Aperture controls the size of the lens opening which allows light into your camera.
Opening the lens more or having a low f-stop number (e.g. f/1.4) blurs the background/foreground around your subject. This is known as a shallow depth of field.
Keeping the lens more closed or having a high f-stop number (e.g. f/16) keeps the photo sharp throughout. This is known as a wide depth of field.
Shutter Speed
Shutter Speed is the amount of time the shutter is open to expose the image sensor to light.
Slow shutter speeds expose more light to the image sensor so still objects will have more detail and moving objects will appear to have more motion/be blurry.
Faster shutter speeds means less light is exposed to the image sensor and moving objects appear more still.
ISO
The ISO of a camera selects how much light the image sensor detects.
Too much light on a sunny day can cause overexposed shots so a lower ISO would be preferred.
Too little light in a shady room or day can cause grainy images.
The general rule is to use the lowest ISO possible to get the most detail possible.
Exposure Meter
The Exposure Meter is your final check before you snap a shot. It shows you how well your aperture, ISO and shutter speed are working together.
It is used as a guide to show exposure.
White Balance
White balance is the ratio of blue light to red light in an image which refers to the concept of colour temperature.
White balance is measured is Kelvin(K). Higher values of Kelvin contain more blue light whereas lower values of Kelvin contain more red light.
Here is a table of Kelvin which shows the colour temperature of possible subjects. You can see that a cameras electronic flash is similar to sunlight.
Below is an example of an image in a warm lighting that has the correct white balance next to a copy with too high a Kelvin value. The image is more yellowish because it is expecting excessive blue light but the image is only being lit with reddish lights.
Here in this image the camera is set to a low Kelvin value (which tells the camera to absorb more red light) in sunlight. This results in a bluish image.
For my project on objects, I first conducted some research on still life. I looked at a variety of different examples and learnt about objects and their symbolisms. From this research, I then created a photoshoot inspired by it. I used a variety of different objects from school and my own personal objects that gave me a sense of nostalgia. I experimented with different layouts of the objects and having only two objects then some with a group of objects together. These are some of my final images from my photoshoot:
When choosing which images to edit on Lightroom, I first imported all of my photographs into Lightroom and then gave them either a white flag (if I liked it) or a black flag (if I didn’t like it). Then I gave the photos with a white flag a rating out of 5 (5 being the best). Finally, I gave each of my images a colour eg green, yellow or red (green being the best of my images). From this, I then turned on filters and looked at images only with a 4 star rating or above and green, then edited those images. I then experimented with different exposure levels, highlights, shadows, clarities and textures until I had an image that I liked.
Overall, I like how this photoshoot came out as I got to experiment with different lighting types and camera settings. My favourite image is the one of the teddy as I like the warm tone of it and the reflection from the infinity curve. I feel this tone helps portray the theme of nostalgia as the objects are associated with warm memories which is reflected by the lighting. However, if I were to do this photoshoot again, I would try and take some pictures which a more cold and darker background as that was a common theme in the still life images I researched.
The next photoshoot I did was Inspired by Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan. For this photoshoot, I took pictures of tools found in the studio, using a stool in order to get a birds eye view. I made sure to have a white, plain background as seen in the original artists. I also experimented with taking pictures of just singular objects and with multiple objects. Here are my final images:
In order to edit my photographs, I used Lightroom. I altered the exposure, shadows, whites, texture and clarity. I tried to minimise the harshness of the shadows cast by the objects as Walker Evan’s has no/ minimal shadows in his work. I also used the setting colour and altered the hue/ saturation of certain colours in order to enhance them and bring my images more to life and less dull.
Overall, I found this photoshoot to be successful as I feel it closely replicates the work of Walker Evans and Darren Harvey-Regan (which is what I was trying to accomplish). Additionally, I like the clarity and simplicity of my photographs. On the other hand, if I were to do this photoshoot again, I would add tape to the bottom of the tools in order to prop them up slightly and get rid of any shadows cast by them, as in Walker Evan’s work there are no visible shadows.
In this virtual gallery, I used my favourite ‘still life images’. I like this layout because the smooth and textured photos contrast really well together. I like the way that the two photos that are opposite to each other include similar objects but are photographed with two different tones, cool and warm. Both of these images have a smooth textured background, and the photo that is centred has a rough textured background which creates a contrast between all of these photographs.
Within the technical aspect of this photo, I would say it has a dimmer type of lighting, the flash on the camera makes it seem as if the room was dimly lit but the flash lights up the objects I am taking photos of. I think its tonal range is quite different, it seems to have many variations, there is a big difference between the photos light parts such as the glare you can see on the plastic, compared to its dark points like the black box the objects are in. Within the visual elements of this photo, its colours are very beige and just dull in general. You can see the glare on the plastic which reflects too its texture. These are all clearly 3D objects/shapes. Some context behind this photo, would be that these are all the objects other people were taking still life photos of, so rather then being the same as all of them and propping these objects up someone where in a neat order I instead have shown them how they really were. You can see the everyday wear to theses objects in my photo and I think that’s what makes it really special as you can see these objects are really helping students produce the work they are wanting too.
