Photoset
October 19, 2011

Studio Flash:

These are the photos that I took in the studio whilst experimenting with the different methods of electronic flash that are available in there. The first one was done using only a flash unit with an umbrella attached, which gave very harsh lighting onto the right hand side of the model.

The second one was done with the same flash unit in the same place, but with a reflector on the left as well. By doing this, some of the light was reflected onto the left hand side of the model to even out the lighting more, although the light on the right side is still harsher.

The third image used just the soft box light pointing onto the model from above (a butterfly arrangement). This casted quite a soft but still bright light, almost all over the model.

Finally, the last photo was taken using the umbrella flash as well as the soft box to fill-in the light; however the shutter speed of the camera was too fast to capture all of the flash from the units. This is why the bottom half of the image is black; because the shutter wasn’t open long enough to capture all of the flash at its strongest point.

Photoset
October 19, 2011
12 notes

Front & Rear Curtain Flash:

Here you can see two similar photos which were taken using front and rear curtain flash. The first one used front curtain, and this is clear because of how the model is sharper at the back. The flash went off whilst she was stood there, then as the 30 second shutter was still open, she moved forwards and across the frame whilst I coloured her in using a torch in order to capture each stage of movement. We repeated this for the rear curtain flash (the second image), however we let the flash go off at the end of the frame instead. This is why the model is clearer in the last part of the frame instead.

Tags: technical

Photo
October 19, 2011
Image Reconstruction: This is the photo which I have decided to recreate for this part of the project. It’s by a photography company called High Contrast, a group of photographers from Manchester, and was taken as part of a fashion editorial piece. The reason why I chose this particular image is because even though it is quite simple, the contrast between the black and white areas is strong which makes it powerful. I also want to experiment with creating a black and white final image as with all of the shoots I have done previously, I have produced colour results. Breakdown of the Image: I need to look at the main features of the image and understand how the shoot was set up, what equipment and techniques were used etc. to be able to reproduce this as well as I can. I must also make sure that when I am shooting, I use my camera on the manual setting so that I can set-up everything accurately, and this should help me to get the best results as possible in my own photograph. Location: The location of this shoot is obviously a studio set-up, and studio electronic flash units have been used. The background has been flooded out by the light from one of these, most likely a soft-light box aimed onto only the white backdrop. I can also tell that there is quite harsh light being cast onto the model from the left and slightly in front of her, using a flash unit and umbrella. I can see this because of the strong shadows on the right of the model, for example on the right-hand side of her face, arm and leg, as well as the slight shadow being cast on the floor by her foot. Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed: From looking at this photo, I can tell that a small aperture has been used as the whole image is very sharp and in focus, so the depth of field is extensive. The ISO will have been around 200 as the flash units will have been quite bright and the image hasn’t been bleached out so its sensitivity to light will have been fairly low in order to pick up the flash suitably. The shutter speed will have needed to be fast enough to freeze any movement of the model to make sure that it didn’t blur, however, as she would have been holding this pose, it wouldn’t need to be so fast that it couldn’t capture the strongest point of the flash. In order to make sure that I have these levels as precise as they can be, I will use a light meter right at the start of the shoot so that I can get a good starting point for all of these levels, and can then alter them slightly from there on if I need to. Model/Styling: The model I am going to be using for this photoshoot looks fairly alike to the girl in the original image. She has long dark hair, dark skin, similar facial features, and I will make sure that her hair, make-up and clothing are as near to how they are in the original picture as possible. For example, the colours/styles of her outfit – I will get her to wear a white dress that comes to just above the knees with black heels/shoe-boots, and her make-up will be quite simple but still noticeable. I have also realised that there are no other accessories being worn in the image, e.g. jewellery, as this would distract from the clothing itself which is supposed to be the main focus point of the photo. Finally, the pose of the model is also very important. It’s actually quite an easy pose to do but needs to be correct in order to get the shadows in the right places. I will make sure my model is standing with her right leg straight and her left leg bent forwards so that her right hip is pushed out slightly, and that she is holding the bottom of her dress with both hands, pulling the left side up a bit. Her head will also need to be tilted upwards and to the left to some extent, with her hair off of the right side of her face, but falling over her left shoulder and down her back.

