Danny Clinch
The photographer I chose to emulate was Danny Clinch, a photographer and film director born in Toms River, New Jersey. Clinch founded the film company Three on the Tree Productions, based in New York City. Clinch is a commercial photographer, starting his career working for Annie Leibovitz, then photographing many different musicians of a multitude of genres, including Tupac, Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen. Over his career Clinch's photographs have appeared in publications around the world, such as Rolling Stone and The New York Times. Also Danny Clinch has published two books, Discovery Inn and The Iron Bird Flies. Most of Clinch's subjects are musicians. I chose Clinch because of the photo of Jay Z that I came across. I am big fan of Jay Z's music and when I saw the picture of him with his Yankees hat on looking straight at the camera I was reminded of who the real Jay Z is, and his beginnings of his career. I prefer his older music over his newer work and so this photo that Clinch took I think captured that Jay Z that I really enjoyed. To emulate his photo I am going to try to copy the mood of the photo along with the composition as best I can.
The lighting for this photo is coming from all over so that the entire image is lit up. There is some shadow under one of Jay Z's arms and no real highlights anywhere besides maybe the left side of his face. The photograph is in complete focus and the camera angle was straight on. The photo seems to be symmetrical and does not follow the rule of thirds because the focal point, Jay Z, is directly in the center of the photo. The image is vertical and I think this was the best way to show the image. There is no real sense of depth besides the table that his elbows rest on and a wall or some sort of back drop behind him. I think the subject matter is interesting because of who it is. The mood created by the photo is serious and I think this is shown by Jay Z's eyes. I think the simplicity of this photo is what makes it so successful. When I emulated this photo I tried to get the same mood across, along with the same composition however my colors are not as clean as Clinch's. Where his photo has a cool feeling mine appears the opposite with the yellowish background. Also my photo is not in clear of focus as his but I think the overall mood can be seen as the same.