For lighting my bottle, I originally was planning on using a Snoot light and was going to shoot my bottle in the studio at college. I had a couple test shots in the studio, the first try was using a miniature version of the Jack Daniels bottle I had chosen, but later went back with the bigger version and tried shooting.
Mini Jack Daniel Bottle – Practise
The first few images are from when I was trying out the miniature bottle. Lighting this was easy, but it was much harder trying to control the light as most of the time the entire bottle was getting lit up by the light.
I used a snoot light on a medium power for these shots, most were lit from the left side, but I did move the light around but the only change was the direction of shadow. The bottle DID light well, it was just harder to control the power of light and the brightness.
As you can see, I did try and illuminate different sections of the photo with then intent of merging them all together in Photoshop. But again, I ended up purchasing a larger bottle to use as it would be easier to control the lights.
Large Jack Daniel Bottle – Practise
The first shoot I did with the bottle was in the studio. I again used a snoot light to light up my bottle as I liked the more controlled
For this task, I had to identify and research markets for, and uses of, DSLR video by photographers. How could I and other photographers use video to increase our skill set and employability?
This could include : Photojournalism, Social, Creative, Advertising, Music/Bands work, or any other markets.
– Having the ability to shoot video as well as photography will give you the ability to have multiple careers, be more employable, show that you have the ability to change when needed.
Music/Bands
In the world of live music, most bands will have their own photographer that travel around with them on most tours etc, some smaller/lesser known bands will use smaller photographers who are trying to break into the “band photography” scene, but, what is becoming an uprise within the music community is bands having a videographer as well, as many bands have started to create montage videos of a certain concert, or even videos from their entire tour.
Learning how to take simple video with audio is a great skill to have when wanting to break into the music scene as videos have a more “personal” feel to them, as bands can create “Tour Footage” videos and post to different social media sites, such as YouTube or Instagram.
Having the ability to both film and photograph a concert is a great skillset to have, as bands/singers are more likely to hire you as their photographer at a concert over someone who can only take pictures as they want more “high quality” video and sound of concerts to use in future projects.
Social – Wedding’s
Having a good photographer at your wedding was all the hype with brides, and it still is! People will pay hundreds if not thousands to have a photographer at their wedding to capture that one special day.
Why is having the ability to take good film footage a great thing to put on your website if you’re a wedding photographer? Well, more and more couples are paying to have someone who can film their special day as well. A film will capture more emotion, moments and personality than a photo would at a wedding, especially when edited right. So if a couple see that you’re a videographer as well, you are more likely to be hired as their photographer/videographer.
Having the ability to both video and photograph a wedding will make you more desirable to couples on the look out for a photographer as it shows you are more open.
For this task I had to research and present my findings on different moving image techniques.
First, I had to identify, download and save a minimum of three moving image files. These had to illustrate different techniques and be from different sources. The 3 i chose were:
Next up, I had to evaluate the image files and justify the choices that were made throughout each clip, whilst making sure to reference the reseach undertaken. (this research could include: DSLR video sequences for advertising, fashion, documentary, social, corporate, creative/artistic, music videos) I may also research: sound, editing, filters and post production techniques, as these may help inform my own moving image work
We Are – Hollywood Undead (music video)
-The video is quite long but I analysed all of it, taking notes on lighting, sound and film techniques that were frequently used within it, the main techniques I wanted to talk about all happen quite quickly at the start of the video, but do repeat throughout-
First of all, at the start of the video the transitions appear to be quite quick and “messy”, but the scenes actually change with the beat of the song. I quite like this technique being used because it pulls the viewer in and wanting to know more about each of the scene being shown, and making them change with the music is a lot more pleasant than just having them change randomly and out of time.
A thing I wanted to write about quickly is how in the scene with the man and a gun, the gun fires when the beat hits and the man starts singing, I like this technique as it is a good film way to transition from an instrumental intro to the main singing. (0:17)
A film technique that is used quite often throughout the video is slow planning. The first time we properly see this is at the start as the camera pans over polaroid photos of all the members of the band, this is a good way to sort of showing/introduce the people who will be “starring” in the video. We see this technique being used throughout different scene in the video, such as at 1:50 where the camera pans over to a guy sitting in a church, illuminated only by a bright light coming in through the church window.
