Poker Painting with Light

Granted this was a lot of work, but really fun too. I was inspired by a photo in our Photo Printing Lab, that has the similar effect yet that one is a little more crisper than this. Yet I did want some blending to happen with this, I believe it adds to the chaos of this hand being won by some and lost by others.

To make this shot happen we started by metering and got a reading for 7.1, yet after the first shot we saw that was too dark, and not near the effect we wanted. My partner Alison and I decided to get the camera closer and up the apture a stop to f/14, to get the timing down to just the right on each character we did sort of a test strip. We took a photo where the the guy on the far left got 2 seconds of paint with the Mag Lite Flash light and then each other person then was increased by 2. So after our 2, 4,6,8 shot we saw that 6 to 8 was about right. We decided that we should shoot 6 seconds on the guys closer to the camera and 8 on the ones on the back side of the table. We played with that and then thought about popping a flash to really get some defination on each person and the table. The table was actually painted in last.

So on the last two shots we had a flash on manual pop at 1/32 on each person then painted them in for 2-3 seconds for the blending and rest of the detail.

As far as moving into the positions well that was just magic, and the help of a backstage and some cell phone light. I started in the gangsters seat, then we opened the shutter, once it was done I walked behind the black backdrop changed into the hoodie and used my little cell phone light to find my way back to my seat as the hooded dealer. That hoodie with its dark material became really hard to paint, and bring out. After being painted and flashed, I walked behind again and put my real college guy personality on with t-shirt and jeans and backwards hat. Finally I lost the jeans and went down to some boxers for the final look at the poker realm.

Multi Flash

Great we masterd using multiple flashes in the studio, now the real challenge of taking that into the real world.

I really liked that I could take this assingment outside to let shaddows fall off in the distance, yet Katie Barns did a really nice job with her multi-flash work at the Greek Week skits. I chose my photo of MU Students for Life painting crosses at 3 am because it is not only the hardest one I had to work to get, but it really did show something that would not have other wise been shown. With that shot I could let my key light stay on my camera and use it to stop my subject, and use my second flash to set out of fram to get a few of the 4000 crosses on the South Quad.

I didn't like the Cardboard Condo shots that I had of habitat for humainty so much because the shot I really wanted of someone walking by being caught in the key lights flash area, and then using the secondar to light up the boxes. I did have a few, but the one of the girl in the jeans coming home from the library was way too hot to turn in. Amazing how much flash power you need to show what you need and how the subject distance will always mess that up, plus you can't move around too much because the moment you change your angle the 2nd light isn't in the right spot or gets too much in to the frame. The other angle I tryed to attempt at Habitat was to shoot the new Brady wall example with their Cardboard Condo's in the back ground. Yet once again angles and distance became my enemy.

Blending Light

This asignment really depended a lot on our creativity and how we wanted to give emotion to the photo. While I got some good shots at the Greek Week skits, I thought that it looked like it had been done too many times before, and the only one that I really liked was 2169. It had good motion, and the color arrangement was great.

However, following the tragic events at VA. Tech I really wanted to be at the candle light vigil. Now my select from that really doesn’t have to much light blending going on, but it is more honest of the moment that I was in. More of the panning shots made the candle streaks look un-natural to me. Plus, this shoot reminded me of the headdress person in their hotel room we looked at in class. It really shows the slow movement of the candles from one person to the next. To get this shot, I had to gel my strobe because of the very orangish tungston light given off outside of Memorial Union, and I was balencing my self on a hand rail above the crowd so getting down, and asking the main girls name was not going to happen. Especially with speakers talking about VA. Tech.

Fill and Balance Flash

This assignment wasn't that bad to deal with, I'd even say I had some fun with it, and pushed my self a little more. Plus, it is easy to see why so many photojournalists use this effect as much as they do.
The tuckers and manager of the truck stop were really great about letting me take their pictures. I chose the location because I knew that the covering over the pumps could act like a big hat and cast a shadow for me to battle. However, it became more of an excise in light balance, because the day was over cast from the storms that morning. It was like everything outside the covering, was much like some one next to a window in a indoor situation. So it was like shooting into a big soft box, but I did have a few exposure readings for that kind of light that I was working off of, plus trying to stay with in my sync speed. Sean pointed out that the sky looked a little blown out which I can agree with, but the photo of Brian if you look under his arm you can still see the other trucks, and signs on buildings as they were that day. One other thing I needed to fight was a ton of metal around me, which really came off nicely; I was able to hide the flash, and his and other reflections.

As I mentioned once before, I know we didn’t have to shoot both fill and balance but I wanted to improve on the truck stop, and I found these guys playing soccer. While I did attempt my best Spanish with them to let them know what I was doing there, only one spoke broken English, which is very hard to get caption information on anyone, especially when they weren’t going to stop their game for me. Good chance to use my 300 mm lens and see what happened with it and the flash even though I think I messed that up. For one yes keeping the flash off camera works well for this technique, but if I was going to use my 100-300 lens again I’d mount the flash for better results. I’m enjoying the power to fill the shadows with just enough light, and give the photo that much more pop! Especially with these soccer guys I could see how my flash became more the key light as the night went on, and making a good picture like that would require a bit more power.

