Week 6 of Don Giannatti’s 8 Week Portrait Class brings us to study Jeanloup Sieff’s work.

New to the series? Catch up the previous weeks with the following links:

Week 1: Victor Skrebneski

Week 2: Yousuf Karsh

Week 3: Sarah Moon

Week 4: Peter Lindbergh

Week 5: Herb Ritts

Jeanloup Sieff’s work presents a very distinct style to the previous photographers, and a polarising one at that…

Week 6: Jeanloup Sieff

Looking at Jeanloup’s body of work, the first striking difference to the other photographers in this series is the storytelling that goes on within his images. His work isn’t just about portraits, it’s about conveying a story to the viewer.

In his interviews, Jeanloup states clearly that he isn’t in the photography business to take meaningful images: they are throwaway images that he makes sometimes very quickly, without a lot posing or over-thinking.  Of course, this may well be an over simplification of his work; his years of practise will certainly help to know what he wants to get from a given set, and how to get there quickly.

His studio work was very simplistic in setup, with perhaps a chair, or even no props at all. On location, the images convey the feeling of a subject interacting with the environment, oblivious to the camera / viewer, which is helped by the use of expansive framing (and wide angle lenses!).

Most of Jeanloup’s work on location is created using natural light set ups, and in the studio a one light set up is most often used.

Our Takeaways:

Here’s a list of what we set out to do, based on Jeanloups’ images:

• To set a scene on location using only available light – and a wide angle lens.
• To do a simple studio set up using one light and one prop (a chair only).
• To capture a simple portrait without the subject interacting with the camera/viewer.

And here are the results:

On location – natural light:

Using a tall window in a stairwell, we were able to get gorgeous, natural soft light. Armed with the wide angle lens, we then asked Iana to walk down the stairs to get a natural feeling to the motion.

One light set up:

Using just a chair and hard light we played with just a simple pose with arms on top of the chair:

Non-interactive Portrait:

In this lovely natural light portrait, we captured a softer side of Iana in a moment of introspection.

Coming up next week: Dan Winters (oh my…)