Portfolio Week 2

Portfolio

Week 2

Portfolio Artist Research

This week I found it hard to find another artist to research to be honest. I tried finding other horse and rider photographers but couldn't really find an,. so had to try and find other types of photographers that do similar photographs to me, but with different subjects etc. Caryline mentioned in our one to ones that I should try and find some Family Portrait photographers to research that do outdoor photography, cause outdoor photography is what I'm doing for my portfolio, so I took that on board and started researching. I couldn't find many photographers that had any images taken with subjects on overcast days which I wanted to add cause so far all my shoots have landed on overcast days, BUT I did find a photographer that has aspects to her photography that I want to try and emulate.

Casey Van Liefde

Casey is a Family Portrait photographer who has a studio in Karaka just a few mins from where I live.
As well as Family Portraiture Casey also does Baby, Maternity, Wedding, and Engagement photography.

I don't really know how to talk about all these images individually cause I like the images for around the same reasons. In a lot of Casey's photography she has her clients wearing the same or similar shades and colours, and that's something I've wanted to try and did try in the shoot I did below. Specifically in Casey's images she tends to have her clients wearing lighter colours which I think works really well with the lighting she tends to have in her images. The bottom image I especially love. I love how what the model is wearing matches the background colouring as well. Another thing I really love about these images especially the middle 3, is how she's captured that moment between all her subjects where you can see they really care about each other which is something I really want to capture as well. Casey has stated that she wants her subjects to feel relaxed and for it to be shown through the images, which is something I want to to be shown in my images as well.

My Portfolio Images

This week I did my shoot with my friend Rachel and her two little ponies Danny and Filly. Information about these ponies. They aren't actually pure grey although they look like it in these images, They're actually grey pinto's, meaning they have patches but their patches are lighter to most other coloured horses and in the case of these two not very obvious. These two are also brother and sister.
I thought using these two in a shoot would look really cool cause they're both the same colour and a complete opposite colour to Rhett who I shot last week, so thought it'd be a good variety of colour.

before

After

This image I think is  really cute, it wasn't originally an image I wanted to use in portfolio cause I was mainly focusing on horse and rider connection rather than horse connection, BUT it's now something I'm thinking could work well in my portfolio. This image I especially love cause it almost looks like a reflection. I'm also really proud of how I edited the fences out of this image through Photoshop. I used the spot removal tool to get rid of the fence line alone their noses, I tried to use that on the fence in the background too BUT it didn't work that well, so I used the Spot Healing Brush on the back fences and it worked really well. 

This Image is my response to the top Image. These are my two Ponies Sindy and Dakota. In this image they're scratching each other. When Horses do this usually one starts and then the other kinda does the same thing back as a way of reestablishing the bond between the horses in a heard. So when I saw them doing this i thought it'd be a perfect bonding moment to capture :) 

This image is my favorite. I cropped the image so you can't see so much of the background which I think works really well for this image.  I like how they're both mirroring each other, Danny's mane and Rachel's hair in particular and I love how you can really see the connection in this image, and they both look really relaxed and happy together which is something I feel you can also see in Casey's work :)

I think this image is just plain cute and a completely different type of connection to a lot of other images I've taken. When Rachel went in to kiss him he kinda kissed her back in a horse kinda way. These two have a really strong bond and it really wasn't that hard to capture a moment like this with them :) 

These two images are of Rachel and Filly. I don't know if I liked these images as much as the other ones. I think cause Rachel's fringe was falling over her eyes  which I think in a way takes some connection away between them, BUT in saying that I do still like these images. The top images I love Filly's Face and the image despite Rachel's fringe I think gives a feeling of connection that I don't think many of my other images I've taken for this portfolio have so far.. The bottom image I like cause it has character and looks like Filly's talking to her. Another thing I'm iffy about with this image is that it is kinda showing the complete opposite of connection cause when I took this image Filly was really trying to bite Rachel, BUT everyone I've shown this image to have said that they really like it, so I guess these two will be ones I'll need to think about.

This image is also one of my favorites, the only thing I'm not too sure about with this image is I don't think it completely shows connection BUT I love the colours. I love the pink from the blossom trees and all the lighter colours in the background, it all matches Rachel's hair and jersey and Filly's colouring, which reminds me a lot of the bottom image I have from Casey's in my blog, with the purple headband and dress and the purple kinda coloring in the background as well :D 

For this shoot I didn't actually ask Rachel to wear the white jersey she has on BUT as soon as I saw her wearing it I immediately thought, oh I can try my images with all the colours the same and see how it look which I think matches a lot of what Casey does with her images, keeps all her clients clothing the same or similar colours.