Double exposure is when you have two images layered on top of each other and you’ll change the blending options of the opacity of the images. Double exposure tends to create this dream like effect sometimes making the image look scary and give off a strange vibe but sometimes the photos can look very happy and sometimes nostalgic.
This style I believe comes from when Bernd and Hilla Becher who took photos of buildings then layered them together to create this creepy almost fantasy looking image.
I think the idea behind doing those kinds of photos is to create that kind of surreal effect for the image. Often photographers use double exposure to be able to add lots of deep and almost hidden meaning within their photos.
Butterfly lighting is where there is a small shadow usually under the model’s nose. It was first used by Marlene Dietrich who at the time was a German silent film actress in the 1920s and 30s and her director von Sternberg started to use the technique as it seemed to extenuate her strong features. The main reason butterfly lighting is used is because it makes for a very flattering portrait your features tend to stand out more and the lighting tends to be softer.
Here is an example of how to actually set up your lighting to create a butterfly effect
You want your light source to be quite light up and centered above the model’s face
you will need to be below the light source and slightly higher than central to the model face so maybe forehead level level
and then having a reflector underneath the model will help
Chiaroscuro lighting is said to be the contrast between light and dark so any type of lighting skill could be classed as chiaroscuro. It’s inspired by films usually Hollywood crime with German expressionists. However, I will be focusing on split lighting where you light up half of the model’s face and have a shadow on the other half. This tends to add an intense feeling to the photo.
Here is an example of the setup that would been needed to achieve split lighting
have the camera directly infront of your model
have the light source at a 90° angle to your model
then depeding on how harsh you want yout lighting/split effect to be more the light closer or further away
This is what spilt lighting can be
This is more Chiaroscuro lighting which the Hollywood films feel to them
The image on the left is the unedited version and the right is the edited picture there isn’t any apparent change between the two however I did darken the shadows slightly to add a bit more contrast to the image. I think overall this picture turned out really good the split in the model’s face is very defined and sharp which is what I wanted.
This technique worked really well for me I think I managed to have a pretty successful image with sharp lines through the shadow down the model’s face the darker image at the bottom I really liked because I also feel they had more of the Hollywood film feel to them like Chiaroscuro lighting was originally inspired by.
I think the images below could have been better if the show was more dramatic and darker although they are still visible they don’t seem to have the same intense feel to them as some of the others do which I think is to do with the shadows being so light.
The editing for these photos really didn’t take much is was mainly changing the contrast slightly just so the difference between the light and dark was that little bit more dramatic and then some of the images I cropped so they were a lot closer to the models face as they seemed to look more effective that way.
This is one of the common techniques used its inspired by the way Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (a famous Dutch painter) created his work he would seem to create the same lighting effect on his paintings where he would have an upside down triangle appear under the eyes of the model.
Just like this
Here is an example of how to create Rembrandt lighting it is easy enough to set up. What you need to do is
have your light source at 40-45 degrees higher than your model
try have just the models head and shoulders in the shot
There are many advantages to using this style of lighting the main being that it will draw attention to the models eyes which creates quite a captivating shot if that is what you are wanting from it. This is because the shapes seem to create these leading lines towards the models eyes.
Overall I think the photos have turned out good i think on all of these images I picked you are able to see a very clear shadow triangle underneath the eye and next to the nose which is the premise of Rembrandt images. I think it would have been better if I could have gotten more of these with the model in different poses.
For this image I didn’t have too much editing o do I knew I wanted to crop the image so it was more even on both sides as the was a lot of blank space on the left side than on the right which I wanted to fix. I also tried to lighten to image slightly as I did feel like it was a little bit too dark.
Studio lighting is referring to when a person/photographer uses an ‘artificial’ light course instead of just natural lighting as with artificial lighting you can create the shapes and shadows a lot easier and everything is to your control unlike natural as if its natural lighting from outside then t really depends on your environment and the nature around you at that time and if its indoors and just a room lighting then you really don’t get any variation within that room.
There are three main/common types of studio lighting techniques which all create their own different effects. These are Rembrandt lighting, butterfly lighting and Chiarscuro.
When taking these photos we had a basic set up of having a stool for the model to sit on and then later if necessary changing the chair to be higher or lower if needed.
