Assignment 5 : Applying techniques of illustration and narative

I chose the annual Ride to the wall (RTTW) http://www.rttw.org/ event for many reasons but only one counts. 2013 was the 6th year this had taken place and the RTTW charaty has raised a significant amount of money that goes towards the upkeep of the National Memorial Arbouretum, http://www.thenma.org.uk/. Bikers from many places travel to the memorial wall to pay thier respects to those who have fallen in conflict.

Front Page

Some of the riders heading to the NMA along the M6 toll. There are several start points around the country.

The Armed Forces Memorial Wall

Vistors from UK and Europe

Part of the memorial to those who have fallen

 

The Memorial Service

Military Police Memorial

RTTW founders Harley

Remembering the fallen

Closing page with no subtitle

 

Assignment 4

I thought for a long time about the subject for this assignment. I tend to read the assignment first so this was in my mind as I worked through the assignments. exercises. But what would make a good subject. Having looked a some excellent blogs by other student I was a little downbeat about my lack of inspiration.

It came to me while shopping one day, Pineapple, and to top it all they where on special offer. Rather than trying to assign two phots to each of the four themes of Shape, Form, Texture and Colour. I hope that the following eight photos address all of these points. Again my notes are pityifull, so details of each image may be sketchy.

1. 1/160sec, f13, ISO100, 24-15@70mm. Speedlite behind with an orange colour gel over the flash head.

2. 1/6sec, f2.8, ISO100, 100mm macro.

3. 1.0sec, f8, ISO100, -1 EV, 100mm macro.  Three small candle around the base but even at 6:45pm there was a fair amount of light coming through the adjacent door even with the lightweight curtain closed. This did act as a fill from the LH side.

4. 1.0sec, f8, ISO100,-2/3EV,  100mm macro. Lighting was a torch fitted with an LED bulb. I also place a sheet of card to the lefthand to try and reduce the effect of the window. See setup pic at the end.

5. 15sec, f8, ISO100, 0EV, 100mm macro. Lighting again torch but this time position changed to produce the shadow.

6. 2.0sec, f8, ISO100, -2/3EV, 100mm macro, close up detail, candle light.

7. 13sec, f16, IS)100, -2/3EV, 100mm macro, candle light. Close up detail

8.  1/5sec, f8, ISO100, 0EV, 100 macro. Torch light. Decided to convert this to BW to rely on the shapes and not the colour.

Setup shot

I have many other shots including a xmas pineapple tree with xmas lights , but  it did not work. Once I had decided what was to be my subject I was quite happy taking many pictures of a pineapple, using light sources that I would not of thougt about a few months ago,

Exercise: Shiny Surfaces

I failed in the construction of the cone from tracing paper. I had chosen the kettle as the subject and it was to large for the cone but I have posted the images just to show my failure. (side note I must clean the kettle next time LOL). I then followed this up with the stainless steel forks. This was interesting as it highlighted the difficulty of photographing shiny surfaces. Reflection of objects in the room including the photographer show in the surface. I have since watched some videos on-line. The extreme lengths that professional photographers go to to photograph shiny objects are amaizing.

1.  1/8sec, f5, ISO100. No diffusser.

2. 1/6sec, f5, ISO100, difusser held between light and subject.

3. 1/8sec, f5, ISO100, cone difusser around the subject – failure.

4. 0.8sec, f5, ISO100, direct lighting, the light is a little harsh in the curve of the fork.

5. 1.0sec, f5, ISO100, with diffuser, the light is softer in the curve.

Two more image of the forks set up differently.

6. 2.0sec, f8, ISO100, direct light.

7. 2.0sec, f8, ISO100, with difusser. Again the diffuser has smoothed the highlights of the lighting.

Exercise: Concentrating light

Strugling with time constraints I have taken this image from the set I did for my part4 assignment. I will give details for the setup on the assignment post. 0.8sec, f8, ISO100, -1EV, 100mm focal length.

Exercise: Contrast and shadow fill.

A confesion. Althougth I took notes during the shoot for this exercise, my notes now make no sense whatsoever. Therefore I have posted the following with out explanation. The images where taken on the 19th June. All 1/60sec, f16, ISO100, 50mm focal length, WB set to flash. The flash was positioned to the LH side, and the refectors positioned to the RH side.

Exercise: The lighting angle

This small carving of a pair of ducks seemed an ideal subject for this exercise. What to put it on though to take the photos. Again a carved object came to the rescue in the form of a wooden vase. Focal length was set as at 105mm for all images. All were taken on the dining room table with a piece of black velvet hanging to the rear, with black card covering the table. It interesting to see that the black card appears black/grey in some of the images the photo. There is a large patio door to the left of the setup, with lightweight white curtains draped across.

