Kioloa Review

Textures on the beach

Kioloa! What a great get together! Not only was this trip a time to do school work, but it was a great experience of getting to know each other and the second years, working with different people, and exchanging ideas, techniques and concepts.

My idea of Textures on the beach came from what the beach means to me, and how I see it. When I think about the beach, I see sand, waves, sea shells, rocks, seaweed and small washed up objects. As a small child I remember travelling to the beach with my family for holidays. I lived a long way from the beach, and as a way to remember what fun we had, I would always collect small tokens such as these. I was interested in pretty things with different textures. This is partly what helped me to decide to do ‘Textures on the beach’ as my theme for the trip. This way I could take home beautiful pictures of these tokens, as a way of reminiscing on my childhood memories.

The reason I decided to involve the beach and its surroundings; pathways to the beach, rocks around the beach, sand, patterns and objects were because I wanted to incorporate the whole area. While we were at Kioloa we would walk in groups to the beach and find many interesting things along the way, and because this was a ‘beach’ trip, it works well together.

Selecting and cropping my final images came about when thinking of how I wanted to present them and the order in which I wanted them to flow. I wanted the images to come together in a nice pattern that reflected the theme ‘texture’.

During the trip, I took many photographs within my idea that I am very happy with, but when it came to choosing which ones to put as my final selection, I needed to pick the images that would work well together, and didn’t repeat themselves, such as having multiple images of sand or white wash.

I believe my final selection has come together well, I ended up choosing only four images, but this is because I found them to fit well into a nice pattern, if I had of used any of my other images, they may not have flowed together as id like them to. I have placed the images in an order of ‘object texture’, ‘texture’, ‘object texture’, ‘texture’. Then there is an underlying pattern where the images go from, ‘wet texture’, to ‘dry texture’, ‘dry texture’, ‘wet texture’. I think the images work well together like this, and the colours in the images complement each other.

See the final selection in my previous post J

Kiola Assignment

When trying to think of my theme for the Kiola trip, I at first seemed to struggle to come up with any ideas.  I then thought that I could try panning with flash. I had attempted panning with flash in one of my location classes and was really happy with the results, for the first time I had ever done it. I imagined that there would be lots of people around Kiola that I would be able to pan and achieve some really cool shots. When we got there I wanted to test it out so I got Andrea to move past my camera, so that I could pan her. Unfortunately I was finding it quite difficult to keep the subject (Andrea) in focus and sharp.  After many attempts there was only one image that ended up ok. This is when I began to think, I should change my idea. Changing my idea was probably for the best anyway as there weren’t as many people around as I thought there would be.

Here are some examples of my attempt at panning:

Had trouble keeping the subject sharp, although I think this image ended up looking pretty effective.

Still having trouble getting it sharp



Finally got Andrea's face sharp. This was the best result I was able to get. Unfortunately she is a little over exposed.

Hopefully we will be learning more about panning with flash in class, as i would like to be able to get this right. :)

To come up with my final idea I thought about the actual place we were at – Kiola is at the beach. I then thought about what the beach is to me? How do I see the beach?

When I think about the beach, I see sand, waves, sea shells, rocks and seaweed. Big open views of the water and long stretching beaches.

Because this assignment was about trying something different, I wanted to do the opposite to my original thinking. Instead of taking big open landscape photos of the beach, I wanted to get in close and photograph what makes up a beach. This is when I decided to do ‘Textures on the beach’.

My idea of ‘textures on the beach’ is to involve the beach and its surroundings; pathways to the beach, rocks around the beach, sand, patterns and objects.

Here is my final selection for ‘Textures on the beach’:

This is an image of a blue object washed up on the beach, the line running through the corner is where the last wave washed.



Moss on a rock at the beach.

A mushroom I found along the path to the beach.





Rocks on the beach, with different patterns and colours from where the water has washed them.

Location Workshop task - Using the Monobloc

Task - Make three portraits using the sun and the monobloc light as your two light sources. The monobloc light is to be balanced with daylight. The sun will backlight your sitter.

• The first portrait will have a flash to daylight ratio that is too even, thus your flash will overpower the existing light.
• The second portrait will not have enough flash to balance with daylight, so the image will be too dark, and thus unbalanced.
• The third portrait will be 'just right'.

When attempting this task, the day wasn't as sunny as we would have liked it to be, which made it harder to complete as i couldnt easily get the bright light behind my subject.

Here are the results:

Portrait 1:

Monobloc overpowering existing light.

Portrait 2:

Monobloc with not enough light (this was hard to acheive as there wasn't a strong backlight).

Portrait 3:

Light balanced just right.

After we had finished the task, Prue, Cristy and I stayed back for a bit longer to play around with the monobloc. We wanted to play with corporate portraits and backgrounds. We were also talking to Belinda about how at some shoots we may need to work with some difficult backrounds. In the next couple of images you can see how to acheive a nice portrait by just using the corner of a brick wall.

Here are some of the images that I got:

Week 3 Research Questions

This week’s research for location is more about the use of flash, in this case a monobloc unit, as a main source with daylight being used as a fill source.  In other words, correct exposure will be based on the flash and daylight will be underexposed by two stops.

§   Daylight exposure is affected/controlled by your choice of shutter speed and aperture.                True / False?

§   Flash synchronisation is affected by your choice of shutter speed.             True / False?

§   Flash exposure is affected/controlled by your choice of shutter speed.         True / False?

§   You are photographing a subject in daylight where you wish the flash to be the main source and the daylight to be the fill at two stops less exposure than the flash exposure.
Procedure;

1.        Using a light meter (as opposed to “oh I don’t know, any old exposure will do because I’m lazy or confused from a night out”) you calculate the ‘correct’ daylight exposure to be 60^th @ f32.