I mainly used the white backdrop and then I had the light which I could move around and then to help we used the reflector to reflect some of the light back onto the models face.
I found using the back background worked best for when using the Chiarscuro technique as I found the models face stood out better and the darkness kind of surrounded the model which looked very interesting
Here is the contact sheet for all of the photos I have taken.
Arnold Newman was an incredible Jewish photographer who mainly took environmental portraits his work is above. You can see in all of these images he tries to tell a story show something about each persons life. The image on the bottom left corner the fact the piano is so big and in the middle with none of it cut out can show to the viewer that maybe music takes over his life and he isn’t the main focus the piano and music are.
Emotional aspects-
this image makes me feel bad for the guy the room seems really bare and there isn’t much in it making him look lonely. However it has quite a serious feel to it because of how he is staring at the camera.
Visual aspects-
the contrast between the size of the piano and the man emphasis how much music takes over his life and can symbolise how small he feels in life. The lighting in the image seems to be quite harsh but also the room is quite bright as there are any shadows of wither the man or the piano.
technical aspects-
I really like how in this image if you are using rule of thirds he is put into the bottom corner of the picture almost ,making is seem as if he has been moved aside and forgotten about as he is only in in 1 square.
The image seems to have a long depth of field as both the piano and the wall behind seem to look quite sharp and not blurred at all.
conceptual aspects-
I think Arnold Newman was trying to show how music is his whole life its his passion his hobby and his job. His music is so well known his music is probably more well known than him himself so I think he was trying to show that.
contextual aspects-
This mans like I believe was quite well portrayed through his photo as he is Igor Stravinsky a Russian composer ,director and pianist he was sad to be one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.
Emotional aspects-
I think this picture gives off quite an uneasy and creepy feeling when looking at the image. It’s almost quite an intimidating photo due to him looking straight at the camera with this dark lighting and having his face illuminated slightly.
Visual aspects-
Some visual aspects of this photos could be the fact their are lots of dark colours creating the eerie feeling. There are two pillars next to the man which are almost framing him. The place seems quite dirty with the steam you can see coming off the train and the writing on the walls.
technical aspects-
I think some of the technical aspects would be the lighting was done in a specific way as it is coming from the sides to not aluminate his face but to make shadows. the perspectives of him up close and clear background see far down but not clear.
conceptual aspects-
For this photoshoot for Arnold Newman really wanted the idea to be that Alfred Krupp was a horrible evil man who did bad things and hurt others. So he showed that through his photos he made it so the lighting seemed quite sinister and the naturally had that pose so it worked perfectly for the concept.
contextual aspects-
The content behind this image is that Alfred Krupp was a German man who helped provide the Nazi’s bombs and access through his railways during the war. And he was a big fan of Arnold Newman’s work but he was unaware he was a Jewish man. So Arnold Newman used this as a ay of revue apparently so he made Alfred Krupp look as evil ad possible.
Environmental portraiture is photos/portraits of someone in their environment so either someone is their work or maybe a hobby that they do a lot you want something that shows an aspect of who that person is.
You want your photos to tell a story the story behind the person in it. Try and revel/show parts of their lives. You’re not just telling the story through the background though you want your model to show parts of themselves like if the model looks sad it can show that they live a sad life in their eyes or aren’t happy with where they are in life
This is how I decided to display some of my favourite images from this topic. Although I do have other photos that I liked I choose to do these ones together because I thought the colour tones were quite similar so they worked really well together.
These are from his work called Beauties From The Common Tool. Which he created in 1955.
However Evans was most well know for his work about documenting the farm security administration from the effects of the great depression.
His preferred style of work seems to be documentary photography. Although those wont be the work I will be focusing on from him.
I really like this work its all very similar and uniform all from a birds eye view with no colour the image seems really dull and no vibrancy too it which I think really works for the image.
I like how all the shapes in these photos are very sharp angular I think it really works. The texture in the images is another thing I think works really well because the objects look quite rough and almost dirty.
One thing I really like about Walker Evan’s work is that he makes all of this image look quite old ands vintage looking which is something Darren Harvey-Regan doesn’t do so that really sets them apart
Darren Harvey-Regan
This work is his version of the “beauties of the common tool” which he did in 2013.
