Brett Harkness

Brett Harkness is a photographer based in Manchester, UK. He is primarily a wedding photographer, but he also photographs portraits and family events. Looking online and through his website, I found one of his portraits that I like.


From http://iforimportance.blogspot.co.uk/2010_10_01_archive.html

This image is well composed and I like the fact that the subject is not looking at the camera, but instead slightly to the right of the frame. The black and white filter shows the contrast between the man and the out of focus backdrop, as well as highlighting his features and wrinkles. I'm assuming that this has been taken outside, but even if it wasn't it's easily passable as an outside shot due to the lack of focus on the background, and this is something I have tried to incorporate into my shots, especially in terms of a couple taken in the market, as it doesn't actually matter where the subject is in the end. The props/distinguishing features to an individual make them more memorable when photographing street portraits. In this man's case, it is his hat, white beard, and the cigarette in his mouth. I also trued to look for people that may be memorable when taking my street portraits, such as the street entertainer wearing a silver monkey mask, people wearing hats, glasses or goggles, or people wearing costumes/headgear. Anything that is slightly unusual or more fun about a person's appearance makes them a more successful subject, especially if it makes the viewer think about that person after seeing the image.

Final Street Portraits

These are my final street portraits in contact sheet form. I did edit them in Camera RAW to amplify the lighting or to ensure each was in focus.

These are the RAW shots. I upped the contrast on some to make the person stand out from the background, as some were in front of plain backdrops. I used a f1.8 lens so that the background was always out of focus a lot, and just adjusted the shutter speed according to the lighting and time of day that I was taking the photographs. I tried to get some unique shots, such as the man with the sunflower hat/head piece, and the street entertainer who was wearing a silver monkey face mask, and the builder wearing the hard hat and goggles. I admit that the street entertainer may look like they are smiling slightly due to the design of the mask, but I thought it would be a creative addition to my set of street portraits.

Street Portraits: Contact Sheets

These are the edited contact sheets of all of my street portraits. I had to go out and shoot again a couple of times as some of the individual's faces were slightly out of focus or too dark.

I have put both the RAW and JPEGs on these contact sheets, but only edited the one half otherwise it would be repetitive, so only the edited ones are here. These were taken around Cardiff City Centre, and most people would stop to have their photograph taken, although others were slightly less friendly, something I've learnt that you've just got to put up with if you want to be a Photojournalist.

Final Environmental Portraits

These are my final environmental portraits.

I used a flash gun in the first image, and took it downstairs in the shop where my subject could be surrounded by records. The first image uses artificial light from the flash gun and shop lights. The second image uses natural light from outside the store, and I made sure that the theme of records was incorporated into the image by the record sleeves stuck along the door behind her head.

I photographed Meg Llewellyn, aged 19, from St Athens. This is her first job, and she has been working at Retro Vibes for about 2 and a half years. She said it's a great job as you meet lots of different people - and get to see their unique fashion sense! It's a fun job, and on her first day there she left having bought 6 Michael Jackson CDs. Her favourite music genre is star music, of which there is plenty in the store.

I wanted to make the shots, especially the first one, quite atmospheric, to draw the viewers attention in to not only the subject but what she is surrounded by - records and music. The second image isn't as moody and atmospheric, but that is fine as it is a more distanced shot, with the subject being farther away from the camera. I took the first image from an angle on eye level to try and capture the amount of records were in the room, and to make them seem bigger and that there was more of them.

Finished Environmental Portraits Contact Sheets

I went to Retro Vibes to capture my Environmental Portraits. I'd been in a few times prior to talk to who I would be photographing so that she was comfortable around me, and to sort out the best time and date for me to go in to do the project. I took the photos whilst she was on her break as the shop is usually quite busy, and I didn't want to interrupt her work. These are my edited contact sheets from the shoot.

 

I knew that I would need to alter my final chosen images a little on Photoshop to create a dramatic atmosphere that suited the store, as well as tweaking any lighting and white balance issues.

Retouching a Portrait

In class we learnt how to retouch a portrait on Photoshop. This is often used for advertising purposes, such as in magazines and shop windows (posters). The original image we started with was this.

We had to 'beautify' the subject in accordance with society's supposed accepted standards, and this shows how the media has altered the publics perception of what is 'beautiful'. I did this using layer masks, as I have explained how to use in previous posts, and each layer was used to 'fix' a different thing.

Here you can see that I used the Spot Healing Brush. This gets rid of blemishes and spots, as well as wrinkles, when the area is selected and highlighted.

I used burn to darken the irises and parts of the eye. I also altered the contrast of parts of the eyes as well to accentuate the natural colours and pigments in them. I also used the layer masks to highlight and shadow some of the face, to smooth out the skin.

This is my finished image that I ended up with after the alterations on Photoshop. They are minor, but the overall effect is of a 'finished' image as it is slightly smoother, and 'perfected'.

Creative Lighting

For this session I thought I'd focus on the Layer Masks, where people seem to float in mid air. For my image I took three different photos - taken by myself of course - and combined them to make it look as if someone was running on water. These are the three original images.

These shots were taken in Malta, the Forest of Dean, and Tunisia, so there's no way that any of the elements could naturally be together in one shot. I wanted to use the sunset from the one image, the wave from another, and the runner from the other photo to create one image. This is what I ended up with.

Here, I combined all of the elements from the individual photos that I wanted to make one shot. I used a few different layer masks to do this, and I explained the process in a previous post, so this is just a before and after look at the different images.