Music portraiture assignment.

Portrait photography is used in different ways but is mainly used to show what the subject in the image is like , their personality and there mood. This is shown by their facial expressions , clothing and also the background of the image. In portrait photography the image is mainly of their face or there whole body. Normally the subject will also be looking into the camera.
Portrait photography can also been some in groups , for example, family photo’s or a band . Musicians use portrait photography a lot to show fan’s or people who are interested what they are like. These images would be used on CD’s , flyers , posters , advertisement and on magazines.

Lauren Dukoff.

Lauren dukoff was born December 31st 1984 and lives in works in Los Angeles. She is an American based photographer and is very well know in amaerica for her great photography of celebrities. Her photography is mainly portraiture and documentary work of celebrities and musicians.
She studied photography at university but after one year pulled out and her father carried on to teach her about photography. She also had a mentor in music photographer Auturm de wild  that helped her in her career. 
Lauren has photographed many celebrities including Beyonce , Lady Ga Ga , Adele , Justin Bieber , Morrissey , Natalie portman  and the cast of Glee. Her images have appeared as front covers for magazines including Rolling stones. Other images have been used for CD cover , calendars and posters. Lauren's photo's show artist's personality from the clothes that they are wearing and from what they are doing in the image.

From this portrait image it shows that the artist is a drummer from a band but by him covering his face it doesn't show us who he is but he could be trying to say that being a drummer makes you feel hidden. The lighting in this image is quiet bright but it looks like it has been edited in  post production. The lighting used in this image makes the drum kit stand out as the light is reflecting of some of the kit. The target audience for this image would be people that like the band as they would be able to tell who it is even know his face is covered.

In this image of Lady gaga , it show's her in a different way from how everyone normally see her which is  very dressed up in very strange clothing. In this image it makes you feel that she is a shy person under all the strange clothing she normally wear. The lightening in this image is quiet bright but one side of her face is more lit then the other as on her right side of her face there is a shadow. The target audience for this would be for people that like her as they would be interested to see her in a different way as they used to seeing her dress up in strange and bold clothing.

This portrait photo that Lauren has doen of Adele has been used for her latest album 21. From this image we can tell that she is a solo artist as it is just a image of her. From you get a feel of what her music on the album may be like. For example from looking at this i feel that the music is going to be of the soul/ and quite mellow as she looks very relaxed in her photo and this is what i would imagine her audience to feel like when listening to her album.As the image is in black and white it also give off this feeling. The ligthing in this image is mainly on one side as it is creating sa shadow.The lighting makes you focus on her face so that you know who she is.

Mick Rock

Mick Rock is a well known photographer that has pictured a lot of musicians in the 70’s. Mick did photography for many Album covers including David Bowie, Queen , Genesis , Dolly Parton and Iggy Pop. He has also done images that have appeared in magazines and as posters. Recently he has been working with Alicia Keys , Lady gaga , The Killers and Snoop Dogg.
Mick’s work has won a number of awards and he has many exhibitions in the uk and all around the world. Many photographers look at Mick's work so that they can copy his style. From people doing this , this type of photography is now very popular.

This is one of Mick rocks most famous image of Queen as it was in there music video of bohemian rhapsody. this image show everyone that they are a band but it also makes you wonder what the band does as they don't have any of their instruments. The lighting on this photo is good as it only shows there faces so you know who it is and that they are the main focus that we should be looking at.

This is one of my favorite images of mick rocks as it quiet different as you cant see much of the artist but the most important parts stand out. From this image you can tell that the artist plays the guitar and who the person is. These parts stand out as they are in white and they stand out from the black background. This images makes you think as it could be just a studio shoot although it looks like he is at a gig but by us not being able to see the background it makes the audience think he is just at a gig. 

This image of David Bowie show him holding a saxophone. This shows people that he plays this instrument and many people may not know this. From him holding this it tell the audience what type of music that he must play. From looking at this image i get the feel that music is a big part of his life as he looks very serious about what he is doing. I could see this image being used as a album cover as it shows the artist personalty. The lighting in this image is good as there is white light in a small part behind him near where his saxophone is, so it draws you in to that part of him and makes the saxophone stand out.