Photo #2
This image is very brightly lit, you can see the florescent lighting in the celling lighting up the drum kit and the glare of the lighting really shows the rings on the cylinder which show the texture. You can see that this image is more zoomed in then how the human eye would see it and I did this because i really wanted the pure texture and the dirt on the drum kit really proves life, it proves how many songs have been played on this drum set, how many people have persuade there passion and just purely how many people this drum kit has made happy.
Photo #3
I think that this is my personal favourite photo, it may not be your typical still life photo but I personally love the contrast of the lighting within this photo. The sharp harsh flash on the camera provides a shine on the step ladder but then there is a dim area between the doors and the ladder, the dimly lit room could contain anything. The light within the door and the corridor is florescent lit my average school lights, but these lights have lit up so many people, so many different lives, lives that have gone onto so many different things, proving that everyone may come from the same place but not everyone is the same.
Photo #4
This photo has very key elements of white, the photos colour contrast makes you really focus on the blue caravan as the background is white and the other objects are white discarding the sunglasses. The light coming up through the bottom aims more focus onto the objects and really makes them clear in your point of view. The tone of this image, the clear light bottom compare too the darker background really makes you focus onto the shadows of the image, showing the size of the items I am taking photos of. The white bottle has a glare on it of the light reflecting which portrays its smooth ceramic texture. This image has a sort of repetition pattern, there are two larger objects, then two smaller objects placed in front of them, this yet again portrays the effect of size, which is part of the composition.
Photo #4
This photo has very dim lighting, some may say this photo isn’t “useable” due to how unlit it seems, but I personally like the dullness of this photo, I fell like it leaves a sense of mystery and just darkness in general, almost as if its portraying a season, the season of winter, the dull morning and the dull nights, and i feel like the emptiness of the photo which is helped with the objects composition represents the coldness. This image is a bit under exposed, leaving a little bit of a blur in the photo and a mysteriousness of what the objects of the right actually is because its so dimly lit. The image has a 3D form, you can clearly see that these are real life 3D objects, objects that are useable and grabbable. This photo mainly lead the eye to the foreground the objects which are right in the centre, but it also leads the eye to the massive white sheet in the background purely due to its vast emptiness. almost like a blackhole. I feel like the emptiness of this image has a deeper meaning, the big spaces between the objects, compared with the how far away the camera is leaving spare on the left and on the right of the objects.
I used art steps to create my virtual gallery, I have each step a pin point so that they could be fully run through when you use the program. Here is the link too my virtual gallery: https://www.artsteps.com/view/652cf5b0d9dec541009e626f
This is one photo I took of a single tool using different lighting, This is the image before I started editing.
this was the image once it was edited.
The reason I edited it like this was because I was being inspired by Walker Evans. What I like about Walker Evans is the grey and white dark effect, giving the emotion and thought of loneliness with the single object and lighting, so I tried this effect with this image.
I lowered the temp of the photo very slightly as I thought that when I lowered it more it turned to cold and too blue which wasn’t what I was going for and if I bright it up it would be too yellow or orange which would also be wrong.
With the exposure I put it up, again not by much as if i did it too much it would be very bright and just white or too dark and then practically black, so I had to get it right so it was dark enough it gave the gloomy effect I wanted but not too dark you couldn’t even see the image.
when it came to the highlights, shadows, whites and blacks all corporate together so I had to bare with and focus as i got them all correct. I had the whites high enough you could see the shaping and lighter parts of the tool and the background so that the tool and shadow stood out but not enough it took away the theme and emotion i was going for. but too dark would have blended in the shadow and tool too much to not distinguish the contrast of the colours and object’s.
when I first edited I tried the texture and thought I wanted it to be +100 but when I did it I didn’t like it because although I wanted the tool to be textured to give more character and effect, but once I did it, it gave the background a blurry and fuzzy textured look which is not what I wanted. As I lowered the texture I really like the non textured look on the tool. it also fixed the background problem. But the smooth tool just looked really good in my mind and actually worked with the emotion and look I wanted better then I thought it would have.
This was another image I took of the same tool but from a different angle of it, I liked it but wanted to edit and change it differently but still along the same Walker Evans idea.
this was it once it was edited because I went for a different but same affect.
firstly I cropped it so the actual object was more centre, because I wanted the tool to take centre spotlight, and be the main thing that people notice, obviously there isn’t much else in the image but with the object being off centre I think it just looked wrong and gave too much attention to the background.
After that I changed he exposure and contrast they are quite opposite of each other and this is because when i did this i realised that it made the darkness of the tool pop out of the whiteness of the background even more because they are both opposite colours I could really make it pop out without being too dark, you couldn’t even see the detail of the the tool.
With the whites, blacks, shadows and highlights i had them all practically opposite each other so the dark of the tool stood out and the whites of the background contrasted.
lastly I changed the texture as I actually wanted to see the texture of the tools but not the whole way so I couldn’t see the texture of the background and the tool stood out more.
These are some more images next to there edited one and what I did to them.
The shape and the colour of the objects contrast between the white background and make the handle of the object stand out and also helps make the other object stand out against the coloured background.
These are my final images for the Single Object photoshoot as they capture the “Wonders of the common tool” the best out of all other images and they make the objects used look much more fascinating than they would before.
