I Forgot… June 4, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Assignment, Available Light, Contains Images, Night, Portraiture, Post-Production, Strobist.2 comments
Last night I completed the first of my “Earth Hour” assignment images. It’s a composite image that uses a studio portrait originally shot against a neutral background with two Creative Commons licensed (royalty free) images. It is the most critical of my assignment images, as it may turn out to be the only one I do with a “lit” bulb in it, and therefore the critical image to contrast with all of the other images I produce (which will probably feature attractively portrayed people holding unlit bulbs).
It’s titled “I Forgot…” and it features the subject holding a lit bulb, while behind him an image of a bleak and lifeless cityscape illustrates the possible consequences of carelessness…
Click the image to go through to its Flickr page to view it in high resolution.
Composition notes:
I’ve placed the subject off-center in accordance with the Rule of Thirds, balanced by the background light in the opposite third quadrant. The subject is looking into the middle of the image which looks more correct than if he were on the right of the image looking out of it. The grey park bench adds to the feeling of urban starkness, which carries into the bleak cityscape in the background.
Composite elements:
Park Bench (CC BY SA): www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/2549132011/
Background (CC BY): www.flickr.com/photos/sailorganymede/2795285309/
Exposure Data
Exposure: 0.04 sec (1/25)
Aperture: f/1.4
Focal Length: 50 mm (Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens)
ISO Speed: 1600
Lighting: Low-light shot: could only use a single light to give the effect that the light bulb in the hand was the only light source in the image foreground. 1x Tungsten studio light with snoot from left of camera directed onto bulb. Intentionally no fill light on right as a harshly lit effect was desired.
Tired but Happy. :) May 22, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Assignment, Contains Images, Portraiture, Studio, Studio Lights.Tags: beauty, drama, dramatic, hair, make-up, models, portrait, portraits, Portraiture, stylists, thank you, thanks, yaay
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Months of learning, weeks of planning, and days of preparation came together last night in a portrait photo shoot that (successfully!) yielded both my assignment photos, and a large stack of portfolio/professional-quality images. Some stats:
- 8 models (6 girls, 2 guys)
- 1 hour to set up
- 2.5 hours to shoot
- 2 separate sets:
- a high-key set with two diffuse modelling lights, primarily geared for “beauty” shots; and
- a low-key studio flash key light/back light set, primarily geared for “dramatic” photos.
- Hair by Sheryn from Hair in the City; Make-up by Kim Balaga.
- Took over 500 photos, in 22 megapixel RAW and low-res JPEG.
- That’s over 18GB of image files.
Un-Photoshopped image taken on the “dramatic” set.
I’d like to recommend my hair and make-up professionals to anyone looking for awesome stylists. They were promptly on time, treated my models (who are my friends, so this was important!) well by all accounts, and did a fantastic job. Thank you, Sheryn and Kim!
Un-Photoshopped image taken on the “beauty” set.
And thank-you to my models -my friends-, who volunteered for this to help me with my assignment and were awesome sports, even when I ran out of time (and memory cards! 
) towards the end of the shoot and couldn’t photograph them in as many outfits as I would have liked.
Next step is to comb through the images, cropping, processing, and editing! To achieve the results I’d like for my assignment, I’ll need to photo-composite a few of my best studio shots onto various backgrounds. I did one for fun in about 10 minutes this morning. 
So the work’s not finished yet – but at least this next stage should be a lot less pressure, and quite a bit of fun.
Finally, extra thanks to Red and Judy for easing my post-shoot nerves with a couple of first-class scotches. You guys always seem to know just how to make everything better.
Practice: Event Photography May 11, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Available Light, Contains Images, Outdoor, Practice, documentary.Tags: day, event, glebe, mothers, park
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I had a try at being an “event photographer” at the Mother’s Day event held in Glebe Park over the weekend. The light varied between sunny and diffuse, so I had to continually pay attention to available light and adjust my positioning and exposure. When I got the images back home, I slightly increased their colour saturation to boost feelings of fun and life.
Studio: Portraiture May 7, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Contains Images, Portraiture, Strobist, Studio, Studio Lights, Workshop.Tags: back, backlight, hair, hairlight, light, portrait, Portraiture, reflector, snoot, strobism, Studio
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Today was our last day of “classes” – we had our last theory test today, and from now on, we’ll be shooting in the studio. We kicked things off with a “free” studio session tonight after our test, and I set up for portraiture. After a few pretty ordinary shots, my group started getting more creative with lighting.
These were done by backlighting with a strong snoot, then reflecting the light back onto the subjects (and the white background behind them) using a flexible gold reflector with an irregular plastic surface – like a gold plastic sheet taped over a piece of cardboard. In the left image, the reflector was curved to focus the reflected light onto the subject; the light was kept more diffuse for the image on the right. The wide aperture served to blur the reflected light in the background rather nicely.
