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. 

Workflow

CONSISTENCY

- The consistency in which you handle your images after they have been shot is almost as important as the techniques used when photographing the images.

- Consistency helps you create a routine and ensures you don’t miss out any important steps, this means silly mistakes will be avoided, you will also save time.

- TIME= MONEY.

-Generally for every hour spent on a shoot, there's 2 hours of post (including downloading, backing up, editing, organizes, archiving, emails, DVD burning, uploading to websites/ social media sites, packaging, shipping etc.)


LAURA’S WEDDING WORKFLOW

-Shooting in RAW format

-Copying the images to the computer

-Backing import images up x2!

-Sorting them out (a folder for each section of the wedding, prep, ceremony, reception, etc. the images are easier to handle in smaller portions.

-Camera RAW > Photoshop for images that need finer editing on skin, content aware healing (complex editing)

-Lightroom> this is where images are processed as a big batch applying actions etc and this is where metadata can be added.

-Exporting from Lightroom (you can add watermarks at this point if wanted to use for social media promotion.

-Final check of every single image. Cull some if needed.

-Back up all final edited images onto external hard drives. (when the hard drives are full Laura moves them ‘off-shore’ to her mums house).

-Upload sneak peeks to social media for clients to start getting excited & to encourage engagement with Facebook page

-Upload full size jpeg images to website host stores full size images in storage area and then only displays reduced sized images to visitors to speed up loading time of the page.

-Email the client including a link for the client

WORKFLOW

-Once you have established your workflow you want to stick with it. Establishing a workflow is an essential part of digital photography. A workflow will ensure you handle your images the same way each time and that you don’t miss out any important steps. Workflows also help you to rename and archive your photographs and should substantially reduce the risk of losing the once in a million shot. Each and every step on another photographers workflow may not be right for you: every photographer is different so establish a work flow that is suited to your method of working.

METADATA
my metadata would be as follows:

-©2014 Kirsty Walden Photography

- Kirsty Walden asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work and the right to accredit in accordance with section 77 and 78 of Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988.

-If I add these in the library section of Lightroom, I can set a preset so it adds metadata to my images automatically, you could also add metadata in Photoshop.

ORGANISATION

-This is how Laura organizes her images into folders through her workflow:

- 1) ‘Client name’ folder

- 2) ‘Client name’ import

- 3) ‘Client name’ import 1, ‘Client name’ import 2 etc.

- 4) ‘Client name’ edit 1, ‘Client name’ edit 2 etc.

- 5) ‘Client name’ final 1, ‘Client name’ final 2 etc.

So finding all the images from one wedding will be easy as you know they will be in ‘Client name’ folder. Then within this folder they have been broken down further.

BATCH PROCESSING & IMAGE PROCESSOR IN PHOTOSHOP

-Saves time

-Play around with both of these tools- it will literally save you hours in your workflow- especially when processing large amounts of images like a wedding

-You can apply actions to multiple images, re-size multiple images, save multiple images and in multiple formats (PSD, JPG, & TIFF) all at one time

-SAVING TIME= SAVING MONEY

FILE SIZING AND TYPES OF FILES

-Laura only gives wedding clients JPEGS

-They get full size images on disc from Laura
 
-Press agencies, magazines, newspaper, PR agencies will normally require much smaller sizes for ease of handling- Laura has only been used to being asked for JPEGS

-Never email JPEGS as it takes forever. Maybe set up a drop box account for this type of sharing

-Blogging- Consider using 900 pixels wide (max) to 200 pixels wide (min), uploading larger images leaves you open to other people using them

MY WORKFLOW

- I sort through my images deleting bad ones I could save time here by just selecting the good ones

-I had never heard of batch processing however I now know about it and am going to use it as I know it will save me tons of time

-I know how to make actions in Photoshop but I had never thought about recording it to prevent me repeating the process, I will make sure I will do this next time. 

3 layer technique

3 layer technique is where you take 3 images containing the same composition each one using a different coloured filter. One using red, one using green and one using blue.

What you will need:
- 35mm film camera
- Black and white film (appropriate ISO to the weathers condition)
- Red/ green/ blue filters
- Tripod

Part one:
1) Find and expose a scene using black and white film. Shoot in daylight for best results. Use a tripod and cable releaseto ensure that the composition does not change from shot to shot.

