FINALISING AN OUTCOME | oksphotography

detaiL

Finalising an Outcome: Beautiful Light Forms

Before creating my final piece, I wanted to shoot types of beautiful light. Some light sources can create stunning images. I tried to choose a variety of content to ensure I had a range of eye catching and beautiful photographs.

LEEDS LANTERN FESTIVAL

This shoot seemed like a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the effect of ISO, aperture and shutter speed. With my camera on automatic, I was a long way from my desired image. The camera tried to light up the background of the image, which made the lanterns which I wanted as the main focus of my image less vibrant and eye catching. By putting my camera on manual, I could darken the background and limit the amount of light let in. This was important because the lights could be easily over-exposed, meaning I would lose the colour of the lanterns which make the photographs beautiful and be left with bright spots of light in my images.

shutter speed 1/200 sec

aperture f/5.3 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/80 sec

aperture f/4.1 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/3.0 ISO 1600

The key to this shoot was not letting in too much light. Through comparison, you can see that the shutter speed for the photo above was far too long, meaning too much light was let in. This causes the surroundings to become much lighter, which over-exposes the lights I wanted to capture as they are much brighter than the rest of the scene. Decreasing my shutter speed meant that the background was dark, so the colour and structure of the faces in the image become much more poignant and outstanding.

shutter speed 0.4 sec

aperture f/2.8 ISO 1600

A similar example is these two images, however in this case I have not let enough light into the photograph (left). This is easily adjusted by increasing my shutter speed. This meant that the structure and detail of the light was easier seen. Below is a process showing photos from a short - long shutter speed.

shutter speed 1/160 sec

aperture f/3.8 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/15 sec

aperture f/4.5 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/15 sec

aperture f/4.5 ISO 1600

In the photos above, I was trying to demonstrate how distractions in an image can easily avert a viewer's eye. If you compare the two images above, your eyes dart about the scene of the photograph (left), whereas they are fixed on the dragon in the photograph (right). It is very simple to get rid of these distractions. Firstly, I zoomed closer in on my object to crop out the lights below the dragon. Then while editing I used Leonardo to select the lights to the left of the dragon and decrease the exposure to a degree where they were no longer visible (process shown left).

The black & white image below is slightly over-exposed. The details and patterns of the dragon are not as dark and clear as I would've liked them to be. From these photos I wanted to compare the black & white version with the coloured version. Although I liked the concept of black & white, I think the dragon appeared better in colour because the variation added to the interest of the photo.

I wanted to experiment with using the lights to create silhouettes. For the photo (above), I have included screenshots of my editing (shown to the left of the image). First of all, I used Adobe Photoshop Mix to eradicate the line of lights present in the top right corner of the image. This was very distracting as it drew the reader's attention. I then cropped the image as much of the edges were just darkness. This made the model and lights much more central in the image. What I liked most about this photograph was the reflection of light visible on the model's hat as I think this highlighted the structure of the model and strengthened the silhouette effect. I tried to replicate this reflection of light on the model's face (shown below).

Finally, I took a couple of silhouettes from a distance. I did this because I wanted to show the scale factor of the lantern in comparison to the model, as I think the size of the lantern made it more impressive.

Above is another process showing photos over-exposed and under-exposed, as well as the optimum exposure for this photograph in the middle.

The photos (below and right) were taken both portrait and landscape. I prefer the portrait as it shows a strong depth of field. The line of lights also works as an unusual leading line, leading your eyes through the photo.

shutter speed 1/5 sec

aperture f/2.8 ISO 400

shutter speed 1/100 sec

aperture f/3.5 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/4.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/3.4 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/4.5 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/4.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/5.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/8.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/5.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/125 sec

aperture f/5.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/400 sec

aperture f/5.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/1250 sec

aperture f/2.8 ISO 800

shutter speed 1/160 sec

aperture f/3.0 ISO 800

shutter speed 1/30 sec

aperture f/5.0 ISO 800

shutter speed 1/ 60 sec

aperture f/5.0 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/160 sec

aperture f/3.0 ISO 1600

In this shoot, I left my favourite photographs till last. I really like these images because I think they are the prettiest, which suits my title, 'Beautiful Light Forms'. I took photographs of the swans in both colour and black & white as I thought they both complimented the prettiness of the swans. I also experimented taking portrait and landscape photographs, as taking landscape included the lights to the left and right of the swans. Overall, I like the image (above right) best because you can see the rest of the festival in the background, however the swans are quite isolated as they are surrounded in darkness, giving quite a peaceful mood to the photo.

