Featured
Self evaluation
I was excited to start this module as I’ve spent a lot of time simply developing my ambient light work prior to the course. I typically avoiding flash and studio based photography due to being intimidated by it. I felt during this module I was more comfortable with ambient light and achieved better results when using it. In fact, my three final images are all ambient light based.
Throughout the first module, I was told to succeed and go far I would need to put the effort in, to go out and shoot and take initiative. With this module I felt that’s exactly what I did. I made a point of stepping out of my comfort zone by contacting the likes of Tyne Tees Models and requesting shoots with models, shooting still life and using the studio as much as possible.
Though in the long run I feel the effort has paid off, I feel I was presented with challenges and often chastised for putting in the effort causing me to become somewhat demotivated. Knowing we had 4 weeks of flash work to do, I booked the studio as much as I could to take advantage of the facilities, however I found in doing so I was criticised for taking up the time.
I also found I wasn’t fond of group work. I felt the rest of my cohorts were on different wavelengths and often wanted to work alone. What this has shown me is how much I let my surroundings affect my work and motivation. It’s easy for me to blame stuff on circumstances however it boils down to me as a person rising above it and continuing to expand my skills and knowledge.
I noticed I spent a lot of time planning this module, possibly to avoid doing the things I wanted to do but was intimidated by. During my firs tutorial this was brought to my attention and I set out to fix it.
Regardless of setbacks I continued to work and found the more I pushed myself into things I was intimidated by, such as still life, working with people I don’t know like models and using the studio the more I developed and improved.
With ambient lighting I’ve found I’m looking now at how the light will affect the picture as opposed to just finding something interesting to photograph and exposing for it. With flash I’m less wary of getting into the studio and I’m confident I can come out with a decent image. With ambient and flash, I’m less confident and wish I allocated more time to practice with this. I was limited somewhat by equipment; however, I know I could’ve still shot more.
I think I have definitely improved throughout this module and going into the next module I’ll be looking to push myself further out of my comfort zone as I think that is how I really develop my skills as a photographer.
Day 1 of Module
Final Ambient Shoot
Model Release Forms
A model release for gives writtern permission for the photographer to use the images that are taken during a shoot and dictates the terms the images can be used.
More often that not release forms permit the photographer to do almost anything unless the result would cause defamation.
It's important to note the model signing the release form is required to be over 18.
Models under 18 will need a parent or guardian to sign for them.
For commercial use often release forms are more complex and can dictate right usage in terms of where the image can be used, for how long and who by.
It ultimately serves as a written contract that protects both photographer and model so both parties know how the images can be used.
David Bailey
in Research
David Bailey is a world renowned portrait and fashion photographer.
He is perhaps known for his use of high contrast high key portraits.
Bailey's approach to portraiture seems to be very clean aesthetically and very crisp. He very rarely has anything but a plain background, usually white, as he wanted to draw 100% of the audience attention on the subject.
Bailey seems to have absolute control in taking his images, to expose skin so high key on a white background without losing detail amazes me.
He seems to pose and shape the subjects to frame them perfectly, particularly hair and styling and makes use of negative space to acheive the same.
Martin Schoeller
in Research
Martin Schoeller is a New York based commercial photography know for his 'hyper-detailed' head shots of popular figures.
Schoeller's portraits have a very iconic look. The shallow depth-of-field, the expression, the composition, the catchlights all make for a unique and beautiful portrait.
The portraits looks deceptively simple. Juding from the catchlights, it appears to be 2 stripboxes, presumably at 45 degree angles lighting the subjects.
However there seemingly more scontrast than I would presume striplights would render.
There are highlights on the bridge of noses and cheekbones that may come from a beauty dish from high above that doesn't present a catch light.
I think what I like most about Schoeller's portrait is the simplicity. If it is a simple 2 light setup it's how Schoeller has uses the lights and his equipment.
Richy Leeson
in Research
Richy Leeson visited the college to do a workshop on fashion portraits.
I learned a lot from the workshop and from simply watching Richy work.
The first thing I noticed was how he moved around when shooting. It's something so simple but something, up to that point, I hadn't done when shooting portraits. It was interesting to see the images coming up on the screen he had tethered to and how the lighting styles changed simply because the perspective had changed.
It was also interesting hearing about Richy's work in ecommerce. How he changed the genre and shot differently, going against the grain and it paid off. He also mentioned about some of the business aspects in ecommerce which really interested me as a possible means of income, leading me to taking some shots in an ecommerce 'style'.
It was also Richy who said he sometimes likes to include parts of the set in shoot, something become increasing popular in the fashion industry as a whole, prompting me to inlcude a few throughout my shooting.
Karl Taylor
in Research
I decided to look at Karl Taylor for this module as he creates a lot of stunning still-life and product shots.
These 3 images of alcohol products are all beautifully lit. I can see how Taylor likes to create a rim light on the bottles to make them pop from the dark backgrounds and that he's also a big fan of gradient backgrounds.
Taylor also has a YouTube channel full of Q&A's and tutorials.
