People and Place - Exercise 4 - An active portait

I recently took a few images of my mother whilst she was crocheting - there was no eye contact made and really she was unaware that I was taking photos of her!

 

Chatting and crocheting and oblivious!

 

not sure on this expression!

 

A more structured sitting comprised of my daughter playing her piano.  I moved the piano in-front of the window and sat on her bed, whilst she practised, although she knew I was there, she completely ignored the fact that I had my camera with me and only really smiled when she was happy she had played a piece through correctly.

 

I have converted these images to mono and I have also removed the name on the t-shirt.

 

I love her expression here, trying to decipher the music!

 

The majority of these images were taken with my daughter concentrating on playing and reading the music, however the last image she looked up and smiled.  Natural light was used in all the images.  A few natural distractions in the background, but good expressions and I am happy with the outcome of this exercise.

 

People and Place - Exercise 3 - Experimenting with light

10 tips for working with light!

• Seek the shade - Look for a shaded area outdoors for the advantage of softer, more even light.
• Use a reflector - A reflector is incredibly useful for throwing a touch of light back into a scene and brightening up shadow areas.
• Fill-flash - What a reflector cant handle, fill-flash will.  TTL metering will tell your flash how much power to output, and use exposure compensation to dial the flash down a touch.
• Use the golden hour - This doesn't just apply to landscape shoots.  Make use of natural light at the beginning and end of the day, when the sun is low in the sky and a beautifully soft, warm and golden light often fills the air.
• Use a diffuser - A diffuser can serve as a soft-box and allow you to create a softer type of lighting.
• Prevent squinting - Photographers often avoid shooting into the sun.  But if you need to, its much better to deal with the issues than to have subjects squinting and looking uncomfortable.
• Flare - Many photographers actually seek to make a virtue of lens flare caused by shooting into the sun.  It wont suit every type of subject and you have to make sure it is not ruining the image - but lens flare can often make an image look modern and engaging.
• Use patterns - Look for the way the light is falling through leaves, branches or window blinds indoors as this can result in the formation of interesting patterns
• Distance matters - If you're working with window light, you can reduce the contrast by simply moving your subject further away from the window.  Your subject will be less bright and the shadows wont be as deep
• Overcast weather will work - Don't be afraid of overcast weather conditions.  The clouds will act as a giant soft-box, ensuring that the light is even and easy to work with.  You could consider using a gold reflector to throw warmer light back onto the subject.

Natural Light (taken in the shade on a sunny day)

 

2. Reflected light from white walls

 

 

 

I used my daughters bedroom for this image as she has white walls, I asked her to sit on the bed resting against the wall with the window behind to the right.  I also converted to black and white as there was a distraction of cerise pink in the background.

 

3. Artificial light

 

 

 

Again, here I used a white wall as a backdrop, and mounted my speedlite on my camera to illuminate the face.

 

 

4. Diffusion (in which the light is filtered and spread through another material ie: blind, tracing paper, leaves of trees etc)
 

 

 

 

Natural filtered light (using a blind) - I prefer the top image as the sunlight wasn't as harsh as the second image, I also converted them into black and white as I thought the filtered effect through the blinds looked much better (I will keep working on this set up as I am hoping for the sunlight to appear long enough to work with and enable me to get a really pleasing image).

 

5. Sunlight

 

 

 

 

 

 

Direct sunlight in April, taken mid afternoon is a harsh unflattering light, that leaves the subject squinting with dark shadows, image 2 was taken using a reflector to the left of the subject, but appeared to make the light worse as she was almost blinded by the light bouncing back from it.

 

 6. Shade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In another part of the garden on a bright sunny day, we found some shade, image one using natural light and image 2 used natural light and a reflector to the bottom right to bounce some light back up onto the face.

 

 7. Use of a reflector

 

 

 

 

 

 

For these images, I got my daughter to sit on the bed with the window to the left of her in the first image and then used a reflector to the right to bounce light back on her face in the second image.  As you can see the use of a reflector really does help eliminate the shadows.

 

 

http://www.lightingdiagrams.com/Creator - lighting diagram creator (ideal for adding in extra diagrams

 





People and Place - Exercise 2 - Thinking about location

Initially there are a few locations that spring to mind, as I read this:-

• The woods
• The beach
• The grafetti underpass

Other possibilities:

 

• Victorian tram stop - Southsea
• Railings by beach (shooting upwards)
• Brighton Pier
• Fort Brockhurst walkway
• Bridge (Gosport)

but I would also say that it depends on the character of the person that you are about to photograph - Will they suit the backdrop? I mean; a man in a suit wouldn't necessarily look as comfortable with a background of graffiti as I young boy on a bmx - so some thought needs to go into the composition.

 

Other things that need to be identified are:

 

• Does the area need tidied? Look out for distractions, litter on the floor, disorder, open doors/drawers or other people.
 
• Strong clashing colours, posters, paintings, signs - think about if they distract or add to the look that you are after.
 
• Does it compliment the subject or detract from them?

• Clothing also makes a difference to the location!

I have put together a few locations from nearby my home town - they vary in location and detail.

 The woods

 Guildhall steps

Seafront castle

 Fort Brockhurst

Subway graffiti

Graffiti subway - converted to black and white to see how it looked

 

Beach pillars

Bus/tram shelter stop

Reflections:

 

These would have been ideal locations, Great granddad's kitchen table and his favourite armchair.  I can see him sitting at the table and also in his armchair, I'm not so sure he would have been entirely comfortable about me taking his photos though, but still I decided to take the photos anyway to remind me of him.

 

Thoughts:

 

I have come to realise that I should carry a camera at all times regardless if it be my DSLR, pocket point and shoot or my phone (with camera), as there is always an opportunity for a photo!



Other work - Landscape

Possible location - in Jersey that I would love to use as for an on location shoot!

After a recent visit to Jersey, CI, over the half term, I managed to get a few days out with my camera and although not directly related to this assignment I felt it necessary to share the work that I had captured, showing my interest in other areas of photography.

 

 

 

Jersey, has many beautiful scenic parts and I really enjoy visiting - looking forward to my next visit, where hopefully I will be able to spend more time out during various times of the day, particularly sunset and evening!