1. 1.3sec, f8, ISO100, -1 1/3EV compensation, WB daylight. This was taken as a “reference” shot. because the light source is large, 2.4m x 2.1m the ducks are illuminated over quite q lot of their surface. I still feel the ducks are over exposed even with -1 1/3EV applied.

2. 1/160sec, f22, ISO100, 0EV, WB flash set in camera. Flash positioned 90 degrees to the left. Quite strong side lighting, flash set at full power, no diffuser.

3. 1/160sec, f8 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Speedlite has softbox fitted. It shows because the soft box forms a larger light source some of the light spills on the opposite side of the ducks.

4. 1/160sec, f11 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Speedlite 45degrees to the left side of camera.

5. 1/160sec, f11 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Flash at 45degree rh side.

6.1/160sec, f11 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Flash 90degrees to the right of the camera position.

7.1/160sec, f22 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Flash behind subject. Image has been cropped to remove unwanted clutter.

8. 1/160sec, f11 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Flash to RH and high.

9. 1/1200sec, f16 ISO100, 0EV, WB set to flash. Flash directly overhead. Black slider adjusted in lightroom to remove unwanted background (dining table could be seen in the image). This has had the effect of allowing the over held light to bring out the relief of the carving in the highlight area, while darkening the lower portion of the image.

Exercise: Softening the light

These two images where taken on two seperate occasions.

1/160sec, f11, ISO100. speedlite directly above has producet very hard edged shadows of the tomatos and very distinct small/sharp highlights on the tomato skin.

1/160sec, f16, ISO100, speedlight above as before but shot through a softbox to diffuse the light. This has produced softer difused edge shadows the high lights are also diffused, and because the light is now presented as a larger souce the reflection is also larger. Also experimented with the water spray on this one.

Exercise: Outdoors at Night

I have delved into my catalouge again for this exercise. All images taken at the German market in Birmingham December 2012. All are hand held, ISO 1600 or 3200, f5.6 or f8, shutter speed varies between 1/4sec and 1/125sec, 24-105mm zoom lens. Most are at slower shutter speeds. I tend to have IS switched on on the lens. This has made me a bit lazy though, as I tend to forget about the shutter speed while using aperture priority. As it was winter all of these where taken late afternoon.

Exercise: Tungsten and fluorescent lighting

All images taken with the camera on a tripod and focal length of 28mm

First three the interior lighting was compact fluorescent light bulbs in the light fittings

1. 1/5sec f8, ISO 100, WB Auto – Camera has selected a colour temperature of 3750

This is a good representation of the scene, reflecting the true colours in the wall paper, lights and settee. It also shows how good the auto white balance is in this situation. Auto WB is only 50k different from image 2.But the exterior light WB shows a blue cast.

2. 1/5sec f8, ISO 100, WB Fluorescent – Camera has selected a colour temperature of 3800
see comments in No1 above.

3. 1/5sec f8, ISO 100, WB Daylight – 5500
The interior is very warm compared to the previous two images. But, the exterior is a more accurate rendition.

Second 3 the wall light was turned of and a tungsten bulb fitted

1.2.0sec, f8, ISO100, WB Auto – Camera has selected a colour temperature of 2850
This again shows a very similar colour temperature compared to that set in No.2

2.2.0sec, f8, ISO100, WB Tungsten – Camera has selected a colour temperature of 2500
A slightly warmer interior than 1, additionally the exterior is very blue (cool) as it is in No1.

3.2.0sec, f8, ISO100, WB Daylight – Camera has selected a colour temperature of 5500
As in the first set of images The interior is very yellow (warm) but the exterior is an more accurate rendition of the exterior.

It can be seen from these results that the correct overall white balance cannot be achieved with differing light sources in the image. On researching this, it would seem that professional interior shots are taken either with no daylight  in the image or with colour balanced interior lighting to match the natural daylight, or if the room is a set the (false) exterior lights can be the same as those used for the interior.

Exercise: Cloudy weather and rain, pt3

For this part we needed rain. Which I have tried to illustrate in various ways

1. 1/200sec, f4, ISO100, 105mm focal length. Although dull and perhaps uninspiring I feel that the circular shapes of the rain fall in the pond illustrate the presence of rain.

2. 1/15sec, f4, ISO1600, 45mm focal length. While returning home through the Breacon Beacons I saw this driving through one of the small towns. I instantly thought of this exercise. It was around 8.50pm and fortunately the road was quite deserted. There are several lamp posts to both the  left and right which I have kept out of the frame because I did not want the star burst effect of the lamps to take away from the reflected highlights in the wet road surface.

3. 1/500sec, f4, ISO100, 60mm focal length. Taken during the day for the light through the day exercise. I liked how the rain drops where back lit on the branch with the storm clouds over the land in the back ground. A large aperture was selected to maintain attention on the water drops and through the background out of focus.