Image Reconstruction:

This is the photo which I have decided to recreate for this part of the project. It’s by a photography company called High Contrast, a group of photographers from Manchester, and was taken as part of a fashion editorial piece. The reason why I chose this particular image is because even though it is quite simple, the contrast between the black and white areas is strong which makes it powerful. I also want to experiment with creating a black and white final image as with all of the shoots I have done previously, I have produced colour results.

Breakdown of the Image:

I need to look at the main features of the image and understand how the shoot was set up, what equipment and techniques were used etc. to be able to reproduce this as well as I can. I must also make sure that when I am shooting, I use my camera on the manual setting so that I can set-up everything accurately, and this should help me to get the best results as possible in my own photograph.

  • Location: The location of this shoot is obviously a studio set-up, and studio electronic flash units have been used. The background has been flooded out by the light from one of these, most likely a soft-light box aimed onto only the white backdrop. I can also tell that there is quite harsh light being cast onto the model from the left and slightly in front of her, using a flash unit and umbrella. I can see this because of the strong shadows on the right of the model, for example on the right-hand side of her face, arm and leg, as well as the slight shadow being cast on the floor by her foot.
  • Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed: From looking at this photo, I can tell that a small aperture has been used as the whole image is very sharp and in focus, so the depth of field is extensive. The ISO will have been around 200 as the flash units will have been quite bright and the image hasn’t been bleached out so its sensitivity to light will have been fairly low in order to pick up the flash suitably. The shutter speed will have needed to be fast enough to freeze any movement of the model to make sure that it didn’t blur, however, as she would have been holding this pose, it wouldn’t need to be so fast that it couldn’t capture the strongest point of the flash. In order to make sure that I have these levels as precise as they can be, I will use a light meter right at the start of the shoot so that I can get a good starting point for all of these levels, and can then alter them slightly from there on if I need to.
  • Model/Styling: The model I am going to be using for this photoshoot looks fairly alike to the girl in the original image. She has long dark hair, dark skin, similar facial features, and I will make sure that her hair, make-up and clothing are as near to how they are in the original picture as possible. For example, the colours/styles of her outfit – I will get her to wear a white dress that comes to just above the knees with black heels/shoe-boots, and her make-up will be quite simple but still noticeable. I have also realised that there are no other accessories being worn in the image, e.g. jewellery, as this would distract from the clothing itself which is supposed to be the main focus point of the photo. Finally, the pose of the model is also very important. It’s actually quite an easy pose to do but needs to be correct in order to get the shadows in the right places. I will make sure my model is standing with her right leg straight and her left leg bent forwards so that her right hip is pushed out slightly, and that she is holding the bottom of her dress with both hands, pulling the left side up a bit. Her head will also need to be tilted upwards and to the left to some extent, with her hair off of the right side of her face, but falling over her left shoulder and down her back.

Tags: image reconstruction

Photoset
October 19, 2011

Bounce Flash:

Here you can see the difference between using direct flash and bounce flash. I did this by using an external flash unit attached to my camera’s hotshoe, and then clipped a piece of white plastic onto it which had been shaped to a 45 degree angle so as to bounce the flash correctly. At first glance, it seems to not be much different, however when you look closer, you can see that with the bounce flash (on the second image), the shadow is slightly more to the side of the subject, is more subtle, and there isn’t quite so much glare on the subject itself.

Tags: technical flash

Photoset
October 19, 2011
26 notes

Direct Flash:

These two sets of images show the difference between taking a photograph using no flash and direct flash onto a subject. There is a very clear difference between them. For example, with the photos of the tree, there are much stronger shadows right behind the subject when direct flash is used on it, and the subject itself is much more defined. With the photos of my model, you can see that using the direct flash bleaches out the image more, as there are fewer shadows and the colours are brightened. It also adds more highlights to the skin.

Tags: technical flash

Photoset
October 19, 2011

ISO:

ISO stands for International Standards Organisations. It is a measure of the sensitivity that the film or digital sensor in the camera has to light. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive it is, which means that you can shoot with less light available. The down side to this is that the higher the ISO, the more likely it is that your image will get more noise in it or become grainy. You must also remember that when you alter the ISO setting on your camera, you will need to change the aperture and shutter speed to compensate for this so that you can ensure the image quality stays as high as possible.

