Beth

My idea for this shoot was to show the difference between what people want you to see compared to what is actually underneath. My subject is Beth a close friend who I have known for years. I know all of her insecurities and fears, however people who don't know her, upon appearance, wouldn't expect these things.

This shoot was done in my spare room. I didn't have a white backdrop, I therefore improvised and just used the light pink painted wall. I think the light pink added to the images. It helps Beth stand out and look even brighter than her surrounding colour and being a pale colour helps reinforce the natural images. I used studio lighting on this shoot both lights having a soft box attachment. I had one light either side of her as I wanted to make sure her whole face was fully lit. As beth is conscious about her face shape, I decided shooting from above was appropriate as it is more flattering for women.

When I showed Beth a picture I took of her with her tattoo showing, the first thing she said to me was 'I like that image, I look alright there'. Having known Beth 6 years I automatically knew the reason she liked this image because her tattoo was in it. Both her make-up and tattoo's give her the confidence she seems to lack when natural.

I know two of Beth's main inspirations are Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga. These are two celebrities who are very out there and unique with their styles. I feel this may be one of the reason's Beth likes to  expresses herself through her use of Jewellery, patterns and make-up. I asked Beth why she has this style. I was curious as to why her tattoo's on show and when she wears a large amount of makeup gives her confidence. I wanted to find out where her inspiration for her look came from. Her response was:

"I don't wear make up because my idols do, make up gives me more confidence really and I like the way it makes me feel. I do get inspirations for the colours I wear and the way I do my eyeliner from Lady Gaga. Some people create their own styles but I do take a lot of inspiration from the celebrities I like. As for tattoo's, I am a massive fan of art anyway so I love the fact you can have it on your body. A few of mine have meanings and they do give me more confidence."

For the images displaying Beth's style I made sure I got her to display different lipsticks and clothing. This is how they turned out:

The above images show how Beth looks when she leaves her house, the layers she hides behind to make herself feel confident. Below you can see Beth natural, the real person hidden beneath the facade and layers of make-up.

Red-scale digital vs film

I wanted to see the difference between a photoshopped digital red scale and a film version. To make my digital red-scale I followed a few simple steps. Here are the steps I followed:

1) Open the image in photoshop

2) Create a curves adjustment layer

3) Change the drop down box from RGB to red. Raise the left end of the curve halfway up the graph, add an anchor point halfway along your curve. This gives you the red colour cast.

4) Change the drop down box from red to blue. Drag the right end of the curve halfway down the graph. This will intensify the yellows.

5) Change the drop down box from blue to RGB again. Adjust the curve until you are happy with the result. Moving the cure controls the vibrancy.

6) You can then adjust the hue and saturation adjustment layer to give a more subtle result.

BEFORE

AFTER

In comparison to the red-scale film I didn't find the red-scale done digitally as visually pleasing. To create my red-scale film I completed the following steps:

1) In complete darkness pull all of the film out of the canister. Leaving at least one inch attached cut the film.

2) Turn the film you just cut out around so the emulsion side is next to the one inch of film left in the canister. Then using masking tape, stick it bad to the stub of film.

3) Wind the film back into the canister leaving at least 2 inches hanging out. You should avoid getting fingermarks on your film however as I struggled to use the canister to wind the film in at points, I had to physically push the film back in.

4) The film is now ready to be loaded and shot.

I decided to shoot my red scale film in Brighton. I took a variety of images using red-scale images. To develop the film you use the traditional C41 process used on colour films.

These are the images I took using my red-scale film:

I am aware that these images are blurry, this is due to me scanning my images in at the wrong resolution size. When I have re-scanned the negatives at the right resolution size, I will replace the images.

The first and second image have got scratches on them, this may be down to me physically pushing the film back into the canister. I have been told that using a manual film camera to wind the film back is an easier way to do this. I will try this method if I do this technique again. Overall I am happy with how the images look, the bottom one especially reminds me of an image that has aged. I enjoyed learning how to make this film as you never know when you are next going to use it, I will definitely use this technique again at some point.

Baby Daniel

My friend has her baby cousin Daniel every Thursday. As I've never photographed a very young child before I wanted to give it a go. I had to attempt the shoot twice as the first time Daniel was hysterically crying. At first I thought it may have been because of the lights flashing and him not being used to it, however the second time we did the shoot he was still very grizzly, when his Mum came to pick him up she informed us that he was teething. Despite being faced with this difficulty we managed to calm him down by feeding him raisins which may be noticeable in some of the images. I feel I managed to capture some natural images including some of him crying, I didn't manage to capture any images of him smiling due to his grisliness. I am really happy with how the images look however I would like to photograph him again and capture the adorable smile I know he has.

Brighton Portraits

When we went to Brighton I decided to take some portraits. I was trying to take them slyly. My reason for this was to capture some natural images and when faced with a camera people put on an act. To capture close up images I used my 70-300mm sigma lens. Some people did look at me whilst taking their photograph however they are still natural expressions they haven't changed their expression to suit the way they would rather be shown.

