux, furnishing them with carefully selected small children and other objects, a process of which takes her months to complete. Finally, she photographs the set, complete with actors. The works are characterized by an overwhelming amount of one object and either bright, contrasting colors or a monochromatic color scheme.Skoglund studied both art history and studio art at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1968. In 1967, she studied art history at the Sorbonne and École du Louvre in Paris,France. After graduating from Smith College, she went to graduate school at the University of Iowa in 1969, where she studied filmmaking, multimedia art, and printmaking. In 1971, she earned her Master of Arts and in 1972 a Master of Fine Arts in painting.In 1972, Skoglund began working as a conceptual artist in New York. She became interested in teaching herself photography to document her artistic endeavors, experimenting with themes of repetition. In 1978, she had produced a series of repetitious food item still life images.One of her most-known sculptures, entitled Radioactive Cats, features green-painted clay cats running amok in a gray kitchen. An older man sits in a chair with his back facing the camera while his elderly wife looks into a refrigerator that is the same color as the walls. Another image, Fox Games has a similar feel to Radioactive Cats and is also widely recognized. A third and final oft-recognized piece by her features numerous fish hovering above people in bed late at night and is called Revenge of the Goldfish. The piece was used as cover art for the Inspiral Carpets album of the same name.Skoglund was an art professor at the University of Hartford between 1973 and 1976. She is currently teaching photography and art installation/multimedia at Rutgers University in New Jersey.Skoglund has recently completed a series titled "True Fiction Two". This recent project is similar to the "True Fiction" series that she began in 1986. This series was not completed due to the discontinuation of materials that Skoglund was using. Kodak canceled the production of the dye that Skoglund was using for her prints. Each image in "True Fiction Two" has been meticulously crafted to assimilate the visual and photographic possibilities now available in digital processes.Her works are held in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Dayton Art Institute. William Wegman (b. 1943 in Holyoke, Massachusetts) is an artist best known for creating series of compositions involving dogs, primarily his own Weimaraners in various costumes and poses. |
Friday, October 15, 2010
test
1. The primary purpose of photojournalism, as so-called "non- fiction photography" is..
to get the REAL story2. While the majority of photojournalism work for newspapers, name two other media-related careers regular employing photojournalism.....
a light-proof box with a small hole, light passes thru the hole and projects an image
4. If physics dictates that an image formed on a film from a camera lens or pinhole is upside-down, why do we see the view right-side up in most camera viewfinders?
it is upside down in the camera but the reflected light makes our brain see it up right
5. How is refraction of light different from reflection of light?
6. The focal length of a lens is measured in millimeters from the focal plane, that is, the film, to the center of the lens. (A zoom lens is variable focal length.) Of the choices below, which is considered a “long,” or “telephoto” lens, and which is considered a “short,” or “wide-angle” lens, assuming you’re using a standard 35mm film camera or high-end digital equivalent?
50 mm-normal
135 mm-short
7. Which focal length would a photojournalist likely choose to produce a blurred background, that is, shorter depth of field?
8. What is depth of field?
how far the lens can focus
9. Which focal length, a telephoto or wide angle, would give you the greatest feeling of depth?
wide angle- deep depth of field
10. If you wish to increase depth of field, you could change to a shorter, or wide-angle lens. What’s another way?
11. How are f-stops and shutter speeds related?
f-stops and shutter speeds work together. f-stops are the hole in the lens that let light in, the shutter speeds are how long the light is let in
12. We speak of lens aperture: what is that?
13. Let’s say my light meter showed proper exposure of a scene to be f/2.8 at 1/125 of a second. However, I hope to increase the depth of field. Name a possible f/stop-shutter speed combination that would do that.
the larger the f-stop and the larger depth of field requires more light or a longer shutter speed
14. What would be a drawback of that change?
more light may make the photo hard to see
15. My meter shows a combination of f/5.6 at 1/60 of a second. However, I’m at a basketball game and need to stop action. What combination might a choose allowing me to do that?
16. Which ISO setting would work best taking available light photos in a dim auditorium? ISO 100, 400 or 1000?
1000
17. What is a disadvantage of using the setting you chose above?
17. What is a disadvantage of using the setting you chose above?
too much light distorts the image
18. What is meant by “quality” of light?
19. Why is flash-on-camera considered a poor choice for lighting in most situations?
similar to strobe light. flashing on and off can effect the image
20. If someone asks for high-key lighting, what does he expect to see?
reduction of light ratio in the image
21. If you chose strong side lighting to illuminate a scene, what would you most likely want to emphasize?
the focal point
22. You’re shooting in a living room lit by fluorescent light, using color film/digital setting balanced to daylight. How will this affect your photos?
they will turn out much lighter
23. In photo composition, what is the “Rule of Thirds?”
dividing your image into nine parts the compositional elements should be placed along these lines or intersections
24. Photojournalists sometimes talk about the “poster effect” necessary in their photography. What do they mean? to turn your image into a large poster?
25. Generally you want tight cropping in photojournalism, but name two possible disadvantages of that. 1. you have less to work with 2. your image is smaller
26. You’ve scanned a picture, but it seems not as sharp as it might be in Photoshop. What can you do? the sharpen tool
27. Your photo of your home office comes up with a orangish cast in Photoshop. What can you do? color editing
24. Photojournalists sometimes talk about the “poster effect” necessary in their photography. What do they mean? to turn your image into a large poster?
25. Generally you want tight cropping in photojournalism, but name two possible disadvantages of that. 1. you have less to work with 2. your image is smaller
26. You’ve scanned a picture, but it seems not as sharp as it might be in Photoshop. What can you do? the sharpen tool
27. Your photo of your home office comes up with a orangish cast in Photoshop. What can you do? color editing
28. What is rhythm and repetition, and why is it a goal in photography?
visual patterns. this catches peoples eye
29. In what situation might you choose to use electronic flash as a “fill-in flash?”
30. Photo stories usually revolve around a “news peg.” What does this mean?
a newsworthy event. something culturally known
31. Considering a sunny summer day, what will probably be your worst choice for lighting: morning, noon, or late afternoon?
late afternoon
32. The CMYK system relates to what?
32. The CMYK system relates to what?
color system- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. can produce all colors. used to enhance colors in your image
33. Name two ways you can reduce harsh shadows from a direct electronic flash on camera.
34. When we talk about getting “detail” into a shadow area, what do we mean?
35. What is the difference between high key and low key?
36. In Photoshop, the Curves adjustment panel is used for what? to enhance the lighting in different sections of the image
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Arthur Felig
Arthur Felig:
Pseudonym Weegee
known for his stark black and white street photography
his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death.
He was influential in the development of mug shots.
Pseudonym Weegee
known for his stark black and white street photography
his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death.
He was influential in the development of mug shots.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the "street photography" or "real life reportage" style that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.
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