This image of Dame Judi Dench is quite a creative photograph as far as celebrity portraits go. Magnus employs a very light composition which contrasts a dark brick wall against a statue in front of it. At the same time, Judi Dench leans over this wall, and mimics the statues head, with an awfully similar haircut. It seems that there is a very high aperture at use, maybe f22. Everything is in focus in this image, including the background. The middle ground is by far the most important area of this photograph. The wall fuses the foreground and background together. The attitude of Judi Dench in this image conveys a sort of lightheartedness that makes the entire portrait seem much more candid, rather than planned and serious. It reminds me of a sort of magazine arrangement when photographers just follow celebrities around for the day and capture cheesy “candid” shots. Personally, I find the shot funny as in my mind, Judi Dench is such a serious and intense actress, that this almost seems like a different side of her. Maybe Magnus sought to capture a side of her audiences seldom see. The photo seems to lack any sort of serious technical skill outside of maybe framing. There is beauty in that simplicity. As mentioned before, it enables the photo to feel far more candid and regular than it maybe actually was in its creation.
Mayotte Magnus, Judi Dench, 1977
The two Mayotte Magnus images that Taishi and I received were very wrapped up in the theme of reflection and visual similarities. Two of my images focus specifically on the reflection half of Magnus’s images. My favorite one was taken in the bathroom and features Taishi looking at me from both the mirror and straight on. I was able to accomplish this visual trick using the panorama feature on my iPhone and then cropping it to appear in a traditional aspect ratio. I like the final product as Taishi is relaxed and looks casual but the photo still causes a double take due to its unordinary nature. Taishi and I agreed there was no serious deeper meaning in Judi Dench’s portrait so our goal was more so to have fun in shooting rather than overthinking it. The second reflection is along the same lines of thinking. This time I used a plastic sign to create a blurry and textured reflection of Taishi’s face. This was also done using a high focal length and low aperture to cause a distorted blur. My favorite thing about these images is that they are optical illusions where both create some inorganic looking reflection, yet there is no camera to be found in them. It makes them look possibly Photoshopped when it's a simple phone photo. The last image was heavily inspired by the visual similarities explored in Magnus’s Judi Dench photo. Using Taishi’s black outfit and bleached blonde hair I was determined to find something that would appear at least a bit similar in black and white. For that I settled with a pole that had a yellow crossing button attached to it. I think Magnus probably did a better job than me, but it was at least a fun experiment.