This set of images is from the ISO experiment that I did. The first photo was taken using an ISO of 100, and the ones following were at 200, 400, 800, 1600 & 3200. Although the first 3 photos are fairly similar, once the ISO reached 800, the changes in brightness started to become much more noticeable, and eventually looked quite bleached out in the 3200 one. By doing a test like this, it makes it easier to decide which ISO setting would be the most suitable for the shot that you are going to take. For example, from looking at these photos, I think that the one with an ISO of 200 looks the best.

Tags: technical

Photoset
October 19, 2011

Aperture:

The aperture of a lens is the diameter of the lens opening, and the larger the diameter of the aperture, the more light reaches the film/image sensor in the camera. Aperture is written as f-stop, e.g. f/2.8. The smaller the f/value, the larger the lens opening (aperture). By changing the aperture, you are able to control the depth of field of an image, for example a large aperture will make the focusing distance of the lens shorter, making the objects in the background more blurry.

As you can see from these experimental photos which I took, the difference between each image is quite noticeable. I decided that I wouldn’t use every single aperture option whilst doing this experiment so that the differences were more obvious; instead I used every other one. In order, the levels I used were: f/4.5, f/5.6, f/7.1, f/9, f/11, f/14, f/18, f/22 and f/29. This proves the explanation of how aperture works that is given above, as the lowest f-value (f/4.5) must give the biggest opening for the light as it has the shortest focusing distance.

Tags: technical

Photoset
October 19, 2011

Shutter Speed:

The shutter speed of a camera determines how much movement you can capture in an image. For example, if you were taking a photo of somebody running and were using a fast shutter speed, it would freeze the motion of the subject, but a slower shutter speed would make it look blurred as they moved. The longer the shutter is open, the more light that can get into the camera.

This is the shutter speed exercise that I did, using the example that I gave in the description above. I used an ISO of 200 for both of the images as I found that this was the most suitable for the lighting conditions, but altered the shutter speeds for each one to see how different the results were. In this first image, the shutter speed was 1/500 which clearly froze the motion of the shot very successfully. I changed this to 1/20 when I shot the second photo, which is what made the motion of the image blur so much, giving a smoother and less-clear result.

Tags: technical

Photo
October 19, 2011
There is something called ‘The Exposure Triangle’, which you can see above. This helps with understanding how all of the settings are linked to one another and which effects on a photograph each one controls. I will be taking some example photos to show each of these elements and how they can be altered to get different effects on images.

There is something called ‘The Exposure Triangle’, which you can see above. This helps with understanding how all of the settings are linked to one another and which effects on a photograph each one controls. I will be taking some example photos to show each of these elements and how they can be altered to get different effects on images.

Tags: technical

Photo
October 19, 2011
11 notes
More Light Painting: This is an attempt at painting with light that I did myself. I went to the Downs and set up my camera using a tripod and the same settings as in the group photoshoot. The only difference was that I used an aperture of f/8 this time instead, as because I was shooting outside instead of a studio, there was a lot more light around even though it was at night time. I really like this photo, as the model and the light around her stands out the most, however when you look at the background, this also draws you in. I really like how the unfocused lights from the Suspension Bridge and the traffic passing by add another layer to the photo almost. I think I’d like to try experimenting more with light painting, even if it was just for the backgrounds of some of my photos or to enhance them slightly.

More Light Painting:

This is an attempt at painting with light that I did myself. I went to the Downs and set up my camera using a tripod and the same settings as in the group photoshoot. The only difference was that I used an aperture of f/8 this time instead, as because I was shooting outside instead of a studio, there was a lot more light around even though it was at night time. I really like this photo, as the model and the light around her stands out the most, however when you look at the background, this also draws you in. I really like how the unfocused lights from the Suspension Bridge and the traffic passing by add another layer to the photo almost. I think I’d like to try experimenting more with light painting, even if it was just for the backgrounds of some of my photos or to enhance them slightly.

Tags: technical light painting