the painter

Subject: Gary

Assistants: Kelly & Michaela

Our final project for my photography class was to photograph a particular professor. Every student had to set up an interview, get an assistant, and shoot an editorial of Gary, one of the art professors. The main purpose of the assignment was to get a feel for scheduling a shoot, which I felt was simple in and of itself, but getting a team of people to settle on a time that we were all available was a bit difficult. Thankfully, we finished it up pretty early, thus avoiding additional conflict with any other students trying to schedule a shoot with him.

I really wanted to give the viewer a sense of what Gary does, so I decided to shoot in his studio. The background is actually a painting of his. We took a few photos with his hat off, but in the end I decided to go for one with his hat, since it's one of his signatures. As for the paint in the foreground, I took a piece of glass and painted brush strokes over it and did a lot of testing with my roommates the night before to make sure it could frame a person's face. Then on the shoot day I had my lovely assistants hold it up in front of the camera, and it worked perfectly!

Things I would have done differently: I think I would have chosen a different background, first of all. The busy background detracts from the foreground, and was not what I intended. Also, I would have used a smaller aperture. I knew it would have achieved the look that I wanted, but the space ended up being too small + not enough light + not the best lens for the job. This photograph is actually two put together, one focused on Gary, the other focused on the glass. This will be a fun concept to try again in the future!