In particualr I looked at these 2 videos.
What I like about the videos is that one highlights the importance and advantage of building one light at a time. With his make-up shoot Taylor builds one light at a time and makes tiny seemingly insignificant changes that stack up to create an amazing image.
The other video highlights a common complaint of mine in most online tutorials; A lot of pro photographers have access to pro gear and the best equipment. Though we have access to a lot of useful equipment it pales in comparison. For example, his make-up shoot used 10's of thousands of dollars worth of lighting, there's simply no-way we could recreate the same. (though i understand that wasn't the point of the video). However, Taylor addresses this problem as shows a tutorial using simple household lights.
This, for me, highlighted a lot of misconceptions i was seeming using as excuses for my own advancement. I often didn't bother attempting things simply because I felt I couldn't due to equipment. Though, sometimes this it true; often it boils down to a getting the foundations right first.
Gordon Parks
in Research
Gordon Parks is one of my favourite photographers. Not only do I find his images beautiful and enthralling the artist himself astounds me due to his strong sense of social justice and bravery for his work documenting issues on race poverty and civil rights.
Having stumbled across Parks years ago in my own reading around race related issues in America, the first image I ever saw was The Fontenelles at the Poverty Board. The image stuck an accord with me immediately. The composition highlight a distressed family, portraying the story of a seemingly single mother in another hopeless meeting with an official. The light seems to an aura around them, emphasized by the the underexposed man who is thrown out of focus, creating a juxtaposition in what looks like a seemingly hopeless and tiring situation. The light from the window behind them filling the walls around them, separating them from the background and adding to a isolated feeling of no help from the man at the poverty board.
Bessie Fontenelle and Richard Climb the Stairs.
The way Parks see's and uses light to help tell his story, The Fontenelles are a poverty stricken family in the Harlem ghettos in the 60's.
Here we see the mother of the Fontenelle family, Bessie, carrying her son up the stairs. The leading lines of the bannister and paintwork leading the eye directly to her.
She seems to be coming out a darkness and heading towards the light. We see above her on the landing a tricycle followed by more darkness.
This gives me a feeling as if we're seeing just a snapshot, this one moment of a woman working her way back up to her home. The light illuminating the scene for us to see but what came before and will come after is unknown due to the darkness, perhaps reminiscent of Bessie's scenario.
In this image, Little Richard, we see a portrait of one of the Fontenelle children. Presumably lit from window light, the child's expression matches the tone and mood the lighting reflects. He's dimly lit, only a little light shines on his face, perhaps Parks saw this as an representation of the child's future. We see the catchlights in his eyes adding interesting to the image and is maybe representative of the child's spark and innocence still hidden away behind his poverty stricken appearance.
Untitled
Here we see one of the Fontenelle children doing his school work in bed. The light source seems to be from coming from the cameras direction judging by the shadows cast from the bed frame onto the wall. There seems to be a hazy glow about the light, perhaps the room was rusty or light spilling into the lens from out of frame is causing a flare. The whites of the paper are more exposed than the any other part of the image due to their reflective colour along with the pencil. It could be argued that his education is possible a route to a brighter future.
Parks seems to use light as not only the thing that is allowing him capture the scene but as a tool he is welding to emphasise the story he is trying to tell. His images are all full of contrast ranging from bright highlights to deepest blacks.
Rembandt
in Research
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a 17th century painter from the Netherlands.
Paintings and painters are always being turned to for inspiration in photography. Photographers often turn to Rembrandt due his masterful use of light and shadow. A style he often used in portraits depicts a triangle of light on the subjects cheek surround by shadows on the cheek and cast from the nose.
The lighting style is dramatic yet flattering on most people and is very simple to pull off.
It seemingly emphasises the shape and form of a person's features without highlighting flaws and blemishes
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Wedding - Ambient & Flash
Towards the evening, the sun had set it became more difficult to shoot without a flash.
I opted to use a speedlite attached to camera which I ensured was always pointing at the ceiling.
During the first dance, there was club style lighting which I always wanted to incorporate in the images. As the ceiling was really high and I knew the first dance was going to be a lively one I didn't want to have to be waiting for my speedlite to recycle. I set an ISO of 1250 and an aperture of f/2.8 in the hopes my flash could fire as quick as I needed it to.
I metered for the ambient light and needed around 1/10th of a second which I stopped down to 1/20th as I didn't need the scene fully exposed.
Limited in positioning due to the large crowd around the small dancefloor, I had to make do where I was and during the slow dancing parts I was able to light the bride and groom using the ceiling as a reflector while also allowing ambient light to expose on the sensor thanks to the slow shutter speed.
However, when the dance became more lively and I had to keep moving my camera quickly to track along with the bride and groom, severe motion blur occured. the shutter speed was so long than the ambient light was exposing the bride and groom also leaving ghostly light silhouettes behind.
As I was too busy shooting away, not wanting to miss a moment I didn't check the results til after the dance.
This meant a lot of the images turned out very poorly.
I should have checked during the shoot, I may have missed a moment but I would have also had better images.