Practice: Abstract Twilight Shots May 6, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Available Light, Contains Images, Night, Outdoor, Practice.Tags: abstract, cars, diffuser, diffusion, long exposure, sunset, twilight
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On the way home last night there was smoke all over the road due to a burn-off (fire hazard reduction) at a nearby nature reserve. I thought it would be interesting to take some sunset photos through the smoke (which would have acted as a diffuser, for a nice red sunset) but by the time I found a place to safely pull up, I was through the smoke! It was mostly behind me, and the light was fading fast – there was no time to walk back up the road to make the shots. The few sunset photos I took weren’t terribly spectacular. However, in one of the shots, a cyclist rode through the frame, leaving behind a trail of light in the captured frame… and that gave me some ideas. I turned the camera around and took some shots of the road behind me!
The smoke from the burn-off caused the yellow street lights to diffuse, giving the air beneath them a yellow hue. I also added a diffusion filter to my lens to make the car headlights turn into brightly glowing arcs of light. The resulting images are quite interesting!
Practice: Commonwealth Place May 5, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Available Light, Contains Images, Gear, Night, Outdoor.Tags: 58mm, commonwealth place, diffusion, filter, glow, Night, Outdoor
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After class on Thursday night, I went out for my usual night shoot, this time at Commonweath Place. I wanted to try out a 58mm diffusion filter with light sources, and a classmate showed me some photos a friend of his had taken at Commonwealth Place that looked really very cool. The diffusion filter spreads out highlights in an image; the stronger the highlight, the more spread out it becomes.
The effect can be seen in this pair of images – the image on the left is unfiltered, and the image on the right is taken through the diffusion filter. Each light source in the diffused image seems to “glow” – this might be a useful effect for my “Shedding Illumination” photos, to create a “halo” effect on some of the subjects. However, the diffused image is also less sharp than the non-diffused one, so I’ll have to be careful using it or I’ll just end up with fuzzy pictures.
Studio: Macro Photography May 1, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Class, Contains Images, Macro, Studio, Studio Lights.Tags: EF25 II, extension tube, Macro
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In last night’s studio session we practiced macro photography. In the case of us DSLR users, that meant adding extension tubes between our lenses and camera bodies. These extension tubes have no optics in them, but do contain electronics to allow for metering and aperture control.
One of my friends allowed their pendant to be used for the macro session, and the teacher set it up suspended between two blocks over a mirror, with two powerful but small fibre-optic macro lights providing illumination. The difference between shooting without and with the macro extension tube in place is quite dramatic:
The image on the left was taken with my 50mm f/1.4 prime at its closest possible focussing distance. The image on the right was taken with the same lens, but with an EF25 II macro tube in place between the lens and the camera body!
Practice: Light Writing April 26, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Available Light, Contains Images, Night, Outdoor, Practice.Tags: experimental, LED, light, light writing, long exposure, Night, photography, writing
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It was cold and rainy in Canberra tonight, and instead of heading out into the city to take some nightclub/crazy party people shots like I was thinking of doing, I tried something else so that I could keep my lovely camera dry and safe. “Light writing” is the art of taking a long exposure shot while “writing” in the frame using a bright light source. In these shots I’m using coloured micro-LEDs I got sent from Hong Kong for this very purpose.
These are my first attempts to do light writing, and I’m sure I’ll get better at it with a little more practice.
Practice: “Tapestry” April 25, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Available Light, Contains Images, Indoor, Night, Portraiture, Practice.Tags: band, Dance, music, Night, photography, portrait, singer, singing, tapestry
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One of my many hobbies apart from photography is dancing. Every Friday night my friends from dance go out to a different club in our area – many of which put on live bands on Friday and Saturday nights – and dance the night away. Last night a duo called “Tapestry” was playing; the guitarist was trying to get a video of them playing together with his digital compact and I volunteered to take some photos and get some video of them.
I tried doing some flash shots early in the session but I hated them – they looked lifeless, as if they were practising in a well-lit room rather than performing on stage… so I switched the flash off and used available light. This posed some of its own problems: the flashing, changing, multicoloured stage lights made it impossible to “set up” any shots properly as the light was always changing (and of course the performers were always moving). I basically had to try to find good angles, make sure I had my subject in focus, and just wait for the lighting and pose to come together every now and then, to capture those fleeting moments! A challenging session, but I quite like the moody, atmospheric results…
More Images from Photo Shoot 1 April 16, 2009
Posted by Leonard Low in Assignment, Contains Images, Indoor, Portraiture, Strobist, Studio, Studio Lights.Tags: assignment 2, depth-of-field, earth hour, lighting, Portraiture, Shedding Illumination, soft box, Studio
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I did shots of each model without light bulbs (in their hands) to test light, get my models more relaxed before doing the “real” shots, and so I could give them each a nice photo of themselves as a “thank you” later.
You can click the photos to go to my Flickr gallery where there are additional comments on each photo.
“Light bulb” shots:
