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Brief

 

Revisit one of the exercises on daylight, artificial light or studio light from Part Four (4.2, 4.3 or 4.4) and prepare it for formal assignment submission:

 

• Create a set of between six and ten finished images. For the images to work naturally as a series there should be a linking theme, for instance a subject, or a particular period of time.

• Include annotated contact sheets of all of the photographs that you’ve shot for the exercise (see notes on the contact sheet in Part Three).

 

Assignment notes are an important part of every assignment. Begin your notes with an introduction outlining why you selected this particular exercise for the assignment, followed by a description of your ‘process’ (the series of steps you took to make the photographs). Reference at least one of the photographers mentioned in Part Four in your assignment notes, showing how their approach to light might link in to your own work. Conclude your notes with a personal reflection on how you’ve developed the exercise in order to meet the descriptors of the Creativity criteria.

 

Write 500–1,000 words.

• Include a link (or scanned pages) to Exercise 4.5 in your learning log for your tutor’s comments.

• Reflection

  Check your work against the assessment criteria for this course before you send it to your tutor. Make some notes in your learning log about how well you believe your work meets each criterion.

  Your tutor may take a while to get back to you so carry on with the course while you’re waiting.

  Reworking your assignment

  Following feedback from your tutor, you may wish to rework some of your assignment, especially if you plan to submit your work for formal assessment. If you do this, make sure you reflect on what you’ve done and why in your learning log.

  A4 – Research

  I’m going to do an indoor shoot for this assignment. I very rarely get the opportunity to try studio shots so will have ago with this question, plus as I’m a carer for both my parents my time is short, so a studio shoot seems like a good option.

  Free Tips on lighting techniques:        http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2015/09/14/free-portrait-lighting-guide-24-essential-studio-lighting-set-ups/

•  

Jeff Myer. (2015). Free Portrait Lighting Guide. Available: http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2015/09/14/free-portrait-lighting-guide-24-essential-studio-lighting-set-ups/. Last accessed 4 Feb 2016.

 

Using a white sculpture I made for my A Level back in the 80’s, pushing the ways of doing lighting to extremes and using as many techniques so that the final images differ from the standard seen on google searches.  This is how I’m going to tackle this idea.

The sculpture is white. First thing Im going to do is photograph it against a white background using my camera phone.  Professional photographers used to do this with polaroid cameras before shooting with film to see what the shot would be like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 –White sculpture against white background

2 – Blue plastic in front of camera lens, hint of blue

3 – White sculpture, reduced exposure in photoshop

 

The interesting thing about this assignment will be how to make the sculpture look interesting for between 6 and 10 images as a series.

 

I’ve looked at Jean Baptise-Huynh’s studio portraits/insects and meteorite images and wonder if I can use the same type of lighting for my sculpture.

 

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Jean%20Baptise-Huynh&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=jean%20baptise-huynh&sc=1-18&sp=-1&sk=

n/a. (varies). Jean Baptiste-Huynh. Available: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Jean%20Baptise-Huynh&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=jean%20baptise-huynh&sc=1-18&sp=-1&sk=. Last accessed 6 Feb 2016.

 

Loaded some presets into Lightroom which I’m trying to get used to and can hopefully experiment with this assignment.

 

Definition of the word light:

 

Light; words for light; the vocabulary of light; language of light

 

Photographers only know photography as much as they know light. The words that describe light are used to access its power, hardness or softness, shades, tones, hues and graduations. Every tiny flash of light has a description that applies to it. Every major light source has a name and a way to describe it. Talking the language of light is a way to be able to talk the language of photography. This vocabulary is not referring to the equipment, the techniques and actions of photography. It is the vocabulary of the description of light as we record it. To talk about light, understand it and describe it we need the proper words.

 

Below is a list of some of the adjectives of light. The descriptive words that will get you started on you journey to know light and to know how to talk about light.

 

1. Aglow: emitting light from within; less than bright; often seen as reflected; not direct; a source elsewhere;

2. Aureate: Golden, gold-coloured; Brilliant or splendid as gold; brilliantly golden;

3. Blinding: so bright as to obscure vision; rendered unable to see by the light;

4. Coruscating: glittering, sparkling, flashing;

5. Crepuscular: Of or pertaining to twilight; dim, semi-lit, at the edge of vision; indistinct;

6. Cast: re-emit, give off; diffuse; especially of a colour cast: to capture the colour from a surface; to re-broadcast diffuse light with a changed colour; redistribute with added colour; to scatter light and colour;

