Butterfly lighting is used a lot in the model industry as it is very versatile and suits everyone. It allows the face too appear more slim and adds shadows to the cheek bones and jawline as well as a butterfly shape under the nose. To create this effect we use a flash light with a soft box attachment, to diffuse the light, whish is placed above the model to get the shadows underneath their nose. This gives of a very flattering look on the model as it makes their skin appear smooth, with defined features.
example this is how we place the light and camera to make this effect
To take these images I went to my friends Gym and took photos of her doing the routine.
First I flagged the images that I wanted to use. Then I started editing them on Lightroom. Dow below are the comparisons of the original picture, how I edited it and my final image.
Rembrandt lighting is created by using a large flash light that is placed on a 45 degree angle to the right and a reflector on the left to create the triangle under the models eye on the left. This allows the portrait to look dramatic but natural at the same time, the triangle also adds a focus point which draws the viewer into the image. The technique also makes the left eye more lighter whilst the right is slightly darker which adds contrast to the image. This effect gives the models face an angelic look to it, making it appear smooth and flawless.
examplethis is how we place the light and camera to make this effect
I’m going to be comparing David Goldblatt’s image of a boy who was working at a shop in 1972 Africa. He uses good lining of the shops items, lighting from the left side of the person, and the positioning of the camera looks like its just behind or on the desk where u pay for items. This is a good picture as you can guess almost instantly where he is and what he does from just the simple yet obvious things in the image. The boy doesn’t use any facial expressions either.
Now in comparison using my image and to compare: I had used a slight bit of lining through the bottles and the mirror in the background. The Depth of field is well done due to the obvious items on the table, with the flowers in the background on a different table. Even more the eye contact used was very well done personally, as Conor who is in the image sitting on the chair is giving serious but relaxed eye contact, and even the people in the background on the TV are making eye contact. The lighting personally could possibly of been adjusted and better if I played around with it, but the lighting used here works.
I chose to shoot my step sister at the beach because she surfs, and enjoys spending time there. I used my DSLR camera on aperture priority as well as auto to experiment. The lighting was natural (sunset).
Contact Sheet
I narrowed the photos down to images that complied with environmental portraiture e.g. looking at the camera and non-action shots.
My final edits:
Overall I like how the photos turned out because I think they represent who she is and the environment she likes to surround herself with. Even though she is smiling in some of the photos, I think it links well overall with the more serious photos. To improve I think in my next shoot I will try photographing from lower angles to make my subject more of a focal point. I am still learning how to create a shallow depth of field to focus on the subject, so I will attempt to do this as well next time.
My favourite image from the shoot:
This is my favourite photo because I like the way she is in the centre third, splitting the carpark from the beach. I think it shows how the two sides are joined together and create the specific environment that the subject is placed in. The only thing I would possibly change is removing the dog from the photo. On one hand I think it completes the photo by giving a deeper insight into the subject, but on the other I feel like it takes the focus away from her.
My work compared with Mary-Ellen Mark:
Mark’s photos hold a more dramatic and strong emotion, whereas my photos have a positive feeling around them. In my next shoot I might make my subject hold more power in their facial expression and emotion.
Homework Task: Develop and write an introductory blog post on the origins of photography. Use the information below to help you create the content for your blog post. DEADLINE: Wed 15 March
‘Fixing the Shadows’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1.
Watch the documentary on ‘Fixing the Shadows’ from BBC Genius of Photography, Episode 1.
To embed your understanding of the origins of photography and its beginnings you’ll need to produce a blog post which outlines the major developments and practices. Some will have been covered in the documentary above but you also need to research and discover further information.
Your blog post must contain information about the following and keep it in its chronological order:
Camera Obscura & Pinhole photography
Nicephore Niepce & Heliography
Louis Daguerre & Daguerreotype
Henry Fox Talbot & Calotype
Robert Cornelius & self-portraiture
Julia Margeret Cameron & Pictorialism
Henry Mullins & Carte-de-Visit
Each must contain dates, text and images relevant to each bullet point above. In total aim for about 1,000-2000 words.
Try and reference some of the sources that you have used either by incorporating direct quotes, paraphrasing or summarising of an idea, theory or concept, or historical fact.
Use Harvard System of Referencing…see Powerpoint: harvard system of referencing for further details on how to use it.
William CollieClarence P OulessEdwin DaleFrancis FootCharles HugoHenry Mullins
Ernest Baudoux
Camera Obscura
Origins of Photography: Study this Threshold concept 2: Photography is the capturing of light; a camera is optional developed by PhotoPedagogy which includes a number of good examples of early photographic experiments and the camera obscura which preceded photography. It also touches on photography’s relationship with light and reality and delve into photographic theories, such as index and trace as a way of interpreting the meaning of photographs.
Photography did not spring forth from nowhere: in the expanding capitalist culture of the late 18th and 19th centuries, some people were on the look-out for cheap mechanical means for producing images […] photography emerged experimentally from the conjuncture of three factors: i) concerns with amateur drawing and/or techniques for reproducing printed matter, ii) light-sensitive materials; iii) the use of the camera obscura — Steve Edwards, Photography – A Very Short Introduction
Shadow Catchers: Camera-less Photography from the V&A
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, French (1765 – 1833)
View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827
Debates about the origins of photography have raged since the first half of the nineteenth century. The image above left is partly the reason. View from the Window at Le Gras is a heliographic image and arguably the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera. It was created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827 at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. The picture on the right is an enhanced version of the original which shows a view across some rooftops. It is difficult to tell the time of day, the weather or the season. This is because the exposure time for the photograph was over eight hours.
