Camera Use - Week 7 - Studio Lighting

Introduction to Studio Lighting: 
During class time, we were introduced to studio lighting and how to use the equipment. After learning that being clean and cautious was the main steps to success in a studio, we took a few photos practice with studio lighting, after checking the light meter and adjusting the aperture to suit the lights.

f/5.6 - shutter speed 1/25 - iso 100

f/6.3 - shutter speed 1/25 - iso 100

As you can see, the closer the aperture value to the light meter value, the better lighting you will get in your photograph. The aperture value for the light meter was closer to 5.6 than 6.3; therefore the lighting was brighter in the first image rather than the second.

High Key and Low Key Lighting: During Class Work, we learnt about High Key and Low Key Lighting. These are explained in this post.

We then took photos in the studio using high-key lighting and low-key lighting.

high-key lighting

(bright lighting with a high exposure background. typically used for "happy" themed photographs and a lot of modelling shoots to really grasp the detail of the subject)

low-key lighting

(dark background with dramatic shadows and moody lighting typically used to portray a particular theme in photography)

Self Directed Editing: high key lighting:

For this image, although I really liked how bright and over exposed the background was, I was never really happy with how washed out Richele (my subject) looked, so I turned up the contrast to add a bit of colour to her and so she didn't really blend in with the background as much. I also reduced the highlights to add a similar effect but also increase the detail on her body and clothing. I adjusted the rest of the basics panel accordingly so that they didn't take away my intentions.

low key lighting: 

My editing intention for this image was to give the subject (Mona) smoother skin by enhancing the luminance panel and lessening the sharpening panel.

I adjusted the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows and clarity to really enhance the shadows and add a glow to her skin. It's not that I wasn't happy with the image before hand, but I really just wanted to exaggerate the low key lighting effect even more so that it really fitted the criteria of "dramatic shadows that create a dismal feel to the picture".

Camera Use - Week 6 - Flash and High Key Studio Lighting Research

Flash Lighting:
Juergen Teller:

Juergen Teller (born January 28, 1964) is a German artist and fine-art and fashion photographer. Teller’s work, in books, magazines or exhibitions, is marked by his refusal to separate the commercial fashion pictures and his mostly autobiographical un-commissioned images. He employs a raw, overexposed style and he uses a Contax G2 camera with an onboard flash. He prefers to work in color, and regularly includes himself in his photographs. His fashion photographs have been featured in The Face, Vogue (US, France, England, Italy), Another Magazine, Index, W Magazine, Self Service, Details, Purple, i-D and 032c, among others. Courtesy: wikipedia.org

Nan Goldin:

Nancy "Nan" Goldin (born September 12, 1953) is an American photographer. She lives and works in New York City, Berlin, and Paris. She is known for her work, which usually features LGBT-related themes, images or public figures. Courtesy: wikpedia.org The book that I got out from the library "a double life" with her "husband" (as they have established a kind of marriage but, as Nan puts it "without the sex and conflict") - David Armstrong. The book doesn't discuss much about her work and instead goes on to talk about each others encounters with one another and drugs and how they were each impacted by each other throughout their lives through essays they both wrote in November 1993 in Berlin. However, there is a small insight as to how Goldin discovered the drag queen lifestyle; it was through Armstrong. "In his late teens, David started doing drag and it was through him that I first gained entry to the world of drag queens that was such an inspiration to me and became an integral part of my  life".

With flash photography, I feel as though the "flash" addition to the photographs lighting adds a hint of realism in to the photograph. To me, it makes the subject look and feel more vulnerable and exposes an emotion they were trying to hide. It's as though the subject is in a spotlight, disclosing everything they have, even if it is just for a second when the flash hits them, but the photographer captures that raw emotion and feeling and I think that's what makes flash photography one of the more genuine and organic versions of photography and art as a whole.
This is what both Teller and Goldin produce thought their images and this photography really speaks to me on a deeper level than most other photography.

High Key Studio Lighting:
Tina Barney:

Tina Barney (born October 27, 1945) is an American photographer best known for her large-scale, color portraits of her family and close friends, many of whom are well-to-do denizens of New York and New England. She is a member of the Lehman family. Courtesy wikipedia.org
Barney is most well known for creating large format, colorful photographs of her wealthy, East Coast family. The images straddle the line between candid and tableau photography. Barney's work is in the collections of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, New York; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas; the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection in New York City; and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. More recently her work has been shown at the New York State Theater in New York, in 2011; The Barbican Art Centre, London; Museum Folkwang in Essen, Museum der Art Moderne, Salzburg, and others.

