1. Unit 57: Photography and
Photographic Practice
Research of other photographers
work (P1, M1, D1)
Photographer: Alejando Maestre Gasteazi
2. Theme or focus of images
When I found this photographer’s work I was so amazed at how it was created and
how it looked. In the photos above there is a model covering himself in clay and I
think it’s done in Photoshop how the photographer removed the remaining parts of
his body (not covered in clay) and kept the clay cover parts, and I’m truly amazed
on how it looks. The photo was taken in October during the year 2010 I first discovered
this on a blogging website and saved the photos and did research on them. The
photo was taken in a studio and I’m guessing artifical lighting is used and I think this
makes the photo work because in natural light and an outdoor location I think it
would be really hard to edit of the body parts which are not covered in clay.
Composition
When it comes to the photographer deciding where to stand I think with these photos
would be to stand quite close but not too close. This is because you would want to
get as much detail as you when you are looking at the clay that is visible. The
photographer Alejando decided to only get the clay cover body parts because this
is how he wanted the photo to come out like, as he stated in a article about these
pieces of work he said ‘he wanted a photo that could describe his creativity and his
constant quest to try and understand the human body’ I think he did this perfectly
with the way he did it and wouldn’t want anything to change. Moving onto cropping
I don’t think it would work as good as the original image because he wants people to
see the human body in the unusual way.
Techniques used
When it comes to shutter speed when this photo was taken I personally think it was on
a fast speed because you wouldn’t want too much light going into the camera
because it would over expose the shot and cause some sort of blurriness. Now looking
into rule of thirds I definitely think this technique was used because of how most of the
models features that you see are in centre of the image and because of this it brings
out the models body. Now onto depth of field I would say they range from wide and
narrow only because of how close the model is too the camera, when the model is
stood far away there is more in the shot allowing the camera to get that wide depth
of field and when the model is stood close it can capture the narrow depth of field.
Strengths & Weaknesses
I like so much to do with this; the whole idea and concept is just so cool and think it
must have been so good to create. I also like how it’s really unusual and different in
retrospect to other photographers. Moving onto the things I dislike about the
photographers work and to be very honest there isn’t much that I don’t like about
these pieces. Things that he could of done different maybe he could of tried it with
different models for example a larger man or women. I think this would be a lot better
than just doing the single model. I think he could most definitely influence my work
and I would the use same technique he did with the clay but maybe with another
gender and also maybe objects.
