How to Use the Power of Gesture Through a Portrait

Hi everybody this is Craig Tanner for The Mindful and the Daily Critique. Today’s image was submitted by Steve who’s an advance photographer from Atlanta, Georgia. We don’t have the Meta data on this image but we do have the back story; something to talk a little bit about back story at the beginning of the Critique and a little bit more about it at the end. Steve created this image on The Mindful Eye Street Portraiture Workshop in Savannah, Georgia. The main idea behind this work shop is approaching people that you don’t know, that you’re just meeting on the street and then going on the whole fully create dynamic and meaningful portraits of these people. And this particular image came out of more of an advanced assignment that happened near at the end of the workshop where each photographer was challenged in an assignment to approach somebody. Then to spend enough time with them to create a portfolio of images and the photographers ended up spending anywhere from let say 20-30 minutes of to an hour with one person. This was Steven’s and this was not only one of my favorite images from these particular assignments of Steve but one of my favorite images from the workshop. So what I want to do right now is just talked about the image and the context of the elements of visual design because that’s mainly what the Daily Critique is about. So let’s just sort of break this image down in terms of elements of visual design and why I feel like it’s working on that level. One of the elements of visual design and I talked a lot about this repetition or rhythm and repetition gives the viewer a chance to move through your image and moving away with a moving from one thing that’s similar to another thing. That’s similar and that can create the feeling for the viewer that the communication cohesive and that it’s unified and when you look at this image, you’d probably go to one and two places. First; we like to go to the areas of highest contrast and we also like to go to places that arch type or they draw our eye like faces or eyes, so you probably, you could go up here or to the tattoo and as you go to one of those two places. There’s a real strong feeling moving in the image that connects these two ideas and they’re very rhythmic, they, there was a lot of repetition. The way that Steve has framed this person’s face so we call this unconventional cropping by cropping out the top of the head. It’s really exaggerating this part of the mask of the face and all of this sort of feeling of downward movement here and also the shape that’s repeating over and over and over again. It’s rhymed in a very dramatic way above the tattoo there, beside down here, here and here in the eye itself, so very powerful repetition or rhyme between these two main subjects. The interesting thing is there are a couple of other very powerful pairs of rhyming elements. Should I be framing the both of the shoulders with this kind of form and quality of line and then you have the two hands that playing off with each other. They also have some other sort of minor repetition, you’ve got negative space shapes in three of the corners, they are repeating. You’ve got a real strong feeling of negative space; some of these small negative space shapes in here are repeating the same qualities of line in the image so very cohesive in terms of repetition and then also just very dynamic quality of line if you just talk about that outside of the context of rhythm. You’ve got real powerful movement like I’ve already mentioned that connects the two main subjects, then you’ve got another complimentary subject, the hand very powerful quality of line that moves out to one of the main subjects. This overall feeling of a circle because of the flex of the arm and the way Steve has framed this that in an overall way. Sort of moves in the all the way through the image and just sort of amazingly energy of just this line. How the hand comes back into the frame here and then the fingers come all the way over and touch this hand and then that leads in to the main subject very powerful. I love the shallow depth of field here, that’s creating an enormous feeling of the depth even though we’re not seeing a whole lot of information. There is a flow of focus on this subject. This is really sort of a sharp area; the cigarette comes down and gets on that same plane of focus. A little bit of the beard but then focus falls off because Steve’s working with a very large aperture here and that flow of focus really helps to create an illusion that we can move into the photograph. We can move through the photograph and not just this way and this way but we can actually move into it and through it. Another thing that I like here is the monochrome treatment. I think that particularly in portraits of people that black and white can really start to give the viewer the opportunity to project a lot more of their own imagination or emotional overlay onto the story and that can be very powerful. And also I think pushing towards CP it works really well. Everything about this to me, there’s so much about this that just says kind of true grip that kind of thing. The gesture and everything and pushing it towards CP at to me goes along with that in a very powerful way and speaking of gesture. You know, we can start to break things down a very objective way and talk about line and rhythm, shape and all those things but one of the things that’s happening in terms of quality of line or where it’s being driven by is ultimately a very, very powerful gesture. And you know, when we’re communicating with people, what we’re saying to each other, not so important. The sound of our voice, the way we’re standing, our expressions, how we’re using body language, either consciously or unconsciously. All those things say so much more than whatever the words mean and this is just such a classic example of how gesture is so powerful in portraits. Everything about this to me just says intense and intensity reflects in of the arm. The energy in the hands is so directed, there’s nothing about this, anywhere that’s slack or loose, everything about this is intense and it’s drawn and it’s point ed and the, with the eyes looking down and the real intense gaze towards the tattoo so the gesture here to me is just so powerful and something else I’d say about this image that it’s almost impossible to imagine the image without it and that’s the cigarette. There is so much energy that comes in this direction and ends up here and so much of it is sort of a high mid-tones or midst and then you get to the cigarette and all of a sudden you have this real powerful energy that forms a beautiful counter point to all that. All these stuff is ending up over here, all of it, every last bit of it, even all the negative space shapes and they have this one idea and it helps to create a counterpoint to all that. And that one little idea can do that because it’s so high contrast and it’s just hard to imagine this image without the cigarette. I wanted to end the review today, you know besides the take a ways of how important gesture is when you’re photographing people and how important rhythm and quality line can be in shallow depth of field. Another take away that I just wanted you to think about is this the idea of trying this and by trying this I mean, approaching people and enjoy with the intent to share something that you love. Either you’ve never met before, just walking up to people with your camera. There is a myth that most people will say no. My experience so with the course the last four years about doing this and teaching other photographers how to do it as the vast majority, people say yes, they not only say yes. We’re saying that this image came out of an assignment where people that this photographers, who were just meeting on the street, didn’t just say yes and allow that somebody to take a snapshot. They ended up having a mutual exchange with the photographer where a gift was given in both directions. To me, street photography is about a gift. It’s not about sitting back like a fly on the wall and taking something from somebody. It’s about a gift that’s exchanged and you might just be amazed that not only what can happen in terms of photographic opportunities. It goes so much of; you know, further beyond that, to me, just life experiences that can change your life. It’s very easy for me to think of a handful of people that I’ve met doing street photography. It has had profound affects on my life and then of course lots and lots and lots of other people who’ve also had an affect, simply because I ask if I can take their picture. I went beyond that and I spent time. I’m very interested in people’s story and an exchange starts to happen where you’re the photographer and their just sharing their story with you and then you’d both end up being much better for it and so I just encourage you to think about that too. I want to say huge thank you to all of photographers that have the courage to participate in this workshop and a big thank you to Steve for sharing this really powerful portrait over this on The Mindful Eyes Photo of the Week on the Daily Critique. Thanks a lot everybody, have a great weekend.