Exercise 2.5: An Identikit Portrait

Brief: In this project you’ll explore two different ways of engaging with the portrait genre.You’ll need at least two people for this exercise, but four would be ideal. Prepare a plain background to photograph them against, preferably near a window for the light. Frame the portraits equally close and with a shallow enough DoF to throw the background out of focus. Aim at a ‘deadpan’ expressionless face filling the frame like a large oval shape. Upload the portraits and process them in exactly the same way so that they fit together well. You don’t want one high contrast and the other low contrast, for example. Print out the best portraits about A5 size. If you’ve made only two portraits, make two prints of each face. Fold each portrait into a squarish ‘tube’ and stick it together, so that you have the forehead on one side, the eyes on another, then the nose and mouth on the other sides. Like the one on the right: Now combine them together to make an ‘identikit’ face. Re-photograph in different combinations. How could you develop this? Make a family photo-fit? Make boxes or a photographic Rubik’s Cube? Photography isn’t just about a flat image; it’s an artefact you can move around, cut up, paint on, re-assemble and integrate with other artefacts.

This has been lots of fun and it really hasn’t felt like study. I have completed this task in Photoshop by opening multiple portraits and using:- Layer from background, copy, paste, eraser, and resizing and rotating by selecting a layer and pressing Ctrl T.




Street Photography


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