kalina
03-29-2010, 01:23 PM
I took pictures of myself in my workplace for one of my photography class assignments. Here are some details on what I did. The first pic is an ambient light pic. The second uses two flashes.
"For my assignment in Lighting for Editorial Photography, I had to cover my flash head with a hand-crafted snoot to create a spotlight effect. We were told to aim the spotlight to brighten mostly the main subject's face and we needed to do both indoor and outdoor scenes. Today I was in one of the server rooms I do work in and decided to make myself the subject of one of my photo sets. In order to capture the environment properly, I had to set my camera and flash units on manual control. I wanted great detail across the entire image and I wanted to capture the ambience of the environment, so I set the aperture to f/22 and the shutter speed to 1.6 seconds using my flash meter readings as a guide. If I were to use one of the automatic modes on my camera, the image would've looked like any of the thousands of snapshots you see where the subject is very bright and the background surrounding the subject is too dark. Some photographers exalt the virtues of using only ambient light, but an image captured that way can look too busy, as seen in the first image below. Contrary to what some people believe, flash can actually add depth and direct someone's eye to the most important parts of the image. Most people would leave the flash on the camera, but then the center of the image would be brighter than the edges and that is not what we want. We need to mount the flash on a light stand and control it using an infrared wireless commander unit. I aimed a second flash unit covered with a blue gel at the server rack to my left to add a bluish sheen to the silvers and blacks in the scene. Both flashes fired with the wireless commander. I repositioned the camera and flash units to get a better angle and reduce the distractions in the room, as shown in the second image below. The only drawback with this kind of self-photography is not being able to manually focus on exactly what you want. I had to estimate the focus on my face by using the keyboard as my focus point. The room was also unbearably chilly from the air conditioning. Unfortunately, the air coming out of the vents was so strong the camera was gently rocking back and forth on the stand much of the time. 1.6 seconds might not seem like a lot, but it is, especially when you have to freeze your pose long enough for the camera to capture it. The intent of this exercise is to show how professional-looking results can be achieved with the strategic use of portable light sources."
"For my assignment in Lighting for Editorial Photography, I had to cover my flash head with a hand-crafted snoot to create a spotlight effect. We were told to aim the spotlight to brighten mostly the main subject's face and we needed to do both indoor and outdoor scenes. Today I was in one of the server rooms I do work in and decided to make myself the subject of one of my photo sets. In order to capture the environment properly, I had to set my camera and flash units on manual control. I wanted great detail across the entire image and I wanted to capture the ambience of the environment, so I set the aperture to f/22 and the shutter speed to 1.6 seconds using my flash meter readings as a guide. If I were to use one of the automatic modes on my camera, the image would've looked like any of the thousands of snapshots you see where the subject is very bright and the background surrounding the subject is too dark. Some photographers exalt the virtues of using only ambient light, but an image captured that way can look too busy, as seen in the first image below. Contrary to what some people believe, flash can actually add depth and direct someone's eye to the most important parts of the image. Most people would leave the flash on the camera, but then the center of the image would be brighter than the edges and that is not what we want. We need to mount the flash on a light stand and control it using an infrared wireless commander unit. I aimed a second flash unit covered with a blue gel at the server rack to my left to add a bluish sheen to the silvers and blacks in the scene. Both flashes fired with the wireless commander. I repositioned the camera and flash units to get a better angle and reduce the distractions in the room, as shown in the second image below. The only drawback with this kind of self-photography is not being able to manually focus on exactly what you want. I had to estimate the focus on my face by using the keyboard as my focus point. The room was also unbearably chilly from the air conditioning. Unfortunately, the air coming out of the vents was so strong the camera was gently rocking back and forth on the stand much of the time. 1.6 seconds might not seem like a lot, but it is, especially when you have to freeze your pose long enough for the camera to capture it. The intent of this exercise is to show how professional-looking results can be achieved with the strategic use of portable light sources."