Proposal

The photographer I have chosen to emulate is Irving Penn. I find his ability to get across the personality of his model without the viewer having any previous knowledge of who the person is. Specifically, the photo of the man on the motorcycle, which i will be emulating, your are able to see the cold nature of the "biker." Penn used traditional, black and white, photography to create his masterpieces. Penn used a regular, black studio background and took his models out of their natural environments, but was still able to recreate their personality in the bleak and ordinary setting. I will be trying to do the same by placing the model in a studio, but still trying to get across who the person is. My idea for one of the photos is to recreate the image of the man on the motorcycle focusing on an audience of younger children. I would recreate the light as best I could, but instead of using an old man on a motorcycle, I would be using a younger person on a scooter. I would do this in an environment that is bleak and does not have a specific genre, and I would try to make it so that people who see the picture are able to see who the person is without really knowing much about them. My specific idea is to have the person on the scooter with them looking at the camera, like the man on the motorcycle is, but having the person wearing a helmet and all the padding like knee and elbow pads, showing that they are an amateur rider who is worried about falling. For my other four photos, I will try to recreate the style of Irving Penn by, as said, taking them out of their natural environments but still trying to show their personalities. I will be using black and white for all the photos. For the background of the photo, I will put up a big sheet that covers the entire background. I hope they will turn out great!