Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012

I visited the National Portrait Gallery recently to see the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait prize.  The standard was excellent once again with some outstanding entries.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 offers a unique opportunity to see sixty portraits by some of the most exciting contemporary photographers from around the world.

The images are drawn from editorial, advertising and fine art.  They explore a range of themes, styles and approaches to the contemporary photographic portrait, from formal commissioned portraits of famous faces to more spontaneous and intimate moments capturing friends and family.

The competition is open to amateurs, students and established professionals.

A selection of the photographs are shown below:

"Mark Rylance" by Spencer Murphy

This portrait is of Mark Rylance, an actor.  Actors make good subjects for portraiture as there is no awkwardness or discomfort in front of the camera.  The purple background in this portrait contrasts well with the subject's green eyes.

"Margarita Teichroeb" by Jordi Ruiz Cirera

The subject of this portrait, Margarita is a Mennonite from a colony in Bolivia.  Photography is forbidden for Mennonites, which explains her awkward expression.  The light from the window provides excellent illumination of the subject.

"Lynne, Brighton" by Jennifer Pattison

The subject of this portrait is a friend of the photographer.  The green background contrasts well with the reddish colouring of the subject.  This is an excellent portrait that captures the subject in a straightforward pose, bare and undaunted, looking straight down the lens and beyond.  The fact that the subject is not wearing any clothes is almost incidental.  The thing that really stands out is the chipped mug.  It catches your eye like the punctum in a photograph described by Roland Barthes.

"The Nine Lives of Ai Weiwei" by Matthew Niederhauser

This portrait is in a way a contextual portrait as the artist is posing outside his studio with one of the many cats that live there.  The blue of Weiwei's shirt blends well with the doors of his studio, with the ginger cat's fur providing a good contrast from the opposite side of the colour wheel.  The portrait was taken while Ai Weiwei was held under virtual house arrest and forbidden to leave China.  The cat has a symbolic presence due to its reputed nine lives echoing Ai Weiwei's many scrapes with the state in China.

Bronze Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts

I recently visited the Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.  The exhibition was an exploration of bronze sculpture's achievements over more than five thousand years and its richness and diversity - historical, geographical and also stylistic.

Bronze is an alloy consisting mainly of copper with lesser amounts of tin.  Unalloyed copper is difficult to cast but the tin content reduces its hardness as well as affecting its colour.  From as early as 3000 BCE copper was also alloyed with lead to facilitate casting by making the molten metal more fluid.  Many brass artworks commonly described as bronze are in fact copper-zinc alloys.

Bronze is uniquely suited to the rendering of varied textures and finishes and to capturing the fall of light.  The material's strength and ductility also permit extraordinary compositional boldness.

The human figure, in action or at rest, nude or draped, is probably the single most popular subject for bronze sculpture, whether monumental statuary or small-scale statuettes.  Examples of small-scale statuary are shown below:

"Buddha Shakyamuni in Abhaya-Mudra", India, Late 6th-century. 68.6cm tall.

"St John the Baptist Preaching to a Levite and a Pharasee" by Giovani Francesco Rustici, 1506-11. 262cm tall.

"Portrait of King Seuthes III" Thracian, 4th-century BCE. 39cm tall.

"Danaide" by Constantin Brancusi, 1918. 28 cm tall.

Man's relationship with the animal kingdom has been a theme for bronze sculpture since ancient times, such as the fantastical stylisation of the Chimaera of Arezzo, shown below.

"Chimaera of Arezzo", Etruscan, c. 400 BCE. 129 cm long.

Animal forms in bronze appear not only as statues in their own right but also as decorative elements such as the menacing insects of Louise Bourgeois.  An example is Spider IV below:

"Spider IV" by Louise Bourgeois, 1996. 203.2 cm across.

Ancient groups of castings such as the Chariot of the Sun, dating from 14th-century BCE and created from bronze and gold leaf demonstrate the sophisticated casting technologies available to early cultures.

"Chariot of the Sun", Trundholm, Seeland, 14th-century BCE. 60 cm long.

Richard Hamilton "The Late Works" at The National Gallery

I recently visited The National Gallery to see an exhibition of Richard Hamilton's paintings and photographs.  The exhibition was entitled "The Late Works".

Richard Hamilton was a leading British artist with a major international following.  He was among the most conceptually rigorous and technically sophisticated of modern painters.