2)When you are happy with the composition expose the scene using each filterseperately.
1st shot using red
2nd shot using green
3rd shot using blue
(use this order RGB to remember what image you need to use first)
leave a blank frame inbetween each image.

3)As you are going to superimpose the negatives you need to make sure the composition is the same in each shot. Try to keep the tripod as still as possible as the tripod moving will make it difficult to line up later on.

4) Process the film and make a contact sheet. Identify which filter was used with each make sure you make this clear on your contact sheet.

5)Scan the negatives in making sure you have a resolution of 1200, remember to save them according to which filter has been used i.e red filter for the image that useda red filter etc.
We worked in a group of 4 and we used a light metre to work out what our camer settings should be. The ISO of the film was 400 therefore we set the light metres ISO to 400. I decided to use an aperture of F5.6 and the light metre gave me me a shutter speed of 1/125. 


Part 2: converting the scans

Each layer gets converted to the colour of the filter’s complement. This means that the red scan becomes the cyan layer, the blue scan becomes the yellow layer and the green scan becomes the magenta layer.

1) To prepare the red scan to show the cyan information, open the file that was shot with the red filter. If it is still a negative, select the image, adjustments, invert option to make it a positive.

2) Convert the grey scale file to RGB colour by going to image, mode and clicking the RGB colour option.

3) Create a new layer by choosing the layer, new, layer option. Name this layer CYAN in the dialogue box.

4) Select the colour for this layer. Open the colour swatches palette by selecting windows, show swatches. If you let the cursor rest over a colour square it tells you the colours identity name. Find and click on ‘CMYK Cyan’ which will be located in the upper left area. The foreground colour in the colour picker will change to this colour.

5) Make sure that the new layer ‘Cyan’ is active. Select the paint bucket tool and fill the image with cyan. The entire image will be filled with this colour.

6) Open the layers palette by selecting windows, show layers menu (if it isn’t already open). Change the blend mode from normal to screen.

7) You now have the equivalent of the cyan dye layer in a conventional colour photo print. Save the file and leave it open.

 FOLLOW THE STEPS AS BEFORE HOWEVER YOU NEED TO CHANGE GREEN TO MAGENTA

FOLLOW THE STEPS AS BEFORE HOWEVER YOU NEED TO CHANE BLUE TO YELLOW

8) Create a new file by going to file, new. Give the file a name and have a width of 10inches and the height of 7 inches.

9) Set the resolution to 300 ppi and set the mode to ‘RGB colour’, set the background to white.

10) Copy the first layer, do this by clicking select, all then chose edit, copy merged.

11) Go to the new empty window. Click on the canvas and insert the new layer by going to edit, paste.

12) Repeat the copying and pasting process for the green/magenta and blue/yellow files.

13) When you are finished the blue/yellow layer should be on top. In the layers palette, make this layer active and change the blending mode to multiply.

14) Repeat this step for the green/magenta layer. You do not need to change the blending mode on the red/cyan layer.

This is the final result:

I have added a bit of contrast to this image:

I really enjoyed using this technique. I have never enjoyed combining film with digital techniques so much. I feel my image worked well as I remembered to keep my images in order when it came to editing. I should have been closer to my subject because you can’t even see the colourful drawing pins on the wall. This is definitely a technique I would like to try again.

Speedlite

                                                                    TASK ONE


- Take 3 portraits demonstrating different power outputs

- Set your camera to manual mode. Have an ISO of 200, aperture of F5.6 and a focal length of 50mm make sure your flash is also set to manual mode



FIRST IMAGE:
Correctly exposed with a power output of  1/32 (quarter power)  

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24
 










SECOND IMAGE:
Then keep the same camera settings, take another image at 1/128 (a sixteenth of power)
CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/128
F5.6
ZOOM 24




THIRD IMAGE:
Take another image at 1/1 (full power)

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/1
F5.6
ZOOM 24











FOURTH IMAGE:
Go back to 1/32 power and decrease the power by 2 full stops and take an image

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH

1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32-2STOPS (1/128)
F5.6
ZOOM 24

FIFTH IMAGE:
Adjust the shutter speed OR aperture correctly on the camera to achieve correct exposure

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/6 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32-2STOPS (1/128)
F5.6
ZOOM 24

SIXTH IMAGE:
Keeping the camera settings the same increase the power back up to 1/32 take the image and note results
CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/6 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24

I feel that the last image I took had the best exposure. Although there are slight shadows bwhind the dogs ears, when it comes to overall exposure using a slow shutter speed with a quarter power output has lit my subject evenly without overexposing.

