Author Archives: Maria.Plotkina@stonybrook.edu

Comments on last two projects

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I veered a little bit away from my initial plan for Project 3, as I was getting a little bored messing with just the colored lights. Instead, I decided to see how just one small pop of color could change the mood or association of a photo. I had my model wear white and used high-key lighting, and switched out various colored hair accessories throughout the shoot. The background was a little hard to work with, as it was just the white board behind all the rollpaper, but some cropping and editing make it okay.

I did stick with my original subject matter for the Final Project, but I did not end up using film. I did actually shoot about half a roll of film for it, but I was waiting to get some specific shots and was not sure if I would have the time to finish shooting AND get in the darkroom to develop the film and make prints. So, I switched over to digital and tried to create a similar effect to the 3200 speed film by messing with the photos a little bit during editing, through the blur and sharpen tools and the unsharp mask to create that bit of gritty noise I wanted from the film.

Color + Final Project Proposals

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Since I accidentally already incorporated color into my Deliberate Lighting project, I am simply going to build on my previous work for the Deliberate Color project. I’m going to use the same technique of draping fabric over the studio lights, but rather than doing so randomly to see what kind of effect can be achieved, I will choose certain colors to represent emotions and ask my model to portray those emotions. I know that color associations can be subjective, but I will try my best to pick colors that I feel enhance the mood of each photo. Right now, I’m thinking a muted blue or green for depressed, orange for anxious, red for angry, purple for happy, and others along those lines.

I don’t have a fully planned idea for my final project, but I know what theme I want to portray. I’m graduating Stony Brook in May after living here for 4 years. Even before SBU, I’ve lived in the NYC area almost my whole life. Over the summer, I’ll be moving 1200 miles away to New Orleans for graduate school, and I want my project to focus on the process of leaving, and on the end of things. I’m likely going to shoot analog with 3200 speed film, which will give my photos that extra bit of noise that could enhance the idea of things fading away or dissolving. I need to come up with a list of exactly what I want to shoot, but I’m thinking along the lines of a train that is leaving, empty bottles after a party, a stack of labeled moving boxes, and things like that. I’ll have to be careful not to make the photos too sad or lonely, as I don’t want the theme to be loneliness, but rather endings and then, hopefully, new beginnings. I think that shooting them all with the same kind of film will help the series be cohesive.

I like the slight blur effect. By Jaren from saidlikekaren.com

This is an example of something shot with 3200 speed film (by Tim Layton). I like the noise effect and the ease of shooting in darker environments.

 

 

Project 1 and Project 2 updates

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Project 1 is all finished (after a lot of panic and freaking out thanks to broken darkroom vents and the like)! I helped install it for the URECA show today so it’s currently hanging at the SAC Gallery. When the show opens on Monday I’ll get in there to take a picture of the whole set up. It’s 12 images total displayed as a 3×4 grid on the wall. I used L-shaped exhibition pins to attach all the individual prints to the wall, so it’s a little bit 3-dimensional since the prints are not quite flush with the wall. I’m really excited about how it looks.

Today I had the studio reserved and got in to do Project 2. I used two lights, one with the softbox on the left side of my model (my friend Amanda) and another one that I moved around between her right side and behind her back to create a few different effects. I brought a bunch of translucent fabrics (scarves and some dresses) with me and played around with draping those over the lights. It actually worked pretty well! The fabric really changed the color of the lights and I was able to capture a bunch of different moods. I also used my macro lens as it gave me a more interesting effect when I was able to get up close to her face and hair and kept the lights themselves out of the frame. I’m going to upload and edit all of them tomorrow!

 

Project 2 Inspiration

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http://www.sekonic.com/whatisyourspecialty/photographer/articles/shooting-through-cloth.aspx

I found this link while looking around online for suggestions on shooting with the use of fabric. Some of the hints are really interesting and the photographer (Christopher Grey) has some example shots that look similar to what I was imagining in my head:

He’s got some really interesting light effects in these, and explanations of how he achieved them on his post. I’m drawn to the second one in particular. I think that for Project 2, I’m definitely going to go with my diffusing light through fabric/translucent materials idea. I want to see if I can capture dramatically different moods (depression, anger, happiness, etc) in portraiture using the diffused and (hopefully) colored and patterned light I’ll get using my materials.

I also made a ton of progress on Project 1 in the past couple of days. I’m extremely excited: I made it to the 8th print in the series today, and the image is indeed disintegrating! It looks even cooler than I expected. I’m planning on finishing it up as a set of 12, to be displayed in a grid. Pictures will be shared when it’s ready!

Thoughts on Lighting

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I thought that completing the lighting ratios task and the high/low key lighting was actually pretty interesting. I’ve used studio lights before but in a very basic manner, kind of eyeballing everything. I’ve never deliberately measured the light on different sides of what I’m shooting, either. I particularly liked the difference in moods that we were able to capture between the high and low key lighting setups. I wasn’t able to shoot anything on my own camera, as the shoe for the sync cord wasn’t working, but we all took turns with JC’s camera and got some beautiful results.

I’ve never really enjoyed working with studio lights before but I’m actually pretty excited to start the next project. I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do, but I’m considering using different kinds of fabric with various patterns and degrees of translucency to diffuse the light between the lighting setup and my subject. I might play around with other translucent material as well, possibly to get different color tones in the light? Once I decide for sure what kind of mood I want to capture in this project, I’ll decide exactly what I want to use.