Tag Archives: studio

Studio portraits series

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After several photography exercises using different cameras, settings and locations I had collected several photographs of my friends Dan and Ollie where they had naturally posed as a double act. I thought their were interesting images because of how they worked together and how they had a kind of detective style to them. I also wanted to see how portraiture can be explored using two people rather than just one. However I don’t think I would use these images for my final piece as they weren’t as successful as some of my other friends portraits.

DANandOLDANandOL3

DANandOL5DANandOL2

DANandOL4

 

Studio experimentation

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ELLIE5    ELLIE1

ELLIE2     ELLIE3

We experimented more with the reflectors in these images and tried to get the lighting flattering and correctly on Ellie’s face. We used different lights throughout the ‘photoshoot’ such as snoop light, spotlight, Lightbox, soft box lights to create different moods and effects on the subject.

ELLIE&OLLIE2  ELLIE&OLLIE1

For these photo it originally started that we were playing around with props and dark lighting but the photos actually came out quite well. The light hit their faces in the right place and the shadow behind Ellie’s face of Ollie creates a story to the photo.

DAN1ELLIE4

I took these photos fairly close up and changed Ellie’s portrait into black and white, and although she wasn’t ready for the photo I think it still works well as it looks like she’s talking out to the viewer. Dans photo also shows a lot of detail and the way the light was positioned works well with his eyes and makes him look alive and real.

Still Life triptych

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final found objects piece

This is my final piece for my still life brief. Our brief specified to go to a certain location and take photos of found objects around the area, however I first experimented with taking photos of mouldy/half eaten food in my flat. I started with the apple and think this looked really effective. I decided I wanted to do a mouldy food series as I thought these would look good as a triptych. I originally thought of using mouldy bread with the apple but the bread didn’t mould very quickly and when it did the photographs weren’t as effective as my banana and grapes images. I also thought of using an apple, cactus and something else that was organic and had a green colour scheme to it. But I couldn’t find anything that would be suitable and be a good match with the apple and cactus so didn’t use the cactus image in the end.

For my final 3 images I allowed the half eaten fruits to mould for a few days as I thought this would give a much more interesting effect to the image and the object than if they were ripe fruits. They now have creases, different colours, lines and details that they didn’t before. I took lot’s of images of each of them and then used lightroom to edit and choose the best images. Although I tried to use the best settings on the camera I still did some editing so enhance the colours, textures. Although the raw images were slightly noisy I thought this could enhance the details and make the objects look more gritty. I also used lightroom to make the objects slightly glow. As the grapes were dark purple they didn’t show up very well on the black background like the apple and banana did. So I made the centre of the image glow slightly so that the edges were still a dark black but the grapes could be seen better. I did this slightly on the other 2 images too so they were consistant.

I chose to arrange the images in this order as the lines in the apple curve inwards, the grapes point towards the centre and the apple curves inwards. This means they all point towards the middle, making it a comfortable triptych to view and the lines are easy to follow. I think this was important to my images as the actual subject of them (mouldy food) isn’t very comfortable or enjoyable to look at, so by making the photographs enjoyable, its balanced out.

Cactus Contact sheet

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After experimenting with the mouldy apple, I decided to photograph my cactus. I’m fascinated by cacti, their shapes and forms, and how all of this is natural. I also thought as my cactus was green and so was the apple, they’d look good as part of a triptych as they’re of a similar colour scheme. Although I was going to focus on mouldy food, I think this is also a good option for my found objects project. I’m going to try to find another object that has hints of green yellow and white that i could use as a final part. I think the object should be a natural object, potentially another food or plant. I used the contact sheet tool on photoshop to create the arrangement for my cactus pictures and then switched some of them around to create a more balanced and comfortable arrangement.

cactus contact sheet

Apple Contact sheet

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apples contact sheet2

For my second brief, found objects, I wanted to look into moulding food as I think the decay can create really interesting shapes and colours. Usually people either don’t get the chance to observe mouldy food to a close degree as they’re too disgusted or never actually see it.

To look at something that had naturally changed over time and become unusable could relate to the photographer, David Maisels, Library of Dust. His work was very inspirational to me as I think the use of repeat patterns, in a contact sheet style, is an effective way to display pictures of the same subject matter and image size. I also think the meaning behind his work and how the tin cans were filled with ashes of patients from a state run psychiatric hospital is a beautiful way to display the uniqueness of each of the patients. I also really like the way Maisel has used very black backgrounds so that the focus is completely on his subject matter. I tried to achieve this with my apple photographs by adjusting the position of my light, some were more successful than others.

maisel-library-of-dust

I intend on using mouldy foods for my found objects brief, I will either try other angles and lighting on this apple or try another apple to achieve a photo that would be suitable for a triptych of photographs.