I have really, really enjoyed this project, even though it got me a little stumped in the beginning I have now learnt some invaluable techniques with lighting that have helped me to achieve some shots that I have always wondered exactly how they were made. So for my assignment on lighting techniques I was asked to take a specific subject and focus on displaying that object in different conditions to show how my knowledge on light and its effects has improved. The key things to look at were how the light showed shape, texture form and colour. At this point in my photography I felt that I had not studied more difficult subjects such as moving people, children, animals etc as much as I would have liked and wanted to use this assignment as my opportunity to choose a subject like this to gain some practice. Who better to help me out with this than my little dog :)
As with children, he could be quite unpredictable whilst trying to shoot and sometimes even camera shy! This made for a very interesting and varied subject for me and posed some challenges with either trying to keep him still or following his movements. An awful lot of bribery and dog treats were used!
So here are my photographs using the different methods I have learnt over the previous weeks to illustrate how they can make the subject appear with shape, form, texture and colour. Starting with Form:
FORM 1 - Exposure Time: 1/80 sec, F-stop: 5.6, ISO: 200, Focal Length: 55mm, White Balance: Daylight
For this first image I was out walking with Clancy and decided to try to capture him doing what he does naturally and felt that a perspective low to the ground would help show this as it is his viewpoint. Fortunately my camera has a feature where the screen swivels out at the back so I didn’t have to spend time laying in damp grass! I used Live View to capture this shot with the WB set to daylight to give an accurate representation of the light that morning. I used a slightly over exposed exposure to increase the brightness of the image as it was in a shaded area and this created some much lighter highlights in the lightest parts of the picture, especially picking up on the light shining off Clancy’s back. The over all lighting and depth of field through the grass and back into the trees gives this scene a very realistic feel of how three dimensional it is, with the over exposed highlights adding additional support to this desired look.
FORM 2 -
Exposure Time: 1/200 sec
F-stop: 14
ISO: Low 1
Focal Length: 55mm
White Balance: Flash
Other: Flash head with soft box, Modelling lamp with umbrella, Silver reflector
This next photo is where I started to get more creative and really understood how lighting affected the image. I used two flash heads, one with a soft box attachment and the other with an umbrella attachment. I also positioned a silver reflector to the right of the photo to bounce the light on to Clancy’s back so that more detail was illuminated in the shadows. The flash head with the soft box I hooked up to my camera with a sync cable so that the flash was set off when I took the shot, but the flash head with the umbrella I set as a modelling light to use as a fill lamp on the right hand side. this meant that on the left side, Clancy was lit up by the flash to give a clear image whilst the soft box reduced any harsh contrasting shadows, and the fill light and reflector bounced this back onto the right hand side so that there is still an element of shadow to show off his form, but the details are visible. I was trying to achieve a studio look to this photo where you couldn’t see the background he was against, but unfortunately I couldn’t pull the sheet tighter to reduce the wrinkles in it. I think when I try this again in the future it would be worth investing in some proper backing material that is much stiffer, or possibly try to change the distance that my subject is from the background so that I can use a wide aperture to create more bokeh and distort the background so that creases become less noticeable. He wasn’t happy about sitting here for so long in the first place so it was difficult to try to change the set up.
TEXTURE 1 - Exposure Time: 1/125 sec, F-stop: 8, ISO: Low 1, Focal Length: 46mm, White Balance: Flash, Other: Flash head with soft box, silver reflector
To help show texture using light I again used the reflector and soft box to cast light on both sides of my subject, but still leaving enough shadow to show up the cracks in the nose. Because the light source was predominantly on the right hand side it casts shadows over to the left making the texture in the nose and tongue really stand out. The only thing I wish I had done is cropped the photograph more closely to around the nose area to take away the distraction of the eyes and head shape so that it emphasised the point of the image being all about the texture in the nose. A crop like this one would have worked much better:
TEXTURE 2 - Exposure Time: 1/125 sec, F-stop: 4.5, ISO: 200, Focal Length: 18mm, White Balance: Daylight
With this shot the slight over exposure in the strong day light highlights the fur very well, creating shadows in between the layers to enhance the effect of its coarseness. By using a large aperture the focus is concentrated onto just the area of the fur so that the trees in the distance don’t draw too much attention away but make a nice backdrop for the perspective the shot was taken at.
SHAPE 1 - Exposure Time: 1/400 sec, F-stop: 5.6, ISO: 200, Focal Length: 55mm, White Balance: Shade
This is my personal favourite of the group of photos I’ve taken for this assignment. Having finally understood white balance and what effects it can have I knew that the way to enhance to orange of the light falling through the trees was to use the Shade white balance which tried to reduce the blue tones in the image and in turn increases the golden hues. The Lighting angle fell perfectly to illuminate the frame of my dog and cast a gorgeous glow on the autumn leaves. It makes a really lovely atmospheric image that portrays how nice it is to just enjoy a day in November walking through the leaves with your best friend, and the light shows off his rather proud stance brilliantly.
