Project 1. People and Place. Comments on Assignment 1.

Project 1.

Assignment 1. A Comprehensive Portrait.

Response to tutor’s assessment comments.

Dear Tutor,

You want jam on it!

As I said to you before whoever designed this assignment must live in

cloud cuckoo land. After many moons of trying to tempt somebody to pose for me -

particularly when I mentioned that they would need to be committed to five separate

sessions- upsetting the local hairdresser and nearly being charged with accosting

a maiden in the street, Carol, a neighbour, kindly agreed to sit but only for two

sessions. Some years ago she had done a little modelling work so was familiar with

the process.

The camera was mounted on a tripod and activated by a long remote cable

and positioned about nine feet from the subject. This I hoped would take the

camera out the attention of the model and direct the model’s attention

at me as I wandered around outside the critical area making faces at her

as I gave various directions and fired the camera. The backdrop was

about three feet behind the model sufficient to ensure, with the aperture

I was using ,that the creases were not obvious.

Two lenses were used , a medium telephoto set to 110mm - 35mm film

equivalent and a wide angle set to 40mm - 35mm film equivalent.

The lighting setup was a remote flash head with a softbox, triggered

from the camera,and one reflector used on the opposite side of the

face to the flash head.

I managed to generate a relaxed situation firstly by a glass of wine out

of view but within easy reach by Carol. (Unfortunately the bottle is

on display in one of the other shots).

I let Carol pose as she wanted taking shots when I thought it worthwhile

and occasionally directing her to a particular mood. I think the sessions

went well – and we’re still friends! I did not try to cosmeticise – is

that a word – the images, shot both sides of the face but selected those

of the right hand side which shows her aquiline nose to the best advantage.

When taking the full length shots I asked her to uncross her legs which were

extended forward sufficiently to cause distortion of the image.

Her ‘Patience’ mood was a genuine one occurring after she asked me to

‘stop fiddling with the camera’.

I was lucky to have her as a model rather than a wrinkle free youngster.

A portrait is more interesting with a face that has a few years of experience

etched into it.

I agree the natural place for the ‘Tiredness’ one is at the end of the collection

even though I wasn’t trying to link the various moods.