Below are a series of images taken using a variety of shutter speeds ranging from 1/1250 secs to 1/30 secs. I really liked how the small amount of light let in made the flowers look like an outline.

I like the simplicity of these photos (above and left). Their structures and colours were rather normal, and although they could be seen as boring, I think the simplicity was quite effective in creating pleasant and strong light structures. My favourite was the tree because of the interest drawn from its shape.

In the two photographs below I wanted to capture the reflection of the lights in the water. In the image (right) the water had frozen to ice, so the reflection was blurred, whereas in the image (left) the reflection was detailed and almost shimmering.

SUNSET

When I chose the title 'Beautiful Light Forms', most of my shoot ideas were quite unnatural, or ways in which I could create light. I chose a sunset shoot because nature is always considered very beautiful. It is also very calm and peaceful, which contrasted nicely with my previous shoot which was quite flashy and busy. A sunset shoot also seemed like a good choice because it is relatable to any viewer, as it is a part of everyone's life. I tried to keep my photos quite simplistic to maintain a focus on the beauty of the sun.

Below I have shown a few of my common editing tasks during this shoot. As I was photographing the sunset, many of my images included the horizon, which showed a clear divide between sky and land. The photograph looked much neater and more structured if they were straight, so the horizon was a clear line across the photograph (demonstrated below left). As the photographs were taken at sunset, my natural light was diminishing, creating a low amount of noise just visible in some photographs. Although this could be viewed negatively, I quite liked the noise as it added to the texture of the sky. I increased the grain on some of my images to enhance the noise further (demonstrated below right).

I experimented briefly taking the colour out of my sunset photographs. I did this because I wanted to see whether, without their colour, you could still recognise the sunset in a photograph. I decided that it depends on individual photographs. In the photo above, the sky texture suggests a sunset because something needs to be lighting up the clouds to create the texture, however it is not obvious. In the photo below, the sunset is quite obvious because a large area of the sky is highlighted, suggesting the sun is present.

I have included two versions of this image (above) to show the great extent you can manipulate and change a photograph during editing. The image (left) includes a large amount of sky which makes objects such as the gate and turbine look rather small and unimportant. It is also quite a bit darker than the image (right), which I gave quite an orange tint to by highly increasing the temperature of the image. This brighter orange provided a much better contrast to the silhouetted gates, bushes and turbine in the photograph. If you compare the turbine in the two images, one is small and dark, whereas the other is bigger and much more eye catching. In the image (right) and the images below, I cropped the top of the image off, which made it much more focused as the interesting content in the photograph now took up much more of the frame. In the photographs below, I increased the black and decreased the white which made the colour really vivid and strong compared to what it had been previously. Increasing the black also eradicated the detail and highlight of the grass visible in the bottom of the image which meant your eyes were no longer drawn to multiple areas of the photograph.

In the photograph (above), I really liked the reflection of the trees in the water caused by the sunset. Increasing the clarity made this reflection very strong and clear. Increasing the saturation left a lovely blue tint on the water to contrast the reflection. I also increased the black in the photograph to diminish some of the detail that I did not want attention drawn to, such as the tree roots lining the bank.

The texture of the sky was brought out by far the best in these images. I loved the pink tint that the sun gave the clouds. The reflection of the light looked heavenly and very out of place compared to the dull darkness of the field and trees.

For my final image of the sunset shoot, I chose this photograph (left). I chose this because I liked that the sunset was not the only focus of the image. The photograph told a story of normal life, of a dog being walked, which showed that this beautiful phenomenon is just an element of our daily life that has become so normalised it is often overlooked. During editing, I increased the colour of the sky and decreased the greenery of the field (using selective editing on Lightroom). I wanted to balance the colours so that neither of them were too overwhelming or compelling so that the viewer took in the whole image rather a section.