The exhibition looked at works produced primarily in the last decade of his life.  Certain master themes recur.  They include depictions of interiors, often of enormous visual complexity, and the use of linear perspective in their construction; the female nude; allusions to Old Master painting; and Hamilton's ongoing meditation on the art of Marcel Duchamp.  His technical innovations with computer programming inform many of the works.

My favourite images from the exhibition are shown below:

"The Saensbury Wing" (1999-2000) by Richard Hamilton

The picture was painted in 2000 for the exhibition Encounters: New Art from Old.  In a variation on a painting of a church interior by the Dutch 17th-century master Pieter Saenredam, he depicted a female nude wandering alone through the Sainsbury Wing of The National Gallery.

"The Passage of the Angel to the Virgin" (2007) by Richard Hamilton

This is a modern day Annunciation evoking a Renaissance painting Hamilton had copied at The National Gallery more than 60 years before.

Among artists, Hamilton was an early and influential exponent of computers and digital printers.  The mastery that sophisticated digital programs gave Hamilton in the mathematically precise rendering of coherent space and an increasingly subtle and controlled application of colour opened up new possibilities for aesthetic experimentation.  He worked with computer technicians to enter information into a 3D-modelling program.

In recent years traditional designations of media like "oil on canvas" disappeared from his vocabulary to be replaced by such terms as "oil on Fuji/Oce LightJet on canvas".  Nonetheless, Hamilton always referred to his practice as painting.

"Hotel du Rhone" (2005) by Richard Hamilton

Hotel du Rhone shows a lobby being cleaned by a (naked) chambermaid.  Hanging on the wall behind her is one of his earlier paintings, "Lobby".  Hamilton was fascinated with how Renaissance artists of the 15th-century used the laws of one-point linear perspective to construct the illusion of three-dimensional space on two-dimensional canvases.

"Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) by Marcel Duchamp

The presence of Marcel Duchamp is often apparent in Hamilton's late paintings as in "Descending Nude" below, which evokes Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) above.  Duchamp's painting portrays continuous movement through a chain of overlapping cubistic figures.

"Descending Nude" (2006) by Richard Hamilton

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 23: Selective Processing & Prominence

Project 23: Selective processing and prominence

In this project I took an image that I had used in project 19.  The image is of a small figure in a red coat set against dramatic sea cliffs.  The figure is just visible in the photograph.

In this project I processed the original image into two new images.  In the first image I sought to make the figure lest prominent so that it recedes into the setting.  In the second the objective was to do the opposite and make the figure stand out more.

The original image and the two new versions are shown below:

Original image.

Figure less prominent.

In order to make the figure less prominent in this image, I selected the red parts and the face of the figure and desaturated them.  The lack of colour in these parts of the figure has resulted in it receding into the setting.

Figure more prominent.

In order to make the figure stand out more in this image, I selected everything except for the figure.  I then desaturate the selected area.  This left the figure as the only coloured part of the photograph.  This technique is a form of "colour popping", which is sometimes used to create impact in a photograph, (although to be really effective the coloured area would need to be alot larger in relationship to the setting).

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 22: Adjusting the Balance Between Person & Space

Project 22: Adjusting the balance between person and space.


In this project I drew on my photography so far in the course and on the techniques learned, to vary the balance in any one picture situation.  I created two images, using the same general viewpoint and composition, varying the balance of attention between the person and the setting they were in.

The images created are shown below:

3053

3054

These two images were taken from almost the same position.  The first image gives the person more prominence compared to the building.  The second image in contrast gives more prominence to the building.  In each of the photographs the person is facing away from the camera.  This has altered the relationship between the person and the rest of the image.

Balancing the attention between figure and setting involves deciding on both relative size and placement.

In the first image the person has greater visual weight and commands more attention in the frame than the building.  In the second image the stress is laid on the building.

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 21: Making Figures Anonymous

Project 21: Making figures anonymous

In this project the intention was to discover ways of including a person or people in a photograph of a place, while deliberately making them unrecognisable and as a result less prominent.  A successful image will be one that is primarily about the place, but in which one or more figures play a subsidiary role to show scale and give life and to show that it is in use.

