Studio Lighting Assignment 1 - Still Life

Well, after a lot of thinking about what to photograph... I was out tonight and was approached by a friend of mine who owns a bar in the town of Warrington who's target audience ranges from teenagers to middle aged people. He said he needed a photograph of a new cocktail that his bar was promoting, this entailed a product shots for the new menu that the bar was in the process of making, I took him up on this idea because I thought that It would be worth while for me to practise the 'product shot' side of photography due to the fact that I have not really done much of this before.


I then started to research some previous product shots of cocktail bar menu's, this is when I found a very interesting and valuable video showing how to produce professional looking product shots in a bar like environment. This video helped me to generate ideas about the style of my photographs and how to set the photographs up if I needed to do so.


Here is the link for the website: http://photographysecrets.rocketsales2u.com/cocktail-bar-and-product-photography-tips-www-dombower-com-caorunn-gin/

Due to the product being a liquid, there are certain procedures that I have to follow whilst in the studio. The precautions are in place to ensure that the liquid does not damage the equipment. I have decided to bring the liquid into the studio in a plastic sealed container and when I need the liquid I will carefully poor the liquid into the glass and photograph it. I will bring paper towels incase there is a spillage and I will be very careful during the whole shoot.
Below are some research images which I like to think my images will look like, I have noticed that most of the cocktails have a lime on, this is some what of a trait of the cocktail. I will also use a lime on the glass in my photograph, the bar that I am taking these photographs for also asked me to have a lime on the side of the glass for their menu because this is how they serve it.

At first I wanted to use a black background but while testing/ experimenting at home about what background to use I have decided to go for the white background because the drink and glass stand out more. I initially thought that the black background would suit the menu style better but after experimenting the white will be better. The light box/ stand in teh universities studios is white so i will not have to bring in a background or material cover to get the white background.
My sketchbook and sketchbook scans show in more detail the way that I want to set up the glass and also the lighting. Although there is not much variation in the ways you can photograph cocktails, I wanted to keep to the deign that the manager of the bar showed me on the internet. He showed me such photographs as the ones above, quite plain making there nothing to distract the eye from. he specifically mentioned that there must be a lime on the side of the glass and that I must use the bar's glass, which I have sourced from them already.

Aperture & Shutter Speed

Before light reaches the sensor, it must pass through the opening called the aperture. This can related to a human eye where light is let in through the iris depending on how much light we need to see, this is controlled on a camera by changing the f-number or f-stop value.

Exposure is all about different combinations of f-stop and shutter speed settings, these combinations can drastically affect the outcome. For example, the following three pictures have been taken with near enough the same amount of light, but the shutter speed and f-stop combinations make each one really quite different. I believe that blurring out a certain part of some images can enhance the aesthetic qualities of the image.





Left Image- F22:1/4
Middle Image- F8:1/30
Right Image- F2.8: 1/250


Although these images are small on this page, the background on the picture on the right is more blurred than the image on the left because the aperture is F2.8 which is a wide aperture which makes the objects further away from the subject are more out of focus. This is known as depth of field.
There is sometimes some confusion in relating the 'f number' with how big the entrance pupil in the lens opens. Basically the way that I remember is that the higher the f number, the smaller the hole and that the lower the f number, the bigger the hole where the light enters the lens. The image below shows how the higher the f number, the smaller the hole and visa versa.

If you take down the shutter speed 2 stops for example, you need to put the aperture up 2 stops to end up with the same exposure level.

Studio Lighting Assignment 1 - Fashion

For my portrait assignment I have decided to focus on fashion to portray. I am going to use the fashion brand 'AllSaints' to base my shoot on, this includes using there clothes on the models I use and I will also try to recreate similar photographs that AllSaints use to promote their campaigns/ products.
Some photographs that captured my attention are as follows...

I deliberately chose out the photographs from current and previous AllSaints look books in order to get some idea of how to set up the picture in terms of cropping, lighting, models, poses etc. Below is an interesting video which I found whilst researching, it gives a sneaky insight into how the photographs for the look books are taken. 




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsUnbdFbffg&feature=relmfu

I also intend to use one or two props to practise using props in the studio, getting the lighting right etc. Below are some examples of props that I have found.

I have chosen to use the following props...

I chose these two props because firstly the red chair is very old, approximately 200 years old, I think that it would fit in with the type of style that AllSaints has and also the hole in the middle of the backrest will allow the viewer to see the models clothing. The reason I like the step ladder is because there are many different positions that the model can adopt on the ladder during the shoot.

Model Poses

The poses that the models are taking are an important part of fashion shots, they can help to really sell the product/ style that the company are trying the sell. In my eyes, it is one of the fundamental parts of good portraiture. I really want to try some interesting and unique stances for the models, to try and give the photographs something different. Some examples of poses that I have seen through research are as follows. I am going to be using one of two props that I have mentioned earlier so the research images have been chosen in line with me idea of using props.

Final Images

Below are the final images from my studio fashion shoot. The shoot went really well and I am very pleased with my final outcomes however one thing that I did learn from this shoot is to be relaxed with your model to get more natural poses and better overall photographs from them.

Long Exposures

The following images are from a set of photographs I took to investigate the art of 'light graffiti', something that I have never really done before. 

The photograph below shows the first photograph that I took, I had an educated guess of 1"3 second - f5 - ISO100. It turned out that 1"3 of a second was not enough time to move the light on the other side of the camera to the desired shape.

I then changed the shutter speed to 2" which enabled me to get the below image, but I still didn't have enough time to make the desired shape.

I then changed the shutter speed to 3"2 and this was sufficient to make a flower like shape using an LED torch.

I then decided to be a bit more creative, I shone the torch around a persons body as if to make the body stand out, I like the way that this photograph turned out because the light from the torch even lights up the persons features.

8" - f5 - ISO100

I then wanted to see if I put the light in the middle of two people that both of the people would be illuminated. I think it works because you can work out the subjects faces.

4" - f5 - ISO100

I then realised that after experimenting with changing the shutter speed to suit that to make what i first set out to achieve, a flower shape, that I needed to use a shutter speed of 5".

5" - f5 - ISO100

5" - f5 - ISO100

4" - f5 - ISO100

This is one of my favourite photographs from the shoot because of the light that illuminates the persons face and legs.

Overall I really enjoyed experimenting with slow shutter speeds and I would like to go out and take some more of these photographs, probably with a more interesting scene such as the inner city at night time to try and capture movement of lights. I would also like to try and photograph some daylight slow shutter speed photographs. I will upload more photographs similar to that of the above soon!