Photo Analysis

Title: Meryl Streep
Artist: Annie Leibovitz
Date: 1981

This image is of Meryl Streep, it is a close up portrait to emphasize her face which uses a short depth of field and lighting that is subtle and soft. The first thing I notice in this image is the models make up and her eyes. Her face has been painted white and her eyes have been made darker in order to draw the viewer in and emphasize her eyes. The next thing I notice is how the model is pulling her face which creates a sense of illusion and also gives the impression it is some kind of visual metaphor. It could represent how the model is adaptable to all the different roles that she plays as an actress. The image could also be telling a story and symbolising the real Meryl Streep as she is pulling the mask away. The background is dark and simple and the models shirt is also plain which makes her stand out more to the viewer as the rest of the image isn't distracting.

Title: Leonardo Dicaprio
Artist: Annie Leibovitz
Date: 21st August 2010

This image is a portrait of Leonardo Dicaprio, the first thing I notice in this image is the model holding a swan which has wrapped its-self round his neck like a scarf. It stands out clearly due to the contrast of colours as the background of the image and the models jumper are very dark compared to the swan. The background is also simple and has a narrow depth of field which doesn't distract the viewer and helps them focus on the swan. You notice straight away that the artist has followed the rule of thirds as the models face and whole body lines up with the intersection points, drawing your attention to the subjects face and eyes. The left side of the image has also intentionally been blurred whereas the right side hasn't in order to draw the viewers attention to the model. Very bright harsher lighting has been used which in turn actually softens the whole image.

Title: Cate Blanchett
Artist: Annie Leibovitz
Date: Unknown

These images are portrait style of Care Blanchett, where the lighting in the image is quite harsh in both images. The first thing that stands out in this image are the two different facial expressions that are being pulled which remind me of the comedy and tragedy masks. The 2 different faces show two different emotions and personalities and symbolises the different roles Cate can play. The background has been kept simple and a broad depth of field has been used so the viewer keeps their focus on the model. The colours in the image are black and white which adds contrast and tones to the image and also give the image a different feel to them, where there is more drama going on compared to if the images were in colour.

Annie Leibovitz

I have looked at many portraiture photographers including Annie Leibovitz, Cecil Beaton, Yousuf Karsh, Eve Arnold and Francesco Scavullo and have decided to use the photographer Annie Leibovitsz as my first influence as I really liked her portraits and I thought they were interesting. I felt that many of her images gave a strong sense of a narrative, expression and portrayed beauty. Annie developed her love for photography in 1967 when she attended San Francisco Art Institute. She is an 65 year old American portrait photographer and she has developed her skills through working for the Rolling Stone magazine when she got the job in the 1970's. Back in the early days before the Rolling Stone the photos she took she describes as "whatever happened, happened" compared to when she was doing the covers for the Rolling Stone she says you have to "sort of set things up" and this is where she started to think about how to take the photographs as her models would ask Leibovitz what exactly she wanted them to do e.g. pose, facial expression. In the 1980's she started to use a new style of lighting and the bold colours and poses the models were doing in her work got her a place with the Vanity Fair magazine. Since the 1990's Annie has been publishing and exhibiting her work. Some cameras that Annie shoots with include Mamiya RZ67 camera, Canon EOS 1Ds mark III camera, Leica S2 camera and many more. She also loves using a darkroom and focuses more on the content of an image she is capturing rather than the tools she is using or how she does it.

How am I going to use Annie Leibovitz as an influence?
I am going to use Annie as my influence simply for looking at portraiture and capturing the beauty in the image however my images are going to be more studio based focusing on just the model with nothing else in the background as if the image was going to be used in a magazine e.g. Vogue.

Thoughts..

Is my work viable?
I think that my work is viable however the current ideas I have are too narrow and do not allow me room to expand my ideas as it only focuses on the facial features and how they are flaws but can be turned into beauty but how they are also beauty within themselves. I have decided I am only going to stick to two themes that contrast each other with are flaws and perfection and use my shoots to show the contrast between them. I need to expand on my main idea and first of all I am going to do this by showing how you can manipulate the body and face in order to make it flawed by using resources and objects. For my first shoot I plan to take some images similar to my initial shots of portraiture but this time I will shoot them in a studio using either a black or white backdrop still focusing on the models face and facial features so I can edit them later on to create perfection.

Edits

Using the the photo editing tool Photoshop, I was able to edit some of my initial shots to form these edits. In order to create the vision of perfection in beauty, I played around with some of the different tools in Photoshop to create different effects to change the models facial features. Here are some of my edits below: 

As you can see from these images I have whitened the models teeth and it has made a big difference as teeth whitening can brighten your teeth and give you more confidence.

