 Robert Maplethorpe's powerful black and white portrait photography has so much it can teach you about creating impact within your own photographs irrespective of whether or not you are a portrait photographer. How's it? Welcome back to the channel. It is fantastic to see you here. Look at this photograph. It's two figures against a dark background. They feel not like people but more like sculptures. They're lit softly. There is no shadows in there. It's just it's like the two people are carved from a block of marble and a block of obsidian. Rather than concentrating on the people themselves, the two men, Maplethorpe has reduced them to shape, to sculpture and that's the power of his portrait photography at work. The ability to create very strong visual shapes from organic objects. Robert Maplethorpe was, it's fair to say, a controversial photographer lived in New York in the 1970s, 1980s and we're not going to talk about his, let's say more, you know, shocking photography today because in our YouTube and also while that was what I was kind of first drawn towards because of its shock value as a teenager, it overshadows his wonderful, awesome, impactful portrait photography which can teach us so much about how to craft an image whose memory stays with us long after we've stopped looking at it. Grace Jones staring out from the screen, powerful, connecting with you. Why does this photograph work so well? Why is it so striking? And that's because Robert Maplethorpe has chosen to frame her in this drape, this sheet, whatever you want to call it and it's been lit with a soft box from above so not only is he lighting her face but he's also picking out the textures on the drape itself. It's framing her. There's a little bit of a of a fill reflector coming in from beneath just to lighten up the shadows a bit so it doesn't go too dark and then she is surrounded by this inky blackness. So what happens is her face comes out like a face from the gloom comes out and connects with it. We immediately the eye looking at this is left in no doubt what is the subject of this photograph. It is simple and I'm going to use the word simple a lot but it is so difficult when you are not exercising this idea of thinking about framing the whole time when you're photographing anything. What is the subject that you are photographing? Once you've decided the subject then how can you make it the star of the show? Framing doesn't have to be just an object or a physical thing. It can be light as well. This photograph of Debbie Harry here look at the way that she is almost like a cameo against again that black background. She's wearing like a black dress something so we just see this the sweep of her shoulders and down to her chest and then you know that's again look at if she was photographing against a white background where there wouldn't be this contrast between her skin and the back what would happen she would be lost it would lose the dramatic filter. If you look at this image and squint your eyes it's just a blur you can still make out the shape of her profile the shape of the head but it's not an obvious person because the black with the shoulder is sort of cutting it off there so you see you know framing doesn't have to be those physical things. Try it out with lighting as well. MapleThorpe took a lot of self-portraits throughout his career and I'm especially interested in this one because we're talking about framing look at the the sweep of the shoulder pads on his jacket that white beading that go up to the you know the collar in there and then we see the teddy boy haircut and the reason why that sort of stands out and has a bit more of an interest to it is because of those two roles of I think their studio paper that have put up in the background and then we have the blank wall of the studio has been lit very softly behind just to frame the head because then it says to us what we're doing here is we're looking at the back of the photograph we're looking at the back of the person but this is about their head we want to show off the head what a wonderfully bold self-portrait how many of you would consider doing this consider taking a portrait of a person where it didn't show anything of their face whatsoever what wonderful graphicness think about how you can employ these ideas of photographing in shapes and not things within your own images Robert MapleThorpe and Paddy Smith were great friends when they moved to New York and they were both you know the beginning of their careers and and they lived together for a while and they would do a relationship and MapleThorpe took a lot of pictures of Paddy Smith and it's the images from the horse album cover sort of time they want to look at because they illustrate a really good point about simplicity in photographs in regards to the things that people are wearing in this image we have Paddy Smith she's got black hair she's got that white shirt that man's shirt she's got that jacket she's got her pants that you know that are black and the whole thing is black white black white black white so it has that graphic simplicity again just like with the framing earlier where there's a simplicity to it in this image it's that the elements that are pretty much just black and white there's kind of little shades of of gray in between but nothing too much and that's I think wonderfully expressive way of bringing in impact into the photo because we're not giving subtlety we're not giving lovely gradation of tone we're not talking about an Ansel Adams type sort of zone system thing here we're talking about black white and maybe one or two things in between and that echoes the power of Paddy Smith you know she is angry she's this kind of passive aggressive sort of person and then