Wednesday, 23 November 2011

STUDIO LIGHTING

below are various lighting diagrams, i hope to experiment with a few in the studio to see if any would be suitable for this project and the affect i hope to create.


Split. The lighting creates the effect similar to a burning candle: only one part of the face is illuminated.Key light is on the level of the nose and moved off a bit. The fill light can be lifted up or shifted closer to the camera. It is also effective for a significant "narrowing" of the face, nose, hiding any facial defects.





  • Key Light.The main and powerful light source, which creates shadows withdirect(a reflector with barn doors) or soft light (a diffuser,a soft box, an umberella, a reflector panel). The power is about 300-500 W.
  • Fill, fill-in light.An additional light sources with soft boxes, diffusers, etc. You can also use reflector panels,background light,kickerandhair lightfor filling effect. Often barn doors should be used to prevent different unnecessary reflections or illumination of the area you need to stay in the dark.

Three-Quarter Lighting: Short. The lighting is in 3 quarters: universal arrangement of the key light for different facial types.The key light is set up to illuminate the side of the face, turned aside from the camera. Minimizing of the illuminated side visually narrows the face. It is an acceptable lighting solution, even if the model turns the head during shooting aside.






Rembrandt (45 degree lighting).Dramatic, "male" lighting in mood.The source of the key light is placed on the level of the cheek. It is not a bright light. On the shadowing side of the face a typicallight triangleis being formed with the height, approximately equaling to the height of the nose and width of an eye.





Profile/Rim. Profile/contour lighting. The key light (when shooting a model's profile) is placed behind the object (a person looks at the reflector or at the source of the fill light).

Profile/Rim.You should create a contour lighting with the help of the key light. When using the fill light to highlight the hair-cut, the light source is usually lifted up a bit.





Paramount (butterfly, glamour lighting).Its name comes from the famous Paramount studio.It is a soft and "female" key light, directed straight to the model's face, which allows to idealize the skin to a maximum.

The key light is placed right above the eye level, the fill-in one - below the key light. Reflector can also be put from the side. A symmetrical shadow from the nose is formed, which should reach half of the length to the lips,






Loop (a variant on Paramount lighting).Loop lighting causes the shadowing to form a subtle loop on the cheek closest to the key light. Your Key Light should be lower than that used with Paramount Lighting and moved in closer toward the background. The Fill Light should be even with the camera (use the camera bag) and up higher while remaining opposite your Key Light.

Loop Lighting helps broaden the face and works very well with narrow faces with ruddy skin. The loop from the nose area should not touch the shadow area on the side of the face. It is the most flattering light scheme. At the same time, it creates a nice three-dimensional effect of model's face and body.




Three-Quarter Lighting: Broad.Universally located key light for official photography with different types of faces. The lighting source is set near the camera so as to light up turned to the camera side of the face. The shadow is minimized because it's appearing on the "narrow" side of the face. It's the most appropriate lighting type for normal and narrow faces. It's also acceptable to use it if the face isn't turned out of the camera.





Information taken from: http://www.shotaddict.com/

Monday, 21 November 2011

MICHAEL ACKERMAN

Ackerman is an American photographer, his pictures, getting rid of the traditional report’s constraints, confuse geographical borders and definite a space which, out of any narration, is a pure mental creation. Served by surreal lights, deep blacks and exploded grain, his pictures are the expression of feelings like tenderness, love, loneliness, and restlessness mixed together, and reveal something of the artist’s psychic functioning, of his affects and obsessions.







source, image & text: http://www.agencevu.com/photographers/photographer.php?id=1



I've included the work of Ackerman in my research as he produces his work on film, although I'm unsure of the technique he uses to create the final look. I find the work very intense, the use of blacks and haziness of the images really are different to that of most photographers work I have come across and this technique is possibly something which would like try within my own work.


PARKE-HARRISON

When I first saw these images I was instantly enthralled, I loved everything about them from the editing to the amount of surrealism within them. The work immediately catches my attention and holds me there for sometime whilst my eyes continues to wander the image and take in every inch of detail. Initially I had seen these images without a title and i found it hard to analysis the image and see the purpose behind them. Further research lead me to a site which had titles for some of the work and I also found a quote that Parke-Harrison made about his work and what they represent.

Below are the images, some with titles and the quote regarding this body of images.


Cloud Catcher


Edison's Light










Here Robert ParkeHarrison talks about his work:

"I want to make images that have open, narrative qualities, enough to suggest ideas about human limits. I want there to be a combination of the past juxtaposed with the moder. I use nature to symbolise the search, saving a tree, watering the earth. In this fabricated work, strange clouds of smog float by; there are holes in the sky. These mythic images mirror our world, where nature is domesticated, controlled, and destroyed. Through my work I explore technology and a poetry of existence. These can be very heavy, overly didactic issues to convey in art, so i choose to portray them through a more theatrically absurd approach."


image source: http://www.parkeharrison.com/slides-architechsbrother/index.html
quote:http://www.twinpalms.com/?p=backlist&bookID=82

COMPETITIONS

Below are some of the photography competitions I have researched into, the competitions which I want to produce work towards for this brief are the AOP and the Spider Awards aiming to work mainly in black and white concentrating on portraiture but also experimenting in landscape photography.