I just simply need to increase my shutter speed enough where only the lights were exposing and not the bride and groom.
In all I think this part of the wedding was very poor for me (thank god for second shooters) and that I could have done much much better if I simply slowed down.
Car
Wanting to expand on still life work and working with flash & ambient lighting I wanted to try and photograph a Car.
Wanting an urban setting but one that still showed light, planned to light the car using 2 speedlites I had access to.
Wanting a large depth-of-field to keep everything in focus, chose an aperture of f/11 and an ISO of 100 to retain the best image quality. I placed my camera on a tripod and metering for the sky needed a 0.8 second long exposure. I then assessed image to see where to place my speedlites.
ISO 100 f/11 0.8sec 24mm
I positioned the light in TTL mode to camera right, parallel to the front of the car and placed it high on a light stand facing down. I did this to light the top hood of the car and also to try and light the inside slightly.
Here I find the composition is off, as the car isn't filling the frame it makes it seem small. The hard light from a reflector bowl is creating a pool of light on the floor in which the car casts are hard shadow.
I repositioned the car to a more appealing position and took anothe test show.
Seeing the car was reasonably lit all over I then took a test shot without the flash to see how the ambient light was hitting the car.
With flash
Without flash
ISO 100 f/11 1/3sec 31mm
Though the car in underexposed the majority of the image is still being lit with ambient light.
I increased my shutter speed by 2/3rd stops, now being at 1/3rd of a second.
Adding a the flash back in resulted in this image.
I like the underexposed background and the lighting on the car however the side of the car is a little too underexposed so I wanted to add a second light.
I attached a softbox to a second light, also in TTL mode and asked a friend to hold the light in various positions while i triggered the camera. Having smoeone there to help made the process go a lot quicker as I could see the results instantly and direct changes
Shadow on fence
Still a shadow on fence
Shadow cast on ground
The first image you can see the very hard shadow being cast on the fence. Though a soft box is attached to create a greater spread of light without stepping too far back from the car, relative to the car the soft box is very small creating hard light.
I asked to move the light higher and angle it down slightly, you can see the shadow is a little better. And finally, the third image, angling the light downwards even more gets rid of the shadow completely while light the side of the car.
Happy with the light I finally gave a wider angle to allow for any cropping that may need to occur and take the shot.
A difficulty I faced was the setting sun. Each minute passing the light was dropping fasting and faster with my final image being taken at a 2 second long exposure.
Overall I'm happy with the final image however circumstances on the day, namely my friend and the temperature at nightfall seemingly disagreeing with each other very loudly caused me to be rushed. Ideally I would have also had a 3rd light which I would have placed around the back of the car to produce a rim light helping to separate it from the dark background.
Ideally a light setup something like this
Alcohol using ambient & flash
Wanting to try the bokeh effect with still life I hung the lights from a boom and tried to get as much distance from them to increase blurring of a shallow depth of field while still trying to have them fill the frame.
I placed my to fill my frame and pre-set my focus.
Opting for a single light setup I pointed a snoot so the beam of light would stream across the subject and not spill onto the background.
I metered for the fairy lights using my cameras built-in meter. Typically with still life you can slow your shutter speed down, which would have been perfect however due to the fairy lights being fairly flimsy and needing adjusting a lot they were swinging and took a very long time to become still. I needed a faster shutter speed of 1/80 to reduce motion blur, which resulted in needing an ISO of 800 and the lens' widest aperture of f/2.8.
I took several test shots to arrange composition and once satisfied I metered the flash lighting with a light meter making sure the light meter was reading at ISO 800, readjusting the light until f/2.8 was the correct exposure.
I metered from the Jack Daniels bottle as it was the brightest label. The result however, due the angle of the bottles and light is that the Jack Daniels and Martini bottles are well exposed however the Haig club bottle isn't due to the bottles face not being in the light.
I moved the haig bottle so although the light isn't hitting the bottles face, the light will pass into the bottle through the side illuminating it from within as the light refracts inside.
My biggest problem with the image is the fairy lights don't quite fill the frame edge to edge.
However I was very happy with the results from concept to output as little experimentation was needed due to my understanding and planning.
Katie Ambient + Flash
For this shoot I wanted to mix flash lighting with the ambient light of fairy lights.
I wanted the fairy lights to be thrown out of focus to create a bokeh effect white lighting Katie with the flash.
The problem I knew I would have is that the fairy lights are very low in power and as both model and I will be holding them, very prone to movement so slow shutter speeds would create motion blur.
To achieve a bokeh effect, I need as wide an aperture as possible, f/2.8 in this instance, and create distance from the subject to throw them out of focus as much as possible. I set a shutter speed of 1/100 which would let more ambient light in than my maximum sync speed but also reduce motion blur from the fairy lights. At f/2.8 and 1/100 shutter speed I needed an ISO of 500 to expose for the ambient light from the fairy lights.
I turned the room's lights off so only the fairy lights are creating ambient light and closed the blinds so the room was in total darkness.
I metered my strobe setting the light meter to ISO 500 and adjusted until the light exposed Katie at f/2.8. Here is the resulting image.