Darren Harvey is most known and appreciated for his melding photography and sculptures though which he started in 1974.
His work is also very similar to Walker Evan’s the photographer above. Evan’s Darren Harvey-Regan seems to take most of his photos on a very plain and clean.
The white background which contrasts from the tools which have connotations of being really dirty. Although the images themselves look quite clean and sleek even. similarly his photos have this really dull and blank feel to them although there is something in the image it feels quite empty. This could be because lots of photography at the moment seems to have so many different objects and have lots going on so this is quite different to that.
I really like his work I think it really unique with using the everyday objects and yet he makes them seem very interesting and cool like things we don’t see very often. Although the tool is the only thing in the image it feel as if he still tries extra things like the rule of thirds, having it directly the middle, to make it stand out.
He also does these image of rocks which I really like they contain lots of sharp lines and geometrical shapes which I think works really well.
MY OWN PHOTOSHOOT
For this photoshoot I tried to recreated Walker Evans work I did this slightly with my still life photoshoot by having the camera coming from a birds eye view however for this photoshoot I’ll be doing the same but also trying to use singular objects are create the negative space like he has in his images.
Like these:
My Work:
This is my original image on the right .
Now the edited one is underneath although here isn’t a major difference I feel the quality is so much better.
The centering on the edited image is a lot better as it was too far over to the right before leaving lots of negative space on the left-hand side which didn’t work for the image.
I think this photo shoot was really effective and you can see/tell that I used Walker Evans as inspiration for this photoshoot. I think my favorite image from this photoshoot would be the paintbrush I think that one worked really well the brush is very straight (which I realised some of the others weren’t so if I was able to fix it I would) and looks quite crisp and the details of the brush bristles look really good contrasting against the clean white background.
These are some of the original photos-
These photos have a really easy but effective editing style all I had to do for these were change them to black and white even if the photo already didn’t have any colour too it. Changing to black and white seemed to add more texture and dimension.
for these photoshoots I was trying to focus on only having a couple objects in the image and trying to focus more on shadows and depth.
Original picture on the right ->
For the image I had the shutter speed set at 1/80 secs and I had the aperture set at f/5.6
For the editing all I did was change the hue slightly, changed the highlands and shadows and crop the image so it was more even with negative space surrounding it.
Overall I think its a good image I think the slight reflective shadows from the cutlery looks really interesting as it gives the image lots of depth. However I do think it would have been to try and get some more photos with lots more different and harsher shadows if possible.
I do quite like this photo I think there is a lot of interest texture and depth due to the boxes and the sheet underneath the cutlery adding these new dimensions into the image. However because of the material the objects where on and the lighting it means there aren’t any shadows which was I what I was wanting for the photoshoot.
For this photo I had the setting set at 1/80 secs for the shutter speed and f/5.6 for the aperture.
Once again there wasn’t much editing needed for this photo I changed the shadow and highlights slightly cropped the image and for this was I changed the clarity by a very small amount because it gave more detail to the photo which I though looked really good.
I really like these photos I think they work really well especially compared to Walker Evans work with the classic white background with the seemingly quite basic everyday object.
I think for these the birds eye view shot I got works the best as it would be hard to photograph then from eye level as they are flat and cant be stood up.
For these i had the shutter speed set up at 1/100 secs and the aperture was at f/6.3. For these I had two ring lights on either side for the lighting was even and I had the lights on cool toned because it felt like it worked better based on the inspiration. However I did also take some with coloured gel sheets in font of the lights which did end up looking really interesting.
I think the photos I took of the colouring pencils although don’t fit the inspiration artist Walker Evans like I was originally planning they seem more nostalgic. This is because of the bright and vivid colours were something I liked a lot as a child.
For these images I used a tri-pod to stand up the camera so I could take the photo from that point of view and so that the photos would be extremely still. I used two spot lights either side of the object to illuminate the objects. I think the two photos contrast together from the one on the left being so uniform and organised compared to the one on the right which is very chaotic and messy.
This photoshoot was a different way to interpret and represent still life and i took more inspiration from Vanitas style photos where they often tried to represent and have themes of death in their photos. I tried to recreate that why having the skull to show a quite literal idea of death but then I also used a book for more of an abstract idea of it suggesting the story of your life.