Another camera technique used a lot is making the foreground go in and out of focus. We first see this being used at 0:08 where the mask is being pulled in and out of focus, it is repeated throughout the video in a variety of different scene cause a feeling of mystery and a sort of uneasy feeling. Another technique similar to this is having the foreground being out of focus and the background being in focus, this is shown at 0:11 with the gate being out of focus, the man being in focus, helps draw the viewers eyes to the man on the stairs and gives off a sense of him being trapped in his own mind or something.
A lighting style I like is when the background is fairly lit, but all we see is the silhouette of a man walking in the dark, towards the light (0:12), we then see him in the light, the background is now in the dark. The lighting in general throughout this music video is similar to this, very dark and moody, but there’s still those moments of light, whether the moments that are lit are bad or good, that depends on what story is being played.
I like how the lighting remains the same throughout the different scenes of the video, even though they were shot at different times and different locations as this helped keep the continuity and flow of the video.
The MV is good at showing the different “characters” and letting each story play out. Whoever is at the front of the main group at a certain point, is who is singing and who’s story is mainly playing throughout that part of the video.
Video content and sounds created by : Hollywood Undead
Jurassic Park – T-Rex Scene (film)
-Seeing as the clip is short, I will be analysing the full clip-
This scene was shot within a studio so the crew could control the weather conditions themselves. A technique that I don’t think I would have the ability to re-create in my own moving image video, is the ability to use both physically and CGI objects, I say this because one of the biggest techniques used within this clip, is that during wide-shot clips of the t-rex, they used a CGI t-rex, but for the up close and personal shots, they used a real, animatronic t-rex.
The best part about the clip, is that there wasn’t anything particularly spectacular about how the crew filmed it, but it was the way that Steven Spielberg planned everything out that made it as spectacular as it was.
Throughout the clip, the characters can been seen looking just off camera, the eyeline of the character help the transitions into the next clip, showing what the character is looking at. This is a technique Spielberg uses throughout all of the film as it helps the scenes flow and keeps the viewer involved in the film.
The lighting through out this clip remains the same and the colours remain the same throughout, this keeps the video looking continuous as if it was shot all in one take. The lighting is blue toned, and matches the colour of lightening, creating a rather dark, moody and cold feeling to the entire shot.
the rain adding to the fear as it helps create more dramatic scene, such as the very first shot of the girl within the car, rain streaming down the window as she looks out to see the T-Rex standing looking at them. The water effect also helps with the scene where the dinosaur pushes it’s head through the glass and all we here is the squeaking of the children’s hands and feet on the glass, trying to protect themselves, the audio of the glass adds to the tension as it keeps us on our toes as we don’t know if it will break or not.
The continuous audio throughout the clip is mainly the children screaming out of fear, the sound of mud squelching under the car and feet of the dinosaur and also the sound of rain. The noises added in later in post production make this clip a lot more terrifying as they add depth to the shot, such as the mud squelching sounds and not to forget the t-rex roars.
When making a film or a short moving image, it is always best to try and keep the human moments. One good example of this within the clip, is when Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) has to wipe away the condensation/steam from the window, this helps keep the humanity within a scene that is very visual effects based.
The audio throughout the clip is loud, this adds to the chaos that is ensuing on the screen.
-Seeing as this video is over an hour long, I will only be using the first few minutes of it to write about the techniques used throughout the whole video-
I will be analysing the first 3 minutes roughly of this video as it contains a few different techniques I could consider for my own moving image project.
The video starts of with a black screen as soft piano music starts playing, it then transitions to 2 short clips of the sunset. I like this technique as it sets the tone for the rest of the video. Whilst the sunset is still showing, different background noises begin and the clip then cuts to an antique pocket watch ticking away and the video begins, I like that the music is still softly playing in the background whilst the actual audio is playing too. The theme is warm and I feel like that during post production, she has applied a filter or LUT to the video to ensure the colour theme stays the same throughout the whole video.