The like of bokeh balls look interesting however cross Katie's face.
You can also see how the flash, hitting the light in Katie's hand is overpowering them making it hard to tell they're lit up at all.
A few shots in I noticed the side Katie's hair is laying is blocking the light, in some instances it created interesting shadows, but others it cast her full face into shadow.
Interesting shadows
Full face in shadow
I tried changing the angle I was shooting from to see how an image can change without moving the light or subject.
I really like these images. The unused barn doors you can see in the background helps to give a sort of behind-the-scenes feel and the shadows cast on Katie's face don't seem to be ass problematic compared to shooting head on.
Wanting to try and eliminate big shadows from Katie's face, I moved the light to the other side of Katie to avoid hitting her hair. I also switched lens to a 105mm macro lens knowing longer focal lengths produce a shallower depth of field.
However I noticed a problem when shooting with a macro lens, particularly in the studio.
I remetered the lights to achieve a f/2.8 aperture. However, at close focusing distances, the circle of light that hits the cameras centers grows, meaning not 100% of the light going through the lens is exposing the sensor. Nikon cameras fortunately report the change in what is known at effective aperture. However, I didn't pick up on this change in effective aperture until I saw the metadata. This resulted in ever so slightly underexposed images. Not so much the images are unusable but enough for me to realise it's important to be careful in noting the aperture the camera is reporting.
Metadata reading f/3
Edited to increase exposure 1/3 stop.
The term bokeh refers to the way a lens renders light when thrown out of focus. It is typically seen are round globules in shallow depth of field images.
Ambient & Flash
Taking a photograph in ambient light typically means changing the cameras setting's to attain the correct exposure. Taking a photograph with studio lighting allows you to set desired camera settings and adjusting the lights to match.
Mixing the two means mixing the two ways of attaining the correct exposure.
We already know that shutter speed does not affect exposure in flash photography due to the extremely quick burst of light, leaving aperture and ISO to affect exposure. We also know that ambient photography is affected by the entire exposure triangle.
If we set our ISO to it's lowest to gain the best quality file output, this leaves aperture to control flash exposure leaving shutter speed to control ambient exposure.
For these images I first metered the ambient light in camera, I wanted a large depth of field to keep the sky in focus so I set an aperture of f/16.
At ISO100 this gave me a shutter speed of 1/50 to expose correctly for the sky. However, I was hand holding the camera I wanted a a faster shutter speed to ensure a sharp image. Changing the ISO to 250 allowed me a shutter speed of 1/125.
I then set up a studio light pointing at Katie and metered the light, making sure to set the ISO value on the light meter to the same as my camera, and adjusted the light until it read f/16 as the correct exposure.
ISO250 f/16 1/125
ISO250 f/16 1/125
Here you can see how lower aperture affects both ambient and flash exposure. If I wanted to affect the flash lighting only, I would also have to compensate with a higher shutter speed. As I opened the aperture by 2 stops I would have to increase the shutter speed 2 stop to 1/500.
However, altering the shutter speed alone would only affect the ambient light.
ISO160 f/8 1/20
ISO160 f/8 1/125
Here all camera settings are kept the same except the shutter speed. You can see on the left at 1/20 Katie and the background are at the same exposure creating a flat looking dull image.
At 1/20 you could normally expect movement blur from camera shake however the flash helps to freeze motion, similar to my studio splash shoot.
On the image to the right, with 2 and 2/3 stops difference in the shutter speed, you can see a dramatic difference in the background due to the ambient lighting being underexposed. Katie is also a little darker than the left image as she was also being lit by some ambient light.
Problems can occur with ambient and flash when equipment limits desired camera settings.
For example, if I wanted to shoot Katie at f1.4 to create a really shallow depth of field, even at ISO100, particularly in daylight would require a shutter speed quicker than 1/200 (maximum flash sync speed).
To remedy this you could use HSS and reach a higher shutter speed without worry about shutter sync issues or opt for a neutral density filter.
ND filters screw onto the front of a lens and act a little like sunglasses. They block out the light entering the camera by a determined amount of stops allowing a really birhgt scene to be shot at wide apertures and low shutter speeds.
Alex Kitching
Having shot with a model from Tyne Tees Models previously in ambient light, I wanted to try the same within the studio.
I wanted to try and light the full infinity cove as a whole to allow the model freedom to move around in the cove and during the shoot wanted to try several different styles of photography.
I wanted to try an ecommerce look, with simply a model on a white background at first however upon seeing the models test card I noticed he had a good physique with lots of definition.
I thought it would be an interesting challenge in lighting the model to emphasise his physique taking everything I had learned up to this point, expanding on it and experimenting.
April offered to lend a hand throughout the shoot which was appreciated due to the possible complexity.
Days before the shoot, I was in contact with Alex, the model to verify times and locations. I also let Alex know expectations and asked if he had anything particular in mind we could try also. I let him know I was looking for a e-commerce 'asos-style' shoot but also a fitness themed shoot. I made him aware I have never shot something like this to both keep his expectations in check and to make him aware I would be spending time doing trial and error with the lighting.
