Photoshop Joiners

This is a Hockney style joiner image that I had a go at making. What I had to do is open photoshop, clicking on 'file' and then ' load files to stack'. Then clicking browse and find the images I wanted to join and I made sure that 'attempt to automatically align source images' is ticked and then click OK. Photoshop will have then aligned the pictures to it thinks all the images will look together as one. I then went into  'edit', 'fill' and changed the background colour to black.

Lighting and Props

Soft box







When a soft box is placed around the light it creates almost a glow, it's used to light up the background in High Key Lighting. The soft box means the light produce is less harsh and doesn't white out someones face. They diffuse the light so it covers more space, the more soft boxes you use at once the more area you can cover, and the more evenly lit it looks.








Beauty Dish







A beauty dish can come in different sizes and is more of a direct light, because the dish is rounded it means the light creates less shadow because the light almost stretches around the side of the object / person in subject to the shot. Because the light is a lot harsher it can blur out a lot some imperfections if there are any.

Small Reflector + Honeycomb grid

The small reflector means it's almost a spotlight, directing the light on one point, it also creates a lot of shadow where the light isn't pointing. 

The Honeycomb grid means that the light shines through the grid to create  beam of light, the aim is to create a focused beam with as little diffusion as possible.

Manual Camera Settings

Today we went into the theatre to experiment with the manual settings on our cameras. With the lighting we found how to get the correct exposure so our photographs weren't too dark or too light.
We got, 1/60 for the shutter speed, f5.6 for the aperture and 400 for the ISO, this gave us a good looking picture.

We then went on changing the shutter speed to get a under exposed, over exposed photographs and a photographs with the correct exposure.

I took the photograph on the right with a shutter speed of 1/100 and and an aperture of f5.6 this meant my picture was too bright, over exposed. 

I took the photograph on the left with a shutter speed of 1/10 this meant my picture ended up under exposed.

Changing the shutter speed controls the amount of light that is let into the photograph, having a quick shutter speed means that not a lot of light is let in make the picture under exposed. I would be able to fix this but changing the aperture on my camera to smaller f-stop. This will mean I could take a picture at a quick speed and it won't be under exposed.

Photoshop : Retouching

Retouching

On the right is the original photograph of the blemish, I have chosen the freckle on her nose to photoshop. i will be using the Healing Brush Tool. This means I need to click on a good part of the skin next to the freckle and then click on the blemish. This will match the skin colour well and get rid of the freckle.

On her lip there's a spot on her lip and a freckle above it. Using the Spot Healing Brush Tool I was able to get rid of them easily and make them look like they were never there. I also got rid of the shadow at the side of her mouthThis tool can only be used for a few things because it can create some blur if you use it too much in on place.

 There were some blemishes between her eyes and I was able to get rid of this with the Patch Tool. this allowed me to circle the troubled areas and drag it to a good part of her skin and double it. This gives the appearance of clearer skin and it has a good colour match

Shutter Speed Experiment

Camera Shake

For the camera shake, i took pictures with a shutter speed of 1/30 which is quite slow. Whilst I was taking the picture I shook my camera to give it a blurred effect. Personally I don't like the photo because of the blurriness, although it's quite abstract so it could be used as other forms of photography.







For this picture I set it with a faster shutter speed, 1/600. I then shook the camera again whilst taking the picture but this time it came out with a much sharper better quality picture. I prefer this picture because it's more 'correct'.

Abstract Motion Blur

The image to the left is a  portrait I took with a shutter speed of 1/8th of a second and zoomed in whilst I was taking the picture. This created a nice affectat the edges making it look good, although the person in the picture is blurred. I think this makes the picture unappealing, if it was focused I would prefer it a lot more.

Whilst I was taking the picture on the right I rotated the camera. This again created a blurred image but I tthink it has a good effect. Whereas the other image isn't focused on anything this one is focused and has almost an attractive ghost effect.

Light Writing and Painting

With light painting you have to be in a dark room, and the shutter speed has to be quite long. With this picture we were in the studio with all the lights out and a shutter speed of 6". With the torch on my phone I wrote my name 'Poppy'. It took a few tries to get it readable because you have to write it bacwards to get it the right way onthe image. The only thing wrong with this picture is there's a mirror in the bottom left corner that looks wrong to be in the image and because it was my first time light painting the writing isn't very clear.

