Photoshoot 2- experimenting with rembrandt, chiarascuro and black/ rim light lighting
Here I have selected what I believe to be my best and worst photographs from our photoshoot in school. I had my friend pose in our library as this is where she spends a lot of time. I got her to pose in multiple different places and positions
BEST SHOTS
EDITING BEST SHOTS
EDITED BEST SHOTS
EDITING INTO BLACK & WHITE
FINAL IMAGES IN BLACK & WHITE
Butterfly lighting is a lighting pattern used in portrait photography where the key light is placed above and pointing down on the subject’s face. This creates a dramatic shadow under the nose and chin that looks like a butterfly.
Whys is called butterfly lighting?
Butterfly lighting is a simple lighting pattern used in portrait photography. It’s named for the shadows that’s formed underneath the nose. Not seeing the butterfly? Picture a butterfly flying toward you, wings spread out…that’s the shadows it creates.
What is butterfly lighting used for?
Butterfly lighting is a lighting pattern used in portrait photography where the key light is placed above and pointing down on the subject’s face.
What mood does butterfly lighting create?
It is ideal for portraits as it highlights the subject’s main features, like the nose and cheekbones. It creates a shadow under the subject’s nose and chin. These shadows make the subject look slimmer. The soft lighting pattern casts a feminine effect on the subject’s face.
Final Outcomes:
Rembrandt lighting is a lighting technique which was named after Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. It is used in photography and cinematography and can be achieved by using one key light and a reflector. It creates a triangle shape from the light on the side of the face which it is not directly hitting whilst leaving the rest of the face dark.
Movie director Cecil B. DeMille is credited for the first use of the term. While shooting his 1915 film DeMille borrowed some portable spotlights from the Mason Opera House in downtown LA and began to make shadows on his subjects. DeMille’s partner first thought that people would only pay half for these images he had taken as only half of the face was captured. But then DeMille told him that is was Rembrandt lighting and they would pay double.
How is Rembrandt lighting useful?
This lighting technique is useful as it creates a dramatic but also natural look on the person. It is considered one of the go-to lighting effects as it creates a dramatic effect but is fairly simple to set up.
Rembrandt lighting set up.
The one key light is placed diagonally to the subject to highlight one half of the face and the camera either centre or at an opposite angle to the light. A reflector should be used to get more light onto the underneath of the subjects face.
Rembrandt lighting own images
I enhanced the best features of each photo in Lightroom, using photos that used butterfly and Rembrandt lighting.
EXPERENTING WITH HEADSHOT PHOTOGRAPHY:
Diamond Cameo’s are four small oval portraits that are placed on a carte de visite in the shape of a diamond. Each portrait being of the same person photographed in a different position.
To make a diamond cameo start by creating headshots of the person. Personally I would use straight on lighting, or butterfly lighting, this is so the image is not too dark and you can see the face clearly.
Multiple exposures are photographs in which two or more images are superimposed in a single frame.
IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
Photomontage is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image.
To create Grid images you can either do this digitally or hand-made. In photoshop you can open a background image and open a further image you wish to put in addition to the other image. You then cut out your image and add it wherever you wish on your background layer. You can also do this handmade by cutting out images and experimenting where you can place different shapes and sizes, you can then glue it to create your photomontage.
These images were used with Chiaroscuro Lighting. I photographed Phoebe on a black background to create more of a dramatic effect and a more darker sinister image, giving a sense of a horror movie poster. However in these images I want to create a sharper contrast between the two halves of her face to create more of a distinction between the bright and dark lighting on her face. In these images I will increase her exposure slightly, while also increasing the contrast to create that sharp lines on her face, yet I don’t want to overdramatise the image. Increasing the whites in her images will illuminate the natural highlight on her cheekbones which will give her a natural brighter complexion.
The lighting used in this image is slightly underexposed which has an affect on the whole photograph. While creating this image we had a dark background with minimal lighting which creates a flat image as there is no contrast between the two lightings. So in this image I will increase the exposure to make Phoebes right side of the face brighter which will results in a jarring distinction between the lighting. I also slightly increased the contrast so the exposure doesn’t wash out the features and colours in her face.
Due to the darkness of the image, it has created an ominous and sinister aura. The Chiaroscuro Lighting can be used to create film posters including the genres: horror, and drama, this is because eerie and mysterious mood. The position of the lighting has given a symmetrical shadow of her face, however due to the low lighting their is no depth in the image, so I will slightly increased the exposure to create some light on her face. Furthermore I will increase the highlights in order to show the natural highlight already seen on her face, enhancing the brighter features on her face.
Butterfly lighting is a type of lighting which is used mainly in a studio setting. It comes from a butterfly shape shadowing under the nose because of the light coming from above. You only need one key light to create the butterfly lighting and also a reflector would help reflect some of the light onto the bottom of subjects face. It creates a soft and flattering effect on a subjects face.