Cindy Sherman: 

Cynthia "Cindy" Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Courtesy: wikipedia.org
When I reviewed the book "Untitled Film Stills" completely based Cindy Sherman and her photographs, the essay that takes up pages 5-14 reveals a lot about how Arthur C. Danto interprets Shermans work and process. "Sherman's art belongs at the cross-point between the artistic appropriation of the working photograph as one line, and the use by performance artists, especially women, as a document of the performance, as the other" Danto explains in his essay. Sherman works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of costumes. To create her photographs, Sherman shoots alone in her studio, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and model. 

The lighting used in both Sherman and Barney's work consists of a lot of shadows, both harsh and soft. It is also high key studio lighting and the colours are quite saturated but share warm tones simultaneously. There is always a lot of light hitting the subject and shadows in the background showing not only where the lights are positioned but the intended focus of each image. Sherman also uses the vignetting technique to also help draw the viewers attention to the centre of the image. However, it could be an unintentional effect caused by the camera lens limitations.

Camera Use - Week 6 - Light: Directed, Reflected and Diffused

In class exercises:

1. Take a photo framing your subject with shadows in direct light:

I took this photograph under a wooden bench so that the shadows would frame the bottle in the photograph. I like how there is light glinting off the bottle exposing the light that is filtering through the setup. No artificial lighting was used in this image.

2. Take a photo with your subjects back to the sun without reflector:

For this image, I am not an advocate for the lighting. I feel it makes the image over-exposed there are far too little shadows in the frame to give any depth to the setting and image. 

 Taken with a reflector to introduce light to the subjects face:

Adding the light to Huia's face helped draw my attention to her but I think the background is still too exposed and next time I will adjust my settings better to suit the climate.

3. Take a portrait using direct light:

As you can see, the light is very harsh in this photograph and I personally am not a fan of this lighting style for this image. The harsh shadows throw the image out of balance and also adds deformity, especially to the subject.

 I then took the photograph again using a reflector to soften the shadows:

This definitely softens the shadows and added a glow to her face instead of the harsh shadows we see in the previous photograph.

I then took a few images experimenting with the white, gold and silver reflectors:

White - doesn't add much light, in this case, to her face. The white seemed to blend the light in with the photograph rather than making it stand out, more than create any form of contrast between the background and the image.

Silver - adds more silver light to her face. Depending on the skin tone, background and ambient lighting, this can create a washed-out and much harsher lighting effect or add more of a glow to the skin.

Gold - adds gold light to her face. This creates a warm glow and adds heat to the photograph. However, again depending on what the colour aspects of the photograph are already, just like any reflector, this can either improve or damage the image depending on those aspects.

4. I took a portrait using diffused light from the trees and shadows:

I like the look of the trees filtering the light and creating shadows on Huia's face. I feel it helps to pull together the type of environment we were shooting in and the light creates variations of skin tones which adds depth and contrast to the over all image.

 I then added the gold reflector to help add light and therefore diffuse the shadows.

This, like I stated above, adds warmth to the image and in this case, it looks in place because of the sunlight but I fell there is so much gold that in comparison to the original photograph, it looks highly artificial and damages the natural look of the image.

Self Directed:

I took the following photographs during self directed time and also edited them. These images were taken using a reflector and ambient light cascading through the only window in the room.

Applying the lens corrections panel.

Adjusting the Basics panel to add contrast and depth to the image.

For this image, I thought it was important to make the feel a little colder than the original. I like how her freckles are more prominent in the second image once I lowered the highlights panel. Because her expression is rather bored and distant (done intentionally) I wanted the feel of the image to portray what the subject was feeling.

Camera Use - Studio Work - High and Low Key Lighting Research

High Key Lighting:

High Key Lighting is a style of lighting used for tv, film or photography. The mains aspects of high key lighting are that the images are usually rather bright, a range of light tones - mainly whites, there aren't many blacks or midtones used in this type of lighting and it's used to convey upbeat, optimistic and youthful themes.
Hi Key Lighting also eliminates any harsh shadows and has an overexposed background. Hi Key Lighting is also seen commonly in studio work and portraiture.

