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AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Studio portraits – Studio light (Chiaroscuro lighting)

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Studio light

Studio lighting is artificial meaning that you can be very creative with portraiture. You can do things like changing the distance of the lights to create hard/soft lighting, Change the angle/direction of the lighting to create different effects, use directors/diffusers to manipulate the lighting and also make use of backdrops.

Chiaroscuro technique

This is a technique tat has been used in a lot of painting, most famously renaissance paintings. This technique is when there is a contrast between lighting on a subject. Usually, the  light will illuminate one side of the face leaving the other side darker.

Chiaroscuro mood board

Below are some examples of this technique used in paintings and in portraiture photography.

Images are not my own.

 

Contact sheets

Best outcomes

 

 

Analysing

 

Technical

The technical skills are what makes this image successful. To take this image I used Chiaroscuro lighting, so that half of the subject’s face was lit, and the other half was shadowed. In order to do this I placed a spot light with a cover over it in order to make the lighting softer, on the subject’s left side. I made sure that it was placed directly to the side of him so that when I stood in from on him with my camera, only half of his face would be shadowed in order to successfully use Chiaroscuro lighting.

My ISO was set to 400, as I noticed that anything under that made my image far too low key and underexposed. My shutter speed was set to 1/200, which through trial and error I realised was the best shutter speed because it wasn’t too slow that my images were blurry and over exposed, and it wasn’t too quick that my images turned out under exposed.

Visual

Visually I think this photo is very aesthetically pleasing. The subject is perfect framed in the centre, so that your eye is directly drawn to him. The powerful contrast between the lighting and the shadow also helps make the image successful as they are perfectly proportioned, as both the shadow and lighting each cover half of the face. The use of the black backdrop also makes the photo very pleasing to the eye as it doesn’t cause any distraction that would take the audience’s eye off the foreground. It makes the image successful as it blends in with the shadow on the half of the model’s face, creating an almost sort of illusion.

AO2 Explore Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Portraits using Studio Lighting

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For my experimentation into using lighting in a studio setting, I decided to also incorporate a number of camera skills into my experimentation as well, to produce the best products possible.

The lighting in the studio consisted of a key light, and a soft box light. the key light was used to illuminate the face of the subject, and to alter the overall lighting of the image, whereas the soft box light was used to manipulate shadows, softening them where necessary to alter the appearance of the image.

The following images are of contact sheets I have created including all of my studio portraits:

Key: Red F = out of focus, Red C.A = wrong camera angle, Green L = slightly off lighting , Green F = slight focus issue, Red O.E = over exposed, Red Cross = rejected, Green Box = finals for editing

The final images before the editing process can be found below:

After deciding on which images should be processed to the editing stage, I used Photo-shop to manipulate the colors and tones of the images to make them as eye-catching and effective as possible.

The aftermath of editing can be seen below:

The above 2 images are photographs are examples of me attempting to create a chiaroscuro effect, where 1/2 of the face of the subject is illuminated using studio light, and the other portion is shadowed, to create a contrast between the 2 portions of the same subject. This is very effective when trying to draw attention to the depths of the subject, and it helps to bring the image to life, giving it more of a 3D effect.

Some of the images were over saturated due to the lighting in the studio and the original position of the camera, and so I attempted to edit some of the images to reduce the saturation, and make the coloring of the images more natural. This kind of editing occurred in the above 2 images.

For some of my photographs, I experimented with using different filters in front of the lighting, to create different effects of the image. Colored filter paper was used to manipulate the overall color of the photograph, but for the above photograph, a piece of paper covered in holes was held in front of the key light. I think this created an interesting shadow effect, and helps to draw more attention to the photograph, and gives the viewer more to look at.

The above 2 examples are example of props being used in studio photography. Props are often easier to use and manipulate in a controlled environment like a studio, rather than in a natural setting.  The props in the above image can be used to create a contrast to the colors of the subject, thus breaking up the color of the image and creating more areas for the subject to have their attention drawn to, and can in certain circumstances be useful in conveying meaning and reason in an image.

Overall, I believe that experiencing the different kind of lighting that can be used in a studio setting has allowed me to understand how much having control over the lighting of an image can effect the final outcome of the photograph. Natural lighting is useful to create a natural effect in an image, however for situations where natural lighting is not possible, or when a particular angle or intensity of lighting is required, using studio lighting can be very useful.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Uncategorized, Unit 2 Portrait

Studio Photography Lighting (Singular)

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STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY ONE POINT LIGHTING

This post is focussed on our studio lighting photoshoot using a single light to capture images.

Single point lighting or “one point lighting”, is the technique of carrying out a photoshoot within a studio with only a single source of light, for example large lamps, spotlights or torches.

It enables reflective lighting techniques, and it sometimes, can be used to focus a viewers attention to a particular aspect of a photograph or subject in the photograph, or it can be used to create shadows when used correctly that add additional depth of field and conceptual features to an image.

Contact sheet of images:

 

From this contact sheet I picked out my favourite two images from the shoot and edited them in Adobe Photoshop.