It makes the model look as if she is proud to show off her smile as her teeth are more perfect. In order to whiten the teeth I selected the area around the teeth with the lasso tool, chose a hue/saturation adjustment layer and selected yellows from the edit list. Then I decreased the saturation to -100 to remove the yellow from the teeth leaving them whiter. Next I selected master from the edit list and dragged the lightness slider to +25 to brighten the teeth however doing this not only brightened her teeth but also the area around them as this is what I initially selected with my lasso tool. In order to fix this I filled the hue/saturation layer mask with black which makes it look like I have undone all my work (which it hasn't). Finally I selected the brush tool, set white as my foreground colour and painted with white over the teeth to bring the whitening and brightening back. 

I decided not to do too much editing on the images so I could focus on completely editing them for my first shoot. In this image in order to re-touch the whole face and get rid of any spots, freckles and blemishes which are considered imperfections I used the spot healing brush from the toolbox. I set the brush so that is was a small size and used navigator to zoom into the models face so I could really see all the imperfections close up and get rid of them to make the image more perfect. 

Initial Shots

To kick start my photo taking I took some initial shots in order to experiment with portraiture and to see if I liked working with/was any good at portraiture. It was also to see if I thought the idea of incorporating the themes flaws, ideals and perfection would work for me or not in my images. For them, I took a couple of images of my friend focusing on her face and facial features. 

I shot these images in portrait mode using a large aperture which is best for portrait shots. I think the lighting in the image is at the correct exposure and highlights the models face nicely. In order to make these shots better I should have made sure I used a clear backdrop so that the background isn't distracting to the audience so that they focus more on the model however I could crop the images to take out any distractions. The images can be considered as perfection due to natural beauty but also flawed due to the bushier eyebrows, darkness under and around the eyes and lines on the face which is not seen as perfect which can all be neatened up and edited in Photoshop to create the typical version of what perfection is in beauty that is portrayed in magazines in our modern days.

Media Airbrushing

To start off my research I started to look at media airbrushing which is often used in fashion magazines as this post-production technique is often used with software such as Photoshop and others in order to create a more perfect image with portraiture. Airbrushing is where you alter existing photos digitally, touch ups are done which changes the reality of the image. Models are airbrushed to alter their features, acne can be erased, body shapes altered, bigger eyes given which creates a more unrealistic look which is considered to be more desirable. However within this ultra perfection it can also be considered flawed as it is false advertising as this is not what the model actually looks like and it also leads to body dissatisfaction and unhealthy eating in many young girls and women. In the early days of photography until the 1860's hand brushing was a common way of altering photographs. Then in the 1890's the airbrushes were developed led to higher quality images, thus leading to a higher demand of removing imperfections such as moles and scars.

Here is an example of airbrushing below:

In this image they have removed al blemishes, whitened the models face and then darkened her cheeks, made her neck longer, changed the shape of her nose, widened her eyes, elongated her legs and finally made parts of the arms, thighs and hips more smaller and narrower which has instantly made her look younger and like she has lost weight compared to the original image where she looks older, tired and a bit chubby. 

Starting Point

The theme for this years exam paper is flaws, perfection, ideals or compromises. After doing some research on the ideas I could do for my work, as a starting point for my unit 4 photography work I have decided to go with the themes flaws, perfection and ideals. I quite liked the idea of doing portraiture as I have not done so yet across my other units and I thought it would help me widen my skills. Within portraiture I wanted to study beauty and what we consider to be flaws on the skin, a perfect complexion or ideal features as a beginning idea. I have decided not to study compromises as well as I do not have many ideas that I would be able to expand upon. One secondary image that inspired my choice of idea was the photo below by Stanislav Istratov. 

Title: Beauty Portrait Doronina 8161
Artist: Stanislav Istratov
Date: Unknown

In this image the model can be considered perfect because of all of her features, however the image has been edited with a tool such as Photoshop to manipulate the image to create this ideal image. What makes the perfect image is that her eyebrows are a nice shape which suit her face and there are no hairs out of place, the skin as been softened, her lips are big and plump and make up has been used to enhance the model which I find has also been applied symmetrically 
with not too much or too little which has also made her eyes a lot more dominant. Artificial lighting has also been used in the image to highlight certain features and darken the right side of the photo which in turn highlights the rest of the image even more. This image could also be considered flawed due to their being too much make up which is actually morphing what the model actually looks like as some people would consider the natural look to be perfect. It is all down to the individual, what they think about themselves and what they consider to be perfect beauty.