HANDS PROJECT

This photo of Muhammad Ali was taken my Thomas Hoepker during Ali's championship in Chicago in 1966. I think the relationship between Ali and Hoepker helped to create better photographs during Hoepkers  time with Ali.

Hoepker only gets Ali's fist in focus while the body and his head or out of focus to help bring the fist to the front of the image to make it more powerful as a photo. The negative space in the photo gives his silhouette  a more distinct shape, therefore making the fist more powerful. 

Hoepker has taken the image in black and white to make the texture on Ali's fist more distinct. You can see the finer details of the fist because the focus of the whole image is just on the fist.

the image was taken during one of Ali's matched in Chicago in between rounds where he took his gloves off and threw his fist towards Hoepkers camera.

Hands Mood Board 

SHOOT 1 - Experimentation

PLAN


My plan is to use the lighting to contrast a sort of good vs evil story. In some photos i will use a small red light on a brighter blue background so that the red lighting is more significant than the rest of the colours. 

More Ideas 

Plan for shoot 2 

WWW: The colour contrast with the red ans white tells a story.

EBI: the focus of the pictures isn't on the hands but more on the face. It needs to be more focused in the hands and the camera. 

Contact sheet for shoot 2

Irving Penn The Hand of Miles

This Photograph of Miles Davis' was taken by Irving Penn in 1986. The photograph is named The Hand of Miles. 

The photo is of Miles' hand, when seen from the front creates the illusion of Miles playing a key on an invisible trumpet. 

Penn uses a darker background with light coming straight onto Miles' hands to let the hands become more stood out and recognisable. You can clearly see all of the marks and details on Miles' hand because of the lighting being directly onto his hand. you can also see more light coming off the his finger tips, representing miles career as a musician playing the trumpet. 

I think the image has quite a negative mood because of the darkness in the image but i think the focus of the hand becomes positive, as it is in a unique position that would only be recognised by few people who know how to play the trumpet.

Shoot 3 plan 

shoot 3 

Reshoots contact sheet 

The reshoot images are all more focused on hands than my other shoots making them better photos for the project. Some of the photos are slighty under exposed but that can be changed later on in photoshop. I like the pen and paper photo more than the others because they are telling a story on what he in writing. they are also focused the most on the hands becuase the writing in very readable so your eyes will go to the pen in the hands. The blue lighting gives the images a cooler fell than the sharp red lighting in the previous shoots. 

reshoot edited images 

The images are all cropped to be more specifically on the hands in the images. They are all also edited for the blue  light to stand out more on the hands to create a more diverse image.      

EBI 

E) What will you do to move forward in your project?

MRI) Maybe re shoot the image so that the hands are bigger than the head. I will also make the hands equal on both sides so the they are perfectly in the middle. I might also test different colours an contrasts in Photoshop to try and get a better image that focuses on hands. 


BEST EDITED IMAGES 

Edited Images Analysis

These are my favourite images  because they are all edited to be specifically focused on the hands in the images. All of the images have the brightness turned up on more focused on the blue in the images, so that it stands out more in the images.The blue in the images sets the mood as chilled making them a lot better than ht images in shoot one, where the red was too powerful and ruined some of the images.

 I think the photo holding the flower and the image of the hands in front of his face are my strongest  photos because they look more specifically focused on hands, however i think the flower in the first image is stands out to much so it isn't focused as much as it can be on the hands. 

In photoshop I added curve too all of the images to make the hands more vibrant and the shadows darker to help the hands to become the focus of the image. In some of the images i have also made the hands warmer to contrast the blue lighting in the rest of the images, making the hands stand out a lot more in the image. 

I think the pen image is to flat making it a very boring image. if i was to re shoot it i would probably shoot it against the studio so that the hands and the pen are more in focus and there isn't a lot going on in the background of the image. I would also have the blue lighting coming from the side and not behind to make it more significant in the image.

In the photo of the hands holding the flower if i was going to improve it more, I would edit the flower to be less vibrant than the hands so that it helps to add focus to the hands.

The second image with the flower i would make the flower smaller in a re shoot and move the head of the flower closer to the hand so i can still have the main bit of the flower in the image whilst keeping focus on the hands. I would also move the blue lighting to the front of the flower to make the flower look cooler in the image but the hand is warmer. 

The image of the face need to have the background blurred so that you can barely see the details on his face. And would also add more blue lighting onto the other hand or maybe red lighting to add contrast and a small story to the image.