Part 5 - Exercise 2

Illustration - Evidence of action

The exercise here is to capture images which convey an action or event by showing it's consequences or end state. In effect the image then contains within it a story, it shows that something has happened - as opposed to just capturing a scene or an object.

Eaten (1)

Eaten (2)

Winner

The above are examples of recording an explicit and direct event. Illustration often involves using less direct and thereby imaginative means to represent more abstract concepts.

Examples used in advertising are:

1. Piggy bank - empty or overflowing to represent poverty or wealth
2. A pile of paperwork or letters to represent being overwhelmed by things
3. The "open road" to represent freedom from constraints or responsibility
4. Blackboards to represent learning
5. Dice to represent chance or taking risks

Part 4 - Exercise 14

I'm going to skip this exercise (the course notes do say that the latter lighting exercises are optional), as I think it's really tailored toward studio setup still lifes - which don't really interest me much.

Part 4 - Exercise 13

Concentrating light

I had to make a device for this to create a spotlight effect.

In the above photographs I experimented with the options that being able to focus the light provided - i.e. pointing the light slightly infront of and behind the subject as well as directly at it.

In the shots below I did the same thing but in different settings.

It provides a different set of options to what a non-spot effect would provide,

Part 4 - Exercise 12

Contrast and shadow fill

This exercise revolves around experimenting with reflectors. The light was placed to the right, at 90 degrees to the camera. Different types of reflector were used and at different distances - but each time at 90 degrees to the left, i.e. directly opposite the light. One of the key things to change here is the level of contrast in the photos - basically the reflector bounces light back into the picture, which lightens the shadows. By lightening the shadows, the overall level of contrast is decreased and amount of visible detail is increased. (However, potentially the dynamism and impact of the photo is decreased also).

In terms of ranking from high contrast to low it would be something like:

1, 5, 2,3,4,6, 5,7, 8,9,10

Essentially the closer the reflector and the more shiny the surface the more light is reflected. The scrumpled foil has the effect of diffusing and distributing the reflection. What's odd in my results is that 2 actually ha lighter shadows than 5 - this doesn't make much sense. However, I realised after that I was photographing with a white wall, fairly close to the left and this could have skewed the results somewhat.

1. No softener or reflector. The light here is pretty ugly and unnatural, it has a potentially dynamic effect, but would have to be used very careful otherwise it will produce unsigthly shadows - like it has here, all over the shoe on the right.

2. Softener, no reflector. The softener has an immediate effect in terms of making it more natural, reducing contrast and increasing detail, but still the bottom right corner is mainly in shadow.

3. White card - at 1m distance. The shadow in the bottom right is reduced a bit by the reflector, but it's still there.

4. White card - as close as possible without showing in shot. Overall shadow is now quite reduced, but at the price of flattening out the scene.

5. Silver paper with dull side - 1m. The silver paper here has picked out highlights in the shadows which is actually quite effective.

6. Silver paper with shiny side - 1m. The shiny side is effective adding light into the right side bottom corner

7. Silver paper with shiny side - 0.5m

 8. Silver paper with shiny side and scrunched up - 1m. The light is noticeably more spread than when not scrunched up. This means that once again, the scene is quite flattened out.

9. Silver paper with shiny side and scrunched up - 0.5m. The effects of the reflector as it gets closer.

10. Silver paper with shiny side, as close as possible. Here the reflector is at maximum effect in terms of lightening the scene.

Part 4 - Exercise 10

Softening the light

This exercise is about using the diffuser I've created to see the effects it has.

In the first photo there is no diffuser. The light is about 1m directly above the boots. It's interesting how much shadow is created, even on the side of the boot where the ligtht can't see it. Also the background isn't receiving much light. Overall the photo is very contrasty, and as the light is harsh it looks both unnatural and unflattering. The high contrast means that there is little detail (I think this is because the detail is typically provided by the subtle variances in the mid greys).

The diffuser makes a number of significant differences. It actually makes the light source a lot larger,so light is now getting into the boot and down the sides. The background is also receiving more light. Overall the scene is less contrasty and there is more visible detail. This means that the photo looks more natural and balanced. Interestingly there is actually less detail in the surface that the boots sit on because the detail was provided by the shadows and these shadows are now absent.

Part 4 - Exercise 7

Cloudy weather and rain

This exercise falls into 3 parts. Part 1 involves taking 3 subjects in sunlight and under cloud.
The second part involves taking 3 shots on an overcast day of subjects with depth of texture.

(I didn't get round to doing this, but I'm pretty confident as to the effect I would have seen - i.e. that the sunlight increases contrast and the shadows help to present the subjects depth and form. Conversely, the diffused nature of the light when there is cloud cover is that overall contrast is reduced and the density of mid-tones and reduced shadow means that detail and texture can really come out.)

The 3rd part involves trying to capture some of the effects that rain can bring to a scene.

Part 4 - Exercise 8

Tungsten and fluorescent lighting

The first part of the exercise is to compare the colour of (fading) daylight and indoor, tungsten light. And taking exposure readings of each.