CONSIDERATION OF OTHER PROCESSESS/TECHNIQUES

I would like to experiment with various techniques during this assignment, including the use of layers within a single image Below is an example of an animation which i created in Photoshop. This is an area which i have never worked within so initially putting this together was a challenge.



As you can see its a very simple example but I'm please that I experimented within this area and may in the future extend on this but for now I have decided to continue working on still imagery.

Here is the link to the online tutorial I watch which helped me learn how to create an animation, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeINQf2SP8s&list=WLA63B03CF3BC35BDD&index=39&feature=plpp_video


various othrer experimental techniques can be viewed throughout my blog.

MARKET RESEARCH


Looking in to market research on photography I wanted to find up and coming trends which affect all genres, contemporary photographers who are being recognised for their individuality and new products that are being released which may influence the direction of photography.

One website which i found was http://www.londonartfair.co.uk/Content/Photo50-1 There are many contemporary photographers to be found here all who are individual to what they do


A Few of the photographers who are exhibiting at the art fair and whos work i feel is similar to my own interests.


Noemie Goudal takes photographs of meticulously constructed sets, layering images to create work that is vast, visually confusing and deceptive.



Melinda Gibson creates photomontage collages from found images in print media, often cutting out figures to fill their silhouettes with more abstract images.


The photographers who exhibit at this art fair really do show that there is great recognition for that is individual and breaks out from the conformities.




Workshop on at the Open Eye Gallery for the Large Format camera.




New trends which are affecting the work of a product photography



Motion photography, shooting video alongside still images.



Software available for the ipad, editing on the go!


Price slash? why? new competition?




Film making for photographers.




New technology, How will changes affect the main stream photographer?


Exciting news as Polaroid is set for a comeback!!



LARGE FORMAT TEST SHOOT

As part of my Professional Practice I want to experiment with using layers both in camera and through darkroom and digital manipulation, this is an area with I touched upon last year with my fashion assignment so would really like to develop these skills further. With this in mind I decided to carry out a test shoot, both Jo and myself want to use the large format camera for our final images so we decided to experiment in the studio together. Jo was my model, and having carried out prior research I decided to shoot them in the style of Thomas Ruff.

The film used was, Ilford 125, 5x4 film sheets.


Large Format Camera

Detail Shot


The lighting set up, I used this set up as I wanted the lighting to be fairly flat and with no areas of real contrast.



Below are the images which i took in the studio and developed myself in the darkroom.

Darkroom for 5x4 film

Developer - stock solution ID11, 8 and half mins

Stop Bath - Pre mixed 1min

Fixer - 5min




Double exposure, 2x 250sec, f6.3


60sec, f6.3


The above images above have been scanned in using these settings:

Scan info
  • select film with holder
  • black and white neg
  • 48 bit
  • resolution 2400
  • select image wiht marque tool
  • save file as Tiff when exporting

As this is my first attempt at using the large format camera unassisted by tutors I have decided to leave the images totally unedited, they will serve as my starting point and further improvements both technical and compositional will hopefully be seen in my future work.

LARGE FORMAT - GROUP SESSIONS

The past two Fridays we've had group sessions, the initial session was to show us how to use the large format camera, the camera was set up by the tutors and we were shown how to load film into the neg. holders, and also how the camera functions. Below are 4 images the first two of the Tabasco sauce are from this session, and below those are two others which we did together in a small group (myself, Jo and Ryan) the week after, the purpose of this was for us to start feeling more comfortable with the equipment also but have the help available if needed.


Week one images:






Week two images: both were taken using different apertures so we could compare.





Developing of all the images was done together in our groups.

Composite Portrait

After researching for my dissertation I found two photographer who works really inspired me, I wanted to incorporate this into my photography for Professional Practice. The two photographers are, Gerhard Lang and Idris Khan both whom I have blogged about previously.

Example of their work
Gerhard Lang

Idris Khan

My intention was to try and produce a composite portrait which was similar in appearance to that of the above artist. My main focus was to try and produce a clear image which showed thought attributes of all the children but had the look of a drawing.

Below are the images which were included in the first attempt

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

Image 4

Image 5

Image 6

First Attempt
I wasn't happy with this, it needs a lot of work. I also felt that certain areas drew to much attention so i decided to have a second attempt but only using 3 of the above images.


Second Attempt - using only images 3, 4 & 6

I'm still not happy with this image and feel that a lot of work would be needed to make it of a professional quality.