7. Dappled: mottled, spotted, patchy light; also, marks of this kind on a surface;

8. Dawn: break of day, bright, cockcrow, crack of dawn, dawning, day peep, daybreak, daylight, early bright, first light, light, morning, sunrise, sunup, blue hours; cool light;

9. Daylight ordinary, bright, equivalent to a colour temperature of 5000 degrees Kevlin; full sight; brightly lit; showing the quality of the daytime;

10. Diffused: to break up a beam; re-radiate without direction; split and scatter light; randomly distribute light in all directions; opposite of direct; soft and graduated; not hard light; soft light;

11. Diffused reflectance: the reflection of light where the light leaves the reflecting surface scattered; frosted reflection; opposite of specular reflection; light that is scattered by reflection; lacking in definition; image free; glowing; rescattered; diffused; soft light; soft reflection;

12. Dusk: dark, gloaming, gloom, night, nightfall, sundown, sunset, before twilight; twilight; dark; golden hour; golden light; glowing light;

13. Fluorescent: a substance or surface giving off light produced by another source of light; radiating or emanating light created by a light-source within;

14. Glancing: light which flashes, sparkles or gleams as it bounces off other surfaces; intermittent, randomly, re-issued from a surface it strikes;

15. Gleaming: shining, radiant, illuminating; emitting.

16. Glimmering: dimly, faintly, unsteady, wavering, shining or twinkling;

17. Glinting: shining with a brief, intermittent, flashing, glittering light;

18. Glistening: That which glistens; sparkles; glitters;

19. Glittering: flashing or sparkling; brilliantly radiating intermittently; a point source;

20. Gloaming: black, close, dark, decline, dim, dusk, duskiness, early black, eve, nightfall, sundown, sunset, twilight; last light;

21. Glossy: smoothly shiny, brightly shiny from the surface; reflective without detail; diffusing; re-radiating without the property of a mirror; A surface, not a source;

22. Golden: tinge with a gold hue; light with the depth of gold colour; representing the hue of gold; gold-coloured; gold reflection; golden radiance; precious; of sundown; golden hour; golden glow; lucent;

23. Hue: light with the appearance of a source without being the actual source; light that bounces from a source giving a colour cast; a type of light or colour; a shade of colour; a tint or degree of lightness; a variation of the true colour; a tone or resonance of one wavelength of a coloured light; a light graduation; a blend of light or light colour;

24. Illuminating: bright, shining; emitting as a source; re-radiating as a fluorescence; highlighted by a source;

25. Incandescent: glowing, gleaming, warm, emitting light; a source of light; brilliant

26. Iridescent: rainbow colored, blazing; lustrous; shining; of a bulb; radiant;

27. Lucent: bright, clear, shining; radiant; intense; dazzling; luminous; brilliant; ablaze;

28. Luminescent: shining by chemical or physiological means

29. Luminous: full of light, light emitting; bright, effulgent, fluorescent, phosphorescent, radiant; a source of light; bright, blazing, incandescent;

30. Lustrous: smooth, evenly lit; also, brilliant; luminous; glowing; also dazzling;

31. Mottled: dappled, spotty, patchy, or blotched; characterized by spots, streaks, or patches; especially when of different colours;

32. Opaque: non-transmitting of light; blocking light; light stop; stopped; stopped down;

33. Opalescent: iridescent; the quality of opal; diffused, glowing; transmitted through a diffusion medium; many-coloured; pearly; prismatic; rainbow-like; shimmering;

34. Penetrating: harsh, burning, blazing, strong, etching; hard light, strong light; hard shadows cast; harsh lines; defined light; beams, powerful, direct;

35. Penumbra/penumbral: partially shaded or conceal; darkened, diminished, dimming, of or pertaining to extinguishment, obliteration of a light, waning, occultation, shading, shrouded, veiled

36. Phosphorescent: continuing to glow; persistent light after the source is gone;

37. Prismatic: brilliant, or resembling colors formed by passing light through a prism; opalescent; light splitting; colour splitting; separation of colour and hue; tonal blending of colours;

38. Radiant: glowing, or radiating light; possessing the ability to push out light as if from a source, or actually constituting a source; emitting from; emanating from;

39. Resplendent: brilliant, glowing, precious; shining brilliantly;

40. Scattered/scattering: re-radiated; distributed/reflected in various random directions; diffused, diffuse, dispersed; tending toward softer light; graduated; deviating from a beam to various non-uniform trajectories;

41. Scintillating: sparking, wavering, twinkling or sparkling; also, brilliant, glazing, regularly varying;

42. Shimmering: soft or wavering light or reflection; regularly varying in short periods; glowing in a wavering fashion;

43. Spectral: as if from a spectrum; a range of colors of the spectrum; ghostly, ghoulish, glowing; glimmering;

44. Specular: mirror-like reflection of light; reflecting detail; angle of incidence equals the angle of reflectance; reflected in a tightly controlled direction or trajectory; opposite of diffused reflection; surface reflectance of light exhibiting the image of the light striking the surface;

45. Sunlight: having the properties of, or actually being within the direct light of the sun; having a the cast of the suns colour; sunny; warm; summery; hot; intense; direct, hard, sharp; penetrating, unforgiving;

46. Translucent: diffused, or transparent; allows light, but not sight to pass through; objects that allow partial transmission of light emitted as diffused or scattered light; exiting light appears to glow and may have a cast depending on the material and its base colour;

47. Tungsten: a metal used for wire in incandescent electric bulbs; household tungsten lights tend to emit a strong red/yellow cast; reddish/yellow light; home lights; homely;

48. Twilight: between day and night; dark; almost dark; blue; afterglow, afterlight, crepuscular light, decline, dimness, dusk, early evening, end, evening, gloaming, half-light, night, nightfall, sundown, sunset; after the golden hourn/a.

 

(2016). Light – words for light. Available: http://www.photokonnexion.com/definition-light-words-for-light-the-vocabulary-of-light/. Last accessed 4 Feb 2016.

 

My idea is to pick 6 - 10 of the above words and try to use them as different ways to light my sculpture. Here are the contact sheets:

 

This is a plan of the lighting set-up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the description words I have chosen:    

 

Dappled– This was shot through a door with security glass, which obscures the sculpture and forces the light in difference directions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dawn – I shot this in a dark room with a small torch on the right side simulating the sun coming up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opaque – This was shot through mesh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossy– I could only think to shoot through cling film to make the surface shiny.  I could have used Vaseline but it would have spoilt the sculpture and I wanted to keep it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden – The yellow was an acetate sheet, to give the sculpture a golden glow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blinding– I put the light source behind the sculpture, under exposed it and then forced the brightness in Photoshop, so it makes you squint as its so bright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This wasn’t my favourite assignment.  It took me a while to decide how to go about it and experiment with backgrounds.  I decided to use words to describe different types of lighting techniques and find ways of using the image to describe the words.

Also between shoots I had to deal with various new illnesses from my parents and I totally lost my way with this assignment.  It was as if, if it could have gone wrong it did, so rather than try and improve it, I am just going to submit it and move on.

Starting off  – used my Lumix GX7 to do some basic images of the sculpture as test shots.  This gave me scope to try different lighting techniques.  Doing some research on studio lighting I came across Bill Brandts – nudes on a beach series and thought how similar the nude/sculpture looked.  I did some more basic lighting techniques to try and mirror the light of Brandt’s nudes, but using indoor lighting to mimic sunlight and outdoors was never going to be identical.

So I  did some research on the word ‘lighting’ and came across this list of words and came up with the idea of trying to describe a type of lighting through a word/image.  Most of them work, I would like to redo the Glossy one as the cling film doesn’t quite do it for me and wish the lighting on Dappled was a bit brighter.

Have I been imaginative enough in this assignment?  Using the words to get separate images of lighting is quite imaginative.  It shows I can adapt a project and expand it to my needs.

I experimented with different techniques by using research and different types of light.  Some of my images look a bit flat as I have shot through things such as mesh/glass.

 

Scanned pages from Exercise 4.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ernst%20haas%20flowers&qs=AS&form=QBIRMH&pq=ernst%20haas&sc=8-10&sp=7&sk=AS6

unknown. (Varies). Ernst Haas – Flowers. Available: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ernst%20haas%20flowers&qs=AS&form=QBIRMH&pq=ernst%20haas&sc=8-10&sp=7&sk=AS6. Last accessed 4 March 2016.

 

Ernst Haas understood how to light objects to make them appear almost abstract.  His flower images influenced this  assignment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I was updating my website I used a paper journal for this assignment and most of the exercises.  It will be updated as soon as I scan pages in and redo them.  I was hoping to do a flip book for these but my pages are interactive and the only way I can think of doing this is to film it while lifting parts on the pages and look under them and open them out.  This has been more enjoyable than doing it online in wordpress as I have really been able to let my imagination run and experiment with pictures, cutting them up adding to them which isn’t easy to do on Photoshop, I find the ideas flow much better if you are free to do them like this.