Now don't worry if the title sounds a little dry – I'll avoid boring technical detail in my study of these two very different portraiture sessions and speak in more general terms about the elements of a portraiture session that are not pictured. Discussing lighting setups and other such preparation has not only been covered in previous posts, it's also not very interesting. Even to me. Basically, I'm using this idea to tie together some recent work I've undertaken and look at portraits at a more interesting level, instead of just making it a post about what I've done recently. If I did that, I might as well tell you what I had for breakfast today. For those who care, I had two slices of toast with cheese, tomato and rocket (aka middle-class lettuce) and a cup of coffee.
Yes, I need to go food shopping.
The majority of my work has been portraiture based recently. Some of it I am not able to show you as of yet (two sessions to be published in Issue 100 of GamesTM in September) but I will look at two other sessions and compare them. I've picked these two because they're about as polarised as they could be in every way possible. I'm essentially looking to celebrate the wonderful, fascinatingly diverse experiences you can have when photographing people.
First, let's look at a recent portraiture session I undertook for Web Designer Magazine. Every month, the magazine interviews a design studio, going "behind the scenes" to show the reader how the top studios operate on a day to day basis, and who is behind the final output consumed by the public. This shoot was of a London-based high flying design company called Unit9. If you're into that sort of thing, the stuff they do is very varied and interesting, as well as super slick. Take a look here – www.unit9.com
In terms of timescale and approach, this proved to be quite different to other shoots I have previously undertaken. There were 11 people to shoot in a fairly short space of time. I was shooting on location, so arriving an hour ahead of time allowed me to identify useable locations and lighting setups, as well as get a few interior and exterior shots of the office itself.
So the order of the day would be quickfire yet characterful portraits. Many of the people I would be shooting were classed as "Interactive Directors", people who direct other people to be creative, basically. To keep things moving along nicely, we picked one, plain, high-key background for the majority of the shots and used the metaphor of an ID being like a football manager and got everyone gesturing off camera to an imaginary team of players.
Seeing as I was working with creative types who weren't all necessarily comfortable in front of the lens, this gave them something to go off and act with. Interestingly, this approach helped bring out the character of each person in just a couple of minutes – some people were more excited by the idea, others needed more persuasion. Some people were fine with doing a spot of acting, others were less comfortable and dealt with that in different ways. As a result, you can see individual character in the end result and immediately get a sense of what that person is like.
A little tip for you when on location – it's always good to grab yourself an impromptu assistant where possible. This gives your portraiture subjects a familiar face to relate to, as well as help you get images that are as relevant as possible to the individual and their work. I don't claim to be an expert on what the good people at Unit9 do on a daily basis, so having someone from Unit9 help out on this occasion was invaluable. On this note, I'd like to say thank you very, very much to Alex. You helped me out a metric ton - good man.
Tip number two – if you're also planning on doing straighter headshots, it can be beneficial to do these after the initial themed portrait. This helps whoever you're shooting to relax after having a bit of a chuckle about the posed shots and giving them time to relax in your company (as best as they can in a 5 minute slot, anyway). With each person, after having some fun with their themed shot, I immediately asked for a more standard portrait, with no direction as to how to pose. Again, this is intended to ensure the character of the individual shines through.
Right, here's where it gets picture-heavy...(click for large, as usual)
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| Anrick |
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| Fredrick |
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| Martin |
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| Robert |
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| Simone |
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| Kishi |
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| Tom |
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| Tony |
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| Valentina |
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| Yates |
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| MD of Unit9, Piero Frescobaldi |
I had a great time on this shoot. It was exciting to plough through 11 different portraits in roughly an hour, as I was treated to 11 very different personalities and challenged with the task of finding out very quickly what made them tick. I also shot everything in high key, for the first time in a very long time. I felt it would evoke the feeling of clean, elegant, crisp design, which is what the company is all about.
Righto, it's time to set your sails for opposite land as I delve into a more personal project – wrestling promotional images. These shoots differed in almost every way conceivable to the Unit9 shoot. They were taken at my home studio as opposed to on location, used studio lighting as opposed to a flashgun, reflector and window light; I spent a good, long time with each individual as opposed to a quickfire 5-10 minutes, I've built up friendships with these people as opposed to shooting people I've never met before, the subjects were putting on a personality that wasn't theirs, as opposed to trying to show the true personality of the person being photographed (to an extent) and finally, the lighting was dramatic and low-key.
