Artist Research- Stephen H Smith
I looked at the work of Stephen H Smith due to the fact that within this project called Strangers in a Strange Land, he purely photographs people he doesn’t know which relates to the task we were set. In terms of the deeper concept behind his images he focuses on people that have been discriminated against due to their sexuality, religion or beliefs. When it comes to the location of where the images are taken, there is no specific set location he just photographs the people where he meets them. However he uses a wide lens with a shallow aperture so the pure focus is on the subjects rather than the whole environment. The shallow aperture creates an aesthetically pleasing image and complements the natural soft ambient lighting.
My Portrait-
Here I have taken a classic portrait of a stranger I met in the street. The subject looked like she was waiting for someone in the street so I approached her and asked if she wouldn’t mind me taking her picture as she was stood in one spot. I decided to take a mid shot as I wanted the image to have a shallow depth of field so the focus was purely on the subject, I had the aperture set to f/5.6. The first picture is the original image and the second image is what the image looked like after post production editing in Lightroom, to make the image look less flat I edited the levels, slightly increasing the highlights and shadows in order to give it more depth.
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