Ghosts

For the ghost experiment i had my camera on a tripod to keep it steady, this was because I had quite a long shutter speed to get a good effect. For the first part of the experiment we had the shutter speed set to 6 seconds the person in frame stood as still as possible for 2 seconds and rushed out of the frame. This gave a really good ghost effect making the person look practically see through. For the second part of the experiment we us a shutter speed of 4 seconds, the person in frame stood there for almost 3 seconds and rushed out as quick as they could. This meant the person in the frame was more defined and visible.

Frozen in Motion

For this experiment I had to have a really quick shutter speed, such as 1/1000, i also had an ISO 400. This meant I could capture motion really well what I did was take a picture of someone jumping off some stairs. I think this picture is really successful because I took it at the right time while Shaun was still in the air. Also you can see his hair sticking up, this gives a really good appearance of motion within the photograph.

Angles, View Point and Cropping

Degas

Degas was a famous painter from France who did a lot of paintings of dancers and had the deception of movement within his paintings. A lot of Degas's painters almost looked like photographs, with a lot of movement from contemporary dancers. In most of his paintings dancers were shown back stage or performing to show it as a professional job. He started off wanting to be a history photographer but as times changed he realised photography was a new way of capturing images, this then made him relies that not everything has to be "correct" "idealistic".








In this image on the right you can see the movement really well. This almost looks like he has taken a picture as someone's dancing and then gone on to paint it. Most photographers thought badly about photography creating imperfections. A lot of painters resented photographers because painters were payed to paint an image of someone or something perfect and almost staged and it was a long process. What photographers did was do this job a lot quicker and just as good of quality. All painted images were perfect with no cropping and everything centre of the painting. As painters realised that photography can show imperfections and still really good, the majority of painters changed their style just like degas did.



Early Kodak Photographs


Early Kodaks were very big and look like bad quality photographs. The people with these cameras were amateurs and were just taking pictures on holiday or when they were out because it was one of the first portable cameras available. This meant a lot of photographic errors were made.

A lot of these photographs were badly composed cropping a lot of the image out the image on the right shows a boat that has cropped out a lot of the sails and poles sticking up. A lot of professional photographers were almost perfectionists, having to have everything perfect in the photograph nothing cropped and the camera was straight. Amateur photographers using Kodaks and making a lot of mistakes showed professional photographers that it was good to make mistakes. Some of the photos were tilted and cropped and that made the photos more abstract and photographers thought it was a good new style to copy and carry on with.


Angles, View Point and Cropping





In this photograph I was aiming to get a cropped look. I cropped off the top of her head to decrease more focus on her bracelet and pass lanyard. I like how there is nothing else in the photo to take the attention off of the main subject.I think I did this well but I could have cropped more or a different part of it to give it an opposing affect.

In this photo I took it looking up, this gives it an abstract effect. I think this photograph would look better if I hadn't cropped the side of the building in subject. I could of done this by standing in a different place.






Although this picture on the left isn't very good quality i think this is a good representation of take a picture from below the object. I like how there is nothing taking you attention away from the tree and the leaves. All I would change is maybe the amount of leaves on the right hand side of the photo, although I can't control that I could change it in photoshop.




For this picture I took it from higher than the subject; Elentari. I think this has a good effect of leading lines unto the person in frame. The only things I would change about this photograph is the objects in the background, which are almost distracting, also I would move Elentari to the middle of the bottom of the stairs. I think her being off centre looks a bit strange and untidy.

Low Key Lighting and High Key Lighting

High Key Lighting

We went into the studio to experiment with high key lighting, to get the correct exposure.
Hight key lighting uses to light, a light covered with a soft box is projected onto a white background to make it really bright. Another light with no cover is set on the object / person in focus,  this light is also connected to a flash sync which is also attached to your camera which will set off a flash when you press the shutter. High key lighting gives you a calm, clean feel to the picture.

Low Key Lighting

When were in the studio we also experimented with low key lighting so we could get a good amount shadow on the person. Low key lighting contains a black background and a light cover in a soft box, this light is placed to one side or front or back to create a lot of shadow. A flash sun is also used in this process to create a good amount of light.