I will be be comparing the work of two photographers by looking at the techniques and equipment used in order to achieve their final images. The photographers are Annie Leibovitz and Yousuf Karsh who are both equally well known within the photography sector.
When looking at Annie Leibovitz I was able to research into her career as a photographer and look at the work that she produces today. Leibovitz has become increasingly famous from her use of bold colours and poses from working with magazines such as Rolling Stones and Vogue. She’s known for a her work in fashion, portraiture and in magazines.
An example of the equipment that she uses is the Leica S2. The leica has a large 37.5 megapixel 30x45 mm sensor which is apparently 55% larger than normal full frame sensor. The camera itself is designed to be weather sealed so that shooting in the elements is easier. This camera is also waterproof which is even better for shoots that might be outside or near water.
The camera offers a dual memory card slot which allows the user to shoot like a CF card or SD card both at the same time which is particularly good for backup.
The menu itself it quite simple and easy to use as reviewed by many users. The camera itself is said to have a great ergonomic design as it has a smaller body with better controls than competitors like Nikon D3 and Canon 1D.
Another camera that Leibovitz uses is a Maiya RZ67 camera. This specific camera is film format and is fully manual and very heavy. This specific camera actually allows users to adjust the back on it to support the desires frame size yet it has its drawbacks. This camera is huge and weighs 2.5 kilograms which doesn't make it as portable as today's conventional DSLR’s. Yet due to its weight, it would usually be used from a tripod. Using a tripod for a camera like this will enable its user to be able to plan the shoot in their head ie. where the light is hitting, where the main focus is etc in order to get that one off picture. This type of medium format camera has a waist-level finder which instead of looking through the view finders in a DSLR you get to look through a much larger window that makes what you’re taking a little confusing as everything is switched around (left is right and right is left as it is a mirror reflection due to there being no pentaprism to reverse light back again) but apparently makes the planning of the image more special. Using the manual camera allows for more preparation into the thought behind the composition and the details within the frames as you have to adjust the camera yourself.
When looking at Leibovitz use of camera technology, I can say that when the quality of the image can be sacrificed she goes for the more portable camera but when the quality is most necessary, she uses a less portable camera with a bigger format. Leibovitz uses a Nikon D3 Digital SLR camera in order to get them more portable shots.
From looking at videos of behind the scenes at shoots that Leibovitz does, there is no mention of a tripod which suggests that she as a photographer prefers to be able to move freely. I have noticed that in some shoots, she prefers to sit down in order to get a lower camera angle which makes her move involved with the capturing of the image. When looking at her shoots, I get the impression that from her experience she is able to concentrate on the lighting as well as holding her camera steady enough to capture the perfect image.
The skills that would be necessary for Leibovitz to succeed in today's competitive photography sector would be flexibility. A good photographer like Leibovitz would need to be able to experiment and develop her work in order to produce innovative photos. Practice is also the key here as being as successful as Leibovitz has been, there would have to be lots of passion in order to produce an image that reflects exactly how you want to be presented as an artist. The ability to be able to capture a wide variety of images depending on the receiving audience is a hard task which only an experienced photographer would be able to grasp.
An example of Leibovitz work is a shoot that she did for Louis Vuitton. As you can see, the key focus of the picture is of the luggage that is in the right hand corner as the luggage is more sharp than the group of men playing foosball. In my opinion I feel like the whole concept of the shoot was to place the objects in a more natural environment to highlight that they are not as exclusive nor high profile as people may believe.
To find examples of Leibovitz work, looking into a high end magazine such as Vanity Fair and Vogue would be an ideal place to start.
As shown, these are examples of Leibovitz front cover images. From the covers we can see that her trademark of bold colours and poses is in use. The first image with singer Rihanna, captures the vibrant tones of her hair which at that time, Rihanna was famous for. Yet the way the hair has been photographed does not allow for the whole of the attention to be taken away, as her figure in the dress is still just as key in the cover as the hair.
In my research I was able to find out more about Leibovitz final images and how she creates such good quality pictures at the end. Leibovitz uses composite images a lot which allows her to take her images and drop the models or items into a new background and in some cases it is noticeable with her work in Disney for example but in others its very hard to see if it has been digitally manipulated.
This technique is particularly popular for work in magazines like Vogue as they are not interested in the reality of images. What I mean by reality is what is “Vogue worthy”. Just from looking at the images above, the models have that ideal body shape, perfect skin and very little or no imperfections yet this all was edited before becoming the front cover. Photoshop is one of the software's that is more than likely used in order to achieve such sophisticated prints and using the clone tool as well as the spot healing brush and normal healing tool to achieve that smooth finish.
In comparison, a photographer that wasn't around to use today's latest camera technology is Yousif Karsh. Yousif Karsh is probably one of the most famous portrait photographers of all time. Karsh was most famous for his use of photography in his portraiture work. He photographed some of the most influential people in the world in the 20th century. It was down to growing up with cameras and his use of contacts that we was able
to gain his first international recognition in which he photographed Winston Churchill.
When researching into Karsh, there are many photographs in which capture almost the personality of the person. Just looking at the portrait of Churchill for example, Karsh captured his famous imperturbable personality. It is mentioned that Karsh did prefer to meet the subjects before hand in order to understand and then capture the subjects personality.
Looking at another of his subjects, Helen Keller was known to be blind as well as deaf and so communicated using her hands to which Karsh found exciting to be apart of. The image below is of Helen Keller and Polly Thompson and the initial plan for the image was to capture equally her face and her hands in order to grasp the exclusivity of Keller. The use of lighting here is only really noticeable when it hits the left hand side of Thompsons hair which makes it a little harsh. Yet the light enables Karsh to capture the expression on both subjects faces and highlight the emotions they are showing. There is also a key light used in order to light the back of Keller’s next. This was probably done to make sure Keller’s body to get lost in the black background and makes her appear to be the more important subject in the image.
Looking at the equipment that Karsh used large format camera like the Calumet C-1 8X10 field camera. The type of camera was able to be moved. For portraiture work, this camera was perfect for the job. It uses rear bed rail that all fold up in order to be stored better. Once the beds are all folded down and locked in position (metal lock knobs which enable its users to adjust the camera's position and rise it tilt it and shift it) the rear screen is moved to focus the image leaving the front screen firmly in place.
The skills that Karsh would of had would have been the ability to work with larger and less portable equipment. This meant that he would have to pre-plan his shoots in order to get one or a few good shots instead of taking hundreds as due to the technology built in the camera, there wasn't an option to view the image after capturing it- it had to be developed first. When working from a large format camera, the images that were captured would have been a much higher quality than today's pictures and they were much larger in size so were easily re-sized without losing any quality from the image.
Karsh would also have the ability to be able to visualise how his image would be captured. He was a photographer that worked with lights in order to achieve such fine prints. Karsh would have planned how his image would be composed in order to beautifully enhance the lighting without creating harsh light on the subjects face.
In conclusion, both photographers Leibovitz and Karsh were equally as good at photography as far as technology allowed/ allows them to be. As Karsh was not able to re-edit his images like Leibovitz is able to now, his images would have to be perfect first time and capturing the natural beauty of his subjects. Yet in terms of Leibovitz, she in comparison has a lot more ability to correct her images to conform to society's ideas of beauty in order for it to feature in magazines such as Vogue.
The differences between the photographers is that Karsh captured the personality of its subjects; highlighted every flaw in the face and showed each wrinkle that was enhanced by the lighting used. Whereas Leibovitz captures an image and is able to edit it in such away that the natural flaws are not to be seen and in some cases digitally manipulate it to be far from the original image.
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