Portraiture and lighting

I spent some time recently experimenting with off camera flash and using two lights. I had just purchased two radio triggers and plagued a couple of people to let me take photos of them. It was very much experimental learning. The strobes were set on manual and I shot away, moving the lights and changing the lighting output. As well as all the technical issues I also had to look through the lens, ask my models to pose certain ways and look at the results as I went along.

My wife was the first model and I spent a long time and shot a lot of photos before I suddenly saw something that I liked in the way she posed to tie up her hair. I asked her to repeat the pose, even then it took a lot of searching to get the look I wanted.

Here is the photo;

The light set up is one speed light on a shelf above and behind her as a rim/hair ligh and a second strobe on camera as a fill. this was diffused with a stofen diffuser. I remembered to focus on the eyes.

here are some shots of my I took of a friend. I had a sort of a plan for this shoot. I see him a lot working on a laptop and I was thinking business. So I used two lights, one placed below on the computer and a second to the right of camera behind venetian blinds. I wanted the computer to dominate the shot. I asked him to pose and we tried different looks. The last shot is my favorite, I had deliberately tried to get a real response from him and asked him something that made him burst out laughing.

I like the effect the corner gives to the shots, both in subdividing the frame and also in bouncing the light back onto his face

Magnum

I have spent most of the day shooting for assignment 5 and had just come indoors to download and review the afternoons shooting. I came across a link to an exhibition in Birmingham for Steve Mc Curry. To be honest I hadn't a clue who he was until I saw the famous photo of the girl in Afghanistan that was a cover for National Geographic, here is a link ;NYC5958.jpg

So I went to have a look at his website, which is a little slow uploading and was blown away by what I have seen so far.

His gallery entitled war is truly a vision of the hell that war is. The photos from the first gulf war are very dark and disturbing especially the photos of the birds covered in oil. I think it really gets home the point that oil was the reason for the war. I find it very interesting how photographers of this caliber seem to be easily able to switch between photos were the subject comes first and photos that are aesthetically pleasing too. This is something I am finding difficult to do. I am beginning to feel hemmed in by the need to serve the demands of aesthetics. I find I have to consciously try to break free of the compulsion to look for a graphic arrangement in every subject.

In the feedback for the 3rd assignment my tutor recommended that I look at the work of Trent Parke. I love this quote; "I am forever chasing light, light turns the ordinary into the magical" That is so true! I am beginning to really discover how light breathes that spark of life into a photo. Here is a link to a great picture of rain; LON38311.jpg

Also I was recommended to look at the work of Martin Parr. I have seen his work before and I like it, but I know that some people have very strong views. I had a conversation with somebody recently who felt he was laughing at "us" but I like the way his work demands that we reassess ourselves, it allows no place for sentimentality when we look at society.

Love this; LON19355.jpg and this; LON6982.jpg that woman in the background pointing!

Another photographer I came across a couple of years ago was Paulo Pelligrin. His work can also be found on magnums website; www.magnumphotos.com. His work definitely holds true to this quote on his magnum page

"I'm more interested in a photography that is 'unfinished' - a photography that is suggestive and can trigger a conversation or dialogue. There are pictures that are closed, finished, to which there is no way in."

Like this; PAR305879.jpg and this PAR319427.jpg. This shot blew me away the first time I saw it; PAR322366.jpg. All of them are great examples of narrative, juxta-position and illustration.

They are taken from a book/exhibition called as I dying. I saw the exhibition 2 years ago at Recontres des Arles; www.rencontres-arles.com which started last week and runs till the 19th of September.

lighting, composition and other musings.

I have been thinking and musing on assignment 5 and trying some techniques of lighting and composition that I have read about and seen. I am keeping my options open on the subject but am leaning towards something close to home and convenient. When I say convenient I mean a subject that I do not have to spend all of my time traveling to and from a location before dawn to shoot it. I want a simple subject that will allow me to experiment with the lessons covered on colour, composition and lighting.

So it was with this in mind that I have begun to look around my own home and garden. I have been reading on strobist.com about balancing natural and artificial light and for a while now I have wanted to try photo with the sun behind the main subject and an off camera flash as a fill. Last night as the sun began to disappear I asked my wife to pose for a quick portrait. I used a flash with a sto-fen omni bounce flash diffuser on a light stand as a fill light. I shot some test shots to get the exposure and balance I wanted and when I was happy I shot a few photos which you can see below. I was really struck by the difference between the first and second and how much I prefer the second because of that little extra space on the right of the frame where she is looking.

The second eureka moment I had to was today as I continued to shoot for the assignment. It is funny how a small change in the framing can make a difference to a photo. I have recently read

Scott Kelby's book The Digital Photography Book Part 1. You can find it here; .

One of the things he speaks about is shooting trees in a forest and how excluding the bottom of the forest can make for a better shot because there is less clutter to confuse the viewer. In the following two photos you can see this clearly I think.