Among the common ways of achieving this while shooting are the following:

• Small and many - A crowd of people naturally have a certain dominance because of their numbers, but individually they command less attention.
• Facing away - The human face is such a powerful visual attractant that simply by photographing someone from behind or with their head turned away from the camera alters their relationship to the rest of the image.
• In silhouette - Shooting from darkness towards a bright background communicates "person" but rarely "personality".
• Partly obscured - Figures and faces even partly hidden behind some other object are automatically reduced in visual importance.
• Motion blur - Useful if slightly mannered technique when you have a tripod and the light is sufficiently dim to use a slow exposure.  Needs experience to judge the effect of length of exposure on the appearance of a moving figure.  Light figure against dark background is always more noticeable than dark figure against light background.
• Small human against a dominant location - Extreme size relationship is key.  Figure must have sufficient contrast against the setting to be noticed.  Typically, contrast is in the form of colour difference or tonal difference, (dark against light or vice verse).  Abandon identity.  More likely to give a general description based on clothes and action, e.g. a farmer among fields, a worker in a large factory space, or a climber and mountainside.

 The images produced for this project are shown below:

124809; "Small human against a dominant location".

12848; "Facing away".

3044; "Motion blur".

163043; "Small and many".

When the place is the principal subject, but when it will look better inhabited, it is often useful to find ways of reducing the visual attention that a person or a face tends to command.  There are a number of useful visual techniques that allow the photographer to achieve this objective.

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 20: Busy Traffic

Project 20: Busy Traffic

For this project I chose a busy location, The National Gallery in London on a Friday afternoon.  I was lucky enough to get a seat opposite this popular painting - "The Toilet of Venus" by Diego Velazquez.  I spent a long time watching the ebb and flow of the crowd around this painting.  Sometimes there were few people and at other times there were many.  The crowd seemed to move in waves.  There always seemed to be some people who were stationary, looking at the painting and others who were hurrying on to see other works.  I had in mind the work of Thomas Struth when carrying out this project, especially his work in the public art galleries.

My aim was to show the busyness of the location.  I kept the exposure relatively slow to create some blur.

The resulting photograph is shown below:

3050

The problem with shooting people in a gallery such as The National Gallery is that photography is not normally allowed, as an official gently reminded me.

The essential things to bear in mind when attempting to show busyness are:

• Choose a busy location and find a viewpoint that will give you a satisfying composition as well as a good sense of the nature and function of the space.
• Spend some time watching how the flow of people works - the patterns they make, any surges or lulls in movement and numbers and how this can contribute to the composition of the shot.
• The inclusion of some blur can add to the feeling of business of the location.

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 19: A Single Figure Small

Project 19: A Single Figure Small

For this project I looked for a location that was for the most part free of people, yet with and occasional figure within the frame.  I wanted the figure to be noticeable but only just.  This would give some delayed reaction so as to add to the interest of the photo.  There is also an element of surprise.  I tried to make the figure big enough in the frame so that it is not lost and the viewer fails to notice it.  I chose to place a small human being against a dominant location.

The resulting image is shown below:

Cliff Reflections

The important aspects of this type of image are:

• The figure should be visible to the viewer's eye.  The point of this style of image is lost if the viewer fails to notice the figure.
• Some delayed reaction adds to the interest of looking at this kind of image and there is an element of surprise if the scale of the place is larger than expected.
• If possible place the figure off-centre as this gives a more dynamic composition.
• If the figure is walking, consider placing it off-centre so that it walks into the frame.
• The figure must have sufficient contrast against the setting to be noticed.

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 17: The User's Point of View

Project 17: The user's point of view.

For this project I chose 3 buildings or spaces designed for a particular activity that is undertaken from a specific, distinctive position.  I took a photograph of each location in order to capture the user's point of view.

The images created are shown below:

2589; Fish Restaurant, Whitstable, Kent.

This photograph was taken inside a fish restaurant housed in an old oyster processing factory on the beach at Whitstable.  The building has large windows that allow the excellent light from the sea to flood in to the space.  The building has a number of rooms with interconnecting doors and windows.  These openings give the diner an interesting view into the other spaces in the building.

2836; View From a Church Pew.

This photograph was taken from a church pew, a few rows back from the front.  The lighting in church was challenging due to the speaker being positioned in front of a large stained glass window.  It was not appropriate to use a flash on the camera.  The image captures the point of view of a member of the congregation.

2285; Street Cafe, Lisbon.

The view from an outside seat at a cafe in the main square in Lisbon captures the feeling of what it is like to sit and watch the world go by on a sunny day.

