Exercise 1: Portrait - scale and setting

This first exercise in Part One (People aware) aims to produce four shots for a portrait in different scale.

One element of the project that I decided to change was the use of a tripod.
I decided not to use it because I find that the quality of the photos was satisfying and the absence of a tripod could give me more freedom of movement in the search of interesting perspectives.

Another consideration was whether to create colour or black and white images.
I love highly saturated bold coloured images, but equally like a well composed black and white image.
As life is in technicolor, I went for it! And I also think that colour fits more to the subject I chose.
In fact, for this exercise I decided to take my younger son Matteo.

1. Extreme close up.

f 2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 100, 63 mm

I chose this shot for the "extreme close up" because I think it is very well representative of Matteo's way of being.
It is not a specially beautiful photo, without a real interesting narrative, but I like very much the light in his eyes, the cunning smile and the charming dimple.
After all, I am not only the photographer, but also his father and I understand I could not be objective in my judgement!

2. Head and shoulders.

f 2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO 1000, 26 mm

What a kind of mystic look!
I like the admiring look, the red background, the crop with the subject looking out of the frame in a sort of enraptured way.
Technically, the photo suffers of a rather large spot which is burned.
However, in my opinion, it is exactly this issue that gives to the shot its interesting narrative.
 

f 2.8, 1/60 sec, ISO 100, 70 mm

I wanted to keep also this second shot for the exercise because I believe it is more a "standard" photo compared to the previous one. A sort of more serious way to interpret the given brief.

Again the shot is very much representative of the active character of my child.

3. Torso. 

f 3.5, 1/60 sec, ISO 100, 26 mm

No doubt, this shot reminds me about the very famous (and much more beautiful) photo taken by William Klein in New York.  

I chose this photo from the 423 I took for this exercise because I appreciate the spontaneous way Matteo decided to shoot the photographer, with a simple and straight forward gesture. 

I also like the shadows and the contrast that I tried to enhance with my post-production.

William Klein – Gun 1 – New-York 1955

4. Full figure.

The "full figure" photo is a rather simple shot.
Contrary to the previous photos, Matteo is not very spontaneous here.
However, I appreciate the graphic lines in the background and, above all, the shadows that give depth to the whole picture.

f 7.1, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, 42 mm