HN1A

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Optimisation - photoshop express

In this one, I tried to balance the highlights and shadows.

In this one, I tried to lighten up the bottom half of the image and bring the brighter colours out.

I did my best to emphasise the shadows in this image. I also cropped the annoying bit of the t shirt at the bottom.

Tried to warm this image up. Ideally I would like to work on the background.

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Seeing the Light- Viewpoints

Not yet Optimised

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Seeing the light- focal length

Not yet Optimised

24mm 85mm

35mm 22mm

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Seeing the light -apeture

Not yet optimised

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Seeing the Light / composition

Not yet Optimised

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Clean White Practice

We had a go at taking different compositions/emulating other photographers work. 

I used this portrait by Richard Avedon as a starting point. I really liked filling the frame so I then got Amy to try some different arm positions!

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Back in the Studio

Today we looked at how to set up lighting to achieve a clean white background. We set up our key and fill light to F8 and got an even background light of F8 also. We turned off the front lights and took a silhouette to check our background. Then we took another photo with all the lights, then one with the fill light down a stop at F4 and the one without a fill light. 

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1910-1920

A lot happened between 1910 and 1920. The beginning of the decade saw the world become smaller as tango dance and music started to emerge from Cuba and Argentina, Machu Picchu was found and the South Pole reached. Oh, and the Mona Lisa was pinched from the wall of the Louvre Museum! 

1912 is the year known for the tragedy of the Titanic but not so much for the creation of the Oreo biscuit. 

The Grand Central Terminal opened in New York in 1913 but the following year, World War 1 began. In the same year, Kodak released Autographic Film which allowed the photographer to add written information at the time of exposure using a metal stylus. The text would show in the margin of the processed film. 

Although Jeanette Rankin became the first woman elected congress in 1916, women still faced huge inequality during this decade. While World War 1 was captured in photographs by men, women were not allowed in the trenches. That doesn't mean that women stopped taking photographs!

Christina Broom is a real inspiration. Self-taught, Christina started photography in 1903 at the age of 40, to make ends meet. She is best known for her work capturing the preparations for World War 1 and the rise of the suffragettes. After a chance photograph of the Scots Guard, she became the official photographer of the household cavalry.  

Above: Christina Broom and the Suffragettes

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Different Focal Lengths

I used 3 different focal lengths - 18mm, 50mm and 135mm. I tried to take similar shots for each.

When shooting at 18mm, a lot of the background was included and I found it hard to get close enough. I also found the features of the face didn' t look as accurate as real life.

50mm was the best I thought. The background had nice blur and the facial features were more in proportion.

135mm squashed the face and although the background was lovely and blurred, the image felt quite flat.

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Optimising - Seeing the Light

I used Photoshop Express to optimise this image. I mainly wanted to warm up the image so I adjusted the white balance first then played around with temperature.

Before:

After:

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Brandon Stanton

Brandon Stanron is an author, photographer and blogger who us best known for his book and social media platforms 'Humans of New York.

I love the natural and relaxed style of his work and how he really captures people and their stories.

Looking at his work, he uses natural light and a large aperture to focus closely on the subject.

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Dorothea Lange

1895-1965

Dorothea Lange was a photojournalist and documentary photographer from America who is best known for her portraiture recording the consequences of the Great Depression.

When shooting her subjects, Lange learned about them and often the titles revealed lots about them.

Notably, Lange co-founded photogtaphy magazine 'Aperture' in 1952.

'Migrqnt Mother' California 1936

'Drought Refugees' 1935

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Seeing the Light - Practice

I decided to use my window location to have a practice of shooting some portraits because I haven't done that in a while! These were the most successful.

Kit list:

Tripod

Camera + 18-135 mm lense

White reflector

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Camera Metering Part 2

Q1. An in-camera light meter measures the light being reflected back towards the camera.

Q2. The three metering modes that DSLR’s have are:

Evaluative

Center

Spot

Q3. You should have your camera in manual mode to give you control over aperture, shutter speed and iso and to ultimately expose correctly.

Q4. On the light meter, the numbers represent 1/3 of a stop of light.

Q5. If there is too much light, your camera meter will be on the right side (+) and if there is not enough light it will be on the left (-).

Q6. Evaluative metering works well for an evenly lit scene.

Q7. Center weighted metering only measures the light in the Center on the scene you are shooting as a pose to the entire scene like evaluative.

Q8. Spot metering allows you to choose the precise point that you want to measure the light from and disregards the light from all other areas when metering the light.

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Light Meter Research Part1

Q1. A camera light meter measures the overall light falling on and being reflected by a subject and then calculates the aperture and shutter speed to expose the image correctly. An in camera light meter will calculate the light of the whole scene or a fraction of it. 

Q2. Checking if your exposure is correct on your light meter makes sure your image doesn't lose details in highlights or shandows. 

Q3. Jeff Rojas set his shutter speed at 1/200 and ISO 100 to capture the model without any blur. 

Q4. By entering these details into the light meter, this will calculate the aperture required to correctly expose the image. 

Q5. You should hold your light meter against your subject so you get the mose accurate reading of light in the correct place. 

Q6. For a moodier image, you would move the light meter to the brightest spot so that the image would be correctly exposed without accounting for the shadows. 

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Virtual Zoom Background Challenge

... turned out to be quite the challenge! According to my computer, it’s not up to date/compatible/ doesn’t want to work to allow me to upload a zoom background. So here is the picture I took - I took a close up shot of the paint in my paint palette after I finished painting which is my favourite hobby.

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DIY Reflectors , Diffusers etc.

Although I have a silver/white reflector, I had a look for some diy alternatives.

Other things ... tinfoil or a white t-shirt.

To flag the light, you could use curtains (that are already there) or black card or cardboard.