The day of shoot, before Alex's arrival I spent time setting up the studio, pre-metering lights which would light the studio, setting up computers and my camera and getting lights ready with any modifiers I may have to switch to, saving time later.
I confirmed again time and location and upon arrival we went through the clothes Alex had brought with him, what we would be doing and simply cracked on.
I put on some music to make Alex more comfortable, asked him to stand in the infinity cove and ask April to meter and adjust the lights until they exposed at f/8. I chose f/8 as it is a 'sweet spot' in most lense as the aperture that renders the sharpest.
I then took a test shot.
This test shot allowed me to evaluate light positioning, and with an image imported into Capture One I could quickly and lightly tone the image, adding contrast and warmth to his skin tone. An upside to tethering is that the model can see the images been taken, and often found, as Alex has modelled for quite some time, he was spotting his own mistakes. However, a downside is that Alex could also spot mistake I was making, adding some pressure to the situation. Particularly as it's my job to assess and control every aspect of the shoot.
Overall I was happy with the lighting, I move the softbox around slightly as I didn't want split lighting and though the background wasn't a 255 white as intended, I was okay with that for the time being.
I had noticed from previous shoots tethering, it's very easy to take a picture, look, take a picture, look. I don't shoot this way untethered so I made a conscious effort not to with this shoot. Luckily with Alex being fairly experienced he was able to keep up and change poses quickly with me giving some directions every now and then.
When shooting wider shots, was getting parts of the set in the shot, something I've been experimenting with a little since our workshop with Richy Leeson..
However, I noticed getting a full 255 white background was difficult due to shadows cast by Alex and the lights themselves. I could fix this in post however personally I found myself like the shadows, as it seeming gives a behind-the-scenes imperfect look. Though I would like to try this again so I can actually perfect getting a 255 background easily.
I could have moved Alex away from the background to reduce his shadow, however when shooting white, the depth of the infinity cove proved a problem as the white floor didn't seem to extend far enough out. Fine for headshots as you don't see the floor, but for full length images I found i struggled.
I then started to stop down the background lighting to give a grey background. The flexibility of a white background is that depending on exposure you can range from 255 white to total black. As the exposure stopped down, I asked Alex to change clothing as to not blend in with the background.
I rather like these headshots. The lighting changes slightly from a slight loop to butterfly which provides a flattering even lighting and the changes in pose allow for variety in house the light hits his face.
Moving on to physique type shots I start by simply lighting Alex with a softbox, high to the camera left point down. I knew this wouldn't give me the desired results but would provide me with a starting point.
The result is a very flat light, though some shadows are being cast they are very soft and filled in therefore the image lacks the depth and shape needed to emphasise Alex's physique.
In the last image, Alex is too far back in the cover and his also being lit by the barn doors so I had to be careful in where to position him. However is did give him more definition.
I decide to butterfly light Alex with a beauty dish (albeit i make-shift one as the college doesn't seem to own a bowens mount beauty dish); an idea I got from my research. The beauty dish would create a harder light that a softbox and more contrast. The top down nature of butterfly lighting would also allow add shadows cast by muscle definition.
At the same time I side lit Alex with 2 stip boxes and aslligned them so only the very edge of the striplights would light alex. This was to prevent light wrapping around him and filling in shadows, I wanted the light to simply glance the muscle.
I find the the contrast and positioning of the lights add definition however the beauty dish is highlighting the models face in an unflattering way giving him a shine.
Removing the beauty dish and roating the stip boxes to match his turned post resulted in very dramatic lighting that emphasised the definition in his body further as the beauty dish was no longer filling in the shadows.
However, depending on pose I've lost light on his face and as the stripboxes aren't in front of Alex there are no catchlights in his eyes which I find help to added some interest there.
Switching set-ups I went back to a simply 1 light set-up opting to use a softbox for its ability to spread light.
I asked Alex to sit on an armchair I borrowed from set design and placed the light above him facing directly down.
With the angle I asked alex to sit at the light should still create shadows around his muscles creating definition and the spill of light should mimic an almost spot like look casting a pool around him.
The resulting image lit alex well, however his brow bone cast shadows into his eyes and the light is a little too soft.
I decided to raise the softbox higher making it a smaller light source and therefore giving off a hard light.
Here the light is hard enough to cast shadows and I asked alex to lean his head back slightly on the cahri which allows light onto his eyes. another downside is the state of the infinity cove itself. There are a lot of scuff marks, which though can be edited out, take a very long amount of time to correct.
Overall I really like the outcome, I think the lighting flatter Alex and emphasises his physique well.
I wanted to try the same with a black background I moved the chair and Alex out of the cove.
I needed for the light to spill around alex and the chair but nothing else to underexpose the background enough to be black.
However the softbox spread the light too far and the room was not big enough. I tried to flag off the spill of light however the boards used are of very low quality, there are white edges to them, the black paint is more a grey. However there was a simpler fix, reducing the spill of light.