We then begin to get different panoramic, slow-motion clips of different foods, which help set the scene of a café. I like this slow-motion, panoramic techniques as it is steady and focused well, this type of technique would be good for using in my own moving image for wanting to show certain things.
Then next part I want to write about is the cookie dough section. During this part we can hear the music, but it doesn’t over power the noise of the cookie dough being mixed together. She then uses layered sounds to create the noise of cookie dough in an oven. This technique of layering sounds is difficult to do, but the results are great when done well. I like how she has recorded completely different audio clips to make up for sounds that wouldn’t be achieved well if using just 1 microphone, this technique is used throughout the whole video for different items (such as when shes poking earring through a piece of fabric or using a wet wipe to wipe away dirt from our “ears” etc). This technique is used a lot in films as well to enhance or add sound to scene, such as a woman walking in high heels or the sound of walking on snow.
When the video cuts to her making jewellery, she uses more than 1 camera to allow the viewer to see different angles of what she is doing. This technique would be good for a moving image idea based around someone making something, or even if someone is being interviewed.
Piano music at start of video is : NirvanaVEVO by Chris Zabriskie
Using the footage between 2:17 – 3:29 in this clip from Paris, Texas. We had to comment and take down notes, considering how and when the audio was added.
This was practise for when we have to create our own short moving image.
Here I will be recording all work for the Theory section of the course. This includes:
Researching photographic characteristics of an image
Three images showing the effect of “Depth of Field“. (ex: f2.8, f8 and f22)
Three images showing the effect of “Shutter Speed“. (ex: 1/2 sec, 30th and 250th)
Three images showing the effect of lens “Focal Length“. (ex: wide angle 28mm, standard 50mm and long/telephoto 100mm+)
This blog will include all of the following:
Research Materials
Recce’s/Test Shots
Styling Ideas
Lighting Plans
Shoot Edits etc
OC2 : Research Photographic Characteristics of Images (Depth of Field, Aperture, & Exposure)
Task 1 : Depth of Field
Produce a series of three photographs showing the effect of ‘Depth of Field’. Use three different apertures to demonstrate this, for example: f2.8, f8 and f22. Set up your photograph and focus on a point near to you for all three shots, this will ensure that the focus remains constant during this project. Remember to alter ‘shutter speed to compensate for aperture change and keep ISO constant.
For my Depth of Field I knew I wanted to do something that was based on nature, so I began to research different photographs of Plants, Wildlife etc that had different depths of field.
I love the way flowers look when see in different depths of field, especially when used with a shallow depth and you can see the blurred specks of the different flowers in the background against 1 flower that’s the main subject.
The level of Aperture you take a photo at can greatly change the way your image looks, 1 image may look great with the aperture of f/1.8 e.g. A small flower macro shot, where as a different image with this same aperture e.g. A landscape or something that you want to get everything in sharp, won’t look as good. I love playing around with the different Aperture settings and seeing what looked the best.
Here are the results of my Theory OC2 – Task 1 : Depth of Field
As you can see, the wider I made the Aperture, the more blurred out the background became (this also lets in less light as the shutter gets smaller), the more narrow I made the Aperture, more of the background came into focus (this lets in more like as the shutter is getting bigger)
The lighting was all natural, this was taken back in September, so at the time of 2pm, the sun wasn’t as high in the sky but it was still good for making sure the flowers were lit nicely. I didn’t really have a lighting plan when taking this shot, the sun just hit them nicely.
I chose this image because I liked the illuminated patch on the right side of the image and I hoped that once I had selected and changed the background colour, this area would create a nice effect. The patchy sort of background would work well in my favour with this image as it creates a nice, different feel to the image.
After
HUE/SATURATION
COLOUR FILL
[these are with no other editing done to them, the only work that has been done was changing the background colour.]