Louis Daguerre, French (1787 – 1851)
Louis Daguerre – early Daguerreotype – c. 1850
French artist and photographer
invention of the daguerreotype process of photography
The daguerreotype was the first commercially successful photographic process (1839-1860) in the history of photography. Named after the inventor, Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, each daguerreotype is a unique image on a silvered copper plate.
In contrast to photographic paper, a daguerreotype is not flexible and is rather heavy. The daguerreotype is accurate, detailed and sharp. It has a mirror-like surface and is very fragile. Since the metal plate is extremely vulnerable, most daguerreotypes are presented in a special housing. Different types of housings existed: an open model, a folding case, jewelry…presented in a wooden ornate box dressed in red velvet. LD a theatre set designer
The invention of photography, however, is not synonymous with the invention of the camera. Cameraless images were also an important part of the story. William Henry Fox Talbot patented his Photogenic Drawing process in the same year that Louis Daguerre announced the invention of his own photographic method which he named after himself. Anna Atkins‘ British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions of 1843 is the first use of photographic images to illustrate a book. This method of tracing the shapes of objects with light on photosensitive surfaces has, from the very early days, been part of the repertoire of the photographer.
HenryWilliam Fox-Talbot, British (1800 – 1877)
Fox Talbot was an English member of parliament, scientist, inventor and a pioneer of photography.
Fox Talbot went on to develop the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing. Although simply exposing photographic paper to the light produced an image, it required extremely long exposure times. By accident, he discovered that there was an image after a very short exposure. Although he could not see it, he found he could chemically develop it into a useful negative. The image on this negative was then fixed with a chemical solution. This removed the light-sensitive silver and enabled the picture to be viewed in bright light. With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative. Consequently, his process could make any number of positive prints, unlike the Daguerreotypes. He called this the ‘calotype’ and patented the process in 1841.
Henry Fox Talbot – Latticed Window, 1835 The first photograph to produce a negative image, a paper negative taken with a camera obscura by William Henry Fox Talbot, of a latticed window in Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. This early process was known as calotype and the original negative, labelled with the photographer’s own handwriting is preserved in London’s Science Museum. (Photo by William Henry Fox Talbot/Getty Images)
In the month of August 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot produced the first photographic negative to have survived to this day. The subject is a window. Despite the clear connection, it is an entirely different image compared to those of his colleagues Niépce and Daguerre. Those are photographs taken from a window, while this is the photograph of a window. From the issue of realism, we shift here into an extremely modern outlook which today would be likened to conceptual and metalinguistic discourse. While the window constitutes the most immediate metaphor to refer to photography, Talbot doesnʼt use it but more simply he photographs it. He thus takes a photograph of photography. The first to comment on this was the author himself, writing a brief note (probably added when it was displayed in 1839) on the card upon which it is mounted. The complete text reads:
Latticed Window (with the Camera Obscura) August 1835 When first made, the squares of glass, about 200 in number could be counted, with help of a lens6
Robert Cornelius, American (1809-1893)
Cornelius’s 1839 photograph of himself. The back reads, “The first light picture ever taken”. The Cornelius portrait is the first known photographic portrait taken in America,
Julia Margaret Cameron, British (1815 – 1879)
She is known for her soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and for illustrative images depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature.
Much of her work has connections to pictorialism and even movements such as The Pre-Rapahelites, and often had a dream-like, constructed quality to the images.
Henry Mullins, British (1818-1880) Lived and worked in Jersey 1848-73
Between 1850-73 Henry Mullins made over 9000 carte de visite portraits of Jersey’s ruling elite and wealthy upper classes. The collection that exists of his work comes through his studio albums, in which he placed his clients in an ordered grid with reference to mid-nineteenth century social hierarchies.
In 2013 Michelle Sank spent 6 months in Jersey as the inaugural Archisle International Photographer-in-Residence. She took inspiration from Henry Mullins collection of images and produced a new set of portraits that reflects upon a culturally diverse and more inclusive demographic of islanders as Jersey. In the photo-zine ED.EM.03 – on the social matrix Mullins 19th century portraits are paired with Sank’s images from 2013. Viewed together they represent 165 years of the practice of photographic portraiture in Jersey. During that period the island has undergo major social and economic changes. Through these photographers’ works, we examine those changes and the power structures that remain in place within this insular society.
TASK 2 Windows and Mirrors > for later in the project In 1978, the German photographer Floris Neusüss visited Lacock Abbey to make photograms of the same window. He returned again in 2010 for the Shadow Catchers exhibition at the V&A to create a life-sized version of Talbot’s window (below right).
for this photoshoot, I went into the market in town and asked some shop owners of small business if i could take some photos of them. I aimed to capture photos of people with a lot in the background i believe it is able to show more of a story and the colours behind them add some atmosphere.
I believe this photoshoot could have gone better if i changed the camera settings, as most of my photos were under exposed, and if i positioned the subjects in better lighting.
