World Image issue 11 October 2014

Transforming Portrait Photography Into Photoart
Gordon Longmead
Love it or hate it, Photoart is a development of
photography. Manipulating a picture turns the
basic ‘Art of Photography’ into Photoart. This
is different from digital art since the latter does
not require a photograph from which to develop
the final concept.
Having looked at Portrait photography
previously, I will start by explaining that a
portrait picture does not have to show the face
of the subject, it should however enhance the
original image or be used to convey an idea or a
story.
Every picture is used to capture a moment, this
one has been created to capture a thought.
When I started to process it the idea came to me
of a woman looking towards the stars and
wondering to herself how many wonderful
shops there must be out there. Once the thought
was formed, the picture followed.
This is still street photography. For me the main
subject is the most important part of the picture,
my art is to make my vision of the image and
the story into a reality.
There are three levels to this photography, the
first is straight portraiture presented in the
format as taken in camera.
The second is to distort the background and use
that distortion to frame the main subject. Here I
have used rotation to create the distortion.
Ideally you should try to use the original image
to generate the distortion due to the colour
balance between the main subject and the
framing.
I saw the girl standing in St Gilgen, Austria,
and I wondered what she might be looking at
and the thoughts she may be having.
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