Now, I won't go into the subject of wrestling in too much detail because, again, if you're not into it, you won't find the finer details particularly interesting, so I'll keep it short. Basically, in a promotional picture, a wrestler has to look like a wrestler. They have to look like superheroes (or indeed supervillains), especially if you're selling this character to an audience. Problems like incorrect exposure and poorly positioned lighting where you can see the background curtain don't make your wrestler look like a superhero; they end up looking like, well, someone in their underpants stood next to a curtain. Kids aren't stupid and there's a reason you can't see the studio floor and curtains in an action film poster.
First up, we have Wolf Alexander. Now I won't tell you whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. If you can't tell, please let me know and, after giving you a brief psychological examination, I will never take another photograph ever again.
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| Tag team shot with Chris Lehr |
This guy is all about intensity and, essentially, frightening the children. I don't know about you, but some of these images scare the hell out of me and I created them. This is the advantage of spending large amounts of time with one person – you start with some preliminary shots, get the feeling and lighting right, allow the subject to relax into the shoot and, most importantly, connect with that person. My ideal shoot is one where we spend a good half an hour or more chatting over a coffee first, followed by taking time over the shoot itself, chatting to your subject while you adjust lighting setups, add props, etc, generally making it feel as informal as possible. That way, when you want something less literal and less poseable out of that person, they are able to respond more effectively and give you what you are after.
In order to expand on what I mean by that, let me throw you another little portraiture tip – portraiture is as much about your subject knowing you as it is about you knowing your subject. If your subject knows who you are and likes you, they will know what you want and will be happy to comply.
This brings me to my second wrestling promo shoot. Interestingly, despite this shoot still falling under the somewhat ridiculously niche category of "pro wrestling promo portrait", the desired outcome was very different to Wolf's photoshoot. Essentially, if you're taking shots of a bad guy, you have a much easier time and a lot more to work with, especially when it comes to bringing character out of the subject. When it comes to good guys, the danger is making them look bland; "good guy" (or girl in this case) doesn't have to mean nice and boring.
Rhia usually wrestles under the moniker of Rhia O' Reilly, with a sort of Irish good-time girl feel to her character. My intention with Rhia's shoot, however, was to give her a bit more range in her portfolio, so she could wrestle as more than one character.
With her O'Reilly image, I wanted to get across that sense of fun and celebration, which led us to this:
(I can't actually look at this picture without getting "Fiesta" by The Pogues in my head).
This was a good starting, "icebreaker" image to work with to lead us into the more challenging images I was looking to produce of Rhia. A lot of female wrestling photography goes down the line of good girl = "assets" on display, generally over-sexualised. Bad girl = "assets" hidden, angry / sour face. It's a fairly sexist, male oriented approach that doesn't sit well with me, because there are female wrestlers out there, Rhia being a fine example, who have bags of personality, can wrestle and are interesting, entertaining and attractive without having to, for want of a better phrase, put everything on show, or pose like they're auditioning for a lad's mag.
So the watch phrase for this part of the shoot was "strong and beautiful", without resorting to too much flesh or over-sexualising the image. I came up with a variety of shots in the end but let me share my two favourites with you.
What I like about these images is that I've worked with a common attitude / theme of 'determination'. I feel this is a good theme to work with for a fan favourite character without having to make them smile or look silly or goofy. Again, this was a closed set of sorts, with just Rhia and myself, and this gave me time to chat with her, take things slowly, and really get across to her what I wanted from the pictures and what image I wanted to give her (and of course to make sure she was on board with the idea).
To her credit, she performed fantastically, and the reason these images came out so well is because she has the character, charisma and intelligence to pull them off, and I can't wait to work with her again in the future.
Apologies again for the ludicrous length of this blog. I'm a bit of a binge blogger – I do nothing for a month or so then have one massive blogging session, leaving me feeling somewhat dazed and confused. I think it's time to close up with as succinct a paragraph as my writing style will allow.
The most exciting thing I've learnt here is that both of these sessions, at the heart of it, are classed as portraiture sessions, despite differing in almost every way. This shows how broad in scope the subject of portraiture is, and how you only have to change, at most, two elements of how a session is approached and the outcome can be astonishingly different. I mention this with the intention of helping you see what I see when it comes to portraiture. It makes me very, very happy indeed to say with confidence that I will never experience every possible permutation of portraiture because, at the heart of it, portraiture is as different from image to image as people are different from person to person.
That's your lot for now. On a side note, I was elated to hear that BBC 6music has been saved from being cut by the BBC. It's a triumph for the celebration of creativity and diversity. From the perspective of a music fan and a photographer - may those principles live on.
For more images and info, be sure to visit www.garethdutton.com
