Lighting
The definition of Photography is 'Painting with Light'. Light is very important when taking a picture, with out it you won't have an image, so choosing the perfect setting is key. You can use any light source such as the sun, a torch, sparklers, car lights, television and light bulbs.
You have to consider four different things when sorting the lighting out:
- Quantity - How much you use?
- Quality - Soft or Hard?
- Direction - Where is it coming from?
- Colour - Hue?
Soft or Hard Lighting
You can get two types of lighting:
- Hard - High contrast, creates dark shadows, is quite harsh and unflattering on the skin. You an see all the wrinkles and imperfection on the face, it is often used for portrait photography as it creates moods and emotions to portray in an image.
- Soft - Low contrast, minimal shadows, is smooth on the skin. You see it used in alot of fashion photography images as it makes the skin look smooth and covers and imperfection.
I have taken some images in the studio using soft and hard lighting:
Soft lighting
You can see here that the skin looks smooth and flawless. There are also no shadows in the image. I like this image because the lighting casts an innocent setting over the whole image, I also like the composition as he is in the cent vertical section of the rule of thirds.
Hard Lighting
You can see here the imperfections on the skin. You can also see the dark shadow created by the light source. I find this image has a dramatic feel to it, hard lighting tend to bring this to an image. I like this image as the mood is quizative, this is due to the facial expression and pose of the model, but it is also down the the way the composition has been set up with him looking into a space and being to the side of the image.
Colour in Photography
The mood and emotions that an image can portray can be changed by the colours in the picture. You can change to colour in different ways like editing in photo shop, colour filters on your lens or camera and altering the colour balance in the camera settings. Here i have looked at changing the colour with the camera settings.
The colours and their moods:
- Magenta - Feminine and loving/caring
- Yellow - Happy, joyful and fiery
- Blue/Cyan - Calming, cool, relaxing and death
- Green - Natural, relaxing, medical, and death
- Red - Love, passion, warning and threatening
On camera settings you can change the colour balance settings and it adds different colours to the camera lens.
- Auto White Balance
- Daylight +warm colours
- Cloudy +warm colours
- Shade +warm colours
- Tungsten +cool colours
- Fluorescent +warm red colours
- Flash +warm colours
- Custom where you can manually change the camera to add the colours you want.
Here are my images using different colour balance settings:
AWB
Daylight
Cloudy
Tungsten
Fluorescent
Fluorescent H
Composition
The composition of the image looks at the set up and layout of the image.There are several 'rules' that you can use as guidelines to create great images such as the rule of thirds, rule of triangles/odds and evens plus more. Here i will be looking at these rules and showing demonetisation from my own work.
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is a rule of composition I find very useful to use, it works by splitting your image into nine equal parts, using two vertical lines and two horizontal lines. This is an example of the grid you would use (but different size, as each grid is individual and related to one specific sized image).
The green dots are focus points that draw the eye in, if you were to have a horizon line in your image its best to have it on one of the horizontal lines. There are many different techniques you can use with this rule and is widely used by photographers. Here is an I image I have taken using the rule of thirds.
You can see I have place the object along the righthand vertical line and the base on the bottom right focus point. I really like this image, as it reminds me of space and how space isn always bad.
Rule of Triangles
The rule of triangles is a simple rule where you make triangular shapes within you image, wether out of objects or the way you arrange the people in your image. It is a good technique to use, this is because a triangle is a strong stable shape the brings strenght into your image. This is my example of using the rule of triangles.
Here you can see the base of the triangle is along the three girls and the point is the males head. I believe that if this was a portrait image it would be better as they will seem closer together.
Rule of Space
When taking an image you have to be aware of the spaces, a misplaced space can ruin an image, you should leave space for the person to walk or look in to this will lead to the thought there is movement in the image or there is something beyond the image itself. This is my example of the rule of space.
Here you can see there is space for her to look into. I like this image because the mood is light but passive at the same time. If i was going to take this image further i would tone down the colour saturation to create a moody image.
