Homage to Dorothea Lange & Emmet Gowin
This is one photo from a series I did this past weekend for another fun Utata project. Except that it wasn't just fun ... It was also an education to me. The assignment was to produce a photo or several either in the style of a photographer we admire, or inspired by a particular photograph of theirs ... even to the point of "recreating" the photo in our own way.
It would be pretentious to claim or even think that I am in a league with photographers Dorothea Lange and Emmet Gowin They use(d) film -- I use digital. They were/are professionals -- I am a rank amateur and I know my photos lack the maturity and artistic merit theirs have. They developed their images in the darkroom -- I imported mine into Photoshop for post-processing. In spite of that, I like my results.
Through this project, I learned that I love portrait photography. Not commissioned wedding photos, senior pictures or baby shots, but the kind that come from my intuition and creative well.
For this project I had the pleasure of working with a young friend and neighbor who kindly agreed to spend her entire Sunday afternoon posing for me and being "bossed" around ("Take off your earrings, put your hand here, tilt you chin to the left ...:") She is an amazing, beautiful, patient model and I can't wait to have the time to do this again with her ... and her younger brother.
Here is the set with the complete series of Homage photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/montanaraven/sets/72057594056119169/
2 Comments:
Hey! I have this same assignement this weekend and I have a model lined up but I am struggling with knowing how to light the subject to get this effect. You did such a great job emulating Emmet Gowin, do you have any advice you can give me?
listentothisbutton at yahoo dot com
If you can give me ANY advice,t hat would be GREAT. Thanks!
I never use a flash for my photos. This is 100% pure available light coming in through a window in an old barn. The barn inside was mostly dark. It has more to do with positioning the subject than any light technique. Sorry not to be able to give you a magic method or formula for lighting. I use Nature's light.
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