PHO5598: Assignment 2

The second assignment for my Lighting Techniques course is High Key vs. Low Key. Essentially light and photograph the same image in a high key (first photo) and low key (second photo) setup.

The first image was shot with a 24x32 soft box on the left and left of the subject and a 9x36 strip soft box directed on the background.

This second image was shot with a 24x32 soft box on the left of the image as the fill light and a grid spot light coming from the rear and right of the image as the main light.

 

I am also pretty pleased with these shots – I had them in my head for several days before the shoot itself and they actually came out similar to what I had intended.

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Motivation Monday - Kirsty Mitchell

I haven't done one of these for a while now and that is partly because I haven't had the time to sit down and write about someone (and their work), but also because I haven't been looking at too many other photographers' work lately. That being said, there is one UK-based photographer I have been following for quite some time now and I find her work to be absolutely amazing. I show Kirsty Mitchell's Flickr site and now her website to people in the office whenever she releases a new photo and I honestly can't get enough of her work. It is so original, creative and breathtakingly beautiful. Her work has gotten many new ideas flowing through my head like no one else recently. Warholian.com just finished a fantastic interview with her and I feel that is pretty much sums up everything I would want to say here so I strongly suggest you check it out and then give her work a look too. So amazing!!

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PHO5598: Assignment 1

The first assignment for my Lighting Techniques course was simply to light an inanimate object. My partner and I shot several objects but the following two are what I am submitting to the instructor. Both were shot on a black background (velour fabric for the first and paper for the second) and done with a 24x32 softbox on the left hand side as the fill light and a grid spotlight coming from the rear on the right side as the main light.

I am pretty happy with how they came out, but we will see what the instructor has to say about them.

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citrus dye

citrus dye
Originally uploaded by Stephanie Beach Photography

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Wedding Photos

The above photo of my sister-in-law was uploaded to Flickr along with others from her wedding to my brother back in September 2008. I hadn't finished them before now as every time I was in the mode to, the hard drive with the photos on it was nowhere near me (aka I had forgotten to bring it with me). I finally finished them and they are up for viewing. (Thanks to Dave for helping me with these photos during the actual wedding as I was part of the bridal party and had to be in some of the photos - at least that is what my family told me ;) )

On a similar note, I also finished the photos from Nico and Alison's wedding and they too are uploaded onto Flickr. Both sets can be found in my Wedding Collection.

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Balls

Some painted bowling balls at the Strange House in Safety Harbour, Florida.

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Nikon AS-15

I bought this one day before my second PHO5598 course as it is pretty much mandatory for completion of the course. This item itself isn’t essentially, but the ability to plug into the studio lights using a synch cord is and my camera (Nikon d80) doesn’t have that ability without this accessory.
I have however used this before as someone in a previous course had it and let me borrow it for our portrait assignment. The AS-15 is a simple accessory and not too expensive either, only $29.99 (plus taxes) at Henry’s. If you are interested in studio lighting and have an opportunity to use some nice lights, I would suggest picking one up, but check to make sure you need it first (aka make sure you camera doesn’t have this terminal on the camera itself).

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Bridal Excitement

Super excited Alison as she walked down the aisle. I really love the expression on her face.

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PHO5598

I have attended two sessions of my current Algonquin College course entitled Lighting Techniques and I absolutely love it so far! I have been looking forward to this course for some time now and it does not look like I am going to be disappointed whatsoever. Throughout the next few months I will obviously be learning lighting techniques, but I will be doing so both in and out of the studio and with both animate and inanimate objects. Last week and this upcoming week are for inanimate, non-metallic, non-glass objects. Then we move onto metallic then glass and then onto portraits (formal and environmental). There are some other categories that I can’t seem to remember right now but I am looking forward to all of them.

I put this course off as I wanted to ensure I got the most out of it and felt that other courses were essential to take prior to this one.

Algonquin’s website describes the course as:

"Students learn to use a variety of lighting techniques in regards to subject matter; desired effect are discussed and demonstrated. This course includes the use of electronic flash lighting equipment, lighting ratios, portrait lighting, product lighting, exposure determination using a studio flash meter, and a variety of specialized lighting techniques for studio and location photography."

I will of course be posting my assignments here as I complete them. All of our assignments have to be submitted in hardcopy – prints rather than electronic files, so that should be interesting too.

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