I followed the instructions as follows....

I did this in our spare room. I waited till about 7pm when it was starting to get a bit dark outside. I stared out the window for a few minutes and then turned to look into the room. Not unsurprisingly the room had a an yellow, orange glow to it.

I then waited for my eyes to get used to light (though in truth it continued to look a bit yellowy), and looked outside again. I was expecting the scene to look a bit bluey, but it looked largely grey and green (largely because of the clouds and trees...)

I then took meter readings at ISO200 (the lowest my camera goes), in a number of locations:

• Middle of the room, under the main light - f22, 6 seconds
• In the darkest corner - f22, 30+ seconds (it was registering as underexposed)
• A more average lit part of the room - f22, 20 seconds
• Pointing outisde - f22, 25 seconds

The first shot above had whitebalance as auto. It maps pretty well to what the eye saw (the walls are slightly pink and that bookshelf is pretty orange!), but clearly the whitebalance is accommodating for the lighting because there is a definite blueness to the scene outdoors.

Now that the whitebalance is set to daylight, the room is significantly more orange, but the scene outside looks pretty realistic - the evening clouds have a slight blueness, but the white of the rendered wall of the house is a pretty good white.

With tungsten set, the blue of outside is more extreme, but equally it may have gone a bit too far with the scene indoors as well.

In the scene above environmentally friendly bulbs are in place. The auto whitebalance has done a reasonably good job of creating a realistic look to the scene. However,I'm not sure if the colour spectrum is represented here?

The tungsten make the scene look somewhat more green/blue than it should

The flourescent whitebalance makes the scene look very orange - it's obviously expecting a very blue lighting

Here the lights are halogen bulbs. As previous, the auto whitebalance has done a pretty good job.

And the flourescent has made it very orange.

Here daylight white balance has been applied and not surprisingly the scene has got very orange.

With a tungsten setting its not far from what the auto whitebalance applied.

21st Century American Views

In order to provide some inspiration for creating some more blog entries on other people's work my tutor gave me a list of links to some good photography blogs. The first one I followed was to www.flakphoto.com .

I soon found an interesting entry on an exhibition on 21st Century American landscape photography -  http://flakphoto.com/content/looking-at-the-land-21st-century-american-views . The exhibition includes work from a wide variety of photographers chosen from 5500 submissions. I tried to pick the ones which both interested me and had an interesting use of light.

 
GRAHAM MILLER
NICOLE
MONUMENT VALLEY, UTAH
2009

The dawn landscape scene provides a backlight to the foreground scene, which sidelights the woman in the centre in the photo. Theres clearly some light come from the front and right too as this is lighting the the woman's face.


AARON ROTHMAN
BIG BOX
ARIZONA
2006

The overexposure of the above photo emphasises the brightness of the sun in what looks like analmost desert scene. The light is pretty much direct from the front and so despite the heavily angular building there is no real shadow.


BRIAN ULRICH
PEP BOYS 3
COLUMBUS, OHIO
2009

Another very angular building, this time with the light emanating from within it. My guess is that this is overexposed in order to achieve the burnt out effect of the windows of the building. Importantly though, the sky is still jet black.


BRAD MOORE
ROSE ROOM
ORANGE COUNTY, TUSTIN, CALIFORNIA
2008

Again, the light is fully frontal so the flatness of the trees is emphasised and the geometrical symmetry maintained.


COREY ARNOLD
SLACK WATER
GULF OF ALASKA
2010

Here the sea is backlit which is producing some very dynamic and dramatic shadowsi n the water - this emphasises the choppyness of the water.


CAITLIN TEAL PRICE
T
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
2010

In the above photo the scene is quite lit from the upper right - at about 90 degrees. This emphasises the many angles in the scene, the shadows adding to and varying them. However, I think the light, smooth surface of the road and bridge surface is causing enough reflection to bounce light back into the scene and stop the shadows being too contrasty.


DALTON ROONEY
FIRE ISLAND
NEW YORK
2009

The light here is very diffused. I'm guessing that it's a night photograph. Or judging by the pink light, pre-dawn or post-sunset.


HYERS + MEBANE
HOUSE - 88440019
STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK
2008

The artificial light in this photograph is clearly coming slightly from the right and is probably just above head height. The neutrally coloured light looks like it might be coming from a single, powerful flash. The shadows are extremely crisp at the edges.


KATE PETERS
PLANE
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
2007

As with the first photo the scene here consists of a foreground which is backlit by a naturally lit landscape. Here though, there is no other light,so the foreground is darker.


CHRISTINE CARR
221.05.1.250
ROANOKE, VIRGINIA
2005

This photo is mainly of shadows. The edges are somewhat diffused by what is a fairly low sun.


RYAN BOATRIGHT
UNTITLED #5
LAKE FOREST, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
2005

The buildings here are heavily side lit to the extent that all we're left with is shapes in 2 tones, light and dark and a subtly graduated background.