Location Portraiture - Work Diary

For my location portraiture shoot, I decided I wanted to go to the edge of my town, as this area had some trees as well as some more urban views. I went out with a tripod, which I picked up as I wanted to make sure that there was minimal camera shake, especially if I decided to go lower than the 1/125 exposure that I had started the shoot on.

 

 This is an image from my shoot that I feel went well. I decide to frame this shot from the knees up, as I wanted to display plenty of the background behind him, particularly the tree he's standing in front of. With this photo, I told my subject to stand in front of the tree but I didn't direct him of what to do, therefore what I capture was just his reactions to the environment. I specifically liked this photo because he wasn't looking at the camera, instead looking at something in the distance. This could suggest that he's not interested in the photoshoot, and that perhaps there is something happening in the distance that is interesting. I like the use of colour in this image too, as there is a large range displayed; there are some very vibrant and saturated shades of green on the leaves, as well as the muted shade of blue on his shirt, and the muted browns of the autumn leaves.

This image is my least favourite of my location portraiture straight images. Unlike the previous image, I decided to frame this one as a full body shot. What I disliked about this image is that the tripod was not levelled out, meaning the image is slightly canted to the right. While canted shots can be effective, I felt that for the style of image I was trying to achieve, it wasn't. I also noticed after taking this shot that it was overexposed, most likely due to me shooting on a shutter speed of 1/30 in fairly bright conditions. I tried to fix this in photoshop after the shoot, and managed to reduce some of the exposure, however it is still clear that the original image was over exposed when shot, as the sky is still white, whereas it should have been blue. The other problem I had with this image is that my intention with the bus in the background was to take the photo using a slow shutter speed in order to blur the bus, yet the camera was on a tripod so that my subject wouldn't be blurred. However, my shutter speed was not slow enough, as the bus appears to not be in motion.

This is something I am unlikely to incorporate into my project, as I am unlikely to be taking photos of people, with my topic being urbanisation. Although I may use a small amount of human subjects for my photos, I will be using techniques such as slow sync and multiple flash to capture them.

Location Portraiture - Definition

Location portraiture is a type of portrait photography that takes place on location somewhere in the outside world rather than the typical studio environment in which a portrait is taken. Many Location Portrait photographers such as Alec Soth use it as a means of telling stories of an individual, meaning they often fit into the category of documentary photography.

Location portraiture - Image Bank

 Unknown

Phillip Halsman

Antonin Kratochvil

Unkown

Niel Van Niekerk

Location Portraiture - Straight Images

Location Portraiture - Technique

When taking a location portrait, there are certain pieces of equipment and techniques to use. You will need to use tripod when taking the photo, as you want your camera to as stable as possible. You are going to be using a very fast shutter speed, maybe around 1/200 of a second. In order for the subject of the photo to stand out, you will need to make sure that you focus upon them sharply and shoot on an aperture of f5.6, which will create a narrow depth of field in which the foreground will be sharply in focus and the background will be completely out of focus.