My final edited images from the single point lighting shoot:

I chose to edit both of these images because of the sharpness, diversity in model actions, contrast differences, brightness differences and the similarity in the position of the single light and the shadows on the models’ face.

The camera was using a high ISO of around 800 and an above average aperture on the first photo, and using a lower ISO of around 600 and a smaller aperture on the second.

The shutter speed for the first photo was slightly faster than the second creating the darkened effect with only the single light from the side creating the shiny parts that give the image its ‘definition’.

The depth of field in both images is shown through the shadows created by the side-lighting however, this only shows depth of field on the model themselves.

Alex looking “into the light”

“Seriously Serious”

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

Studio Lighting – Post 1 (Rankin)

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Rankin:

John Rankin Waddell (born 1966), also known under his working name Rankin, is a British portrait and fashion photographer and director.

Best known as the founder of Dazed and Confused magazine (along with Jefferson Hack), and for his photography of models including Kate Moss and Heidi Klum, celebrities such as Madonna and David Bowie and his portrait of Elizabeth II. His work has appeared in magazines such as GQ, Vogue and Marie Claire. In 2011 Rankin started the biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine, Hunger and launched Rankin Film to produce and direct his own commercial and editorial film work.

Mood Board:

 

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

Window Light – Post 1

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Window Light:

Window light is an excellent, free light source. It can have the same effects as bigger, more expensive lighting equipment. A large window is pretty much just a huge soft box. It will diffuse light into the room and around the subject you place in front of it. The earliest photography studios didn’t use fancy electric lighting. They just used big windows. It can also create interesting shadows as well as the window itself being a part of the composition itself which can not be achieved with any amount of light.

Mood Board:

My Response:

Best Images:

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Uncategorized, Unit 2 Portrait

Street Photography Photo shoot

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Street Photography Photo shoot

This blog post is about the photo shoot i carried out in the streets of town in St. Helier Jersey. The focus of this shoot was portrait photography and i was aiming to capture a natural essence of everyday life in the town through the view of the camera without having staged or positioned photos.

Definition of street photography:

Street Photography, also sometimes called candid photography, is photography conducted for art or inquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents  within public places. Although there is a difference between street and candid photography, it is usually subtle with most street photography being candid in nature and some candid photography being classifiable as street photography. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment. Though people usually feature directly, street photography might be absent of people and can be of an object or environment where the image projects a decidedly human character in facsimile or aesthetic. Therefore here it is worthy to note that the kind of street photography our project is focused on is portraits. I chose to go for a more candid approach to collecting these photos and therefore as we are collecting portraits, all my finished pieces contain people in them.

Difficulties:

One difficult aspect of this portrait shoot was the fact that some public members may not like their picture being taken. Therefore i used this theme of being unnoticed in a lot of the photos i took with a minimal amount of disruption to the public that i could use for example not having flash turned on or using the zoom to collect close up features instead of getting in peoples faces, or way.

Contact sheet with best images:

Here is a contact sheet with my best images from the portrait shoot.

My favourite image edit:

I edited this image because i find its the most focused and intricate portrait I collected of a person. It shows an elder gentleman with a cap on walking by and is effective because of its simplicity and the unusual angle it was taken from. It has a look of double exposure however, its is just the levels of color turned up and down

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Unit 2 Portrait

Night street photography

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Christmas light switch on street photography

For my next attempt at street photography, I decided to take photos in town at a Christmas celebration. I thought this would produced some good outcomes as there would be a lot of people compared to my last attempt, and I therefore thought that I could find a wider variety of more interesting people to photograph. Since there would be more people, I thought that I could blend in a little more and maybe be able to capture some more candid images of people. However, I also took portrait style images of people where they were looking straight into the camera. I also tried to find interesting backgrounds that would makes my images look more attractive.

Contact sheets

Best images

Analysing

Context

This is an image that I took of a Christmas parade dancer while she was in conversation with one of her friends.

Visual

Visually I think that this image is very successful. I like how the subject was captured in the centre of the frame, and how I manged to capture her laughing as it gives the image a positive atmosphere. I also like how there is a lot of lighting due to her costume, as it makes the image look more interesting and colourful which would captivate an audience.

Technical

As this image was taken at night in the dark, my ISO was set to 1600 and my shutter speed was set at 1/60. These settings helps me to get this image perfectly exposed. I also used flash to capture this photograph to fill in any shadowing that would’ve happened due to the uneven street lighting.

Concept

I think that the happy expression and positive atmosphere along with the Christmas nature of the photo shoot, represents how this time of year is truly abut happiness and not about being materialistic.

 

Context

This is an image that I took of a child on the Christmas parade train, as he he leaned out of it to try and catch the foam “snowflakes” coming out of the top of the train.

Visual

One element I like in this image is the foam snowflakes. As some bits were falling very close to my lens, they ended up not being in focus as my priority was to capture the child’s expression. I like how this looks as I think that it adds more detail to the image without taking attention away from it.

