Bracketing

Also because of todays workshop I learnt more about bracketing…

I had not looked into bracketing much in the past but found it useful to learn more about it…

Bracketing is when you take several shots of the same subject using different camera settings.

This is useful especially in still life photo shoots as even when a small difference of exposure occurs it can change the photo completely. It is good to practise doing this as its good to see how the different settings of your camera changes the photos lighting, exposure and because of this, the mood of the photo.

AutoBracketing is when you use a setting on your camera that takes several bracketed shots for you, instead of you changing the settings by hand between each shot.

Histograms

An example of examples of photos and their histograms.

I found it useful learning about histograms, it was good that I would know what I was looking at when it came to future photo shoots.

Workshop- doing my own thing

In this workshop only 3 of us turned up….. as every one thought that it was cancelled because of the bad storm we were having.
But that was a good thing as it meant we were being taught more things, as though we were having a one to one.

In this particular workshop we were taught about histograms (I am going to put information on that in a later post) and were given objects to photograph experimenting with different light set ups and also tethering as we needed to see close up on a bigger screen if the lighting was working effectively.

Quick photo showing the lighting

Lighting set up

First photo we took

This was the lighting set up to create this photo…

Second photo we took

This was the lighting set up I used to create this photo…

We also looked at a shiny surface to take a photo of...

The idea of this workshop was to work with objects that had different surfaces- shiny, glass, plastic, matte etc. This was useful to learn as lighting changes all the time on different surfaes.

Make-up and Hair Styling Inspiration

With this photo of Rita Ora you can see she is wearing quite a lot of make-up, I've realised that you need to be quite heavy with make-up on photo shoots especially in the studio with bright lights as they wash you out. With my photos especially as i'm going for that 60's/french look with the styling.

A photo I got from the internet- I like her winged eyeliner and strong bold red lips- statement lips will definitely be used in my photos.

A close up of a smoke eye make-up look, the darker the better as eyes are usually the thing that gets attention taken away from.

A bit random but I was looking through film books in the NUA library and I came across this picture of the actor Richard E. Grant. Strange bit of inspiration I know but I liked his hair style and how it was slicked back, I think it sorta looks a bit french and is very classic and classy looking, something that would work well with the shine from studio lights.

I'm slightly excited by doing the make-up for my models as i've always enjoyed doing it and being creative with it and it is also me experiencing maybe another possible career route along with taking the photos as well of course.

Styling my Portraits

After looking closely into the aesthetics of the film 'Coco Before Chanel' as my main inspiration for BA4 (more detail in my visual logbook) I started to consider what props/costume/make-up I would need in my portraits for my models. I wanted the look to have a sort of stereotype of french fashion and style about it so I started to look at the iconography and what we would associate it with.
(I also kept in mind what would work well when it comes to editing my images from colour into black and white).
I looked at clothes that are classic looking as well as smart but still has a youthfulness about them.

Still from 'Coco Before Chanel' 

I found that the breton top is very traditional of french fashion and is also worn in the film. I think the stripes of the top will give that extra contrast with the black and white and will add texture if I was to have a lot of space in the portrait as well.

Also took inspiration from 60's fashion and era

     

Saw this on topshops website and instantly thought of how I wanted something similar in my own portrait shoots - they even say how the top has a 'french twist'.

Graphics Collaboration

For a week us photography students as a pair were to work with a small group of graphics students to produce an album cover, we were given two words- a genre of music and an object as our inspiration for this photo. Our words were ….. Hillbilly and Lightbulb

We were a bit sceptical about these words as none of us really knew about hillbilly music and how we could link that in with a lightbulb, this is how it went…

Our photos we took as a contact sheet

Mine and Gabbys final photo

The Graphics Boys photo

I liked theres as it had a lovely colour tone and was more a signifier of the hillbilly genre but you could tell they aren't photographers as there are far too many shadows that makes the photo look too busy and  its not completely in focus.

In one of the photos I had thought to try to use a light in the box as though it was a lightbulb but it didn't quite work or look right.

The boys first idea that was rejected

A quick few sketches that I had done of my ideas, I think I might take my own photos in the not too distant and create my own album cover.

The Graphics boys final drawing of their idea for us photographers to go on for when we took our photo.

Workshop- using difficult objects

In this workshop we had to choose an object out of objects that were difficult to photograph as a still life in the studio, we chose a white bowl.

We were aiming for something like this…

You could imagine this to be a website selling advertising the selling of the bowls, we were trying to achieve the effect of the bowl looking as though it is floating.

This was our first attempt, it didn't come out very good as you could see because you can see that the shadow of the black card that we were using to create a shadow was too harsh

These were the cameras settings - F22   1/125

This was too dark and you could see the background too much and the bowl was not lit enough

These were the camera settings - F22    1/160

This was probably the most successful one of the photo shoot (even though it isn't very good and is no where near like the photo we were trying to achieve)

These were the camera settings - F16   1/125

Lecture on Composition

Here are some of the things I learnt from todays Lecture about composition that I will definitely take into account when taking my own photographs for this project :

• Simplicity- How much of your subject should you include
• Golden intersection
• Geometric shapes to aid photo composition
• Square format
• What is the centre of interest
• What is the subject matter

Here is a photo from another lecture on still life, I found this one very interesting as I hadn't looked too much into still life and I found it inspired me to gain inspiration from more still life photos and photographers.

                                                                                                                                                                          

Workshop- Creating our own lighting

In todays workshop we had to bring in photos of portraits in which we liked the lighting being used and then had to recreate them using our studio lights.

I chose a photo of Cara Delevingne, her lighting was strong on one side, creating this rembrandt lighting effect (the triangle of light on her right cheek, named after the dutch painter- Rembrandt, who often used this style of lighting).

It was hard to recreate this photo and we tried many lighting set ups- the first one being this…

Camera settings : F13   1/125   ISO 200

This didn't work at all so we got rid of the light on the right side and used a reflector

The camera settings were F8   1/125   ISO 200

We added a black reflector as we didn't want too much light to be bounced back into the photo, we then realised we needed a harsher light to create the rembrandt lighting style and so swapped the soft box for a beauty dish

This still wasn't quite right and so we added a white reflector as well

The camera settings were F13   1/125   ISO 200 and the lights were f6.0

 we finally managed to get something similar, here are my photos…

We then created lighting for a photo one of my group members had brought in- this is the photo of Gwyneth Paltrow

We started with this lighting set-up …

Camer settings were F16   1/125   ISO100

Elinchrom lights were 4 but we then put them up to 5.4 so aperture became F22

This is the photo we took with this lighting set up 

From the photos we decided we needed a hair light/mid light to make it softer, especially on the arm.

New set up: 

This is our final photo

It could do with some editing to make look magazine advert worthy, and maybe a visit back to the studio to spend more time on the lighting, but overall I think we did a good enough job of recreating it.

Also today, our group got to do tethering to capture one on the macs and I was very happy about this as I hadn't done it before and I found it so useful to see our photos pop up straight away on a bigger screen so we could look closer to see if we were achieving the right lighting effects.