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AUSTIN JOFFE

The photographer who’s style I chose to replicate was Andrzej Dragan. I thought it would be fun to step outside and try something different. As you can see, his style is clearly that.

So after I chose the style, the first thing I did to tackle the assignment was to find a model that would fit the part. Dragan clearly has carefully selected his models to match his style; so this was crucial.

Next, I need to figure out props, background, and wardrobe; anything that was going to be on set. Adam Sikora, the model, is very skinny so I wanted to show this off as it helped play the role of the character. Dragan seems to minimalize props, so I thought I would simply pose Adam so that I would not even need props. By this point I knew I was going to convert to Black and White, so I decided to use an old wooden (very splintery) surface as a table and a background with texture and detail; as you can see in the setup shot.

POST PROCESSING:

to get the effect, all that was done was (this is not in order):
-Distort/perspective adjustments on the head.
-dodging highlights
-burning shadows
-a curve adjustment on the eyes
-some minor tweaks in local contrast.
- and obviously a Black and White conversion.

Let me know what you think!

Today was the day in which the entire class went to a theater and met up with a group of models. While talking with one I found out that he was also into the art of Capoeira. For those who are not familiar with this, it is a Brazilian form of martial arts. In my opinion, the most bad ass. It’s got culture to it. It is almost like break dancing and fighting at the same time. Check out some vids on youtube if your still confused. Kind of rare, the only way I know of it is because back in the day my best friend was into it.

Anyway, so this is the model I decided to shoot; Instead of the hot chick with the sexy death trap pose.

For this tutorial I will use the same landscape shot I did for the Coleman assignment.
After you open it up, Instead of doing a full desat, or grey scale conversion, we’ll do a Black and White conversion from the adjustments menu.

Image>Adjustments>Black and White

After this, adjust colors to get the best possible contrast, etc. this will not be what you end up with.

Black and White menu

After you get it to where you want it, press ok.

We have now converted to black and white; but hold on, we’re not done yet.

Duplicate your back ground layer so you have a different layer to work off of. Then make a selecting of an area in which you want to adjust for contrast, black, etc.
After you have made your selection, bring up your curves menu

Curves

When adjusting for contrast in your curves in local areas, I like to make my curve similar to what you see here.

Keep doing this for various areas with in your photograph. Remember to create a separate layer for each selected area. You can Copy Via Layer, or create a layer mask, I prefer creating a layer mask.

Once your finished adjusting curves throughout your image. Go to each layer and adjust your Levels for each area. While doing this, look for your deepest black and your whitest whites (you can check with Info, then check for 0 and 255)

By now you should have a decent looking image. You can now do what ever you want to do to it, sharpen, re-size, etc.

THIS TUTORIAL IS NOT COMPLETE!     CHECK BACK SOON FOR A MORE IN DEPTH DESCRIPTION OF EACH STEP!

desaturized

Grey Scale Conversion

Joffe Method

The Images will be seen for the first time tomorrow at 1:00p. They will be displayed and critiqued by many.

I recently gave you a sneak peak of part of a shot. Here’s a different one from the same assignment. There are three more. That I won’t show on here, but will be displayed tomorrow.