Location Portraiture

Location Portraiture 

This post will be about experimenting with Location Portraiture. To do this I will be taking several photographs of a subject ranging from a shallow depth of field to medium. This means changing the aperture to different F stops such as F4, F5.6, F8, F11. 

Research - Alec Soth 

When looking at Alec Soth's portraiture work one thing that stands out is that the subjects are in sharp focus but the background is out of focus. This is achieved by using a low F stop of around 2, 4 or 5.6, also known as photographing with a shallow depth of field. I really enjoy this effect as it makes the subject that much more important than their setting, making them bold and the main attraction of the photograph. Both of the images above have a dull look to them due to the background being bleak and lacking detail, however, the people appear colorful and full of life with an interesting story behind them. 

Contact Sheet 

Experiment 1 

F4, 1/800s, ISO400

F5, 1/500s, ISO400

F5.6, 1/500s, ISO400

F8, 1/250s, ISO400

F11, 1/100s, ISO400 

This first experiment I looked at how my photo differentiated between F4, F5, F5.6, F8, and F11. The background of the photographs got slightly sharper towards the end when the F stop was higher, this is due to there being a wider depth of field. Throughout the set of photograph's I kept my camera in the same place and kept the lens on 18mm to ensure there wasn't any zoom variation. The camera was kept in aperture priority mode so that when adjusting the setting the ISO and shutter speed moved accordingly to keep correct exposure. Overall I do not think the images changed noticeably, I believe that even in the first image the background was quite clear therefore the shallow depth of field wasn't as noticeable. In future shoots, I would like to achieve a difference between subject and background by changing my settings until I find the right balance.   

Experiment 2 

F4, 1/640s, ISO400 

F5, 1/400s, ISO400

F5.6, 1/320s, ISO400 

F8, 1/160s, ISO400

F11, 1/80s, ISO400

In the second experiment, I was much closer to the subject but everything else was the same. I went through F4, F5, F5.6, F8, and F11 and kept the lens at 18mm. This set of images I believe went alot better as the shallow depth of field was much more noticeable in the beginning and the progress to the clear background is evident. I think this may be due to me being closer to the subject, therefore, the camera focused on the foreground more. Out of the two Location Portrait experiments, I did this is my favourite and the one that was the most similar to Alec Soth's work.