Andrea's Commerical Photography Blog: September 2017

Jose Morraja is a high fashion and urban photographer. He began his career showing obvious examples of hedonism, humor, tension, and young rebellion. These subjects were inspired from his childhood. There was not any information on where Jose grew up or on where he went to school. He first began to become integrated in the arts through film. His father was a projectionist in the local movie theater in his small village. Through watching the films his father projected, he began to understand the impact that an image can have on a person.

Later in life he began to create his impact through videos and photos. When he grew older he studied many platforms of the fine arts. He started to understand the arts in a way to give himself the perspective and experience that he felt like he lacked in his own photos. He is an extremely versatile artist whose main goal is to create images that can inflict a sort of power on the person viewing it. His work can be defined as, honest, straightforward, and striking.

He takes time to understand the actors, models, sportsmen, celebrities, and musicians that he works with in order to create an image that is genuine to subject in order to show them in an authentic way. Due to this his work is constantly catching the eyes of different picture with each photo being different from the last. His films and images often show breathtaking uses of color. Through these platforms he shows his life, his attitude, and his passion without fear through the personalities of his subjects. He tends to often work in the fashion industry, advertising, and music.

I admire Jose Morraja for the risk and creativity that he shows in all of his pictures. I love the way that he shows the emotions and genuine feelings that the models carry. The fact that he made the time and put the models foreward shows that he is a very down to earth artist, and that is a very hard thing to do with his popularity. He doesn’t look at a paycheck or authority, he looks at the person in front of him and within himself to create the images that he does.

The photos that I chose shows the artistry and creativity that Morraja often conveys. His use of color and placement with his geometric shapes are extremely well thought out and give a crisp and almost satisfying feeling to the viewer. The way I replicate these photos is going to be through trying my best to replicate the backdrop and through painting the model with body paints and further perfecting the crispness through lightroom or photoshop. The three photos that I chose are extremely similar, just changing the model’s poses and the paint colors used on her body. The most difficult part in this shoot will most likely be time management, and the ability to apply the paint in a way that will be true to the nature that Jose created in his pictures.