I swapped the softbox out for the beauty dish. The bowl shape of the dish directs the light into a more concentrated bowl.
You can still see the background however it is much improved and is dark enough to be worked out in post production.
A problem I had with the beauty dish was, to get a smaller pool of light, I had to move the light closer. Even on its lowest setting it metered at f/16. Being so close to the subject meant the light fall off would be greater.
In this image you can see the difference in exposure from Alex's forehead to his fingers.
This is due to the inverse square law. To try and put it simply, the closer the lightsource, the brighter. The intensity of the light is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
The further away the lightsource, the lower its intensity. However, the difference in intensity (sometimes called light fall-off) reduces as the distance increases.
In this diagram, the yellow gradient represent light and it's intensity. We see the in light 'fall-off' the further it extends from the light source. However, we also see, the difference in intensity between points A and B is greater than the intensity between point C and D.
In the above image of Alex, if the size of the pool of light being cast didn't matter, I could have moved the light higher. This would have resulted in a lesser difference in exposurse between his head and hands.
Self Portraits
Wanting to spend some time in the studio to practice being able to set-up lights and being ready to shoot quicker I spent some time doing so.
I didn't have anyone to model for me so I was taking self portraits. My goal was to be able to quickly set-up lights including lights to make the background 255 white.
255 white is when the three colour channel red green blue read 255 each which means the whites hold no information and is a pure clean white.
To achieve this I pointed to barndoor strobes at 45 degree angles at the backdrop, using the barn door to flag off the light so none would spill away from the backdrop.
I metered the back lights for f/8 and metered across the entire backdrop to make sure the light was f/8 for the whole backdrop.
I used a lightstand to help me pre-focus and then stood in place, metered and took possibly a test shot to trigger the lights.
The vignetting from the lens becomes apparent but can be fixed in post. You can see around my ears and arms that some of the light from the backdrop is reflecting back at me. I could step away from the backdrop to alleviate this hwoever I didnt find the effect a massive problem.
It was also good practice in photographing people with glasses. Making sure the angle of incidence doesn't show the keylight in the reflection of the glasses.
During this shoot I was reminded at how what it was like being in front of the camera. Though I've never enjoyed having my picture taken, I don't mind doing so for my cohort as it means I can ask the same thing of them. However, I usually never see those images. Being able to see my images on the tethered computer as they came up felt awkward particularly as people were talking in and out of the studio.
Being happy with the white background I wanted to see how I could change the background just by changing the exposure of the background.
Here I turned of the back lights and allowed the backdrop to be lit from the keylight alone. The backdrop is being lit but not as much as before causing the white to become grey.
However, this also mean that light from the keylight was spilling onto the background, meaning my f/8 metering would have been wrong as I didn't meter the background with the keylight on.
This may have exacerbated the backlighting caused by the white wall reflecting back onto me.
I noticed throughout the time shooting it was hard to critique the lighting as I was too busy critiquing myself.
Warehouse Shoot in groups
in Flash
We did a workshop in the bus shed's which gave us an opportunity to use studio lighting outside of the studio. We were split into groups and left to experiment as team.
I've found in this module I haven't enjoyed working within teams. I understand that, in general, the photography industry is very competitive and that competition is sometimes good motivation to improve yourself, however I've found within the class those who step-up and show initiative are often met with hostilities or sly comments. Sometimes those have been appointed to lead a group set off to do their own thing and simply expect the group the follow leaving it up to them to involve themselves.
In this instance, our group were simply taken turns going in rotation and allowing each person to take lead upon their turn. Later into the shoot April was appointed to lead the group and asked what each person would like to do and organised others to set-up and arrange, similar to what we were doing before.
I chose my location within the bus shed, the stairs, arranged the light to roughly how I'd like it and asked Gary to model for me. With the help of the group, I asked Nicola to meter the light while April held on to the boom for safety and was ready to raise, lower or move the light if needed.
I took several shots until I was happy with the variety of poses and then we rotated and Nicola shot.
When we circled back around to my turn to shoot, we set up to shoot April as the model where I took these 2 initial shots.
Test shot. Flat lighting, boring and bland.
Side lighting, more interesting however location is bad.
After taking just these 2 shots I received some feedback which felt more like criticism than constructive criticism which I found demotivated me particularly as I felt I was seeing others receiving constructive criticism.
The location I wanted meant I would be in another groups shot so I asked if I could quickly have 5 minutes to try in the location.
I liked the image but found I wanted the light higher, as you can see from the image the ceiling was fairly low and due to the rather large softbox, the light couldn't be raised further than this.
I wanted to try to try and only light my chosen subject and leave the background in darkness, with such a large open space I thought the task would be easy. I felt I had an idea of how the light needed to be but found in trying to communicate the idea to the team and April as team leader, they were confused. This may have been down to bad communication or that my understanding was slightly ahead of there's.
I started to direct the team myself but was however shut down when we were asked if I had taken over as team leader now. I then had to re-communicate the idea to April who once she understood could direct the team.
Using the same set up as above but with a higher light in an open space I captured this image of Gary.
