This image was taken on a day out with family, at my grans. I thought this was a great shot mainly because of the composition of the toad stool and the viewpoint of the camera. this has been added in as one of my best.
Equipment used on all of my photo shoots
- DSLR Canon EOS 550D
- Tripod
- 2 Tungsten Lights (silhouettes, made it a lot easier to get the right exposure of light for these images)
- 3 Flash Lights ( i used flash for my pet portraits as the animals were moving alot and wanted the images to be sharp, also the exposure of light give the images have a softer tone to the fur of the animals)
- 5 in 1 Reflector
- Light meter
- Cable Release
- Sync lead
- White paper backdrops (i choose white as this enhance the colours of the animals fur and made the silhouette outlines more clear)
- Backdrop stands
- 50mm prime lens
- 18-55mm lens
Health and safety within my photo-shoots
Within my photo shoots health and safety plays a big part, making sure everyone able to work in an environment that is safe.
For each of my shoot i made sure that risk assessments are in place and everyone knows fire drills and all exits if needed.
Risk Assessment for pet portraits and silhouettes
When bringing models from outside of college i will let the college know who they are and where within the building they will be and for how long they are with me for.
My Japser James inspired work
This is my work that has be inspired by Jasper James!
This work needs a little more input as i don't think they are as good as they could be but overall i like the idea of them.
My Silhouettes
After looking at TJ Scott, Jasper James and other inspirations, I thought I would try some silhouettes in the studio. i choose a white background as this would make it easier the see the outline of the object/model!
At first I wanted to try some still life, as I find this to be something I find easy. This helped when trying to find the right distance away and to get the right amount of light on the background as models will move or want to move.
Once I got the lighting how I wanted and the right distance away to get the subject all black, it became easier to take the photos if i kept in mind the distance. After doing some portraits, my model needed a cigarette break so I took these, which I feel work great as she is relaxed and in a natural state. which looks nice and is easy to the eye as she isn't tense as that would be easily noticeable.
Going on my animal portrait theme, I thought I would just try some with my models dog and I got these! I am really happy as its hard enough taking a dogs portrait let alone a silhouette. the dogs was naturally there I moved around the animal, so the dog was more relaxed and not stressed which shows in these images of the stages of having a treat.
Sitting, Waiting, Having the treat!
To get the perfect focus always use manual focus as auto focus will not focus on the outline but the detail of the animal which in silhouettes can not be seen.
I feel each set of photos taken over 3 different days and shoots, I think these are the best ones from each.
Date:20/4/14
Silhouette Inspiration
Attraction (Britain's got talent Winners)
Attraction are a Hungarian shadow theatre group from Budapest, Hungary.
For their Britain's Got Talent auditions, they acted out a story of a couple who meet under a bridge, fall in love, marry, and have a child. The father goes off to war, shortly after their baby is born, and dies tragically. The piece ends with an image of the mother and daughter standing beside his tombstone.
Attractions shows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvQBUccxBr4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHZSLeY8CWc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6IQscmwgsA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAGG4l9LsXg
Research on how to take a silhouette
I have been looking at some youtube tutorials on how to take silhouettes. After looking at some I feel confident to try it for myself. the main key elements I have to remember it to keep the background lit up and if I want it pure white I will have to use more than one light and will have to get them even on the background. i have to keep my model a distance away from the lights so no light from the light can shine on my model.
This video told simply how to get a silhouette by what lights need to be on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqUQvKCoqeU
This video told me more in-depth on studio and location silhouettes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep7vTsAq4Wk
Date:17/4/14
Silhouettes
Jasper James
City Silhouettes
Looking at that other photographers that do silhouettes, I came across Jasper James, and how he puts city landscapes with portrait silhouettes. I found this to be very interesting and a creative way of using silhouettes. Using city landscapes from where the model comes from I find it adds a personal touch and leaves a insight into the model.
Silhouettes
T J Scott
Looking at TJ Scott's work, I find the silhouettes a interesting, creative and different way to express your inspiration. I like how he has used different light sources for his images to get different moods with the landscapes.
This has given me some ideas and inspiration to try to do some silhouettes in the studio
My try at using textures
These are just some of the images I took today, it did them in black and white as the colour distracts you from the main focus which is the texture. I wanted to focus on man made textures but also natural ones too. Composition was key getting a great image of texture as if the frame was only half full with texture it wouldn't be nice the to viewers eye and you would get bored quick of looking at it, but I focused on trying to fill the frame as much as possible, so the eyes and mind had to think about what it was seeing and what the object was. These are the four main ones I might use within my final 12.
Date:1/4/14
Texture
Adrienne Adams
Her works are mainly landscapes and close ups on textures, I wanted to try something different expand on what I do, when looking at adrienne's work I noticed at it was mostly all natural material and I want to try man-made object and natural.
Date:20/3/14
Using Flash for pet portraits
when using flash in my shoots, at first I found it it hard to sync up the flash with my camera using the sync lead, after some playing around I realise to lead was broken and I changed it for a new one, I had two flash lights to light up the background and one just for the animals themselves. On the light meter the background was reading at f11 and the animals at f8 so the camera was set at f8 so the background was blown out
My work before and after edit
After Before
After Before
As you can see these are two images that I am thinking about using for finals, within both images I have edited the contrast and a little of the background most of the editing has been done in camera removing unwanted mark on the background and object too also a little crop to make thing in per portion. To edit these images I used photoshop CS6 and Lightroom 5 as these give a wide range of tools to use to edit the images.
Tim Flach
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Tim Flach has been a massive inspiration to me on photographing horse and dogs as part of this project i want to explore more into photographing animals and as these are my two favourite animals, i find the way he uses light the get to colouring of the animal to show, the way he gets the body tone of the horses give the horse an elegance and grace within each image.
Health and safety
When doing a photo shoot with animals, I feel health and safety is important not just for people, but for the animals themselves.
When bring animals into the studio it key to remember that this is a new place for them. they will act differently from when they are at home. when I photograph an animals I prefer to bring the studio to them so they know the surroundings.
things that are a risk:
- Wires, wires from lighting can be tripped over easily (to prevent this tape over the wires to the floor this stops feet getting caught up and people tripping over)
- lights getting hot, the light will get hot over time and be easily knocked over when a animal is spooked, (place the head of the light over one of the leg so if it does get knocked over it wont head towards the subject and burn them)
Date: 3/12/13
These photos here are from a project i did on my extended diploma course, the aim of the project was to focus on negative space and body parts of the dogs, the end result would be book of 14 prints, 2 of each dog one negative space the other a body part, for my personal best i would like to extend on this project and further the images and technical skill.
Date: 29/11/13
For this project i have selected a theme of animal portraits, i have done work on this theme before, but this time i want to for further on this subject.
Date:10/11/13
Update, today was about going around collecting names of people who I could use as models and more importantly animals at have the basic training as this is of sort of theme I want to go by and I might just push myself out of the comfort soon and try something I know I need to work on.
Date:06/11/13
This project is all about my personal work outside of uni, about my personal best!
I don't know what the final outcomes will be but for now, I'll just take photos.
These are photos I did for a warm up project at the beginning of the uni year.
The project theme was places in Plymouth from my childhood.
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