Self Portrait :: Self Assignment

I recently picked up a copy of Vanity Fair Magazine.  It contains a great spread by the famed Annie Leibovitz.  I’m not ashamed to say I really don’t know that much about Annie.  I know she is a famous photographer and has photographed pretty much every famous person on earth.  My knowledge stops there.  I don’t know what her contribution is to the photographic community, I don’t know her personal history, how she got her start etc.  What I do know is that when I saw the portraits, I loved them and immediately felt a connection to the style and manner in which they were shot.  Clean, simple, yet powerful.  This is a style that I like and would love to communicate in my own work.  As photographers we absorb everything we see.  We are visual sponges and some of that information gets used in our work and some doesn’t.  Most of the time whether we want to or not.  It becomes engrained in us.  We all strive to be our own artist with our own unique vision, however our vision really becomes layered with how we’ve seen things through others eyes.  Everything influences.  Just as I saw these portraits and knew that I loved the style, I began to withdrawal information from them and add it to the already growing pile of information I already have.  I don’t want to shoot like Annie, I want to shoot like Shawn.  But if I can learn something from her and add those lessons to lessons I have already learned then I move one step closer to creating my own unique perspective.  All artists imitate.  I don’t think of it as stealing, I think of it as imitation with the intent on learning new things.  I set forth to shoot a self portrait much like the shot Annie took of Matt Damon for VF.  It is simple, poignant, and attractive.  You can see her portrait here.  You can see mine below.  The jury is still kinda out on this one.  I think I got the key light fairly close given the shadows on the face, but what I struggled with is the toning and contrast.  The color I think missed as well.  Actually the more I look at it, I pretty much missed.  Is it a good photo?  Sure.  I learned a lot while shooting it and I did identify some distinct differences between my photo and Annie’s.  Background is way different.  I thought it was just a seamless at first but then realized it’s more of a textured painted muslin or canvas. My white balance is off as it tends to be.  That is something I really struggle with and this project confirmed that.  I am definitely not as good looking as Matt, but that’s neither here nor there.  My Key light needed to be a bit more overhead to create more of a shadow under the brow.  In the end I ended up adding layers of crap over it to make more crap.  I have a feeling that Annie’s photo was much more “out of the camera” than mine.  All lessons learned.  I love this type of work and really want to focus towards doing more of it.