David Bailey, Research Log

David Bailey is one of Britain's best known fashion and portrait photographers. Bailey made his ascent in vogue, shooting 800 pages of vogue editorial in one year. We can see in his work that he has kept with the black and white colours on his pictures in order to capture the detail of the shadows in the faces. Different lighting is used to capture the emotive expressions in the people that he is photographing that are used used to crate more wrinkles in their face and add more depth to the black and white filter that he uses.

This photo focuses on dark tones mainly. The black and white filter adds to the shadows being produced around the photo that blend in with the dark choice of clothing, creating a dark effect throughout the entire frame that causes us to purely focus on the face since it is the lightest part of the picture.

This photo uses low key lighting. This is used to capture the soft features of the woman's face while using tone to create a shading that causes the edges of the face to become more softer and the colours to fade into each other.

High key lighting has been used in this photo. This is used to give the subject defined features around the cheek bones and jaw lines to make the image pop out to the audience. This all links back to making the face the part of the photo that the audience looks to straight away as a result.

Shadows are used in an interesting way in this photo. The wrinkles of the face are made more prominent by the use of lighting and tone that cause shadows to appear darker. The wrinkles give the subject a more emotive and natural look that will cause interest amongst the audience.

Summary:

David Bailey is able to make his portraits more interesting for the audience by considering character in his work. He reflects this by using poses which he then uses to make the image more eye catching. Bailey uses black and white filters in an intelligent way, in order to expose more detail within each portrait by enhancing the shadows.

Influence:

 I would like to use these methods when I photograph portraits. The different techniques that are used to draw audience attention and cause interest will be very useful when i am looking for ways to cause my work to show a good amount of variation. I would replicate this style by adjusting both filters and lighting in order to gain interesting results.

I have used a black and white filter while taking a portrait picture in order to recreate Bailey's style. As a result I am able to draw more detail within the photo by enhancing the shadows on the face. I have also adjusted the lighting and background in order to improve the emphasis on his face and to pull the audiences attention to his face. I think that this has had a positive influence on my work because I am abel to consider emotion when taking a portrait picture and I can now find ways of using lighting and black and white filters to enhance these emotions to the audience.