you have this wonderful photograph this awesome picture where the light has become a lot stronger coming in through the window and it's created this this diagonal that cuts straight across the frame and instead of going oh do you know what I've got we can't photograph here anymore because it's there's this light coming through he's decided are we just going to go with it we're going to use that in kind of like a 1930s german dada iski kind of you know Bauhausen and any other sort of thing I can sort of think of way of lighting her and it's beautiful I love it so next time that you are trying to create something that has you know a kind of a sort of a powerful sort of feeling break it down break down the elements into simple things because that will make it again so much stronger Robert Maplethorpe was a master at using shape and form within his photography to create this impact that you've been seeing and if you'd like to learn more about how to harness shape and form and other crucial aspects of building a photograph so it really does resonate with a viewer then check out my learning to see course on the links below I think you'll find it's really it's a great way of getting to grips with these sort of somewhat hidden secrets about you know improving your photography Maplethorpe is also well known for photographing the landscape of the body of the shape and the form of body part in an often interesting kind of way this photograph of Lisa Lyon where she's tilted her head back and we have this kind of weird mountain sort of feel that is again sculptural and that's where if you spend any time listening to Maplethorpe watching or reading about Maplethorpe you see the word sculptural come up quite a lot but it's what a wonderful way of of investigating the form of someone in a way that we you know that's gone beyond the norm because if you've you know spent any time looking at nudes you're going to know the sort of things that you tend to see and I don't recall any other times where I'm seeing this kind of landscape of the body when you start combining the landscape of the body with you know some of the ideas of framing that we had earlier then you end up with like this kind of photograph where you have a leg you know like it's growing out off the ground framed again by that very dramatic V shape so it gives a lot of movement in that image and I just I love the idea that what could be just a very basic very simple image there's that word again right has been elevated just a little bit by the addition of something that is subtle doesn't override the image doesn't shout out look at me look at me much like the the the diagonal in the Paddy Smith photograph but it enhances the photograph and it complements it and it's put together in the image deliberately that's always the question look at any of these photographs there is nothing haphazard about them everything within Maple Thorpe's photographs has been created deliberately and that's why they have a very strong graphic sense to them that's why they have this lasting impact on it because the eye can break it down into very basic shapes and that's why also you look at it and you go wow how amazing is that because it is so simple I don't know about you but I am most impressed when I see something that is done it with with perfection and that's even much like the cooking analogy where if you're going to cook a very basic dish there is no way to hide Maple Thorpe's portrait photography is like this his work is perfection because it is simple he's not hiding some rough around the edges stuff with technique with you know with with Fancy Pan's technique or you know mucking around with things everything is done deliberately do that in your own photography make sure that whatever you choose to include or or choose to exclude is done with intent with purpose none of these photographs leave you in any doubt whatsoever what the subject is what you are supposed to be looking at some of them may raise questions within all what is what that sort of thing going on especially some of Maple Thorpe's self portraits but everything else is direct and to the point throughout this video I haven't really touched upon Maple Thorpe's flower photographs not because I don't like them or whatever because I do like them I think they're great and they're great exponents or great examples rather of many of the lessons that you have learned here today and if you'd like to check out more of Maple Thorpe's flower work I'll link in the description box below to the Robin Maple Thorpe Foundation because it really go and check out his photographs he is so much more than just the shock value the the you know the the kind of stuff that gets paraded around you know all the kind of the little left of center kind of things he's he's deeply interesting he's a fantastically talented was a fantastically talented photographer and as I mentioned earlier I really wish that you know that more focus was given on his whole body of work especially for people just getting you know being introduced to Maple Thorpe then then they've kind of the you know the the SNM stuff which is you know whatever looking at the work of other photographers is a great way of improving your photography not simply from an inspirational point of view but also from a you know a technical point of view where you get to learn and see the processes they go through and the more that you do is more that you pick a part like we've been doing the photographs today the more you become in tune with how you can employ those techniques within your own photographs for more insights on how to do this by looking at other photographers work check out this video over here thank you ever so much for watching and I'll see you again soon