Jonathan Knowles

Jonathan Knowles is a London based photographer who specialises in graphic still life, liquid and people photography. With his unique style and talent, he has won awards, national and international advertising contracts worldwide. In the past eight years he has consistently featured in the ‘200 Best Advertising Photographers in the World’ books. He is now also one of the top 10 all-time award winners in the Graphics Annuals, and has had images included in their last four volumes of ‘100 Best in Photography’

While looking at Jonathan's work I was specifically looking at the "Red heads" shoot he did. 

I like this type of portrait photography as it's something I would like to experiment with for my exam photographs. The simple background with a neutral colours, they doesn't distract from the models as it blends in with whatever colour shirt the models are wearing. I like the face that the models aren't really expressing themselves, they have natural facial expressions not taking away from the whole photograph. It's not like fashion photography, there is no big, bold, over-the-top thing happening with this shoot, it's much more restricted and holding back, more like documentary photography in a way. This is the link to his website http://jknowles.co.uk/.

 


When first looking at the photograph on the left, your eye first draws straight to the "Red head's" face. His hair is the first thing you see in this photograph, as the red pops out and draws your eyes to his heir. The background and his shirt, don't draw any of the attention away from him, they blend into each other, as both the background and shirt are the same colour.His hair gives the personality to the photograph, as he is positioned central, waist up, arms straight down, which is a static and dull pose. The dull, bland colour of the background and shirt contrast with his vivid, flaming hair, not taking anything away from his face and static stance.

This is my response to Jonathan Knowles "Red heads" shoot.

The photograph above is my final response. I positioned my model so she is doing a similar pose to Jonathan Knowles's pink red head photograph that you can see above. She is looking off to the side, standing with a static, proper posture. I had to have a few lights available within this shoot. I had to position one of the lights behind my model, with a blue gel on top of the light. This would make the background go blue, every time the flash went off. I then positioned another light in front of my model, in the center so the light would illuminate her face, as to not create much shadows and harsh lines.

I feel the whole point of Jonathan Knowles's "Red heads" shoot was to get their personality in the photograph, not taking anything away with distracting clothes, make-up or any accessories. The three photographs above show my model Lechelle's personality, her fun and happy side.