Research on Famous Photographer by Amelia Purnamasari

1. Timothy AllenResearch on Famous Photographer

2. Introduction
• An English photographer and filmmaker.
• After graduating from Leeds University, he was travelling in
Indonesia for 3 years and found his passion in photography.
• Allen used to work in Sunday Telegraph, The Independent,
and Axiom Photographic Agency
• In the beginning of 2009, he spent almost 2 years shadowing
BBC film crews during the production of the landmark
television series Human Planet

3. Reportage and Ethnographic
Photography
• Timothy Allen is best known for his reportage and
ethnographic photography. He takes a lot of photos of
indigeneous people and isolated communities around the
world.
• His popular documentary project is Human Planet that was
produced by BBC.
He travelled with 4 teams for over a year and a half in
over forty countries around the world to cover the story
about human’s endeavour

4. • The result of their documentary project was
published in a best-selling BBC book.
• It was shown in an exhibition and used in the
program’s worldwide branding and publicity.

5. Style of Photography
• Allen’s photographs are largely ethno-photographic
in style. He takes a lot of pictures of humans who are
related to social culture. Most of them are
indigeneous people who live in a village or lead their
life in traditional way.
• Almost all of his photographs show very strong
custom

6. Influence of Style
• Because of his strong point in ethnography photography, he
has works in cinematography and multimedia production.
That requires him to travel to every corner of the globe to
discover more story about culture and custom of a society.
• For example, he has been to 19.000 ft up in Himalayas and 40
meters beneath the South China. He has been to a
communities in the Arctic, tropical rainforest, and remote
desert location as well.

7. Contribution
• In the field of photography, Timothy shows that
photographers can tell information or story through
their photographs. An image can show the viewers
about what was happening in the picture.
• His photographs are quite good to become guide to
another beginner travel/documentary photographer
because he is able to reveal many culture heritage in
this world and present it in interesting photographs.

8. Work Influence
• Through his work, he gives the viewers
informations about a lifestyle from another
society that have not been known in publicity.
• Since he can take those interesting photos,
from the colour, compotition to concept, a lot
of people are attracted to know more about
informations or stories behind the
photographs

9. Living
• In recent years, Timothy Allen work in BBC to shadow the
BBC’s production of Human Planet.
• The focus of his work has turned to world’s remaining
indigenous societies and he currently devotes his time to
documenting the diversity of humanity’s cultural heritage
• Allen also writes a weekly blog for the BBC and documenting
his work by photographing the world's indigenous societies
for the documentary Human Planet

10. Special Technique
• When shooting people, Allen does not use
long lens so much
• He uses fast, prime lenses
• Allen does not use auto exposure. He
arranged the lighting that he wants himself.

11. What Does Distinguish
Allen’s Work?
• His genre of photography is travel photography  to
reveals more about places around the world and
attract the viewers to know more about the
informations behind the photographs
• Allen’s photographs have very strong colour  he
captures bright and colorful colour and rarely uses
black and white.

12. • The photographs is not only showing the
human’s activities but most of his photograph
has a concept in it
• The photographs is very sharp and usually there
is one focus point in his photographs.

13. • If we compare him to other travel photographer, for example
Mitchell Kanashkevich , Allen’s work is more specific.
Allen  He has the very strong feeling about culture
heritage and custom in photograph
Kanashkevich  takes every photograph that has human
element. It could be interaction between people, people
working, or custom and culture as well.
Timothy Allen’s photograph
Mitchell Kanashkevich’s photograph

14. Some examples that show Timothy Allen’s style

15. Respond to Photographer’s Work
• Timothy Allen knows how to make his photograph interesting by
using the correct angle, rule of thirds, point of interest, strong
focus, and warm colour like red, yellow, etc to make his
photographs become eye-catching.
• He put a concept in most of his photograph to make those photos
like have a story
• The photographs are very sharp and in some photographs he show
an obvious depth of field.
• He captures the images in correct perspective so we can get the
feeling of the photographs

16. Timothy Allen’s Photographs
Bajau sea gypsy breath diver, Tun Sakaran, Sabah, Malaysia

17. • Depth of field : Deep
We can see the background (the shape of the fish) clearly even though
the details is not that obvious
• Composition point of interest and rule of thirds
The diver is the point of interest since the fish are around him and the
way Allen capture the diver is not exactly in the middle, but a little bit
on the right of the photograph.
• Perspective  Low angle
The photo has an illusion as if we are looking under the fish and the
diver. So we can see there is light that goes through the water on the top
of the fish and the diver.