2.        Set up your monobloc as a main source and adjust the output and/or distance (and using your light meter) until correct flash exposure is f32.

3.        Describe the resultant lighting if you exposed for daylight together with the flash on these settings.

        You would get a double exposure.

4.        Describe how you could now reduce the daylight exposure by two stops without affecting the flash exposure.  Hint: don’t even think about touching the monobloc unit for this, the answer is much simpler.
You could increase the shutter speed by two stops to 1/250 sec which is still in the flash sync range. The flash exposure will then remain the same because of  its fast flash pluse speed and the background will be reduced by 2 stops. 

5.        Having done this, now describe the resultant image in terms of what the subject looks like and what the background, which is lit by the daylight, looks like.

                                Correct Exposure

Location PR Folio Proposal/Research

1.       Make two group portraits using flash lighting. Group of 6 people, indoor locations, posed formally and also a more relaxed.

For this part of the assignment I plan on photographing 6 members of staff from the insurance company that my uncle Kevin works at; Cunningham and Lindsey. The staff members either work from their small general office or from their cars when they are out in the field assessing.

For my formally posed shot, I’ll be trying for results such as these:

Ill be aiming for less formal shots like this:

1.       Make four portraits, using flash lighting.

For this section of the folio, I intend to use a couple of the staff from the group shot to achieve the following images:

·         Standard corporate portrait/head shot with white (PLAIN!) background, photographed inside.

To achieve this image I will need the use of at least two light heads. I will need one directed onto the background, in order to illuminate the whiteness. I will then need the other head to light the subjects face. The best way to do this in order to achieve nice lighting and shadowing, is to keep the light high  - just above the subject, and a little off centre, like we practiced in class. This will prevent ugly nose shadows and will let the light wrap nicely around the face.

Examples include:

·         More creative corporate headshot or midshot, photographed inside, they can be looking off camera talking to someone, gesturing etc or simply a tight more creative crop.

Example:

·         A portrait of the same person but have them using a computer, either laptop or desktop. Again, person to be photographed inside.

When using flash and photographing computer screens, a longer shutter speed is needed to allow the light from the screen to come through. It is also important that the lights are positioned correctly so that there isn’t any unwanted reflection from the flash units.

Example of this kind of portrait:

·         A simple portrait (friend, family) of one person, using the monobloc(s) as a main source outside.

 For this shot, I intend to either take a photo of one of the nuns that works where I live. She likes to garden a lot and do lots of outdoor activities, so I thought she might be a good subject – A photo of Sister Lou in the garden?

I also thought that photographing my father working outside on the farm could be a good subject to photograph – Dad in the sheep yards, wide brim hat on, dust in the air? It is also lambing season at the moment, maybe a photo of dad holding a lamb?

References:

Atomic, 2011, Brunel Franklin, Atomic –creative design and advertising, viewed 28 August 2011, < http://www.atomicdesign.co.uk/design/corporate_photography/brunel_franklin_photography>.

Lynch, G 2011,  city-photography-2, corporate photography folio, Portfolio, Viewed 28 August 2011, < http://www.specialimages.co.uk/blog/city-photographer/>.

Lynch, G 2011, Corporate portrait photography, Squidoo, Viewed 28 August 2011, < http://www.squidoo.com/corporate-portrait-photography>.

Noir group, 2011, Corporate, Noir, viewed 28 August 2011, < http://noirgroup.org/2011/05/corporate-event-photography/>.

Palmero, M 2009, Corporate-photograph-2, Marco Palmero Photography, Sydney Corporate Photography, Viewed 28 August 2011, < http://marcopalmero.com/sydney-photography/corporate>.

 Palmero, M 2009, Corporate-photograph-3, Marco Palmero Photography, Sydney Corporate Photography, Viewed 28 August 2011, < http://marcopalmero.com/sydney-photography/corporate>.

Simon, L 2011, Boardroom, Commercial Photography, Luke Simons Wedding, Viewed 28 August 2011, < http://lukesimonphotography.com/blog/categories/commercial/>.



 

Using Fill Flash and Bounce Flash Photography - 8th August 2011

In this class we took a number of photos where we use fill and bounce flash. Here are some examples:

Fill Flash

Exposing for the background

Adding Fill Flash

Exposing for the background without flash

Flash

Exposing for the background plus fill flash

Bounce Flash

Flash bouncing off wall

Flash pointed directly at subject

Flash bouncing off ceiling.

 Notice how the image with flash bouncing off the wall looks the best! The light is reflecting straight back onto the subject and wraping nicely around  the face, without making him look flat and casting heavy shadows on the wall behind him or under his eyes.

Week 2 Research

·         What does the term ‘bounce flash’ mean and why would you use this technique?

Bounce flash refers to the light from the flash, not being pointed directly at the given subject. Flash from a Speedlite can be quite harsh and by diffusing the flash would give a softer light. This can be done by using large reflectors that are commonly available in rooms where you shoot − the ceiling and walls. Aiming the flash at one of these surfaces reflects and diffuses the flash, giving much softer lighting for your subject. This is called ‘bounce flash’ photography.

·         What does the term fill flash mean and why would you use it?

Fill flash is a technique used to brighten deep shadow areas, typically outdoors on sunny days. This technique is useful when shooting and the background is significantly brighter than the subject of the photograph – backlit subjects or during the middle of the day and you are getting harsh shadows on your subject’s faces. To use fill flash, the aperture and shutter speed are adjusted to correctly expose the background, and the flash is fired to lighten the foreground.

·         When working in daylight, how could you use flash as a main light and daylight as a fill, describe it?

You are shooting a couple and there is heavy backlighting which means their faces are in shadow and by using a fill light you will illuminate their faces compensating for the backlighting. In this case the flash is the key light.