The specifics are;
- Shape - its edges and outlines
- Form - the volume, its dimensions
- Texture - the surface finish or quality
- Colour - how its colour can vary with differing light
For the purpose of this assignment the object I have chosen is a shell warrior helmet similar to that used in the Blockbuster Movie 'Gladiator'. I chose it as it has great form and shows itself well as the hand crafted item it is. It has strong features and shape though colour is not immediately obvious it does have colour which I will go on to demonstrate.
The particular challenge with this assignment was to keep the setting consistent, which I managed to do for the most part but not all. In the controlled environment of my home made studio I kept consistency but when natural light was required I had to take the object to it and that lost something to the set. For the future I would obtain a portable white back ground which could be taken outside so I do not those the connection in the set of photographs. I also gave myself a challenge of working to a different aspect ratio, I decided to use 5x4 for this assignment.
I am quite apt from previous experience in using artificial light, flash and continuous so exposure was straight forward enough. I regularly shoot landscapes so again waiting for and using particular light as found is something I am very used to enduring and I hope to show that within the exercises that accompany this section.
Shape
This was the most straight forward of the shots. A simple silhouette involved lighting the white background only and allowing a little ambient light front he room lift a few details out of the shadows. I did not want to completely 'black out' the object as this seems too simplistic to me and loses something. I used two 5000K continuous lights to light the background ensuring a crisp white contrast to the dark object.
85mm, f5.6, 1/500sec
85mm, f5.6, 1/500sec
Form
To find a lighting situation that emphasised the volume and dimensional form. Top lighting seemed to work for my object here. In both cases sunlight at midday so almost top dead centre, on the second shot just a little over to the left. Fortunately it was not a very bright day, had it been I may have had issues with too much sunlight, luckily it was somewhat diffused. In the first shot below, the highlights catch the angular points and that separates them from the shadowed areas below. This whole effect creates 3 dimension and hence delivers form. I also adjusted camera angle to shoot at 45 degrees down onto the top which captured more of the top highlights. In the second shot, same principle but used in a different tray. The back of the helmet is very rounded and the sun hitting one spot created the bowl like form which is finished off with the highlights and the nape. The natural array of studs and angle used also help to produce the form here.
50mm, f4,1/800sec
50mm, f4,1/4000sec
Texture
I knew before I shot these that I needed to avoid very strong light, I felt the glare and hard shadow may take away detail especially on this metallic surface. So here in the first shot I used natural overcast light on a bright day. What helps here is that the light is all global to the helmet not directional as in the second. I think this made things better, you really can pick out all the marks made by use and its manufacture. The resolution used was 36 Mp which will of course help but all those pixels aren't any good unless they have detail to collect. The second shot, I decided to use artificial light, to see mainly if I could achieve a good result that way. Here I used a continuous light, again 5K but through a soft box as to diffuse the light. I aimed it to 45 degrees at the object and cropped in close, I was getting bored of the whole object and wanted to inject some more interest.
50mm, f4,1/3200sec
50mm, f4.5, 1/250sec
Colour
Now with colour, I was thinking I need flat light. Anything too bright and like texture I was going to lose out on this metallic surface. So, in the first shot I bounced a speed light at low power (1/64) off the opposing wall so subtly throw a flat light to the helmet front. Everything else was set up as for 'shape'. This gave me the little wash of light I needed to lift the shadow and bring out the colour without making them too bright or even burning some out. So this was the most complicated with 3 light sources used, two continuous 5K lights and a strobe. For the second, I took the object outside and used flat overcast daylight. In both cases I did lift the saturation a little in post only to prove the colour was indeed preserved and of course to show it off.
85mm, f4, 1/250
50mm, f4, 1/4000sec
In summary this was an interesting assignment that got me thinking about things I had till now taken for granted. I have learned a lot from this. What I did not do was to use sunlight at differing times of the day, I am quite familiar through my landscape work with varying colour temperatures and hope I have demonstrated that within the accompanying exercises where I have used the sun a lot! I hope to show how I used both sunlight and artificial light together for fill and other effects. I have also noticed that light quality and type changes depending on where you are. I spent a week in Scotland and noticed how much cooler an brighter the sunlight is during the day as compared to my home in the South of England. I would set up in my usual way and found that I was blowing more sky highlights than usual with my usual filter set up. I realised eventually that this was down the the intensity of the light further North and had to adjust my methods to cope.
I have included two other examples of photography in differing light and how I managed that light.
The first Image is a Fashion Editorial. The shoot took place in a dark wood and the weather changed on the day to very overcast and wet. The available light was very poor indeed. To use flash wouldn't have been appropriate, the contrast between model and background (she is wearing white) would have been too match and the image would look 'forced'. I did consider sublet fill flash but such was the poor light, again I think even that would have been too much. I used a high ISO in conjunction with a fast lens, a 50mm f1.4 at 1.4 and made the following image. Although the overall image is quite flat, it works in this case I feel as the story behind the theme 'runaway bride' required a certain amount of gloom.
50mm, f1.4, 1/500sec (ISO 1600)
For my second additional image again I use a Fashion Editorial shot. This time I wanted to show an example of work in direct sunlight at midday. This shoot wasn't planned to use midday sun, it was simply a convenient time for it therefore I had to both embrace and use the high sun to my advantage. I think we can clearly see how the model was directed to collect the sunlight and to make use of the strong shadows it gives. Notice how I position the face to use shadow to emphasise the jaw line, that is quite deliberate and is an example of showing form or shape using the available light. Interestingly here, I use a high ISO which isn't required but with the particular camera and lens I used this combination gives a bright, high key punchy effect with introduced noise which is popular in fashion photography. The risk was that I would exceed the cameras capabilities and poorly expose, at 1/8000sec I was right on the fastest shutter speed so there was little room for error. Had conditions brightened further, or she wore white, I would have stopped down to f5.6 to keep the desired exposure.
85mm, f4, 1/8000 sec (ISO 800)
No comments:
Post a Comment