Thinking about location

1. 1st location

2. 2nd location

While out hunting for possible locations that would make attractive settings for a portrait I stumbled upon something- literally! This was that while I had vague preconceptions about where these locations would be and what they would look like, in the majority of cases I actually happened upon even more interesting locations than I had envisaged. For example with the telephone boxes, I came across them accidentally while on the way back from shooting a location in a Square.

3. 3rd location

   Another, more obvious aspect of location hunting I found, was that when shooting the setting while imagining the model being in the scene, mostly the scene looked more attractive in portrait orientation than landscape.

5. 4th location amended

4. 4th location

    

6. 5th location

Lastly, I found there was often distracting objects like the author of the course had alluded to, which might adversely affect the photo. I included an example of this (4. 4^th location) where a litter bin in my opinion ruined the setting for a portrait but I shot a similar setting again with the litter bin out of sight (5. 4^th location amended).

7. 6th location

  







 

8. Portrait on Location

  






  


I decided to come back and use the old and massive tree for the portrait; the location out of the six locations I liked most and also for a technical reason. This was I felt the texture of the tree added something extra, without detracting from the model. Also it was practical; the model could either lean against the tree or sit on the base.

 With the model positioned on the tree I discovered the way I wanted the model to be placed was to the side a bit; in line with the rule of thirds. I thought this made the model stand out from the setting, yet also allow the viewer to take in the setting as another part to the photo. This placement of the model was partly my notion of what a model ‘on location’ would look like but also inspired from two sources. These sources were the portrait by Michael Freeman in the course on Page 12 for the exercise Portrait- scale and setting and a portrait photograph of Beatrice Stella Tanner (1865-1940) Mrs Patrick Campbell, by Frederick Hollyer (1837-1933) (b/w photo).