I like both of these image as they make the model stand out a little more against the background. I decided to adjust the saturation level a tad on the Hue/Saturation background to make it more yellow, whereas the Colour Fill background is more diluted against the original light grey background.
It’s strange seeing how just the subtle change in the background colour can change the complete feel to an image. The bold yellow gives off a 70’s vibe, like something you’d see in a magazine in the 70’s. The more saturated brown/beige background gives of a more modern vibe and is something you would likely see in Vogue or something.
Final
I used the clone stamp to remove certain strands of hair that were sticking up, I also used it to remove a few small “imperfections” from the models face (I kept the freckles because I don’t class those as imperfections). I then used the dodge & burn action to brighten up areas around the eyes and under the neck that looked a little dark, as well as a couple of shadows and buttons on the suit.
Overall I am quite happy with how this image turned out. I think the yellow background against the light blue suit has a good contrast to it. As this is the first time I’ve tried doing this technique with a person, I am glad it turned out looking good!
-DISCLAIMER: The quality of the images isn’t the best because the are screenshots taken from Photoshop-
-Here I will be putting the first attempts of me practising different Photoshop techniques & tricks. The images may not be perfect (or good for that matter) but they are only practises. I’m not going to get good at these straight away as most of them are things I have never tried out before.
Smart Object
Before you start editing away at an image on Photoshop, it is best to turn it into a “Smart Object” first.
First, right-click on your Background layer.
Then when on the drop down menu, select the option “Convert to Smart Object“
Now your image will be a Smart Object, meaning you can work/edit without affecting the original image!
Now, you can create a copy of this!
To create a copy, you are going to want to Right-Click on the light grey areaof the current Smart Object.
When the drop down menu appears, click on the option “New Smart Object via Copy”
You will now have a version of the original that you can work on without losing any of the original image!
(If you double click on the Smart Object copy, it wil take you back to Camera Raw, where you can edit this image without fearing you’re going to mess up the original!)
Here is a video demonstrating:
Smart Object
Toned Black & White
USM (Un-Sharp Mask)
Dodge & Burn
2cm White Border
High Pass Sharpening
Image Saving (web page)
Converting Profile
Complementary Colours
Here I decided to try changing the background of one of my photos to a different colour for the first time. As you will see, it didn’t turn out the best but I still sort of like it!
First, you are going to want to open the image you want on Photoshop and then go to Windows —> Extension —> Adobe Colour Theme
This screen should then pop up:
Make sure the Colour Rule is set to Analogous .
Now, I went over to the Eye Dropper Tool and set its Sample Size to 31-31 Average. This will allow a more wide range of colours to be selected, as Photoshop will take all the coloured pixels within a 31-31 radius of the area you picked and make a adverage colour based on those pixels!
The selected part of the image is the colour I want the background colour to complement. For this image I chose the center colour of the Whisky because it is the main/only colour in the image:
This colour is now the colour I am going to be working with. Right now the colour I have selected is only available down here, in my active colours panel:
To get the colour into the Adobe Colour Themes pallet, select the Middle option (the 2 squares with an arrow pointing left) that says “Set Selected Colour From Active Colour.
Now, I’m going to click the main colour that is in the center of the strip of 5 colours and then change theColour Rule from being Analogous to being Complementary. This will now give me 2 new colours on the right hand side, these are the complementary colours:
For me, the complementary colour was this dark blue colour, which at first I was like “how on earth will this colour look nice as a background?” But later found out that it works really nice!
Now, I switched the Active Colours so that the foreground colour (the colour I had originally selected from the image) was now at the back.
Whilst in Adobe Colour Themes, I selected the colour I wanted as my new background, I chose the darker Blue shade that was right next to my Whisky colour.
I then clicked on the Right icon (2 squares the an arrow pointing right) that said “Click To Set Active Colour” and this set the other Active Colour to the Blue.
Here is where I had 2 options that I could do. I could either:
Layer —> New Fill Layer —> Solid Colour —> Change layer to Colour
OR
Layer —> New Adjustments Layer —> Hue/Saturation —> Click Colourize —> Make sure Hue is the same as on ACT —> You can change Saturation if you want
Either of those 2 options give a nice finish, I did them both because I knew I could always use the Eye in the Layers panel to hide whichever one I liked least.