I've managed to create a big distance in exposure between Gary and the background however due to the size of the softbox then light is still spilling onto the background and the the large pool of light on the floor is reflecting up onto the wall behind gary.
Taking this idea further I had seen my team using the available equipment in the bus shed as props. I opted, in this shot, for a total top down lighting which would hopefully reduce the spill of light onto the background and create very dramatic lighting.
I also opted to shoot wider than before to include the lighting set-up, something which Richy Leeson, in a recent workshop, noted is something a lot of commercial photographer are doing as of late.
However, the light is still spilling onto the background and the panel behind Gary is causing a distraction and looks as though it's coming out of his head.
Rather than change my angle as suggested, as I wanted to shoot parralell to Gary, I simply moved the set.
I love Gary away from the distracting panel behind him and found the highlights on the shutter behind him serve to separate him from the background. I also moved the cabling to produce a neater image with the result being an image in which I feel the lighting, styling, props and inclusion of the lighting set-up all work together well.
Building The Lights up
I wanted to revisit my still life work of the Jack Daniel's bottle with studio lighting to see how it compares to ambient lighting with the same brief.
One of the advantages of studio lighting is the ability to have more than one light source, however controlling so many aspects of the image can be overwhelming and difficult to assess should the image not turn out as planned. I built the light set-up one light at a time.
I wanting to illuminate the liquid inside the bottle along with the label. I started with a snoot to be able to direct the light however I pulled the snoot back to enable a wider pool of light.
I noticed the angle of the isn't illuminating the liquid in the glass and is also cast a shadow from the glass onto the bottle label.
The drink is now illuminated and i've notied the refraction of the light from the bottle have also created a glow on the left side. The side in shadow is still lit due to the white infinity cover reflecting the light back into and around the room.
I could have flagged the light to stop it spilling onto the side of the bottle but as I wanted more light, I left it.
I added a second light, a softbox to light the side of the bottle. Due to the softbox being so big and spreading light everywhere it also lit the background. However I find I like the result.
Happy with the lighting I built up the set with props
Overall i like the final image, the composition isn't the best but throughout the shoot i learned how much building a set one light at a time can help.
Freezing motion without HSS
in Flash, Still Iife, Studio
With this shoot, I wanted to again freeze a splash but this time within the studio.
Without the luxury of HSS, I had to change the way I typically use the studio equipment taking what I had learned from the first module, particularly artist research and what I had learned with this module in how strobe lights work.
As my maximum sync speed with the studio lights is 1/200th that means I have 200th a second to freeze motion which isn't fast enough to freeze the splash wanted. However, from learning about how strobe lights work, the pop of flash is much much quicker and varies depending on power. For example, at 1/64 power a strobe might flash at around 1/8000 a second. However, at full power, as the flash tube can't output more light it will output the light for long, so a flash may last 1/1000 of second or longer depending on the wattage of the light, still faster than max shutter speed will allow.
From Tim Tadder's Water Wig Series
Last module I researched Tim Tadder and how he managed to shoot his Water Wig series. Tadder has very expensive equipment which could fire strong bursts for a short duration but was still limited by not have HSS.
To remedy this Tadder blocked out all ambient light, set his shutter speed fairly slow and allowed the speed of the flash to freeze the motion.
To start I turned on a single light to make sure I could put Tadder's technique into practice myself.
I turn off all other lights except for the flash head, placed my camera on a sturdy tripod and set my shutter speed to 0.4 seconds. I triggered the camera using a remote which meant I couldn't focus the lens however focus wasn't important at this stage.
I noticed a long trail of motion blur which made me realise the modelling light comes back on before the end of the exposure.
Light set up for background, building one light at a time.
I set up a backdrop featuring a forest scene as I wanted to create an outdoor winter theme with the image which I lit with a single softbox to ensure an evenly distributed light.
Wanting to shoot at f/8, typically a 'sweet spot' in lenses to achieve maximum sharpness, I altered the power output of the flash until the light meter read f/8 as correct exposure.
I set up my subjects, pointed a snoot from camera left at them which allowed me to direct the light across the subject in a narrow beam which meant I didn't have to worry about the light spilling onto the backdrop. It also meant the angle of incidence would send the angle of reflectance away from the camera allowing the light to shine through the glassware and liquid without creating harsh highlights.
Shooting at f/8 I changed the keylight's, the light that is primarily lighting the subject and typically the most powerful, until it metered for f/8.
Having the subjects in the scene meant I would set my lens to manual focus and pre-set it so I can trigger the camera with remote. I then took a few test shows dropping things into frame practicing timing and how much the scene would freeze.
It was also at this point I realised how easy it would be to accidenetally be in frame.
Satisfied with the test shots, I added water to the glass and went for it.
I then spent a lot of time re-taking shots and recomposing slightly to try and get the best shot and best splash possible.
One problem I came across in this shoot was with the radio triggers communicating between camera and light.
Here my key light was triggering but for some reason my softbox, to light the backdrop, wasn't.
