Painting with Light

Our group went out to Stephens Lake Park and made a photo illustration with the sculptures on the hill at the park. We went for a ghostly and mysterious angle when lighting the scene. We popped a flash with a red gel on it on each of the sculptures and had Lori shine a flashlight on her face at the center of the frame, and then walk over behind two of the pillars and shine the flashlight on her face again. We also had me behind Lori in the center holding candles and had Jon shine a flashlight on my hands to show the hands holding the candles but keep me out of the frame.

The mysterious sculptures located on a hill at Stephens Lake Park are the result of a ceramics art project that has become a staple of the park. Many local residents are often confused by its presence at first glance and theorize that it may be a meeting spot for cults, while others assume its only purpose is to serve as an authentic decoration.

And here's a very general lighting diagram of how we did it

Multiple Flash

For this assignment me and Shengze went to the skate park to shoot. I love doing sports photography so I knew I'd enjoy shooting skateboarding too. For my set up we had one flash a little to the left of the camera sitting on the ground pointing up towards where I thought the skater would jump and the other flash was held by Shengze and she was positioned right in front of where the skater would land. It worked well and we played around with our lighting ratios a bit, but ended up making them equal and got the best results.

Jonathan Jolley, 16, skateboards at the skate park at Cosmo Park on Wednesday evening. A sophomore at Hickman, Jolley says he comes to the skate park "just about every day unless it's over 100 degrees or less than 30."

              
                 

And here's the lighting diagram:

Audio Slide Show Research

Here is the link to an audio slide show that I found to be very moving and powerful. It's from the Miami Herald and its a journalist talking about his experience covering the earthquake in Haiti. The images are all strong and often intense shots that are hard to look at. I thought this was put together very well and was a good multimedia story.


The Miami Herald in Haiti: Carl Juste

Video Interview

I shot and edited a video interview of Dak talking about his favorite photo. I used final cut express to edit

Classmate Video Interview from Ally Appelbaum on Vimeo.

Fill/Balance

I thought this was a fun assignment to do and felt it was slightly easier to execute then some of the others we've done...or maybe I'm just getting more used to using my flash, not really sure which. I did have a hard time figuring out where the best place to aim the flash was to get the right amount of fill and I changed the flash compensation a lot to see how it affected the photo.
I went to shoot one of the people who passes out the add sheet every Wednesday and here's my select from that:

I feel like the scene might be a little overexposed but this was the one I liked best in terms of how his face was lit.

Here's my lighting diagram for it: 

I also liked my balancing light photos for this assignment, but I really struggled with keeping the flash out of the window, because there was no surface I could bounce the flash off.

Color Correction

I thought this assignment was pretty fun to do. I had a lot of trouble figuring out where to photograph but once I figured it out I had a good time with it. It was really cool seeing the differences in the color of the photos after gelling the flash.

I went to the bookstore on 9th for the tungsten portion of this assignment. I figured it'd be good lighting and that the content would be constant enough. I enjoyed taking photos of the girl who was working there. I like this one because of the stack of books and the concentration on her face.


Here's my lighting diagram showing how I did it.

Single Flash

For this assignment I went to the Central Missouri Humane Society and followed one of the volunteers as she went about her shift there. It was a lot of fun getting photos of her interacting with the animals, but also challenging. Both selects I chose came from her playing with her favorite dog there that was about to be adopted by someone.
This was my use of direct flash. I thought it conveyed the moment well and helped with the mood of the photograph. 

               Elizabeth Kiesewetter, junior at MU, holds her favorite dog at the Central Missouri Humane Society after learning someone was considering adopting it. Kiesewetter volunteers at the Humane Society every week and plays with the animals.

This is my bounce flash, I thought the more light and less shadows in this one helped convey the playful and lighthearted mood.

    "It's good that she's getting adopted and getting a home, but it's also sad because I won't see her anymore," Kiesewetter says.


Another demonstration of my awesome drawing skills...

Metal and Glass

I chose to do glass for this assignment. It was difficult thinking of something to come up with to photograph but after brainstorming with Nick we came up with this idea of putting organic foods that you wouldn't normally blend, in a blender trying to show how many people are starting to move towards choosing organic food. I really enjoyed lighting glass, it was fun playing around with the lights to make it work.

             In order to light what was in the blender, we positioned a light directly over the contents using the boom and put a snoot on the light to make it tight. We also lit the background from behind and we positioned a light beneath the blender to create a more even background of white.

Studio Portrait

While talking with Ellen about this assignment and getting to know her, she mentioned that she was generally a pretty calm and mellow person, but that she can also be crazy and loud. I decided to portray her in both of these ways using the different light set ups.

This portrait of Ellen was meant to portray her as crazy and fun.
I chose to make the background lighting crazy tie-dye colored to get the mood I was looking for. I positioned two lights on the background, each with two different colored gels in them, so I had a total of four different colors on the background. I really like how my background turned out. I also lit Ellen with a soft box directly in front of her.

This portrait was meant to show the more pensive and artsy side of Ellen. She's shown here with her sketch book and I liked the idea of her working. When shown the use of side lighting examples in class I was really drawn to this type of light so I was hoping I'd get a chance to do it for this assignment. I lit Ellen with a spotlight from the side and put a grid on it to keep the background dark. I also used a reflector to eliminate some of the shadows on her face, but it didn't work quite as well as I was hoping.

                          And this is my lame attempt of sketching a lighting diagram. I was never very good at drawing...

Portrait Research

I feel like this portrait of Humphrey Bogart by George Hurrell is overall a fantastic photograph with great use of lighting. It appears to me that the key light for the photograph was a top light with the help of a fill light coming from the side to help show his eyes. I also think there is a semi back light because of the separation of his hat from the background. I feel like the lighting in this photograph really adds to the mood and demonstrates Bogart's character. The sly smile on his face also adds to the photograph making him look very smooth. Though a simple portrait, I feel it is effective and an excellent example of good portrait lighting.