Symmetry
The rule of symmetry is where the image is balanced, this could be from have a mirrored image or by having the same amount of shapes, people objects and a line of symmerty. It is a rather easy rule to get the hang of, and makes your images look more aesthetically pleasing for the viewer. This is my example of symmetry.
I have placed the two leaves in the centre with the line of symmetry running down the middle. I like how the two sides arent completely the same but are very similar it brings a roughness to the image.
Depth of Field
Depth of field is a technique that is widely used with photographers, it is about how much of your image is in focus. For example and image with a small section in focus has shallow depth of field, whereas an image with everything in focus has large depth of field. This is my example of shallow depth of field.
You can see that the coins are in focus whereas the note in the background isn't. I like this image because it makes you think about the pennies. The composition of this image is good and creates a good image.
Portrait Photography
Most photographers like to do portrait photography in a studio, this is because you can control the lighting and get really clean crisp shots. I like working in the studio because you and using all the different lighting equipment to create different feelings and moods.
This is a studio set-up I really like to use because it creates a dramatic feel in the image. It is a hard light set-up with the snoot as the key light and a soft box used as a background light to soften the image.
This is an image I have taken using this set-up for one of my A level photography pieces.
Here you can see the snoot lighting the face, and the soft box lighting up the image.
Here are a couple more image I have taken using different light set-ups.
This is using a three light set-up that i researched during a project, it is a complex set-up that has some really good out comes.
This set up uses one light source with the barn doors attachment. The barn doors allow you to control the amount of light flooding the images and the direction it goes in.
This image uses one light source with the snoot attachment. The snoot creates a dramatic feel in images.
Health and safety
When working in a studio you have to be aware of the hazards around you.
- There are leads from the lights you have to be careful of, and its best to tape them down so no one will trip.
- There is also the back drop you have to tape down to the floor as it is also a tripping hazard.
- After the lights have been on for a while the bulb and attachment become very hot so you have to be careful when handling them, from personal experience the snoot get extremely hot to handle.
- In the studio a lot of electrical equipment is used, so there is a risk of fires starting
Image Manipulation
Cropping and Changing Colour
Cropping and changing colour is important to know when is comes to simple image manipulation. Cropping is simply choosing the cropping tool on photoshop and resizing the image to the size you want. When cropping the rule of thirds grid comes up so that you can make sure the composition is how you want as well. Changing colour can be done by adjusting the hue and saturation. Here is my example of cropping and changing colour.
The original image.
The original image.
Here i have cropped the image using the rule of thirds to help me. I have the brought the saturation down, changed the contrast and brightness of the image. After doing this I brought the hue up slightly to change the tone of the skin. I like this image because it is sharp and clear, it also has strong eye contact creating a confident image.
Adjusting Levels or Colour Balance
Adjusting the levels means you are changing the levels of the shadows, mid-tones and highlights. Changing the colour balance means you are changing the colour tones in the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.
Adjusting the levels means you are changing the levels of the shadows, mid-tones and highlights. Changing the colour balance means you are changing the colour tones in the shadows, mid-tones and highlights.
Original image.
Here I have made the highlights and mid-tones darker when adjusting the levels and then added more yellow and red to the highlights and shadows. I like this image as the original I don't believe the editing ha made this any stronger.
Creative photoshop
Creative photoshop is where you use different tools to create a completely changed image. Here is my example of creative photoshop.
This is the original image, I want it to be the same size as the image below so i cropped it and adjusted the contrast slightly.
Creative photoshop is where you use different tools to create a completely changed image. Here is my example of creative photoshop.
This is the original image, I want it to be the same size as the image below so i cropped it and adjusted the contrast slightly.
I then added this image as a new layer, I the changed the opacity of it so you could is the original image as well.
There is the outcome, i like this image because it is creative and different, the faded top layer creatives a magical feel about the image, whereas the original image underneath creates a distance passive feel.
