Lighting (Part 3)

Diary Entry:
For this last project in the 3 part lighting projects, the focus was on hair. I realized that it can be hard to show off hair without making it too 'out-there' and extremely head-turning. But what I learned is key is the position of the camera in relation to the model and how you portray the person in the picture. Also the posture and style of the model help make inferences to what it is that is being focused on.
My negatives all turned out fine, except for a few, which I took in poor lighting. So I re-shot and was glad I did because I got some very nice shots of my two friends posing together.
I was sick during one of the classes, but I was able to use my free block to work on developing the negatives and finishing my prints.
These 3 prints felt much easier compared to the 9 from the last project.

Theory Notes:
Flash photography - It consists of using the flash button on your camera, and when taking a picture, will emit a flash of light. There are several uses for the flash. The first, direct flash, is used when it lighting for the picture is low due to lighting or if it is dark outside. This gives the picture more light and shows contrast with the subject and the background. It also gives thick shadows.


















The next use is for fill flash. You can use your flash on a sunny day when there are areas in the picture that is not directly in the sunlight. This fills in the light missing in that area and illuminates it so you can clearly see everything in your picture.















Bounce flash means that you can use flash to avoid getting the direct flash. You may want this so you do not get the contrast and dark shadows that the direct flash gets. To do this, you angle the flash at an angle and not directly on your subject, so they get a softer light fall on them. Since there is a loss of light because it is not directed, that means that the aperture should be opened up more, allowing for more light; going up 2 stops should do it.

Light Metering - This is used to show how much light is given off when taking a picture. It has 2 different methods on how to use it. The first is reflective metering, where you measure the light that is coming off of the subject when a light is pointed towards them. The second is incident metering where you measure how much light the light is giving off. Position the meter where the subject would be in relation to the light and measure from there the amount of light.

Printing Compositions:

For my first contact sheet, I got a time of 36 seconds at 2.8 aperture. I used a different enlarger than the one I normally use.On the contact sheet, the pictures looked a little grey, but for the final print I used from here, it turned out fine.

This is my second contact sheet. Here I was able to get my angled print and my print with two people in it. The final time and aperture for this sheet is 6 seconds and 8 ap, respectively.

For my first print of a full-frontal shot, I used Jenny from my first contact sheet. I took this picture in the natural light outside. This gave the picture a nice backgroud, but you are still able to see that the focus is on her black, straight hair. For my test strip, I tried 4 to 12 seconds at 8 aperture, and for the final print, I ended up with 8 aperture and 10 seconds.

My next print is the angled hair shot, where I moved the camera around the model to get a different view of the hair. In this picture I too the picture from under her, focusing in on her extremely blonde hair. I got this picture from the second contact sheet, and the pictures came out too grey when I had the aperture at 8, so instead of adding a filter and more time, I dropped the aperture to 5.6 and decreases the time. The test strip was 5.6 aperture and ranged from 2-12 seconds. I tested 4 seconds, and was still a bit too light because of her hair, so the final time is at 6 seconds, 5.6 aperture.

My last shot was of 2 people and I thought that the contrast between dark and light and straght and wavy hair would be very distinctful and would stand out. In my contact sheet there are other pictures of the same girls where I focused in on one girl more than the other, but this one has both of them slightly in focus. Again, the aperture went down from the contact sheet, so the test strip and final time and aperture is at 2 seconds, 5.6 aperture.

Image Bank:

This image is a very clear picture of hair, because that is the only thing that you see on this person. The picture is called Nahui Olin and was taken in 1924 by Edward Weston of Illinois. During his photographing career, he ranged from pictorialism, nude pictures, landscapes, and still life. He even received a Guggenheim Fellowship award for experimental work. He was quite diverse in his photographic ability.

This is a picture of Doris Day, a famous movie star during the 50's and 60's. This shot is a great angled shot, as you are able to see the top of her head, which not everyone can always see on other people. The photographer, Leo Fuchs was known during his time to take many pictures of Hollywood's Elite, on and off the set of movies. Also with photography, he was also a motion picture producer.

This is a picture of 2 models right next to each other, both with different hair color. The contrast looks nice and brings direct focus to it. This is very similar to what I did for my shot with two people in it. Georg Wendt is the photographer of this commercial shot for haircolor. He started out in reportage photography and later emerged into fashion photography. He also went to school at The Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig.

Lighting (Part 2)

Diary Entry:

For this project, I only had a week due to the extension on the previous project, to complete 9 photos for the part 2 of the lighting series. I had to shoot twice for pictures. The first time I took some nice shots, but I don't think I placed the film in right, so when developing the negatives, nothing came out. The second time, I was able to get 34 pictures for my project. So I worked with these for my project. I was also able to get my contact sheet and 9 prints done all in 1 day.And all of my prints turned out fine. The only problem was that two of the pictures I used were not completely developed at the end, so I had to enlarge the photos so the undeveloped part would not be in it. The three catergories in this project consisted of Accessories, Shoes, and Clothes.

Theory Notes:

Low Lighting: With low lighting,the aperture will have to be at a higher number, for example 22, and the shutter speed at about 100. Since there is not much light, the lens needs to stay open longer to get in as much light as it can. A tripod is helpful for this because the lens will be open longer. Also, if there is not much light, the B (Bulb) button on your camera will help give you some more light on your subject.

