When first approaching this project I was a little nervous as I noticed you had to ask a stranger for a picture and I suffer from social anxiety which makes it very difficult for me to talk to people I don’t know so I knew straight away that this brief would be particularly challenging.
When beginning to research photographers to inspire my work, I didn’t really know where to start since I didn’t really know any portrait photographers therefore I began looking into some of my Kpop albums which featured some of my favourite photos and through that I found out the photographers name and I began to research more of his work since I liked it so much. The photographer in question was named Kim Rin Young, who has taken many photos of famous Korean idols and also fashion shoots. The images of his that I really love come from my favourite Kpop group, BTS’s album ‘The most beautiful moment in life part 1’. The album itself is based around the concept of youth. What I really loved about these pictures was that he such simple methods to make the pictures more visually intriguing. I love his use of nature of these pictures as it gave the pictures a very pure and soft aesthetic that made them appear romantic in a sense. I also really love his use of lighting on the face to give them the effect of bright, dewy and shiny skin which is the stereotypical beauty standard in Korea. Another aspect of the images I really love is the blurring of the background (depth of field) as it adds a sense of softness to the image which keeps in with the constant aesthetic throughout the series, the blurring of the background also makes the viewer focus on the subject who in this case is a person which is very important in these pictures as their purpose is to display the Korean idol in an attractive and appealing way. What I love about these pictures is the location that was also used. I feel like in this case the location played a bigger role than just being a backdrop for the pictures. I believe it added a sense of romance and love to the pictures which keeps in with the albums theme of youth. The flowers within the background are also all in bloom which I think represents the people in the images being the in prime of their lives. All in all I absolutely adore these pictures and they have definitely inspired my portrait work.
The next photographer who inspired my work was Dorothea Lange. Lange is a well known American photographer who is best known for her images which documented the depression era in the US from 1929 to 1939. She also played a big role in the development of documentary photography. What I really loved about Lange’s images was the sheer emotion showed in them, there was such a sense of raw reality in the expressions of her subjects that it creates an emotional response from the audience. The really love the rawness of them and I also loved how they give of the impression that the subjects were not posing and were just going about their daily lives which adds to the reality of the pictures. The photos give a harsh view of what it was like to live during this difficult period and can be quite shocking in some cases. In comparison to the previously mentioned photographer, these images do not have any softeness to them, they are rough and dark which I believe adds to the aesthetics. There is also no external lighting, it is all natural.
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