I remedied this by switch the 'cell' function on the light. This allows the light to be triggered when a light sensor on the body of the flash head detects a flash. This meant the radio trigger would trigger my keylight, which the light sensor on my backdrop's light would detect and then trigger itself.
After a lot of shots I came away with several usable images, here is my favourite.
Though the motion isn't as frozen as my shots with my speedlite in HSS mode, it had frozen the motion enough and more so that if I was limited to the 1/200 max shutter speed.
A little bright so I remetered.
Having already set up the light and backdrop I wanted to revisit my Jack Daniels shots again.
I arranged my set keeping the same lighting set up. From my previous shots attempts at shooting this scene I know I wanted to try lighting the bottle and glass independantly however as seen her the snoot isn't creating a narrow enough beam of light. To narrow the beam firruther, I added a grid.
Though still lighting more of the scene, the bottle is more exposed than the glass.
I added a second snoot behind the set and pointed it at the glass. Turning off my keylight to see the individual effect.
Together the 2 lights created this image below, the liquid in the glass is lit along with the christmas paper hat behind however the side label isn't as clear as bright as I would like.
Rather than add another light I used a reflector to bounce the light from the back light onto the side label, using the gold foil side to made the golden colour the whiskey is refracting.
Resulting in this final image.
A problem I had with this shoot was the placements of the light. The lighting rid is connected to rails on the ceiling which make fine adjustments hard. I could have arranged lights on light stands however on this occasion I asked a friend for help to hold the lights steady.
Here is a picture I took on my phone of the set up.
Speedlites & High Speed Sync
Speedlites, also known as hot-shoe flashes, are battery powered flashguns that can affix to the camera via hotshoe. Modern speedlites have a rotating head to aim the flash, can have their output controlled, an automatic function and can be triggered off camera.
There are many advantages to speedlites over a traditional studio flash head. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is their portability and accessibility being, able to fit in almost any camera bag and being battery powered mean they are very easy to carry around and power.
This makes lighting very accessible on location shoots such as wedding and out-of-studio portraits.
A problem that can occur with on-camera flash is that is can produce very hard, intense and flat lighting making most images lack depth and unflattering. Such as the image below, shot with speedlite on camera, facing forward and in TTL mode.
You can see the result is a very hard and flat lighting, this is due to the flash head being a small light source and that is is firing almost directly from the lens' point of view. You can see the hard outline of the person's shadow behind her and on her clothes.
The background is supposed to be black but due to the direct hard light on it appears a dark grey in which you can see the folds and creases.
The light however is well exposed due to the TTL function of the speedlight. As metering light on the go, particularly in event photography, is unrealistic I use TTL which stands for Through The Lens.
TTL is essentially auto mode in which the speedlight will quickly fire a preliminary flash and meter than flash through the lens before setting the correct output to correctly expose the image. This happens incredibly quickly and is unnoticeable but serves as a really useful function.
In this image, the flash head is pointing up to the ceiling. This turns a very small light source is a very large one as the ceiling turns into a giant reflector.
The result is soft, even lighting that looks very natural due to the top down direction and white ceiling reflecting daylight colour light back onto the scene.
I wanted to try a freeze motion with flash however, typical studio lights have are limited by the camera maximum sync speed meaning sync speed higher than around 1/200 are not possible.
This is because SLRs tend to have a focal plane shutter, which takes around 1/200sec to travel the height of the camera's sensor. As flashes are instantaneous by comparison, you can catch a shadow of the focal plane shutter as it travels like you can in this image shot at 1/250. Though interesting, my camera's top flash sync speed is 1/250 with it's pop-up flash.
However, in freezing motion you typically want shutter speeds of around 1/500 upwards, which is a problem with flash photography and focal plane shutter cameras.
HSS
Speedlites (and more modern studio lights) have a function called HSS (High Speed Sync).
With this function you have shoot at higher speed as the flash, as opposed to firing a single burst of light, will fire several in stroboscopic fashion extremely quickly meaning the shadows of the shutter are exposed allowing you to shoot at higher speeds.
The pay off for this however is typically a weaker output in intensity as the speedlite cannot charge it's capacitor quick enough to let off full power bursts.
I did the following shoot at home and put a emphasis on freezing motion as opposed to creating a usable commercial image. As such composition and styling took a back seat and I simply focused on freezing the motion and positioning the light in a pleasing way that would highlight the glass and splash well.
I starting with my camera on a tripod as I need a free hand for the splash, and attached a HSS compatible remote trigger on the hotshoe and set up a light stand with a radio receiver and speedlite attached. This allows me greater control of direction of light as I am not bound by simply reflecting the light.
With the flash in TTL mode, I set my shutter speed to over 1/250th and took several test shots.
As speedlights lacka modelling light I had to take several shots like the ones below to see how the light would look and varying aperture to see what level depth of field would create a better image.
With TTL I can make these changes and not have to worry about exposure changing, though exposure isn't consistent throughout possible due to the reflectivity of the glass/metal.
Once I settled on the lighting, I set my shutter speed to 1/1600 to freeze the motion.