Sun Lighting: When you take pictures in facing toward the sun, but the natural light, you have to make sure that the lens itself is not facing the sun, but rather the model is key should still be able to see. Otherwise, you get rays of light going into the lens, which bleaches the picture. Also, make sure that the sun is not right about the subject's head, because then there is a shadow under their eyes. It is best if the light is off to one side of the subject.

Printing Compostitions:

Contact Sheet -

For my contact sheet, I started with 5.6 aperture, and all of my pictures have this as their aperture. The time for it is 5 seconds. From this sheet, I was able to get all of my 9 prints for the project. Also, in all of these pictures, I used natural lighting, sunlight, to take these pictures.

Accessories -

My first print for accessories was of Heather. Here she is looking up, but the main focus is on her necklace, and not so much on her. I started with 20 seconds when developing the test strip and I went up by 2's. The picture was dark where the white was supposed to be, so I used a 2 and 1/2 filter to fix it. The final time with

the filter is 30 seconds, at 5.6 aperture.

The next print focuses on a big ring that Katlynne is wearing. The only other thing that you see in the picture is her hands in front of a black jacket, so your

view goes directly to the ring. The time started at 12 seconds and went up by one in my test strip. The second test strip is at 17 seconds, which ends up being the

same time for the final print.

My last accessory print is with Heather again, with her necklace, yet this time she is admiring and looking directly at the necklace. The time started at 10 seconds all the way to 18 seconds. Between 12 and 14 seconds looked good, so I played with the timing for a bit, and found that 12 seconds was the right amount of time for the final. The aperture being at 5.6 still.

Shoes -

My first shoe print is a favorite of mine, because I was able to incorporate some

depth of field in it. I had to lay on the ground to take this one, but it ended up being a good picture that shows you a different view of the shoe. The first test strip was at 4 seconds and went up by 1 second. I then made another strip at 9 and 10 seconds. After looking at that one, I was able to decide that the final time and aperture would be 10 and 5.6, respectively.

This print at first was supposed to be another one from my contact sheet, but there was a scratch on my negative of the picture, that I was not able to use it. So, I used one that was very similar to it. Since I knew the time from the first one was around 5 seconds, all I had to do for this one was test the times from 4 to 5 seconds. The final time is at 5 seconds.

The last shoe picture has a different look than the others because the pose and position of the shoes are abnormal. It almost looks like a ballet pose. The time

for this is at 6 seconds. I found this out by testing it out on the test strip, where I started with 2 seconds and went up from there.

Clothing -

For this photo, I was wanting to use it for an accessory shot, but after examining the picture on the negative, realised the accessory was too sm

all to use. Also the focus was not on the accessory, but on the subject as a whole, so I then chose it for clothing. The aperture is 5.6 and I started the test strip at 20 seconds. The final time is at 27 seconds.

My next picture is a full frontal shot of Heather. Here the sun was out more than in my other pictures. So there is a shadow of her in this picture. The test strip time started at 20 and went up in increments of 2. The final print has a time of 23 seconds.

The very last print gave me a bit of trouble. Previously mentioned in the Diary Entry, I had trouble with some of my negatives in that they were not developed all the way. This is a picture where this occured, so I had to enlarge the picture until the undeveloped part of the negative was not noticeable anymore. So the starting time of the picture was 16, and the final time for the print is 19 seconds.

Image Bank:

For my first accessories picture, I chose a picture by Shana Rae, who is from

Guatemala. She shoots in natural lighting. She also uses Photoshop to make adjustments in her pictures. This one is of a little girl wearing a bunch of colorful necklaces and a headband.

My second image for accessories is by Settimio Benedusi. He is from Italy and started fashion photography in 1990. Some of his clients are Vogue and Marie-Claire.

Salvador Pozo specializes in jewelry photography. He works out of the Netherlands. This picture is of a girl, you get her face and part of her body in the shot, but what sticks out the most is the necklace and matching bracelet she is wearing.

Denise George is has her photography company, Fierce Shoes Photography, in Phoenix, Arizona. She started out as a graphic designer and later photography caught her eye. She takes many wedding pictures as well as teen and children portraits. The picture here is a good example of shoes because it has a nice contrast between the black and white of the shoes and the light also gives the shoe a shiny look.

Terry Ryan is a fashion photographer who works in London and Paris. He has a studio in London and deals with a few clients. The picture I used from him is a shoe picture of a man who is on the move. Here the focus is on the shoe, while the nice car in the background is out of focus.

Wayne Tippetts love for street photography started around the 80's in London. Today his pictures contain a cool edge to them, that you wouldn't see in most fashion photographs. Street fashion gives an 'in' outfit a cool twist to it. This picture here is of a funky pair of lace up high heels. Notice how he uses depth of field by placing the focus of the picture in the front, where the shoes are.

Much of Robb Kendrick’s photos are in National Geographic. The one I chose for clothing is of a girl in Guagueyvo, Mexico, wearing a traditional outfit. This profile picture of her outfit shows the color and details in her clothes.

Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader work together to create this fascinating picture of model Anna Mikhaylik, who is wearing boots with multi-patterned tights. The movement of the model gives a new dimension to her already intriguing outfit. Reed and Rader together create many unusual pictures for their website http://www.pamelareed.com/.

Finding his love for photography at the age of 11, Ken Weingart has grown in his passion. He likes to take pictures of spontaneous moments for his fashion photos. For the one I chose, it is a set of 2 picture. They both show movement, and work with lighting to show off the black and white spotted dress.