The main light modifiers for high key lighting is a key light, fill light, 2x background lights.
A typical High Key Lighting setup consists  of 2 background lights placed in each back corner of the 
area you are using for the photoshoot. A fill light should replaced on the front left corner and a key light on the front right corner and both should have any modifiers necessary. The subject is placed in the middle so that the maximum amount of light can reach the subject, giving the true meaning of High Key Lighting.



Low Key Lighting:

This type of lighting relies on shadows, deep blacks and darker tones. It also intensifies the contrast of an image and it is easier to achieve in a studio than in natural light because of its controlled environment. Low Key lighting tends to be lit with one light on the subject using reflectors to fill light if necessary to fill in shadows. 
However, Low Key Lighting is not to be confused with underexposed images, the Low Key lighting image still needs to have high contrast (good light and plenty of deep black).
This lighting technique is used quite a lot in film and television to create a particular mood or set the tone of a scene. It is frequently use in horror films to create an ominous feel to the film. It is important to know that Low Key Light does shut out any ambient light.

A basic Low Key setup consists of a dark background, the subject placed in the middle, the key light placed to the side of the subject with any necessary modifiers and the camera pointing at the subject. You can also include a reflector to give bounce off the light and give a glow to the subject.

Final Images

Final Images:

Digital Technology 1:

The reason I chose this image was because of the detail in the grass and how I could enhance it in Camera Raw. Also because I feel as though this image has a very appropriate layout to edit and fine tune in Camera Raw but I also like the simplicity of the colours and the content.

Camera Use:

I chose this image for Camera Use because I like the composition and how it creates shadows upon the ground and how the bridge is just a silhouette but is still one of the main subjects of the image. I can also appreciate the use of leading lines, rule of thirds, contrast and lighting. I also like how there is a good amount of detail in the image because of how the light falls on the rocks and path.

Camera Use - Week 6 - Flash: Direct, Reflected, Diffused

In Class Exercises:

1. Under Exposed Background:
I took a portrait of Richele with an underexposed background and then perfected the theory of (the higher the shutter speed - the more under exposed the background will be).

1/200

1/160

1/100

1/60

1/30

I underexposed the background by lowering the shutter speed at least two stops than the recommended shutter speed value. I also used aperture on the flash to control the output of my flash so that my subject (Richele) is properly exposed.

2. Fill In Flash:

1/200, f5.6

1/125, f10.0

1/125, f22.0

I found that the best result for these f-stops was definitely the f10.0 as it didn't make the subject and the remainder of the image too underexposed or overexposed. The flash was a nice, subtle addition to the overall feel in the middle image.

3. Bounce Flash: 
I took a portrait of Richele as my subject. This time I used the following flash techniques:

Pointed straight up using a low roof:

pointing straight up (gives a more subtle / falling light)

pointing at a wall (depends on where the wall is and gives off a harsher effect)

pointed behind me (gives a lighter effect because there is no flash directly on the subject and it was bright daylight)

4. Diffused flash using half-moon:
I photographed Richele using a flash diffuser and then without the diffuser.

I took this photograph on a medium shutter speed with a light diffuser on my flash. I like the subtle glow it gives Richele without pushing the limit of over exposing her face.

I then took this photo without the diffuser and the light came out much harsher. This makes her look very washed out and is not very pleasing to the eye.

5. Flash and Blur:
This exercise experiments with motion blur and flash.

Because the shutter speed was set at 1"5 seconds, this allowed me to capture Richele's movement as well as the flash firing. The flash was set at Rear Sync Flash which allowed the flash to go off later than usual.

Self Directed:

For this image, I did not use the external flash. In fact, this was an accidental flash fire when the lighting wasn't bright enough to register on camera. However, I do like this image, thus why it is included in my self directed work.

Activating the lens correction panel.

Adjusting the noise/luminance/detail panels.

slightly adjusting the basics panel to brighten the image and add depth.

For this image, as it didn't quite turn out how I had anticipated when I took it, I stuck to the basic editing for an image slightly dark like this; adjust the brightness, exposure, contrast and whites panels. I like how the image looks a lot cleaner after these changes and to add to that feel, I adjusted the noise/sharpening panel to get rid of the grainy effect the lighting had on the subject.