Week 8 Session: Find, Analyse, Recreate

Break one reference portrait into visible decisions, recreate its style with available conditions and then make one intentional variation.

SLOP1810WEEK 0812 April 2027

Before the session#

Bring three visually compatible reference portraits. Your partner must also like the general direction. Choose one that can be approached with available locations, light and equipment; do not select a production whose essential conditions cannot be recreated.

In the session#

1. Find#

Select one reference and name its feeling in three specific words. Ask the subject which part they want to preserve and which detail they do not want copied.

2. Analyse#

Complete a six-part breakdown:

• light direction and hardness;
• camera height, distance and view;
• person-to-background distance and composition;
• brightness and contrast;
• dominant colours; and
• action, expression or timing.

The observer challenges vague labels until each note describes a decision that could guide a camera position or subject action.

3. Recreate#

Choose the three most important decisions and reproduce them with the current person and location. Make the closest useful version before applying any edit. Show it to the subject and confirm that the style has not made them feel less recognisable or comfortable.

4. Create one variation#

Change one major decision—composition, amount of environment, movement, colour relationship or camera position—while trying to preserve the same overall feeling.

Afterwards#

Submit the reference, analysis, closest recreation and intentional variation. Add a short style recipe covering feeling, light, camera, space, exposure, colour and moment.

Finish by identifying which decision carried the style most strongly. “The filter” is not accepted as the answer; point to a relationship visible before post-production.