Northern Flower
This was the first shop I went to after revisiting this area, this was because I hadn't taken any portraits of a worker in anything close to a flower shop so far, so I thought I'd give it ago. The shoot inside this shop wasn't so successful and this is the reason I'm only annotating one photograph. Firstly she was about to close the shop for the day so had already put her coat and bag on, this meant that she doesn't really look like a worker, just a random lady in a flower shop. Secondly because she was ready to go, I didn't leave me with much time to the shoot so I had to work fast. Furthermore the flower shop was small which meant the only worthwhile composition was this one, which is okay, but the window in the background distracts the viewers gaze from the subject. I think her body position is relaxed which is good, but her facial expression is too close to smiling which I believe makes the portrait look a little false. Overall the shoot inside this shop didn't go very well, and I won't be using this image for a final piece. Although I could return at a later date to re-shoot this subject, to create a more skilled portrait of her.
Carhartt
After leaving the Northern Flower I went to Carhartt, which is a designer clothing brand which has stores in lots of countries all around the world. I had longer on this shoot which meant I could move around the shop trying different compositions, to get a better outcome. The shop itself is difficult to shoot in because there a lots of patches of intense light, which means the subjects face has areas of high highlights and low shadows. The image above shows the problems I have just talked about, I have edited the photo as best I can to balance the exposure on the subjects face but because his eyes were in dark shadow they're difficult to add more light onto. This results in the photograph looking strange, because his face is awkwardly lit, also because the light distorts his face, it makes the portrait look less authentic and very unnatural. This is a shame because his stance and facial expression would've created a good portrait, if the lighting wasn't so difficult to work with.
Best Image
After realising my difficulties with shooting in the first spot I moved the subject to a different part of the store, unfortunately there wasn't a blank space in the Carhartt shop to stand the subject in front off to make him standout from the background. Luckily because he was wearing a bright yellow jumper, it meant that he stands out from the background quite easily, so all I needed to do was find an area with good lighting. I think that his facial expression and body position is very natural and work well to create an accurate portrait of the shop worker. Again in this image the viewer can see the same problems with the eyes being in shadow, as I talked about in the image above. I think this is because how the shop is lit creates this effect, in saying this I think I managed to put him in a position to make the most out of what I had to work with. Because the shop itself has a lot of different ornaments and clothing racks its impossible to find a blank space to photograph in, this forced me to use this composition which in itself is very cluttered but through lighting and his yellow jumper, this subject is brought to the front of the photograph. I didn't plan this but I think the cactus plant reflects the subject and both together create a link in the photograph which adds another dynamic.
I think with the poor lighting conditions I had to work with and cluttered background I managed to create a pretty good portrait of this Carhartt worker. His natural stance and facial expression also helped to create this authentic image, but I would've liked to create a more simple composition with less things in the background if I could.
Julia
Julia is a hair and beauty company that specialises in hair extensions. The worker in this shop was more than happy to have her photograph taken and try different positions around the shop to see which would work best, which made getting a good final result a lot easier. The first problem I had with this shoot was my camera kept adding this effect, as seen above, to every third photograph I took. I only realised this at the end of the shoot which meant there was quite a few potential best photographs which I had to get rid of straight way. This problem has now gone, so I'm not sure why it happened. I like the photograph above on accounts of the subjects body positing and facial expression look very natural, also I think the composition works well but because of the camera defect I have to forget this image.
As you can see the previous defect doesn't exist in this photograph. Unlike a lot of my other portraits which the subject has their hands by their sides in this one, the subject has rested her hand on the shelf. This action of the subject doing something with their hands and arms reflects the work of 'Humans of New York' because he captures his subject mid way through doing something to create a natural look, my image shown above uses these same techniques but because of her pose in her facial expression the photograph looks less natural. I think composition wise, the image is very interesting because there is a lot of visual information with colours and repetition going on which creates a nice effect, and because she is dressed in black she manages to not fall into the background. The thing I don't like about this image is that it is quite difficult for the viewer to guess what type of store she works in, because the products could be selling a range of different things.
Best Image
For this image I changed to composition to make sure the viewer could better understand what kind of shop the subject worked in, also because the shop specialises in hair extensions I thought that it was important to include them in the portrait. I think he facial expression and stance are quite powerful together, which gives the photographs a very bold and important feeling. The lighting in this shop was quite easy to work with and the enthusiasm of the subject made creating a good portrait of her quite simple after I found the correct composition and made sure she acted naturally.