All posts by Daniel B

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Studio Lighting

December 4, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

Using artificial lighting can offer many creative possibilities, I will explore…

size and shape of light – the larger area of light produced, the softer the shadows will be.
distance from subject to create hard / soft light – the further away the lights are from the subject, the softer the light will be, and vice versa.
angles and direction…high, low, side lighting – changes the direction of the shadows that are cast.
filtered light –
camera settings : WB / ISO / shutter speed etc – makes light cooler/warmer, changes the amount light hitting the sensor, amount of motion blur in the image.
reflectors and diffusers – diffusers make the light and shadows softer, reflectors are used to manipulate the direction of the light
key lighting, fill lighting, back lighting, 3 point lighting – key light- main lighting, fill – used to reduce contrast, back – used to make the subject a silhouette – 3 point – all of the above at once.
soft-boxes, umbrella lights, spot lights and floodlights – all help the photographer manipulate the light
chiaroscuro and Rembrandt lighting – used to create a high contrast with shadows on the subject.
high key and low key lighting techniques – high key – low contrast, overexposed, bright. low key – dark, high contrast, shadows.
backdrops and infinity curves – creates a clean backdrop for the photographer to use.
head shot – portrait that realistically demonstrates a person’s appearance.
half body shot – similar to a head shot, but focuses on the torso as well as the head and shoulders.
full body shot – picture of the whole body leaving equal space around the subject for balance

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Natural light

November 30, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

In most cases we can make use of natural or available / ambient light…but we must be aware of different kinds of natural light and learn how to exploit it thoughtfully and creatively.

uses of:

intensity of the light – creates brighter exposures and means that the shadows will be harder.
direction of the light – changing light direction will define the direction of the shadows, as well as create different moods and adds depth to the picture.
temperature of the light and white balance – makes an image warmer (orange) or cooler (blue) to convey different atmosphere.
Using reflectors (silver / gold) – redirects existing light to help the photographer manipulate light.
Using diffusers , tissue paper, colored gels, tracing paper etc – determines the intensity of light in your image as well as the intensity of the shadows.
Front / side / back lighting – frontal lighting will illuminate everything in your image, side lighting means that only one side of your image will be illuminated (this adds atmosphere and depth to the picture), back lighting can be used to make a subject a silhouette as your subject will be obscuring the light.
High Key / low key lighting – high key lighting has a low contrast, very few shadows, high exposure and soft front light. Low key lighting uses high contrast, hard and direct lighting,
Shadows / silhouettes – to show depth or create an atmosphere within the image.

AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 2 ESA, Unit 2 Portrait

Street Photography – Practical

November 11, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

For this practical I wanted to capture people doing ordinary things and having interactions between each other, but add a more dramatic or stylized edge to the pictures. this was my first attempt at street photography and found it to be very interesting seeing people go about their day. After selecting my final images, I decided that I waned to assign each picture an emotion. Some of the images clearly showed some emotion to begin with, but I wanted to edit them to see if i could achieve this while still making each picture look realistic and not over-edited. Below I have put together a contact sheet an some final images that I have edited.

Final Images

Edited in: Lightroom

I started with the emotion of sadness, trying to capture the somber atmosphere by getting very close to the subject so it seems as though nothing is going on in the world around them. I then desaturated the image and lowered the exposure so that it would seem darker.

Edited in: Lightroom

I had a similar approach with this photo as i did with the last. I wanted to capture a somber atmosphere and as you cannot see the subjects face, through the use of some small adjustments and editing, the picture is perceived to be sad as the man is looking into the distance, and because the viewer does not know what he is looking at, it seems as though he is staring at nothing.

Edited in: Lightroom

For this image I used a high shutter speed to capture raindrops frozen in midair. I try to utilize the rule of thirds in many of my pictures however i think that it is especially noticeable in this image. The frozen rain, adds a sense of temperature, making the image look cold and dark.

Edited in: Lightroom

I liked the use of colour in this image and i decided that desaturating it would make it lose some of its most interesting characteristics. For instance, something I noticed while editing the picture is that the man on the left’s shirt is almost a perfect match to the yellow reflection in the glass, and the man on the right’s shirt is matching the grey-painted board on the right side of the image. This helps create a sense of symmetry, as the picture is almost split in to two, at least regarding colour, and gives it a subliminally symmetrical look.

Edited in: Lightroom

Many of my images were focused one person at a time, however this is one of the few which focuses on relationships and interactions between different people in the same frame. Although this is quite a dark image with not many bright highlights, the smiles on the subject’s faces show a clear juxtaposition to the exposure.

Edited in: Lightroom + Photoshop

This picture is slightly more stylized than I originally intended however i like the idea that the subject is so engrossed in their phone that the rest of the world isn’t being taken in, hence why i saturated the polarized lenses of his sunglasses and made the rest of the picture B&W.

Edited in: Lightroom

In this image it seemed as though the man was very important, at least compared to his surroundings. for this reason i decided to bring down the colour saturation in his surroundings and emphasize the red of his tie to draw the eye to the right of the picture.