-I was now finished with using ACT (Adobe Colour Themes) so I closed off of it-
I decided I wanted to use the Hue/Saturation layer for now, so using the Eye/Hide layer icon I hid the Solid Colour layer.
I then went to: Create New Layer —> Select —> Colour Range This is what popped up:
When this screen came up, I selected the Background with the small eye drop tool. This made sure only the Background would be Blue.
After, I selected the Eye drop tool that had the + sign next to it, this made sure it was almost purely the Background that was selected.
Once I had the Background seleted, I played around with the Fuzziness of the area. This allowed me to narrow down what parts of the area were going to be Blue, and what was going to be left normal.
The White areas are what was going to be turned Blue, as you can see, there is still some areas of the bottle that are White, I didn’t know how to change that so I shall try again next time!
When I clicked OK this is what my screen looked like:
(If the colours are Inverted, then click on the layer Mask and use CTRL + I, or just press Invert in the mask Properties. This will make the Background Blue and make the rest of the image it’s normal colour.)
Areas of the Background not coloured: Use WHITE brush to fix
Areas of the Foreground not coloured: Use BLACK brush to fix
Want to see what the finished image would look like with the Solid Colour background?
All you need to do is select the Layer Mask, and whilst holding ALT, drag the Mask down to the Solid Colour Mask. And boom, you can see what it would look like!
This was the image before I started doing any work to it. It’s not the best image, but this was just a practise run and I wanted to see how the techniques would work when applied to something that was Glass (something that was clear/transparent).
This is the image with the background set to the Colour Fill option:
The Colour Fill option for the background is the simplest one. It makes the background the exact colour you selected, which is good if you know the colour is the exact Saturation you want it to be! If not, then the Hue/Saturation method is more suited for you.
This is the image with the backgeound coloured by using the Hue/Saturation method. This allows you to be able to adjust the brightness of the background colour! I personally prefer theHue/Saturation method as it meant I could make the background a little bit darker without having to change the actual base colour.
As you could probably see, some of the Shadows and Highlights on the bottle use to be coloured in blue as well, this happened because I never adjusted the Fuzziness (how much of the image got coloured in blue) correctly. So I used the Black brush tool to remove the unwanted colour. I quite liked the Blue though in the shadows and highlights as I thought it added something different to the image!
Why does the colour Blue work well against the Orange Whisky?
Because Blue was the complementary colour to the Orange tone I picked from the bottle. Meaning the shade of Blue that was selected, was on the exact opposite side of the Colour Wheel to the Orange that was selected!
Here I can show you what I mean.
The dark Blue that I used as the Background was on the opposite ends of the colour wheel as the Orange that I had originally selected!
These are some examples of different lighting ideas that we have been trying out over the past few days.
Alongside each photograph is a rough diagram of what the lighting setup looked like at the time:
Rembrandt
This style of lighting is easy to recognise by the distinct triangle that forms underneath the models eye/on their cheek
The model was placed 6ft in front of the background (this was so I could get the cleanest looking background)
The key light was placed slightly in front of the model, and was pointing down at them
A reflector can be used to bounce the light onto the shadowed area, if you think the area is just a little too dark
Make sure you can still see the key lights in the both of the models eyes. (this will make sure the eyes are visible and don’t look like big dark holes)
Butterfly Lighting
this style of lighting is recognisable by the shadow that forms underneath the models nose when doing this lighting. It is in the shape of a butterfly.
The model was placed 6ft in front of the background (this was so I could get the cleanest looking background)
The key light was placed directly behind the photographer, pointing down at the model so that it cast the shadow of the nose down
Black boards can be placed at either side of the model if you want a dark edge to the model
Make sure you can still see the key lights in the both of the models eyes. (this will make sure the eyes are visible and don’t look like big dark holes)
For the shoot, I had to photograph an urban landscape that showed both it’s Historical and Modern Architecture (this had to be shot in landscape orientation). It had to be taken using the narrowest aperture my lens had to achieve a deep depth of field. I used a tripod and a wired remote trigger to avoid any camera shake. My ISO was set to 100 for all my shots. When selecting my location, I made sure that there was good contrast between the sky and the foreground so that neither over powered the other.
