Planning the Shoot
For my second photo shoot, I plan to take still life object images in the photography studio to show personal items of mine which have sentimental value to me. These items will be dance related ie, certificates, trophy’s, medals etc and will be taken in artificial lighting to allow for shadowing etc to be seen. I will use both a straight on angle and a birds eye view to take pictures of my objects, this is different from the typical still life way of taking images which is usually face toward, however I feel as if taking birds eye view images of certain objects such as certificates is going to look better in my book. I have done previous research on still life history as well as explored Laura Letskinsky’s contemporary work foe further inspiration. After looking at her work, it inspired me to use a range of angles when photographing my objects, as well as experimenting with lighting, meaning I will be carrying out this effect in order to create a better image. I plan to keep the images very simple and will therefore be photographing on a white coloured background adding an aesthetic feel to my work which has been taken from Lauras work. I will use a transmitter when taking my images to allow light to be in all corners of my photograph, as well as a tripod to ensure an even image. For arranging the different objects if wanting to include more than one in a single image, I will ensure that it is not overlay complicated and sticks to the aesthetic. As for editing, I want to use as less editing as possible to showcase my originally photography skills, therefore I will only change aspects such as cropping, co toast and brightness etc. I will use Adobe Lightroom Classic for this.
Looking into camera settings/ equipment into more detail, I intend to use a Canon Camera on an auto setting to allow me to use a transmitter with my images which will create a fully focused image. The use of a tripod will also be important as it saves me struggling to find the perfect heights each time I need to change objects. The artificial lighting will be from a box light which will be placed directly to each side of the objects.
Process of Elimination
Planning Editing Process
As for how my second shoot ended up, I am mostly happy with my images are they are all clear meaning the transmitter was a good idea for this shoot in particular. For the straight on angle images I found that I liked the shadowing which was ported sometimes. and plan to do as little editing to this in order to keep them elements. Carrying on from this, I also plan to do little edits to my bird eye view images as they also took well to the transmitter and are fully focused, positioned in a good way as well as being of a good brightness/ contrast, I will therefore be mostly cropping the images.
Editing my Images
The process above was then carried on for all other images which will be shown below. In order to elaborate, the images below have cropping edits, contrast, brightness, exposure, highlight edits in order to create even images.
Best Edited Images
Technical Analysis- Technically, I used a Canon Camera which was connected to a photographic transmitter in order to create a flash when photographing my images. This meant that artificial lighting was used to photograph all these images and helped to create an even picture. Due to this transmitter, I did not need to experiment with camera setting meaning I kept it on auto throughout.
Visual Analysis- Visually, we can see that then images above are objects which have been photographed in colour from a both birds eye view and in front of the objects to show experimentation with angles. We can also see that all images are fully focused and fully lit, portraying the effect that editing has been successful.
Conceptual Analysis- Conceptually, outsiders looking at these images may be able to see that all the images link due to key words such as ‘dance’ and ‘distinction’ which would give away that these objects may be linked to a dancer, further showing that these are her objects which may have sentimental value.
Contextual Analysis- Contextually, these images are photos of my personal dance related objects which mean something to me, this being either a trophy or a hair pin which I wore when performing my best solo piece etc.
Evaluation
I think that overall I was able to capture a few successful images out of the multiple different objects I photographed. However, I feel as if I should have been more accurate with the way I positioned paperwork as it created inaccurate edits which I could then not use any further. I would also take more pictures hairpieces as I found that those are the images which look best both before and after editing.