Who- I’m going to take photo’s of my friend and possibly my dad at his work place.
When- I will take the photographs over half term.
Where- I’m hoping to take some pictures in common locations for my subjects. For my friend, I plan to take her pictures in her bedroom and at school. For my dad, i plan to take his photos at work.
Why- I will take some pictures in my friend’s bedroom as that is where she spends a lot of her time, giving the viewer an insight into her environment. The same applies with the location of the school. As for my dad, I want to take pictures at where he works as it would contrast to my friends environment.
To take these images, I visited the fish market and the central market in St Helier and asked business owners if I could photograph them in their workplaces. This was a very interesting thing for me to try out because I have not ever really photographed strangers and it definitely helped my confidence in this area. Whilst there was a few people who declined to have their photo taken, there were a larger group who said yes and it was a great experience to be able to do this. I am happy with these images, although, had I had more time, I would have liked to take a lot more images as I did see a few places that would have been good to capture as well.
To edit my images, I essentially had three different looks in mind for the use of light in the image; Black and white, cool light and warm light. Here are my final best images;
These images are my edited final outcomes and the most successful images. The images I changed into black and white mostly had very white and plain backgrounds so the monochrome look enhanced the images and some of them simply just looked better with the black and white filter so I adapted them accordingly.
After transferring these images onto Lightroom, I began to sort between which images were the most successful and flagged them with an X or P to sort them into a smaller selection before starting the editing process.
It is a lighting technique commonly used for portrait photography. This type of lighting was named after Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (a Dutch painter). It is a way of lighting a face so that an upside-down light triangle appears under the eye(s) of the subject.
A self-portrait that Rembrandt painted of himself- utilising the Rembrandt lighting technique.
In the early 20th century, a Hollywood director named Cecil DeMille introduced the spotlight and Rembrandt lighting was one of the most famous effects achieved by this. It became a popular way of capturing celebrities as it portrayed them in an interesting and dramatic way.
Portrait of Marilyn Monroe using Rembrandt lighting
This technique is a perfect way of creating a dramatic photo as it instantly creates deep shadows and contrast. The upside down triangle draws the views attention to the eye, the key area of the face in a portrait.
How to Create a Rembrandt Lighting Setup
Light: The position of the light source is vital in creating different lighting techniques. Rembrandt lighting is created by the single light source being at a 40 to 45-degree angle and higher than the subject. Use can use both flashlights and continuous lights.
Lens: A 50mm works really nicely for portraits and will give a nice depth of field if you’re shooting at a shallow aperture. But a 35mm will give you a wider point of view and is great to fit more of the body in of your subject.
The set up used for Rembrandt Lighting
Butterfly Lighting
Another popular studio lighting technique. Its name comes from the butterfly-shaped shadow that forms under the nose because the light comes from above the camera. You may also hear it called ‘paramount lighting’ or ‘glamour lighting’.
An example of Butterfly Lighting
It is a common studio lighting technique due to it being very flattering way of capturing the model. The shadows make the cheekbones and jawline appear sharper, making the face look thinner and more defined.
How to Create a Butterfly Lighting Setup
Lighting: Butterfly lighting requires a key light that can be a flash unit or continuous. If continuos, it can be artificial or natural. In other words, you can use strobes, speedlights, LEDs or even the sun.
A butterfly lighting effect refers to the setup and not to the quality of light – it can be soft or hard light depending on the effect you want.
The set up used for Butterfly Lighting (reflector is used to soften the shadows and brighten the face from the bottom).
Chiarascuro
It is Italian for lightdark and is the use of high and strong contrasts between light and dark tones. The concept of chiaroscuro emerged during the 15th century but it became truly developed during the 16th century in Italy and Flanders during the era of the Renaissance, becoming a popular technique of art.
The Flagellation of Christ(1607)is a painting by the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio, now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples.
The painting consists some deep contrast between dark shadows and highlights, creating this defined, dramatic look.
This can recreated in photography, using a single light to only illuminate certain areas of the face/ body.
How to Create the Chiarascuro Effect
A single light is used to only lighten the most prominent areas of the face, creating a dark and high contrast look. A reflector can be used to illuminate areas of the face that aren’t originally lightened by the key light.
Chiaroscuro lighting is also used a lot in the model industry like butterfly lighting as well as movies, specifically horror movies, as it creates a darkened background and highlights the subject, in the example below you can see the the models face is highlighted which emphasises the focus point, and the background it black. The effects adds a dramatic theme and draws the viewer in with the suspense it holds. To create the set up photographers use a study light and a reflector if they wish which is placed the opposite side to the light. They will also use a high shutter speed to remove any excess light.
example this is how we place the light and camera to make this effect
I chose to take images of Ryan Hervé, a professional board maker and owner of Hervé Surfboards, in his workshop. There were multiple rooms available for me to photograph in and I found that there was luckily really interesting lighting used in every room, especially in the shaping room. I was very interested in photographing in the shaping room as the lighting was designed with the function of providing the best possible view of the boards’ angles, and this created some really atmospheric images in my opinion.
There was also a lot of dust in this room, created through the process of filing and shaping the fiberglass, and I feel that this almost created a sort of muted feel to the images.
Additionally, the photos from the painting room also used the lighting in an interesting way and I am happy with these.