Yet over all I think I have a few images that worked well from this shoot. I liked the expression of Surratt in 1499 but I think the flash was too close/ too hot on his forearm, and the other man pumping gas into his red truck wasn’t bad but he wouldn’t stop looking at the camera, and it became too much of an environmental portrait. For both shoots I found my self still starting in TTL then switching over to Manuel when I was comfortable, and trying to dial down the power where needed. I read somewhere that putting a coffee filter over your flash will do a lot to diffuse the light off it. I wonder if I metered next time then added the filter and shot if that would work to make it a bit more forgiving?

Welcome to RAW the flash journy continues.

Seeing how class is still the freshest thing in my mind, I'll start there this evening.
I couldn't agree more to the point that their was some necessary communication needed so that we are all on the same page, because I've found myself filling in blank spaces with not quite the right answers. Granted I don't think I'm having a hard time finding something newsworthy to take a picture of, but applying these new techniques may be the issue. Also being more translucent in my thought process through out this shoots may lead to more suggestions for improvements. Finally, getting on the same page with filling has been tricky, but I'll refer to my submission sheet and ask questions were needed.

OK, with that out of the way, on to Color Correction and how much I'm already loving RAW. Yes I noticed right away how much space it takes up in a Flash Card, but it is the standard on which the digital negative will be built.

I'm not sure, why I'm in this funk of forgetting to check my ISO every time I turn on my camera. I think part of it was that for such a long time I wasn't aware of it I never made it a habit to check it. However, now I really need to slow down, breath and check the ISO, the color balance, the flash if it is needed.

For this assignment, yes I had to battle the dreaded F-Light, which in Photoshop lives up to its name. However, my location as stated in the diagram really helped with that. I was up against 12 fluorescent tubes, divided in 3 separate overhead fixtures. Granted a North facing storefront in the late afternoon, doesn't give a lot of light, but it does fill some dark spaces for me. The neon beer signs, while do burn hot and give off some light, were either being taken out of my lens' focus or I'd angle around them other ways. The other great supports I had were a totally white wall, and mirror to bounce my flash off of as you'll see in my diagram.

Position 1 was the best for shooting because I had my back to any natural light, plus I could bounce flash off the mirror or white wall depending on the direction of Seth the Barber or his customer. Which was part of the waiting game with this assignment. While Seth gave me all access to his shop, I still felt the need to ask his customers permission to be photographed, some said OK but no names, and others said no. I need to respect that and not hurt his business.

Postion 2 wasn't bad depending on where the Barbers chair was I tried to hid my body behind that and get them to also block my flash. Because the area was cramped I could bounce the flash in the white wal behind me to keep it from showing up badly in the mirror.

Postion 3 wasn't great I could duck down, tried to stand on a spare chair and still had to fight some natural daylight and the F-Lights. Yet RAW is very forgiving.

OK diagram soon to come. Photoshop and the scanner are giving me issues.

Metal and Glass

After my long blog hiatus, lets try this again.

Metal and Glass is defiantly a different beast to photograph, mainly because basically are taking a picture of either a reflection or something that is invisible so some studio tricks must be implored to bring the form and image to life. The biggest thing going into this assignment was the idea, and really being able to map something out before I attempted it. The images in class did give me plenty of good ideas, such as a field knife through a Kansas license plate, or a bullet shell casing with “Your Name” in graved on it. However setting those up would require a lot more time and money then I had to deal with. Plus, it wasn’t until after I said I would take Metal and let Andrea shoot glass that I thought a pint of “Guinness” with white line lighting, and a green gel used on the head of the “beer” would make a great shoot for St. Patty’s.
However, I digress from what I did shoot. I like the idea of showing the detail of a golf club, and it’s features such as the grooves in the club face, and thanks to Andrea the previous ball markings which I thought I should clean off but she convinced me it gave the club character. I was also inspired from a few examples in class that used motion/ animation to give the picture movement. Hence, I used this shot of the balls bouncing in the picture (special thanks to Will who was early for his shoot but gave me a extra pair of hands). It did take several takes for the time we had available, but I love that I could get the balls at this moment to give me a nice “V” shape and add to the use of triangles. The white line on the club, shaft was really controlled by the soft box in front of it, I tried moving the angle of the box a couple of times, yet in the end I like that it isn’t uniform because it adds more roundness of the shaft in the photo. I really didn’t want to use a lot of wattage in the lights because the reflection would be much more difficult to control, so I’m quite happy that I back it down to 800 watts on the soft box, and got rid of the snoot that was supposed to highlight the ball on the table. One other thing looking back I’d like to have done is slow the shutter speed a bit from 250 so I could get a little more blur and action of the bouncing balls. Yet one of the problems that we had to work around was dead battery in the light meter, so I metered and bracketed off my camera. Another special thanks to the MU photo dept for having the artificial green turf on hand, that made the shoot a lot better than green poster board would have.
Andrea, was such a big help to me, and I hope I was as equally helpful to her and her ideas towards a reversal of nature and bee’s and honey. The concept is very creative, plus getting the white boxes from behind and under the table to line up to avoid as much of a gray horizon as possible was very tricky. Yet after a some trial and error I think she was very successful.