Juxta Position.

I am reading Annie Leibovitz's at work at the moment. Just on the chapter written about her fashion work and on page 126 of the book there is a picture of Puff Daddy and Kate Moss shot in Paris in 1999, This photo is a great example of Juxtaposition, when I saw it first I could not understand what the hell it was supposed to be. It is so ordinary that it looks like a quick snap. However, when i read her explanation I was blown away. here is another example of juxta position; nataliavodianovaforvogueus1.jpg

This is from a photo shoot for vogue magazine. There are many other great examples, like this one;

http://www.vogue.com/feature/Diddy_Natalia_Vodianova_Vogue_Fashion_Shoot/slideshow/horizontal/?loop=0&iphoto=1&play=false&cnt=2

Project 67; Rain

Inspired by gothic novels and Joe Mc Nally's book the hot shoe diaries:

Although I got the original idea from his book my end result is very different. Took a lot of fiddling and setting up. One direct flash outside the window on manual with a radio trigger. Positioned about 20 feet away.. I sprayed the glass with water at intervals. I tried a hose but the water came in sheets not drops on the glass.

I could not get the water droplets to show on the glass at all. I wanted the shadow on the models face and I got that but in a lot of the shots it looks like weird streaks and lines on her face. Also I had trouble with the reflections in the glass. My reflection turned up in a few shots and also a lot of the stuff in the room behind. Including a large silver reflector.

Project 66; Juxta Position

I got the inspiration for this from a photo that I came across in the letters section of last months black and white magazine. The idea reoccurred after a morning playing with my camera and two strobes to set up for the next project.

It took a little time to get the set up. In order to throw a good shadow the light source need to be further away from the object you are trying to shoot. I had to adjust the strobe output to get the light right and then move the fork around to get a nice shadow. The light is positioned to camera right about a meter away and I have raised the fork and plate a little off the table. I used a plain white background to catch the shadow with.

This is one of my later attempts after all of the fiddling with the light levels, zoom and distance were complete. As you can see there is a white line which cuts right through the shadow of the fork. Its caused by light bouncing off the surface of the plate. I solved this by raising the plate a little higher.

Here is my final attempt. It could be a cover for a food magazine or book.

I really enjoyed this and I intend to try out some more examples.

Project 65; Symbols

I have had a few Ideas on the themes that were mentioned in the project. They are as follows;

Crime:

Photo of news paper headlines. A ski mask with a gun on a table. A person dressed as a thief; mask, stripy top and swag bag. A wrecked and burnt out car. A broken car window.

Poverty; Begging hands/bowl. Homeless person/people.

Silence;Finger to lips. Someone gagged. Zippered lips.

Growth; Graph going upwards. Person standing on a height chart. An arrow pointing straight up.

Excess; Overflowing bottle bank?

Here is my first attempt at poverty;

And here is something that I produced purely by accident when I was playing with strobes;

It has an almost religious quality to it.

Project 64; Evidence of action

I like both of these and cant decide which one to publish here so have included both.

Before ...

After....

Artificial light. Balancing flash and ambient light.

I have been continuously experimenting with artificial lighting since completing section 6. I have been carrying out one of the exercises recommended on strobist.com on balancing flash and ambient light.

So I chose a subject to experiment on and here it is.

this photo is shot with just ambient light, f4.5 at 1/750th of a second with window light from the left of frame. The light is a little harsh I think and could probably do with diffusion. The shadow detail is poor too.

I placed a speedlight below and in front of the orchid, about a meter away set on manual. I took a series of exposures and reduced the output from it eventually down to 1/16th of full power. The flash head is zoomed fully to 105mm. I got the exposure above. Not a great improvement. The sun is on the left and quite strong. The flash throws a nice shadow on the wall behind and does improve the shadow detail. However the overall effect of the lighting is too harsh.

Here I have moved the strobe above and to the left of the flowers. The power is reduced to 1/32nd and the head is zoomed out to 70 mm. I like the speculative highlight on the green leaf and the shadow fill on the flowers. The effect on the wall behind is nice too, the splash of light.

The exposure is 5.6, 1/125th of a second. ISO 200.

Here the exposure is the same. The flash power is the same but I have placed the clear grid diffuser on, which zooms out to 17 mm. I like the quality of the light, the shadow fill and detail are good. The direction is good too. I think though that the light is too white.

The same shot but I have used the cloudy white balance on the camera to warm up the shot. I dont own any flash gels at the moment and I think that that would make a difference.

Here I have used tungsten balance on the camera. The flash still white as you can see on the background.

A closer shot of the flowers. !/60th of a second at f5.6. Flash is same position and power output.

So I was looking at some of the earlier photos and I thought about the ambient light. I prefer the balance between the ambient and flash with the balance slightly tipped in favour of the flash and the way its splashed on the wall and highlighting the flowers. So I left the f stop at 5.6 and changed the shutter speed to its max which is 1/250th of a second. This has the effect of cutting down on the available light. Something I might try is to cut it even more by using my variable ND filter, a trick that David discusses in a recent post here http://strobist.blogspot.com/2010/06/using-nd-filters-to-kill-depth-of-field.html

I turned off the flash to see how much ambient I would get and above is the result.

Now add the flash back in;

I like the balance here .

Project 63: A Narrative picture essay.