The Brief - Week one, 28th September
In this week's lecture we were given the brief for this assignment and we read and looked through it together to make sure we understood it. This is the brief:
You are required to produce a paper-based portfolio of 6 'objects' photographs. Whilst there are no strict instructions on the type of photographs you must make, you should respond to each of the following study areas:
i. Close-up and Macro
ii. Mini Set-Build
iii. Commercial Product
iv. Highly Reflective Subjects (chrome, glass etc.)
v. Historical Objects and their narrative (with Blackburn Museum)
During the work carried out for Unit 01 Systems and Processes assignment, you will learn several important lighting techniques. You should attempt to use these aquired skills to help you create atmospheric and expressive photographs.
You must accompany each photograph in the portfolio with a written evaluation of the work involved in its production (research-design-treatment-post-production). Try to limit each evaluation to no more than 150 words.
Your portfolio size should be A4 minimum with images printed on suitable print media. Accompanying evaluations should be placed behind its relevant photograph.
The perfume bottle shoot - Week two, 5th October
This week's sessions was based upon how light can change the look of a photograph dramatically and how you have to be able to ajust the settings of your camera accordingly to be able so have the best outcome to match the lighting available.
For the first hour we had to choose a perfume bottle and photograph it in a variety of lighting conditions such as:
1) ambient/daylight
2) flourescent
3) tungsten
4) flash
Then for the second hour we transfered our photographs onto hard-drives then used Lightroom to edit our photographs to improve the look of them. We then resized our images and imported then to our Flickr sites.
20/20 Presentation - Week three, 12th October
This week we had to create and present a 20 slide presentation which contained 20 images of any artists that covered the theme of Still Life. Still life photography is a photograph of an inanimate object such as fruit or flowers; it is very challenging as a lot of thought has to go into the composition and lighting of the subject in order to make it still look appealing.
Some of the images I used in my presentation are:
Still life photography shoot - Week four, 19th October
This week after taking inspiration from our 20/20 presentation artists, we had to bring in our own objects and take some still life photographs ourselves. In order to take successful photographs we had to take a few things into consideration, these things were:
1) Composition
2) Exposure and lighting
3) Narrative
The 2 objects I chose to photograph were iPod Nanos, one orange and one pink; I thought the contrasting colours would work well together in the photographs and due the the objects themselves being reasonable simplistic in design it would make the composition easier to consider as the iPods wouldn't need to be at specific angles.
Below are the 2 photographs I took:
I was reasonably happy with the photographs I took, In think although they are not the most exciting of photos the colours work really well together with the white table and the simplicity of the the photos is quite effective. If I was to take more photographs of these objects, I would perhaps try something a bit more experimental with backgrounds and composition, also I think these images are perhaps over exposed slightly, I can tell this from the fact that the writing on the menu wheels on the iPods isn't visible on the photographs.
Lighting set-ups - Week five, 2nd November
In this week's sessions we learnt about lighting set ups in the studio; we focused on 2 set ups in particular that are most commonly used within the studio. These were the 45/45 set up which is based about 45 degree angles and the copy lighting set up which is where lighting is the same on one side than the other. It is very important to know more than one lighting set up because of the difference a different set up can make to your photograph; without the right lighting a shot can look totally different.
The 45/45 set up:
This set up can use 2 or 3 lights; 2 positioned diagonally across from each other (at 45 degrees) beside the product table, tilting down towards the table at an angle of 45 degrees. For additional lighting and depth to the subject you can add a light underneath the product table.
Copy lighting:
Copy lighting is where the lights on either side of the table are positioned at exactly the same position and angle to give of the same light from each angle. This lighting set up is mainly used to light glass and liquids as it gives the products more depth. To show what the lighting was like we used a glass perfume bottle; for this particular shot we held the light that was underneath the table up so it was touching the table, this was so that all 3 lights were giving off the same amount of light.
To advance and create a better shot using copy lighting we used black card to prevent reflections and add black lines to add shape to the product.
In addition to the black card we added a sheet of metal to above the product to use as a reflector to give a reflection of light and a highlight to the lid of the perfume bottle as with it being black it was just a solid colour against the background and didn't give the impression of depth on any of the photographs.
We then moved onto looking at lighting ratios within the copy lighting set up:
1:1
Camera settings:
F22
iSO 100
W/B Daylight
Shutter speed 1/500
Shutter speed 1/250
Shutter speed 1/125
The black line you can see in the first of these photographs is there because the shutter speed was too long so the flash had finished by the time the shutter was just beginning to close.
1:2
Camera settings:
F22
iSO 100
W/B Daylight
Shutter speed 1/250
1:4
1:8
Good and bad lighting - Week 6, 9th November
In this lecture we learnt more about studio lighting and the best ways in which to light certain subjects. The object we were given to photograph was a bottle of perfume, it was quite difficult to light this bottle in a way that complimented its curved shape and gave the correct kind of highlights for the bright colours of the bottle. We were then sent off in pairs to photograph the bottle and come up with a photograph with good lighting and one with bad lighting.
For both of our shots we used 45/45 lighting as we were aiming to try and get a highlight of the bottle on both sides however for it not all to be in light.
These first two photographs were our example of bad lighting; the reasons behind this is for a few reasons:
- The light has a heavy tungsten look about which is the reason behind the yellow glow in the background of both images.
- On the first photograph the lighting is only coming from one side, although this created a good highlight on the right side of the bottle, it meant the left side being in complete darkness which doesn't make the bottle look appealing at all.
The second photograph was slightly better as we managed to get the lighting right to gain a highlight on each side of the bottle that follows the curve of the bottle and a dark strip down the middle to accentuate the curve of the neck.
This photograph has much better lighting; the background is a better colour, making the colour of the bottle a lot more vibrant. The shadows are the same as the light on the previous photograph however the shadows and backdrop are much better. The only thing I would change if I was to take this photograph again would be to try and change my positioning so that the shadow was different or fit the shape of the bottle that is at the bottom as it doesn't match the lines of the bottle.
Object assessment check list
- Photographed your macro/close up image and are you happy with it – YES
- Attempted a ‘mini-set’ build – NO (need ideas)
- Photographed a product – a commercially viable one - YES (Love Heart sweets)
- If you have done reflective, have you checked that reflections/specular highlights are professionally appropriate – YES
- Revisited the museum or located an historical object of your own – YES (Romeo and Juliet book)
- Put your research material in order and included both visual and written examples – YES (blog is up to date)
- Spell checked your image evaluations – NO (need to write image evaluations)
- Labelled your portfolio box with your name and module name/number – NO (need to buy portfolio boxes)
- Got your printing organised and booked in - NO