I made sure to set my camera to A.E.B (Auto Exposure Bracketing) mode to 2 stops, this was so that once the shutter button was pushed, the camera would take 3 different exposures: One was the original exposure, then one 2 stops over and the other 2 stops under (this was so we could capture details in both the highlights and the shadows).
Task 1 : Optimisation
Having selected my image, I used ACR to optimise my image. I made sure to take a screenshot of the finished product + the edit panel to show what I did to the image.
Task 2 : Basic Retouch in Photoshop
For this Basic Retouching task, I applied a “Creative Sharpening” with an Unsharp-Mask, I helped make certain areas stand out more by using a Dodge & Burn Action and using a Flatline Curve Action with a Layer’s Mask, I helped balance out the sky and the foreground.
After I was happy, I made sure to save my finished results as an un-flattened PSD. I then began to apply a 2cm white border, change the image size from 16bit to 8bit, using Image Size I resized the photo to 1920 pixels wide @ 300ppi, made sure to turn the colour space to sRGB. I then duplicated the background layer and applied a High Pass filter for Web presentation and flattened once I was happy.
Task 3 : Black & White
For this task, I had to return back to my original saved PSD version of my photograph. Using a Black & White adjustments layer + the target adjustments tool, I selectively enhanced my photograph by lightening and darkening certain colours/areas of the underlying colour layer. I used a Dodge & Burn Action to help further enhance definition to areas.
After I was happy I saved the image as an un-flattened PSD and repeated the process of border, size, colour space, High Pass and saving the flattened version.
Task 4 : Toned Black & White or Desaturated Colour Version
Retuning back to the original PSD of my image, I used a Gradient Map adjustment layer to apply a tone of my choice to the image, I chose a warm brown tone as I wanted my image to look older. I was then faced with 3 creative choices: Keep the image as a monochromatic (black & white version). Group the Gradient Map layer with the Black & White layer, then either change the Blending mode of this group to Luminosity to return to a colour version OR simply reduce the Opacity of the group to achieve a desaturated version.
When I had made my decision and was happy, I saved my image as an un-flattened PSD, and proceeded to follow the same steps of border, image size, High Pass, etc.
Inspiration for your photography doesn’t have to come from other photographers, just by watching your favourite shows, listening to music or even if you’re watching a film in the cinema with your friends at the weekend. inspiration can come from anything you like!
–i will be updating this throughout the next few months–
Things That Inspire Me:
S T R A N G E R T H I N G S – (screenshots from Season 3)
Director of Photography: TIM IVES
The TV show is set in the USA in the 1980s, and is about a groups of young friends that discover supernatural forces in their town and uncover government secrets. Throughout all 3 seasons of the show, the fashion remains one of my favourite things from the show and I would love to do a photoshoot with some of the fashion ideas from it. I love the bold colour choice used and I think they contrast well with each scene change. This also ties in with the way they change the tones depending on the screen, when a moment is happy or the characters are enjoying themselves, their clothing appears more bright and bubbly, but when there’s a dramatic or sad scene, the colours are dull and muted.
I love the outdoor moments in the show as well, each shot looks like it would be a great place for a photo shoot and it has given me alot of different ideas for trying to find locations for any photoshoots that are on location, such as at the beach on a windy/murky day or even trying to find abandoned buildings out in nature. They would all be create ideas for a location shoot.
Stray Kids
Stray Kids are a K-pop (Korean Pop) boy group. Their music videos have given me a lot of inspiration for photo ideas, such as the colour pallets and clothing ideas. The colour choices used throughout their music videos is well thought out, the clothing matches the colours and the mood going on in each of the scenes.
Katie’s Photography Workbook 