Concept

I think this image shows how people should appreciate small details in life. While I took this image there was a lot going on, 100s of people crowding around us, confetti being set of, a choir singing yet the child chose to focus on the snow.

Technical

 

 

Context

This is an photograph I  took of a lady just after the Christmas lights had turned on. She caught my attention as she was dressed in a bright red jacket, and was wearing a lot of fur. I caught this image the moment she turned back to look at the lights on the tree

Visual

Visually, I think this image is very successful. It it well exposed and it is sharp making it good quality.  The use of my flash meant that she wasn’t wash out by all the background light. The angle I captured this image from was also very successful as I got the whole of her face in the photograph.

Concept

I think that the way she is so intensely staring at the tree and the lighting is really interesting as it may make people wonder what the woman was thinking while she was looking.

Technical

For this image my shutter speed was set 1/60 and my ISO was set on 6400, as it was very dark outside and I needed as much exposure without machining the image look noisy. For this image I also used flash so that the woman in the image was evenly lit, as there were many lighting decorations everywhere that caused uneven lighting.

AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Uncategorized, Unit 2 Portrait

Studio photo shoot

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This is a photo sheet of the whole shoot, the green markings show that I will use the photo, yellow means i might use it. Blue lines mean that I will crop the photo along the lines.
I used two point lighting for this photo, the blue light from the left creates attractive shadows, and the warm white light from the right helps make the skin appear more tanned and makes the whole photo look more real, instead of looking staged.
This photo has been edited to appear brighter and more grainy, this has been done by adjusting the saturation, gamma correction etc.
Here Layla is playing the guitar, her placement creates a show which is offset to the right which makes the image more powerful. It is also composed of neutral tones which complement the simplicity of the acoustic guitar.
In this photo Layla’s hand gestures create emaciated shadows across her face. The only light source is a soft box which helps create bold shadows.
For this photo I decided to experiment with blur. The photo came out blurry so I decided to blur the rest of it more so that the centre of the image looks sharper in contrast with them.
This is structurally my favourite photo as the middle is empty. The right side is really dark which diverts the attention away from the middle which is the weakest part of a photo.
AO1 Develop Ideas, AO2 Explore Ideas, AO3 Record Ideas, AO4 Present Ideas, Component 1 Personal Investigation, Component 2 ESA, Unit 2 Portrait

Studio Photography

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Rankin

Is a British portrait and fashion  photographer he is also the founder of ‘Dazed and Confused’  magazine  and for his photography.  He has work with many famous people, including models, Heidi Klum and Kate Moss, celebrities such as David Bowie and Madonna and is known for his portrait of Elizabeth II. His work has appeared in magazines such as GQ, Vogue and Marie Claire. In 2011 Rankin started the biannual fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine, hunger and launched Rankin Film to produce and direct his own commercial and editorial film work. Rankin was destined for life of an accountant until he discovered his interests lay somewhere else as he drop his accountancy studies and began studying photography instead. Rankin’s work has a distinct patterns of using white backgrounds, or single colour background, which helps to concentrate all focus on the person he is shooting. The blank background creates almost a blank canvas in with the person is the paint, the more expressions and feeling in the persons face the more detailed the canvas becomes. He is very much a studio photographer and works with artificial light and flash photography to capture the detail on peoples faces.

Image result for john rankin photography

Image result for john rankin photography

 

Image result for john rankin photography

Lighting

  • Why do we use studio lighting?  It allows us to create natural lighting effects in a variety of situations its easy to  control and to adapt to fit the needs of the shoot. Also with so many options available nowadays, it doesn’t have to be confined to a studio.
  • What is the difference between 1-2-3 point lighting and what does each technique provide / solve

    Key Light

    Key Light

    This is the main light. It is usually the strongest and has the most influence on the look of the scene. It is placed to one side of the camera/subject so that this side is well lit and the other side has some shadow.

    Key and Fill

    Fill Light

    This is the secondary light and is placed on the opposite side of the key light. It is used to fill the shadows created by the key. The fill will usually be softer and less bright than the key. To achieve this, you could move the light further away or use some spun. You might also want to set the fill light to more of a flood than the key.

    Key, Fill and Back

    Back Light

    The back light is placed behind the subject and lights it from the rear. Rather than providing direct lighting (like the key and fill), its purpose is to provide definition and subtle highlights around the subject’s outlines. This helps separate the subject from the background and provide a three-dimensional look.

  • What is fill lighting? Fill light is form of supplementary light mainly used to lighten shadows in an image. Fill light is often used in portrait photography to create a contrast between the image subject and image background giving the scene a sense of depth despite the final product being 2 dimensional. In this situation the use of fill light also reduces the overall dynamic range of the scene allowing for easier selection of the exposure settings required to capture an image. When fill light is correctly applied it does not significantly impact the main light source of an image.
  • What is spill lighting? Light spilling is where light falls where it was not intended to fall, creating a hazy, blown out look at times.
  • What is Chiaroscuro ? It’s the strong and bold contrasts between light and dark areas in a photograph.

 

Ring Light

Two Point Lighting

Three Point Lighting

Chiaroscuro