PORTFOLIO FORMAL ELEMENTS

PORTFOLIO: FORMAL ELEMENTS

Origin

Early 18th century: from Italian portafogli, from portare ‘carry’ + foglio ‘leaf’ (from Latin folium).

 A set of pieces of creative work intended to demonstrate a person's ability to a potential employer.

Camera Settings

Composition

Why does the rule of thirds work.

The rule of thirds makes use of a natural tendency of the human eye to be more strongly drawn towards certain parts of an image.

The rule of thirds is applied by aligning a subject with the guide lines and their intersection points, placing the horizon on the top or bottom line, or allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section.

Here are some examples that I believe conform to the rule of thirds.

Negative Space

International Standards Organisation

The main ISO's are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600








The main apertures are F2, F4, F8, F16








1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1", 2", 4", 8", 15", 30"

Form

–Definition and Theory 

Form is a three dimensional shape e.g. a cube.

Sculpture and 3D design are about creating forms.

In 2D artworks, tone and perspective can be used to create an illusion of form.

What we see in the image is just a basic pepper taken in black and white film. It looks almost human, muscular, like a body builder tensing. The photo doesn't look like what it is. 

Upon initial inspection, you can see a pyramid of flowers but after further scan, the shadowed side is made up of what looks to be dead or dying flowers. 

–Photographer Research
Irving Penn was an American photographer, known for his fashion photography, still lifes and portraits. During his career he worked at Vogue and then he went on to do independent advertisement work and his images to influence the art of photography to this day.






Like photographers Brandt and Western that I have seen before, Penn chooses to shoot in black and white to further distort his images. He seems to have a heavy focus on distorting the form of the human face using hands as the tools to mold it. I will try and incorporate this style into my work.

–Image Bank

–Contact Sheet


–My Best Images


–Images That Require Improvement

Tone

TONE
THEORY AND DEFINITION

Tone can mean two separate things in photography. 

1. The overall lightness or darkness of an area of an image.
2. The colour of all or part of the image, usually in relation to its warmth or coolness.

Without form, tone does not exist which makes it an essential part visualising a 3D object. 

Tone can be categorised in ways as shown in the sphere diagram. 

THE ZONE SYSTEM

Ansel Adams developed the 'zone system' as a way of finding the correct exposure.

 

Zone 10 is pure white, also containing no detail. Zone 5 is mid grey. When using a light meter, either external or in-camera the meter will always expose for Zone 5, whether this will give you the best image or not.

Firstly we must understand how a light meter or in-camera light sensor works. A light meter will always expose for zone 5-mid grey, meaning that if you point your camera into a dark bin, on auto exposure, a grey image will be produced. Similarly if you point a camera at some bright white snow on auto, the camera will give a grey toned snow.

The image of Damion Auburn has the light coming from just above the forehead as that is where the whitest tone of light is recorded. The tones of the image are quite harsh and show the darker tones of Ansel Adams zone system, this creates this very masculine image as it defines the features of the face, the muscles, the jaw structure which give off this impression of strength which are very masculine stereotypes. Direct lighting leads to these dark pools of shadows which can be seen in the image, just above the eyes and around the cheeks. 

The use of diffuse lighting, light coming from several directions, hides the wrinkles as the face is mostly light zones to make her seem like a piece of art to show off her beauty which is a very feminine theme. 

Black and White Photography

• In the absence of colour our ability to create a narrative (story) in image is restricted

•This is viewed as an advantage to practitioners of Black and white photography

•Particular attention is given to ensure a wide range of tones are used

•This is evident in the work of Pictorialist photographers such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams

Pictorialist photographers, those who believe pictures should look like art. 

–Photographer Research 



–Image Bank



–Contact Sheet



–My Best Images



–Images That Need Improvement