Go back to 1/32 power and decrease power by 2 full stops and take the image CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/6 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/128
F5.6
ZOOM 24

Adjust the shutter speed/ aperture correctly on the camera to get the image back up to the correct exposure and take the image

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
¼ SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/128
F5.6
ZOOM 24














Keeping the camera settings the same increase the power by 2 full stops, take an image and note the results

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
¼ SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24














Slightly over exposed. I would need to adjust my shutter speed making it quicker to correct this image. Making my shutter speed faster would decrease the amount of light therefore reducing the exposure.



                                                             TASK 2: FLASH ZOOM


Set you camera to manual mode ISO 200, F5.6, 50MM focal length. Set your flash to manual mode.

Take one correctly exposed portrait with a flash zoom of 24mm

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/80 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24

Take one correctly exposed portrait using a flash zoom of 105mm
My flash only zooms to 85MM

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F6.3
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F6.3
ZOOM 85

                                TASK3: BOUNCING THE FLASH

Take a correctly exposed portrait with the flash facing straight

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24




The flash bounced from the ceiling

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24



The flash bounced from the left

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24

     

                              Flash bounced from the right

CAMERA:
ISO 200
F5.6
50MM FOCAL LENGTH
1/200 SHUTTER SPEED
FLASH:
1/32
F5.6
ZOOM 24

       

                                                                      TASK FOUR: HIGH SPEED SYNC FLASH

High speed sync flash is when your speedlite is connected to your camera. Depending your camera the highest speed you will be able to use will be 1/125 or 1/200

Using the high speed sync flash gives you the ability to override these numbers and shoot on the hgihest shutter speed that your camera goes to. On Nikon's high speed sync flash can usually be found under 'AUTO FP'

The task was to:
Use the flash on ETTL mode (on my flash TTL mode) activate the high speed sync and take a well exposed:

Portrait with a shallow depth of field in bright outdoor ambient light (fill in flash):
bright day with brightness behind the subject

AND/ OR

Portrait showing high speed sync, frozen motion.

As I have an older model of Nikon I don't have the high speed sync flash option.  I do have an option on my camera to change my built in flash to either TTL or MANUAL flash. When i click on manual mode i have the option to change the power output to FULL (1/1),1/2, 1/4, 1/8 1/16 or 1/32 ( the lowest power output i am able to use) different cameras will vary.
  



                                                                     TASK 5 IN THE STUDIO:
We were given a demonstration on how to
1) :use the stroboscopic light and 
2) :use the off camera flash

STROBASCOPIC FLASH:
You need to have the flash set to multi-mode, this gives you the option to adjust the output level, how many times it flashes and the frequency rate in Hertz (Hertz is the unit of frequency). 

CAMERA SETTINGS:
ISO 100
WHITE BALANCE: FLASH
F16

FLASH SETTINGS:
Multi-mode
1/8 power 

1^st image
14 flashes at 1hz:

This attempt didn't work as the batteries were running low (The class were all using the same flash and stroboscopic uses up a lot of battery). This image was made too dark due to the long exposure time when no flash was going off.

2^nd image

We reduced the exposure time to 8 seconds which means we should have been able to capture around 7 arm movements. As the battery was still dying we only managed to capture 3 arm movements. Again the image is slightly dark as the flash stopped whilst the shutter speed was still open.


3rd image:

As the flash was only managing to capture 3 arm movements we changed the exposure to 4 seconds. This allowed enough time for the 3 flashes to go off without underexposing the model. We also had the model spread her arm movements out more. This image worked very well lit and you can see what stroboscopic is capable off, it is just a shame we couldn’t include more arm movements.