Studio Lighting Attempts:

The reason i have chosen to put these images in black and white is because I like the colour contrast it creates highlighting features that should normally be highlighted but with an extra touch of softness. Chiascuro doesn’t have to limit itself to black and white images as back around the time of the renaissance they wouldn’t have limited everything to shades but added colours like darker shades of brown.

Chiascuro photography cannot work without lighting special effects. Having tried this in many different places light rooms, dark rooms, average to darker lighting then having played with the shades that appear in the images I have managed to touch on areas that perhaps wouldn’t have appeared so dark on just the camera image.

Some of these images were easier to capture than others. In terms of lighting and working to achieve Chiaroscuro the main part of the image should be extremely dark.  I have worked with achieving chiaroscuro not only in taking pictures but drawing it as well some of the images i decided to leave in color because even though there isn’t a big element of darkness there are features that you normally would not be able to see. it highlights areas and features of the face that make the image 10 times more interesting to look at due to the high level of detail.

My thought process for these images, due to them being taken at home was harder for me as i find my brother quite a good model as he usually pulls expressions that i couldn’t make my friends do because of it being too ’embarrassing.’ These images (most of them) were actually taken in my room either using natural lighting and flash or a low exposure with a low brightness setting. I also decided to change the background because having a white background when trying to create a chiaroscuro effect might not work in my favor, therefore i used a black sheet of A5 paper and blue tacked it to my wall and simply made my brother stand in front of it. I think this worked well in my favor for some of my images.

The images themselves don’t have a lot of texture apart from some areas of high detail on the faces. The lens focus perfectly on the area that i was aiming for which was more a less the center of the face.  The white balance of the image is focused on the right setting for most, obviously there will be the odd that’s either to over exposed or too under exposed but most of them came out the right temperature.

The Lighting Technique

An example of bouncing the flash to soften the effects and create a larger fill area this can be used when there is white ceilings\ walls

In the video below it shows a way to set up 1,2,3 point lighting and what its job purpose is and what it solves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3xYPOiPtE4

Temperatures used to gain any specific lighting.

However if not having access to studio lights which is the case for most unless in a school studio. lighting techniques can be improvised like using natural lighting or using natural lighting that contains patterns, using the flash, holding multiple phone torches to the aimed area being photographed, using led lights or even fire lighting.

David Bailey 

David Bailey was a Biritsh Photographer, born in Leytonstone, London, United kingdom. He was born on the 2nd of January in 1938 currently being (80 years old).  David Bailey being on of the many photographers to have a chance to photography famous people, from Johnny Depp too David Beckham

Bailey developed a love for natural history which them developed his love for photography.  Bailey suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia which resulted in him having to be home schooled.  However, having this happened Bailey claims to have only attended over 30 times which then led him to wanting to drop out of school at the age of 15.

in 1959 Bailey became an assistant photographer to John French, in  1960 he was a photographer for John Cole’s studio Five, which led onto Bailey being contacted by British Vogue Magazine where he worked for about 15 years, first on staff and later as a freelancer. He also freelanced for other magazines and newspapers.

Bailey’s fashion work and celebrity portraiture, characterized by stark backgrounds and dramatic lighting effects, transformed British fashion and celebrity photography from chic but reserved stylization to something more youthful and direct. His work reflects the 1960s British cultural trend of breaking down antiquated and rigid class barriers by introducing  a working-class or punk look into both clothing and artistic products.  He is thought to have inspired the role of the photographer, Thomas, in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow up 1966.

Bailey also directed television commercials and produced a number of books and documentary films. In 1972 he began publishing the fashion and photography magazine Ritz. Although he continued to photograph celebrities for publications such as Harper’s Bazaar and The London Times throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, he began to turn his attention to television commercials.

Here are some examples of his most famous portraits:

David Bailey relies on heavy lighting and works particularly well with high intensity on shading.  This effect works well as it captures only certain features of the individuals faces.  however with the technique of chiaroscuro artist usually tend to put the shading in the background and brining it into the face, but with Bailey’s work the background tends to be a lighter colour meaning that all tones of darkness and greyness are all focused on areas like the hair and some patches of the models face.

CHIARSCURO

What is It and when was it first used:

Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modelling three-dimensional objects and figures.  Some evidence exists that ancient Greek and Roman artists used chiaroscuro effects, but in European painting the technique was first brought to its full potential by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 15th century. Like photographers and cinematographers centuries later, painters realized that the contrast between areas of light and dark heighten the impact of an image. As the Renaissance gave way to the Baroque, a style that emphasised drama and emotional intensity, some artists developed an exaggerated form of chiaroscuro known as tenebrism, from the Italian word tenebroso, meaning gloomy or murky.

Here are some examples of artists who rely on this technique to produce some of their amazing outcomes.

• Caravaggio
• Georges De La Tour
• Leonardo Da Vinci
• Joseph Wright
• Henry Fuseli
• Rembrandt
• Ralph Gibson

These are 3 examples of Chiascuro from a long time ago:

This is how we interpret Chiaroscuro in the modern day world, baring in mind to make these shadows is a lot easier than it would have been for Artist like Caravaggio.

I have learnt about using this technique when I was doing my art GCSE. Having looked at Baileys work before I chose to adapt my work to make it sort of similar to his. I did this because when it comes to taking photos in black and white that has always been my strong point.

People use this technique because not only do they like the contrasting effect it makes they also believe it intensifies certain feature that you wouldn’t be able to see as much having the image being taken in just natural lighting.

The principal and lighting technique of chiaroscuro ^