AO1 Develop Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Street Photography Case Study – Jeff Mermelstein

November 10, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

I wanted to look at Jeff Mermelstein’s work as it seems to focus mostly on people doing everyday acts and living normal lives, and this is what I wanted to highlight in my photo shoot. Jeff Mermelstein was born in 1957 in New Jersey, and is perhaps most known for his detailed photographical documentation of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and their aftermath. However he also has extensive experience in ‘everyday life’ street photography, capturing some of the strange and interesting things people do on a regular basis. Mermelstein studied at Rutgers College and the International Center of Photography and went on to have images printed in publications such as LIFE, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine.

Image result for jeff mermelstein street photography

Mermelstein now lives in New York City and this is where most of his street photographs come from. Due to the busy, rushing and cramped streets of New York, it provides him with a lot of opportunity to get interesting pictures. He has also taught at the International Center of Photography in New York since 1988 and has released 4 books over the course of his career(“SideWalk”-1999, “Side walk: Per le strade di New York”-1999, “No Title Here”-2001, “Twirl×Run”-2009). For my Practical photo shoot I will be trying to use some of the techniques used in Mermelstein’s work, and try to imitate elements of his photography into my own.

Image result for jeff mermelstein street photography

One of the images that stuck out to me was this image below, as it has multiple ‘layers’; What I mean by this is that by using a shallow focus, Mermelstein has created multiple areas of focus. As you can see, the most obvious thing that immediately stands out is the reflection in the woman’s glasses, with the sharp reflections of the buildings across the street, however, in using this depth of field, he also has the people in the background of the shot in focus, making the city seem so busy at ground level, but the reflection in the glasses make it seem much more tranquil and quiet in comparison to the bustling crowd behind.

Image result for jeff mermelstein

AO1 Develop Ideas, Component 2 ESA, Unit 2 Portrait

Street Photography – mood board/mind Map

November 9, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

Image result for jeff mermelstein street photography Image result for street photography

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Portrait Project Introduction

November 8, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

Portrait photography is genre of photography that focuses on one person, or a group of people, that captures the personality of the subject using lighting, backdrops, and poses. Throughout this unit of work, I will be focusing on 6 areas of portrait photography: Environmental Portraits(Taking pictures of people in a working environment in which they are aware of the camera and photographer, looking directly into the lens), Street photography(taking pictures of people in public where the subject is not paying attention to the camera or photographer), tableau vivant photography(from the French phrase meaning ‘living picture’ tableau vivant is a scene in which one or more actors/models are carefully posed and positioned with props, and are usually lit in a theatrical fashion), studio photography(using lighting and flash techniques in an artificial environment with different backdrops), Photo-Montage(layering multiple images on top of one another to create meaning or symbolism) as well as Identity and place(taking pictures representing aspects of people’s lives that makes them who they are)

AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 1 Abstract

Final Print Images

October 12, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 1 Abstract

Week 5 Photoshoot Colour/Texture

October 11, 2018 Daniel B Leave a comment

For this shoot, I took a lot of inspiration from minimalist photographers such as Jon Setter, Kyle Jeffers and Julian Schulze, but also tried to take into account the style of Photographers like The Boyle Family and Aaron Siskind, and tried to get at least on subject photographed in the style of these photographers. i found it very interesting focusing of colour and shape, as well as texture and different techniques. I wanted this Photoshoot to show a verity of these skills and I feel as though i have achieved this.

Contact Sheets:

Red Dot: Consider for final edit

Red Line: do not use

Box + Arrow: Crop

Inspiration for my images:

Many of the images in my contact sheet are based on the works of Kyle Jeffers and Jon Setter especially. I wanted to recreate the sharp images of setter combined with a slightly less saturated palate of Jeffers (concerning his pictures of buildings that is) and therefor i can see many elements of their work starting to emerge through my own.

However, I also wanted to try to take some pictures in the style of other photographers as well, most notably the Boyle Family, but also a few in the vain of Aaron Siskind (although i tried to do different shots compared to the summer task that i completed about him) to try and challenge myself and produce the best variety of high quality photographs.

Final Images:

I found that this image is the closest that i got to that of Jeffers’ and Setter’s work, as it has the same characteristics in terms of shape, sharp edges, and an interesting colour palate. My goal for this picture was to try and emulate Setter’s ‘RedMilk’. I also feel as though I have put a unique spin on my picture, using a picture taken from further away.

For this Picture, I liked how the lines were perpendicular to one another, similar to a lot of Setter’s work, yet it also has more of a monochromatic tone compared to a lot of Setter’s pictures. I also Like the use of angles in this photo, as the camera is slightly canted and this adds to the sharp edges of the perpendicular, 90 degree angles within the picture.

For this picture i wanted to focus on minimalism and It has definitely turned out better than i was expecting. This specific photo was not taken as an attempt to copy others work, but as this was near the end of my shoot, I had started to get an eye for the colour and texture photos that Photographers were producing, yet it does still feature some of the key elements of minimalistic photographer’s work.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Unit 1 Abstract