SHAPE 2 -
Exposure Time: 1/15 sec
F-stop: 5.6
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 50mm
White Balance: Fluorescent
Again this image was another backlit one to emphasize the shape around Clancy’s face and nose. I noticed when he had gotten settled on the sofa that the light from the near by window was casting a sort of moonlit looking glow, even though it was only around 4pm. To enhance the blue colour in this light I set the white balance to fluorescent, although I had intended to try to use settings on my camera that would show up more detail in the frame for the ISO and aperture settings I had chosen. In the end an exposure time of 1.15 sec was the slowest speed I could use whilst hand holding the camera, which produced an over exposed result but made the most of the highlights of light shining on the areas of my subject which would show off his shape the best.
COLOUR 1 - Exposure Time: 1/500 sec, F-stop: 5.6, ISO: 200, Focal Length: 55mm, White Balance: Shade
I like the interesting pose of this scene, I want to know what he is looking out outside of the frame. To increase the over all orange hue of this image I used the shade white balance setting, and this has given the image a lovely warm autumn feeling and brought to life the golden shiny colour of Clancy’s fur which stands out very well against the contrasting lush green grass. The combination of vivid colours makes for a very dynamic image where the focus is drawn into the central point of the dogs orange fur on his head.
COLOUR 2 - Exposure Time: 1/30 sec, F-stop: 5.6, ISO: Low 1, Focal Length: 55mm, White Balance: Flash, Other: Flash head and modelling lamp with soft box, Modelling lamp with umbrella, Silver reflector
With this photo I’m not sure if everyone would agree it accurately portrays the idea of colour, but I find the very high contrast of this greatly over exposed image does create the effect that the the orange tones in the fur are the most important part of the image as they are projected forwards by the blinding whiteness around them. To achieve this I was playing around with my new flash lamps, and decided to see what would happen if I used the modelling lamps and flash at the same time whilst leaving the camera settings as they were from metering with just the modelling lamps. As you can see the side where the flash went off with the modelling lamp became so bright it is completely washed out and all highlights on the right hand side are blown out also. I actually really like the effect it produced, it makes the image look slightly over saturated which gives the illusion of increased intensity in colour.
TUNGSTEN 1 -
Exposure Time: 1/15 sec
F-stop: 5.3
ISO: 400
Focal Length: 46mm
White Balance: Tungsten
TUNGSTEN 2 - Exposure Time: 1/13 sec, F-stop: 5.6, ISO: 400, Focal Length: 52mm, White Balance: Tungsten
These last two images I felt showed more than one property that I was asked to look at so I didn’t include them as separate entries but I really like how a single lamp in a dark room creates a very moody style of lighting. I was originally going to use the images to show texture within the fur and colour from the dog tag but when the prints arrived I wasn’t so keen on how the colour had appeared, but still like the styling so chose to use them at the end of this assignment. I have used this type of lighting before and love how the undiffused shadows can create depth and interest, and you can create either a warm feeling as my images show, or a dark moody image where some details are concealed by shadows. Below are some examples of a photograph I took for a friend to celebrate her growing baby bump, with just one ordinary bedroom lamp to cast shadows to make it look more dynamic and create interest in showing off her shape. We took a few similar to this and I’m really fond of the effect, I’ve had much success with it!
Over all, this assignment has been the most enlightening one (pun intended!) as it has made me very aware of how to manipulate my cameras settings to use light to my advantage and produce images that I could only imagine before. This has been my most successful assignment of the course as with previous ones I took photograph sometimes without realising what I was doing, but with this one I actually planned and executed all of the photos in the style I could envision in my head, and they turned out as I had anticipated. There were a few slip ups and shots that weren’t quite what I had in mind, but there were also some pleasant surprises along the way which I have learned to take control of. I’m now very interested in how artificial lighting enhances an image and intend to use it much more in future ventures in photography. The style that I think I would like to practice a little more is studio inspired photos and the use of flash and other props, possibly different colour lights or gels and the use of diffusers and reflectors. The way light creates depth or adds to it can make such interesting and emotive photography I hadn’t realised it would enhance the way I take photos so much!Also the other style of photography I found interested me greatly was long exposures. I would have liked to have tried this as part of my final assignment, but with a subject that can’t sit still for more than 2 seconds it would have been a little more than challenging! So in closing I am more than happy with what I have learnt and achieved in this chapter, I hope it shows in my work how greatly improved my skills in this area have become now that I can meter light correctly and understand the effects of over and under exposing an image, and how to use light to my advantage.
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