Some of my images looked like they needed a bit of sharpening. In camera RAW I added a bit of clarity to the images. When I opened the image in photoshop the first thing I did was duplicate my image as not to ruin the original. I then went to filter, sharpen, unmask. I changed the amount setting to between 60-70% depending on each image, when I was happy I clicked ok. I then added a layer mask, making sure black was my foreground colour and white was the background colour (White= where the image has been sharpened and black= where has been unsharpened). Then using a soft brush i painted over the areas i wanted to un-sharpen, I didn't want the effect to be too dramatic so I had my opacity on around 80%. I then decided I wanted this series of images to be in black and white. To convert these images I simply went to image, adjustments, black & white, the reason I chose this method was because it gave me complete control over each individual colour within the image. To add a bit more depth and contrast to the images I then went to image, adjustments, gradient map and made are black and white was selected. I did this because when i adjusted each colour I felt the image still looked a bit grey. If I felt like they needed it I adjusted the levels to add a bit more depth, I did this until I was happy.

The next time I do a project like this I will make sure I have better control of my focussing/ camera as a lot of my images didn't look as sharp as I hoped for. It was quite windy when I took these images and I now realise that to get what I was trying to achieve I should have used a tripod. Apart from this I am happy with how my images turned out and I am looking forward to doing another project like this.

Location Lighting

1) Capture an image of a diverse group of students talking together in the new canteen, this will represent the relaxed environment and the new Costa Coffee.

When spoken to the people working at Costa Coffee didn't mind us taking pictures in the canteen but they did tell us they didn’t want Costa Coffee to be photographed as they thought we might have sold the images to their competitors. As they could see we had our cameras we knew they wouldn't give us anything with the costa logo on to use so when Costa cups were left on tables we would collect them to use within our images.

The canteen contains a variety of lighting sources including natural daylight through the windows (however not as much as we could have hoped as it is a dull day), tungsten (from indoor lighting) and flash from our flashguns. In our group we were using a stand to hold the flashgun with an umbrella attachment. When photographing in here, your subject would be lit when using the flashgun however the background would be black. To correct this you would need to set you camera settings so that the background was correctly exposed and then adjust your flashgun to light your subject. The flash helped to freeze the motion that would have originally appeared blurry, this is because the flash was more of a powerful source.   

If I were to have photographed my final images in the canteen I would have liked to have used the high stools that were used in the above images as they show that the college has modern furniture. As well as including the coffee cup I would also have liked to use 2 or more models that were interacting to give the image a relaxed and inviting feel. I would have used the same lighting techniques that have been discussed about.


2) The art students, working in their areas with interactions

In the art department the first thing we noticed was how dark the work spaces were. The main source of light at the back of the room was a large window however with it being such a dull day this was not of as much use to us as we would have hoped. At the time the college lights were off so we would have to consider how different it would look the next time we went back to art department later on. The sections the art students work in are small square cubicles so i don't think you would need too much additional light, you could probably capture a good image using just a flash gun, the cubicle walls were white so this would be useful for reflecting light back into the image. Composition would be limited as you don't have as much space to move around in the cubicles.

3) The art foyer, images representing the exhibition on show

In the foyer there are two large windows letting light in both behind and in front of the exhibition space, there was also tungsten lighting indoors above the exhibition space. The lighting was going to change depending on what direction we were going to photograph at. This was an experimental technique. We used 2 portable lights to experiment with this, we also used our flashguns.

First set up:
The first set up we did was an image showing the whole exhibition. There were two boards with paintings on which perfectly hid the lights from view in the image, still allowing us to add light to the dimly lit area. We had one light on either side pointing in to the centre display. I feel the light catches your eye and you follow it from the outside of the image to the middle display. The speedlite was used to light the front of the display however i feel like the effect could have been better if the speedlite was zoomed in more as the front of the image still appears very dark in comparison to the rest of the image. The white balance was set on auto as there were 4 types of lighting.  

Second set up:
The second set up we tried was of the hanging ornaments. We had a light either side pointing at the ornaments, we did this to eliminate any shadows that would have formed after using only one light. I didn't photograph this as well as I could have because the angle I took it at made the boards look straight as in this image it appears wonky. Along with this I could have filed the frame better by zooming in closer.

Third set up:
The third image we attempted to take was a close up of the clocks to capture the detail of the work. For this set up we used one portable light, placing it on the left hand side of the subject. We used and umbrella attachment which was tilted towards the ceiling the light stand was also extended to a high position, you can see this as there is shadows underneath the clock. Although I like the composition and framing of this image I don't think it represents the exhibition as well as it could do.

Fourth and final set up:
For the final shot we chose to photograph an object from the middle display. We each chose our preferred item from the display to photograph. For mine I wanted to try and capture the American flag painting in the background, I wanted to use a shallow depth of field to emphasise the item I was drawn but also show without detail that other objects were on display. I managed to capture the American flag I wanted and I think this helps demonstrate that there is more to the exhibition than just what I have photographed. A flashgun was used in this image too to light the front of my subject. For this image I used one portable light which was placed slightly behind and to the left of the subject. The light stand was extended to a high point and the umbrella used was at a high angle facing slightly towards the subject.   

 
If I were to do this project again I would stick to the brief more closely and capture people looking at/ discussing the work. However overall I am very pleased with how my final image looks, I have got more confidence with how to use both my flash gun and the portable lights, I also feel like its a clear representation of the unique work featured in the exhibition.