Photography 1: P & P, Proj 18: How Space Changes With Light

Project 18: How space changes with light.

For this exercise I visited a place at different times in different weather conditions to see the effect of light on the space.  Changes in the sun's position and in the weather can alter an image greatly.

I visited the same place three times in different weather conditions and photographed the space from the same position each time.  The resulting photographs are shown below:

2565; Bright White Cloud.

The weather conditions in this photo were bright, white cloud.  There is good, even lighting with few harsh shadows.  There is excellent saturation of the colours in the image.

2570; Bright sun.

There was bright sun when I took this photo.  The resulting harsh lighting has produced dark shadows.  Reflection of the sunlight from the leaves of the plants has resulted in a lower saturation of colour.

2573; Overcast, Showery Weather.

Here overcast and showery weather has provided dull, flat light with little contrast.  The colours of the foliage are unsaturated.

Conclusion

The difference in the lighting in the three images here has produced a totally different feel.  The first image was photographed under overcast conditions, creating soft, diffused light.  The colours of the leaves are more saturated and more delicate detail can be seen.  The second image was taken under direct sunlight, producing more contrast.

Photography 1: People and Place Assignment 3 (Rev)

Assignment 3: Buildings in Use Revised

Original version can be found at 05/10/2012

For this assignment I chose 6 public buildings or spaces.  I researched each of the locations so that I had a good understanding of how and why each was designed in the way it was.  I then attempted to create images of each building or space that would describe the way in which the spaces were used.  This then enabled me to form an opinion on each as a usable space.

Oriel y Parc Gallery and Visitor Centre, St David’s

2527: Cafe at Oriel y Parc, St David's.

This building is used as a visitor centre, art gallery, studio for the Artist in Residence, discovery room for family friendly art and nature activities and a café.

The building is designed to sit discreetly in the landscape and uses state of the art green technologies.  It contributes to the landscape in a positive way.  One of the principle materials in the structure is Welsh oak from sustainable sources.  The orientation of the building provides bright open spaces to achieve a useful space for both creating and presenting artwork.  The curve of the building is aligned so that the sun tracks around it from sunrise to sunset.

2530: Visitor Centre at Oriel y Parc, St David's.

 This building is successful in providing a welcoming and functional community space.

I initially set about photographing the outside of the building.  However as the internal spaces are so light and show the use of the building to best effect I chose to mostly photograph them.  These images show the useful spaces within the building.

2549: Exhibition Tower.

2551: Artist in Residence Studio.

I have revised this image by cropping our the large empty space to the left of the frame.  This serves to concentrate the viewer's attention onto the fish and the process involved in creating the artwork.

 Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

2592: Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

The Wales Millennium Centre is an arts centre located in the Bay area of Cardiff.  The industrial heritage of Cardiff is reflected through the design and materials used.  The building provides one large theatre and two small halls with shops, bars and restaurants.  The shape of the imposing front, or dome of the building is in the shape of an “inverted necklace”.  The Welsh and English poetry on the front of the building each has its own message.  The lettering is formed by windows in the upstairs bar areas and are internally illuminated at night.  The idea of this monumental inscription comes from Roman classical architecture.

2593: Wales Millennium Centre Ticket Office.

I have revised this image by cropping it top and bottom to emphasise the width of the foyer.

The design of the concourse galleries is intended to evoke the image of the edge of the forest, because the edge of the forest in folklore and mythology represents a line between the real world and the magical world.  The form of trees is created by the interweaving curvature of the gallery edges and by the random positioning of the supporting columns.  The design of the building provides a large, open indoor space for community activities.

2596: Wales Millennium Centre Concourse Galleries.

The building is a successful and popular meeting place for the people of Cardiff.  Inside there is a bustling atmosphere with free daily foyer performances plus bars and restaurants.

The building is impressive both inside and outside.  I set about photographing the interior so as to portray the human interaction with the space that the building provides.  I photographed the impressive dome during the day and at night to show the iconic stature of the building.

2625: Wales Millennium Centre at Night.

 Craft in the Bay, Cardiff

2707: Craft in the Bay Interior

This Victorian dockside building is now used as an art and craft gallery.  It has been created from a refurbished “D” shed.  It is a grade II listed maritime warehouse with a wooden extension.  The building was designed with a large uninterrupted interior, which is ideal for the use to which it has been put.  The gallery displays fine contemporary craftwork.