18. • Contrast : Dark
The contrast here can be considered dark because we can
not see the details that obvious. Moreover, the fish on the
background are only the silhouette.
• Colour : Cool
Blue is the dominant colour here
• Portrait : Candid
Allen took this photo without arranging the position of the
objects first. Perhaps the diver did not even realize it when
Allen took this photograph.

19. Timothy Allen’s Photographs
Drinking mares milk. Blue River valley. Mongolia

20. • Composition : Point of interest
This photograph has only one point of interest. It is a girl
who was drinking the milk.
• Perspective : Close up
As we can see, Allen captured only the girl’s face part to the neck part.
This way, we can see what the girl was drinking and her facial expression.
• Contrast : Low-key
We can see only the front part of the girl and the rest that is around her
is only dark shadow.

21. • Colour : tone
Allen made the bright colour (red, yellow, and blue) become very bright
and clear while the black colour in the background is very dark.
• Light : Ambient
The light is only focusing on the girl face and the milk while the
background has no light at all. Hence, we can feel that there is only a
little light in that room.
• Portrait : Pose
In the photograph, the girl was looking at the camera and the lighting
looked like it had been arranged before Allen took the photograph.

22. Timothy Allen’s Photographs
Elder Kong Di at Ta Phrom, Angkor Wat. Cambodia

23. • Depth of field : Deep
We can see everything in this photograph looks sharp. Allen
wanted to show that not only the monk is the focus but also
the details of the building.
• Composition : Point of interest
When we see this photograph, we will see directly into the monk in the
middle since he wore a clothes that had different colour from his
surroundings.
• Contrast : High-key
The contrast in this photo makes the definition of the lines sharper so we
can see that the detail is very clear.

24. • Light : Diffuse
The light looks like it comes from any direction. So it brighten up the
whole
photograph. We can see that there is no dark part in the photo. Even the
details are bright and clear.
• Colour : Mood and cool
The colour of this photograph has created an illusion that there is silence
in that place. It is greenish as well.
• Portrait : Pose
We can see that the monk is standing in front of the door while looking
at the camera. It seemed that he realized that Allen was taking his
picture.

25. Timothy Allen’s Photographs
Inquisitive children in River Gee, Liberia

26. • Depth of field : Deep
In this photograph, the background (children’s faces) is as sharp as the
legs that are in front of the background. This might happen because the
background is not far from the leg. So there is no blur on the
background.
• Composition : Background
Although the faces is only a background, we can find that it makes the
whole photograph become interesting. It looked like there is a story
behind the photograph.
• Contrast : Light
The photograph is bright enough and the definition of the
line is not that strong. There is not much dark shadow in this
photograph.

27. • Light : Diffuse
The light brighten the whole photograph as if it came not only from one
direction. We can see that there is only a little bit shadow there.
• Colour : Warm
This photograph shows that it was taken in the very bright afternoon
as the colour is a bit yellowish and bright.
• Portrait : Candid
It looks like there is an activity and movement when Allen took this
Photograph. Because some of the children is doing another thing while
the other was looking to the camera. It could be some of them were not
ready when the photograph was taken.

28. Timothy Allen’s Photographs
Tennis fans at Wimbledon. UK

29. • Depth of field : Bokeh
The focus part in this photograph is the face with green eyes. That area
looks sharp and clear. On the other hand, the background is quite blur so
we can not see anything behind the face. The other face in front of it
looks blur as well.
• Composition : Rule of thirds and Point of interest
Allen put the focus (face with green eyes) a little bit on the left. Another
interesting part in this composition is the red cross in the middle. The
line looks like it connects to each other although actually it does not.
Once we take a look at this photo, our eyes will look at the red cross first.
• Perspective :
This photograph uses close up perspective because the camera captured
the image in very close distance so we can see the details of the face
very clearly.

30. • Contrast : light
The line between each object is not very strong and the shadow is not that much
so it looks like the line does not separate each object obviously.
• Light : Natural light
The light in this photo is from the left side. The shadow is shown on the right
side. It looks like this photograph does not use any additional light.
• Colour : Warm
The colour that catch our attention in this photograph is red. Besides that, this
photoraph is full of bright colour like white, blue, and yellowish green.
• Portrait :
It is a pose portrait since one of them was smiling while looking to the
camera. The other reason is it would have been difficult to get the red cross
perfectly if Allen had not arranged the pose first.

31. Source
• http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Allen
• http://www.wanderlust.co.uk/magazine/articl
es/interviews/bbc-human-planet-
photographer-timothy-allen-interview
• www.mitchellkphotos.com