Project 2: Deliberate Lighting
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Project 1 and Project 2 updates
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
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
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.