2709: Craft in the Bay Interior

The building occupies the “Flourish”, a triangular shaped space at the confluence of three main routes in Cardiff Bay.

2711: Craft in the Bay

I set about photographing the building mainly from the inside so as to give the impression of the light, open space that it provides to people viewing the exhibits.

2713: Craft in the Bay, Cardiff.

The Senedd Building, Cardiff

2608: The Senedd Building, Cardiff.

This is the main public building of the National Assembly for Wales.  It is built from traditional Welsh materials such as slate and Welsh Oak.  The building occupies a prime position on the waterfront in Cardiff Bay.  It has been designed to generate a sense of open government and public accessibility.  The public are free to enter the building and watch the proceedings from the public gallery.  The design makes good use of the waterside frontage.

2642: View From the Public Gallery of the Senedd.

2647: Interior of the Senedd Foyer.

When in the foyer of the building you are inside but the focus is outside.  Seasonal changes activate the space.

The building is successful in creating a connection to the adjacent landscape and community.

2651: Roof of the Senedd Interior.

I set about photographing both the inside and outside of the building and attempted to show the effect of natural light on the space.  I wanted to portray the building’s effect on people through its light, space and materiality.

The Arcades of Cardiff

2676: High Street Arcade.

The Victorian and Edwardian pedestrian arcades of the city of Cardiff are the reason for the city being called “the city of arcades”.  The arcades were originally built to protect shoppers from the elements, especially in winter.  The shops in the arcades are all independently owned and provide a welcome change to the uniformity of modern shopping centres.  Some of them have been designed with multiple floors.  For example, Castle Arcade has three storeys.  This maximises the space for shops and shopping.

2685: Royal Arcade.

The design of the arcades successfully creates an intimate village appeal with interesting pedestrianised street-scapes.  The spaces created are on a more human scale than modern shopping malls.

I set out to photograph the arcades early in the morning so that the large numbers of shoppers usually present didn’t obscure the layout of the spaces.

2688: Morgan Arcade.

2695: Castle Arcade.

St David’s 2 Shopping Centre, Cardiff

The St David’s 2 Shopping Centre has been designed to reflect Cardiff’s unique arcade shopping experience.  The 240 meter long Grand Arcade is the centre piece of the shopping centre and creates an atmosphere that is both uplifting and inspiring.  It creates an almost contemporary cathedral like quality.

2661: Grand Arcade.

The design successfully creates a sense of space through the use of natural stone, light coloured timbers, reflected light and other natural materials.  From the upper floors there is the sensation of the body moving through space.

2662: St David's 2 Shopping Centre.

The internal spaces successfully maintain contact with other, older parts of the city through the use of natural light and large, floor-to-ceiling windows giving views of the surrounding traditional buildings.

2668: View From the St David's 2 Shopping Centre.

I set about photographing the arcades and “streets” of the shopping centre early in the morning with overcast weather.  This gave inside and outside lighting in reasonable balance without too much contrast between the two.

2672: Exterior of St David's 2 Shopping Centre.

The new building is of a similar scale to the existing architecture of the city.  This helps people to relate to the building in a positive way.

In this revised image I have cropped out some of the foreground as it is featureless.  I have also corrected the converging verticals.

What have I learned photographically during the course of shooting this assignment?

Early morning or late afternoons are the best times to photograph buildings and spaces.  The light is coming from the side rather than directly overhead.  The direction of the sunlight is vitally important to the photograph.  There are usually fewer people around.

When shooting a building, ask yourself what it is about this particular building that makes it attractive and focus on that.  Sometimes this will mean framing the whole building, sometimes it will mean picking out details and sometimes a mixture of both will work well.

Choose your viewpoint carefully and watch out for clutter in the background.

When photographing a building It is best to include some of the surrounding space to give the context.  This helps to anchor the image.

When wishing to show details in buildings, a high overcast day is best.

For glass walled buildings, when photographed in natural light, even or overcast light is best.

Generally a large depth of field and a low ISO, for lower noise is best.  The viewer should have the choice to look at any part of the structure and find it in adequately sharp focus.  This however requires the use of a tripod, which is not always practical at busy times.

For capturing the sweep of a courtyard or exaggerating the lines of a modern building, wide-angle lenses are useful.  For showing a building and its environment in natural perspective a 50mm lens is best.  A telephoto lens of at least 200mm is the most appropriate lens for compressing perspective and isolating inaccessible details.