What is butterfly lighting used for?
It is used for taking glamorous portrait photos. The soft lighting on the face creates a butterfly shaped shadow underneath the nose. This type of lighting is good for portraits as it highlights the main features like the nose and cheekbones.
It was also used to photograph a lot of famous people and because of the shadows onto the neck and the highlights of the cheekbones it made these people look thinner.
How butterfly lighting is set up.
Butterfly lighting own images
Camera obscura and pinhole photography
Pinhole photography is when you use a camera without its lens and with a tiny aperture. It uses the lightproof box with a small whole on one side which is what camera obscura is.
Camera obscura is a darkened box with a convex lens or aperture for projecting the image of an external object onto a screen inside. The earliest known written about camera obscura was in 400BC by a Chinese philosopher called Mo-Tzu. He wrote that light from an illuminated object that passed through a pinhole into a dark room would invert the image.
Nicephore Niepce
Niepce was a French inventor who was most commonly linked to the invention of photography. He developed Heliography which was a technique he used to create the world’s oldest and first surviving product of a photographic process. In 1826/27 he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving picture of a real world scene.
Heliography
Heliography is an early photographic process producing a photoengraving on a metal plate coated with an asphalt preparation. Heliography was developed using two distinct methods. The first consisted of “fixing the views” in the camera obscura, while the other copied existing methods to “reproduce them by printing using known methods of engraving.”
Louis Daguerre
Daguerre was a French artist and photographer who was known for his invention of the Daguerreotype process of photography. After this he became known as one of the fathers of photography. He developed the Daguerreotype process in 1839. Daguerre partnered with Nicephore Niepce in 1829. Niepce died in 1833 but Daguerre continued to experiment and evolved the process which would be known as the Daguerreotype process.
Daguerreotype process
The Daguerreotype process consisted of treating silver-plated copper sheets with iodine to make them sensitive to light, then exposing them in a camera and ‘developing’ the images with warm mercury vapor. Daguerre’s images made using the Daguerreotype process were praised and the news of this process then spread quickly around the world. The French Government then bought the rights to Daguerre’s invention in return for him having lifetime pensions. In 1839 the French Government presented the invention as something for the world to use and published working instructions on how to create images using the Daguerreotype process.
Henry Fox Talbot
Talbot was an English photographer, scientist and also an inventor who invented the salted paper and Calotype method. His first successful camera photographs were made in 1835. He used paper which was sensitised with silver chloride which would darken when it was exposed to a light source. In the 1840’s he worked on something called photomechanical reproduction, (a reproduced photographic image that is printed in ink and usually on paper) which then led to his creation of the phytoglyphic engraving process which is a gelatine and bichromate mixture which was then coated over a metal plate and then placed in the light. When the light reaches the plate the gelatine hardened and the image area can be washed away. Talbot created the photographic process know as Calotype. The Calotype process is an early photographic process which was done using paper which was coated with silver iodine. Paper texture effects in calotype photography limit the ability of this early process to record low contrast details and textures.
Robert Cornelius
Robert Cornelius was an American photographer who designed the photographic plate for the first photograph taken in the US, which was an image of a Central High School taken by Joseph Saxton.
Cornelius took the first ever selfie. He did this by setting up his camera at the back his family store in Philadelphia. He took the selfie by removing the lens cap and then running into frame where he sat for a minute before covering the lens again.
Julia Margeret Cameron
Julia Margeret Cameron was a British photographer who is considered as one of the most important portraitists of the 20th century. She is mostly known for her close-ups of famous Victorian men and women.
After showing an interest in photography for many years, Cameron started photography as a profession after her daughter gave her a camera as a present. After this she started to capture men, women and children who would visit her studio which was at Freshwater. Her images of some respected men like Charles Darwin and Henry Taylor have been described as ‘extraordinarily powerful’ and she has been credited with producing the first close-ups in history.
Pictorialism
The movement known as Pictorialism represented a photographic aesthetic and a set of principles about photography’s role as art. This movement dominated photography during the late 19th and early 20th century. Pictorialism started in England but then expanded to New York which is where it centred around Alfred Stieglitz, which is who started Pictorialism.
Henry Mullins
Henry Mullins Moved to Jersey in 1948 and set up a studio which was known as the royal saloon. At first Mullins was in a partnership with someone called Mr Millward who he only worked with for around a year. After that Mullins worked by himself and continued to for another 26 years.
When Mullins came to Jersey he started photographing the locals and managed to photograph almost 10000 people who lived in Jersey at the time.
Mullins was popular with officers of Jersey which were very popular to have their portraits taken. Their wives and children were also popular for having their portraits taken. The portraits of these officers show the fashion of their time with the long hair and beards and it is hard to tell the difference with some officers who were of the same rank.
