Research - Mario Testino

Mario Testino is known worldwide for his photo's of the most famous faces from the Royal family to Kate Moss, his images appearing in Vanity Fair and Vogue.

I really enjoyed looking through Testino's work. Portraits mainly seemed to be in black and which, I noticed the more casual portraits were often taken in quite close and sometimes on an angle with more formal images pulled back and often looking straight ahead.

I particularly enjoyed a set of images of Ryan Gosling. The images were again mainly in black and white with a high contrast. There was clever use of shadow as shown in the following link where a silhouette of an absent subject was photographed interacting with the subject of the image:

Mario Testino - use of bright daylight to create shadows

The next image is a particular favorite showing the use of dappled light, the image seems to be taken in daylight with side lighting to add to the dappled effect.

Mario Testino - dappled light and shadow

Mario Testino photoshoot showing how he creates shadows, the shoot is taken outdoors in bright sunlight.