Where: At home, Indoors
When: In the morning, just after 11:00 when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide light into the room but not directly.
How: Having discussed this action with the subject. I worked around her taking photographs directly of her and also used her reflection.
I started off by setting the camera in manual mode and mounted using it hand held so that I could freely move around. I then just started taking shots so that the subject became comfortable with the sound of the shutter and that she ignored the camera and me. This allowed me to move around her taking shots directly of her and sometimes using the mirror to allow for better composition.
I had planned on using a scrim over the window, but with the light being diffused by low level grey clouds, and it not shining directly into the window, the scrim was unneccessary. The setup also meant that at times I was between the window and the subject and we would be working with just the natural light that fell into the room. I then made the subject start her actions of placing her makeup on and waited until she ignored me.
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens, No flash.
As we worked through I noticed that I was getting in the way and blocking a lot of the light and that it was getting harder for me to compose a frame as I was getting in both my own way and in the way of the subject. Standing back allowed me to recompose using the mirror so that I was actually shooting the mirror image of the subject.
I liked this effect as it allowed me full access to compose without blocking myself or having to settle with side of the head only shots.
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/250 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens, No flash.
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens, No flash.
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/125 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens, No flash.
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/90 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens, No flash.
Although the levels of light dropped off using the mirror causing me to lower the shutter speed down from 1/125th of a second down the 1/90th of a second, I did not feel that it had an impact on the way I was photographing nor did I feel that I was compromising shutter speed for composition.
On reviewing the photographs I found that the Raw files were producing a slightly warm red temperature colour. I corrected this by applying a cool blue filter to each image which corrected the colour temperature. This was probably caused by the colouration of the room and the brown walls reflecting back a slightly redder light into the room.
I quite liked one of the last images I shot that day where the subject is looking into the mirror and examining her lipstick. I attempted to change this into a monochromatic image in the style of a 1950s photograph, but I felt that there was no enough hair light coming down onto the subject and this left the top of her head and her hair as black with no definition.
One of the main lessons I learned here, was to discuss the brief with the subject and negotiate the limits and boundaries of the brief. The next lesson I learnt was patience and flexibility, if I had not waited until the subject was happy to ignore me and just do their actions and that if I had decided just to shoot from a fixed position then I do not believe I would have achieved obtaining the images that I wanted. If the subject had been self conscious of the camera then I think she would have been looking at the camera lens a lot or at me, however she went about putting on her makeup as if I was not there. Had I not moved and used the mirror to reflect her image then I do not believe I would have got a full face image.
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