This is the set up I used to create the cat still life images. I used the curved acrylic still life table this table is amazing for shooting still life because there are no breaks in the curves or edges where I would be photographing that would show up. This intern makes the editing process easier for me because then I don’t have to photoshop these lines ad match up the foreground to the background which takes time.

There unfortunately a crack in the still life table because someone lent on it but this doesn’t affect my photos because I am photographing above to crack meaning the table is still seamless.

I set my camera to be straight on to the cat so I get a profile image and I feel like a profile image is more striking. Also I wanted to get the cat looking straight down the lense so it feels like the viewer has more connection with the photo because direct eye contact is shown to make people feel more connected to photos and it gives them more content to the image, they can also design their own story behind why the image was taken.

I used a timer button to take my photos to make sure then I am looking through the lens that i wouldn’t create a shadow effect the image so by using a timer button I can step back once I have got it all in focus and this also means there is not chance of me knocking the camera once I have focused it or so I don’t change the position of the tripod at all the the image is still straight on.

The lights settings were put up to both there maxes the yellow dial changes it from white light to yellow light and because I wanted the max contrast between the black and white. I turned the dial up to white on the max so this blasted out any shadows present and ment there was more contrast between the cat and that background. Also there is another dial that controls how much light the lights are producing e.g how dim the light is. When looking at dimness of light, the dinner the light the more shadows are cast. I don’t want shadows in my images so I will have the dial controlling dimness at max on the back.

The lights have to be adjusted so that on camera there looks like there is the most minimal shadow possible. I do this by moving the light slightly taking a picture and then judging off that and how it looks.

I found that angeling the front light straight on to the cat and having the back light slightly turned away from the cat was the best way. On this image there still doses look like there are shadows which there are but when photographed on camera these look alot more minimal.

I used a 50mill lens when photographing the cat also adjusting the focal ring accordingly and had to re adjust the settings on the camera every time I moved the lights adjusting the ios and the white balance. I kept it to a high shutter speed to make sure the images were in focus and the distinctive black and white comparison could be photographed.