FINAL SHOOT: PAINT (EXAM EDITS)

For my last shoot, I combined the two major elements of my 'Detail' project together: portraiture and lighting. I ordered neon paints and UV lights. My idea for this shoot is explained relatively well in the following article:

http://www.shutterbug.com/content/blacklight-photography-60s-technique-made-new#1ysDo5s2ZD9BHatT.97

however in practice, I found this shoot harder than expected because, although I had worked with quite low light intensity levels previously, the contents of my images were not as bright as the sparklers or traffic so I struggled to take images that were neither grainy or blurred.

I did a quick test run to become familiar with using the paint and to find the appropriate camera settings to suit the outcomes I had in mind. What I found was that, to bring out the model's facial features as well as the paint, I would need quite a high ISO. Because I was shooting people, I could not have my shutter speed too long as the photograph would be blurred (due to slight natural movement from the model). This meant I needed to compromise to find the optimum amount of light possible without capturing movement of the model. The images from this test run are shown below (unedited).

I have labelled the images above from 1-6 to make them easier to differentiate.

Image 1 was taken to show the effect of the UV light. In this image, the paint looks like normal paint as the flash has been fired (UV light only works in darkness). You can also clearly see the model's facial features as the flash has illuminated everything within the frame.

Image 2 is quite bright due to a longer than usual shutter speed and high ISO. I really did not like the orange, saturated tint present in the photograph as it would not be a great contrast/background to set off the multiple paint colours I planned to use in my shoot. Image 3 is another side profile photograph, however due to the darkness it is hard to differentiate it from Images 4 and 5. This was important for me to see as it showed that the darkness held a lot of control over the outcome of my images, so I had to spend time during the test run working out how to take back that control so that the darkness was not overpowering during my actual shoots.

Images 2 and 3 show the effect of ISO, as they have the same shutter speed and aperture, however Image 2 has a high ISO of 1600 and Image 3 has a low ISO of 200. This demonstrates why ISO was very important for this shoot. As my light intensity was very low, I needed to exploit use of ISO to enhance lighting and detail in my photographs.

Images 4 and 5 are very similar, however they have different shutter speeds and ISOs. This shows that there was more than one why to set up my camera to obtain the results I desired.

Image 6 is an example of maximum shutter speed. It has begun to capture the movement of the model with the shutter being open for 5 seconds, however this is not a great example because in practice, the camera picked up movement in much less time than 5 seconds (as quickly as one second).

Overall this test run was very useful in experimenting with the paint and lighting. It gave me a clearer idea of what I wanted to do in my actual shoots and allowed me to feel more prepared for an unexplored topic.

Another challenge I faced was the painting element to this shoot. I needed to create patterns and colours that were both appealing and varied. This shoot took many more hours than normal, due to the time and care I took in creating these designs. I attempted this shoot twice with two different models, and on both occasions I found that the images taken towards the end of the shoot were much better than the ones at the start, showing that I struggled to first engage myself in the shoot and take images that I believed to be of a good enough quality.

This shoot was edited in many different ways. For many of the photographs I increased the clarity and saturation to bring out the texture and colour of the paint. I over-exposed some of the photos during editing, bringing grain into the photo, to introduce interesting colours and faded detail of my model's face. On the other hand, I decreased the exposure and increased the blacks in some of my images to minimize any noise visible and make the paint's surroundings darker so it stood out even more. My cropping was quite varied as in some of the images the edges or backgrounds were quite dark. I left some images like this for effect, whereas others I cropped so that the majority of the image was taken up by the paint and the model. This made the photographs more colourful, brighter and busier, which contrasted nicely with the darker, more simplistic images. My favourite editing style for this shoot was the black and white photographs. For these, I eradicated the saturation and increased the clarity and highlights to create a strong contrast between the whites and blacks in the photo, and in particular the brightness of the model's face and darkness of the background.

My 'Paint' shoots are shown separately below.

shutter speed 1/4 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 1600

shutter speed 1/4 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 200

shutter speed 1/10 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 1600

shutter speed 5 secs

aperture f/5.6 ISO 400

shutter speed 1/3 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 400

shutter speed 1/10 sec

aperture f/5.6 ISO 200

FINAL IMAGES (PRINTS)

As my final piece, I chose to print a selection of photographs from throughout my 'Detail' project. I did this because I was very pleased with the quality of all my work and representing it through a few of my favourite photographs felt very rewarding. The images I have chosen are shown below.