Project 2 Inspiration

Posted on March 13, 2014 by Maria.Plotkina@stonybrook.edu

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

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Maria.Plotkina@stonybrook.edu

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.