From this portrait image of Michael Buble we can tell that he is a vocalist and he must enjoy what he does.Although this image is  probably a studio shot , by having the yellow curtain behind him it makes you think that he is on stage and make you thinking that's what he does on stage. The lighting in this image is very bright but i feel this is done to show the genre of the music that he does. 

Planning

My subject that im taking photo's of wants a range of different images that show him in different ways playing the drums. My musician wants some still images of him with the drums and some action photo's.

Photoshoot 1- Studio shoot, with a black backdrop and drum kits infront of it.

26th Decemeber - 11:30am

I will take some action image of him playing the drum's and also some still shot. Want the images of him playing to look as if he is playing at a gig.The lighting in the image will look like a gig . I will have a bit of lighting behind him and to the side of him ,so that the subject and the part of the drum kit is well lit so that its shows what he is playing and so that is the main focus. I want the image to be quiet dark though so that it gives a Rocky feel to it.

For the still shots i want to get him behind parts of drum kit with his drumsticks in his hands.
Once i have taken my photo's my musician wants his name and quote to go with the image, to show what he does.

I think to do a image like this would be good as it shows the musician and with the drum kit in the background.

Here is an example of a type of action shot that i would like to get but mine would have a black background.

This is the layout of the studio when i took the photo's.

 My 3 edited images.

 Evaluation

Before I took my photos of my musicians, I researched into photographers that do music portraiture. When I researched this, I found out that in these images you have to show what the musician is like through what they play, facial expressions and why what they are wearing. When researching I looked at different genres of music so I could tell what they included to show there genre. For example if it is a pop artist it’s normally just there face with bright colours. From looking at Rock there images were normally the musician with their instrument with dark colours or in black and white. After I found out the musician that I was taking photos of was a drummer and played rock music, I researched into photography of drummers. From doing this I got an idea of how to take photos to show what he was like.

When I was in the studio with my musician I made sure that I got a range of different images to choose from when I came to editing them. Throughout the photo shoot I changed the lighting around to give the images a different feel and so I could have different parts of the images as the main focus. For the photo’s my musicians wanted to show that he was a drummer so I made sure that he also had his drum sticks on show in the photo’s. When taking the photo’s I had some of him standing with his sticks in his hands. Once I had got some of these I then started to add parts of the drum kit in to the photo’s to then build up to the whole drum kit. When taking the photo’s we wanted a mix of action and still images.

The first photo that I edited was one of the images of the musician playing the drums. I felt that this was one of my best photos as it shows the artist do what he enjoys most and the lighting show the mood. When I came to editing this image I realised that some of the background other than the drip sheet was in the image. When editing I got rid of this by getting the clone stamp and copying the colour of the background and then colouring over the top of the parts that I didn’t want. I felt that the lighting in the image was good as the light focused on the drum kit and his face the most so it showed the importance of them. When I added text to my image, I got a quote that my musician liked about drumming. For this I wanted to set it out like it was a double page spread of a magazine article. When I added colour to the text I used the same colour of the drum kit, I did this by using the clone stamp again to copy the colour from it.

My second photo that I edited of my musicians was of him standing with parts of his drum kit. I felt that this image was another one of my strong ones. I thought I would try something different with this image so I made the image really dark almost so you couldn’t see his face. I wanted to do this so that it made a mystery feeling and it could show that being a drummer can make you be hidden. When editing my image I changed the brightness and contrast. From doing this it made one side of his face more visible than the other, this also shows the shadows on his face. From this image you can still tell that he is a drummer from having the symbol from the drums in the image. When I added writing to the image I used the same quote that I used in the other photo. I wanted this to look like first page of a magazine article. I made the writing for this part red as I thought that it stood out from the image but still gave a rock feel to the image.

My final image that I edited I felt could of gone a lot better. I felt that I could have experimented a lot more with the editing. Although I didn’t do a lot with the editing, I do like the lighting on this photo as it is focusing on the drum’s and part of his face. From this image it makes you think that he’s in control of the drums as he is standing over them. I have used the colour of the drums for the writing again so that the colours in it could run throughout the image. I took the clone stamp tool to get the colour of the drums to use it for the words.

Overall I am happy with my images as I feel that they do express the way the musician feels about playing the drums. If I was to do this again I would maybe change the angle of some of the photos that I took to give the images a different feel.