Building your Confidence - People Unaware

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a number of photographs of people gathered together in an outdoor situation

Where: North Berwick, Outdoors

When: In the afternoon, just after about 1 pm. when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide adequate light

How: Upon arriving I decided to start shooting when we came across a likely situation.

We arrived when there was a break in a sailing competition; this gave me quite a range of subjects as there were a number of spectators as well as competitors.

I was quite comfortable shooting people as a previous part on the Art of Photography course required photographing people at an outdoor event.

I walked along the location and when I spotted something that I thought might make a well composed photograph I took a couple of frames. Since the boats were being brought back onto dry land there was a bit of commotion and several of the racers were under a bit of strain to pull their boats back up the stretch of beach and up the ramp.

I used a longer focal length as I did not want to get in the way of the boats being moved, although I was able to pull back to the minimum focal length of the lens as I moved down and around the competitors.

 We continued on along the beach and I photographed people sitting around the harbour area;

As I was quite comfortable and I was enjoying the sun, I think that this may have helped me try and capture the expressions of people enjoying their day.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 240.0mm (35mm equivalent 360mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/1000 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/4000 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, monopod mounted camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/500 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, monopod mounted camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 280mm (35mm equivalent 420mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/750 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 145mm (35mm equivalent 217mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/750 second, ISO 250, Manual white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

E

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/2000 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/2000 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/3000 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), aperture f5.6, speed 1/350 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Hand held camera, 70-300mm lens,

It was a good start, although I did find that using a telephoto lens did make taking photos easier as I could get a bit of distance between myself and the subject.
Using telephoto certainly allowed me to pan around the area and compose quite tightly on the subjects without compromising my own comfort.

The Scot who Shot the Civil War.

The BBC showed a 1 hour documentary on Alexander Gardner, a Scot from Paisley, who moved to New York and worked as a camera operator. Gardner’s technical skill was so good that he was tasked with photographing the Union Army during the Civil War. Gardner first spent an amount of time in his studio taking portraits of young men in uniform going off to fight what they thought was going to be a short war. Gardner’s portraits were hand tinted and the gold braiding on the uniforms was painstakingly hand-painted in. Gardner followed the men into war and his first images of the civil war were post battlefield images of bodies lying where they fell. Gardner followed the war both on the battlefield and off, taking four portraits of the new president of the Union Abraham Lincoln. The four images are startling as they mark the time between Lincoln’s first rise to presidency, through the bloody civil war to the final portrait which was taken practically on the day the civil war ended. Gardner’s technique in portraiture is outstanding in that you can see in the last portrait what the weariness and struggle of war and trying to unite the nation had done to Lincoln.

The programme proposed that Gardner was the first War Photojournalist – photographers whose images of the dead on the battlefield and the damage that it did to the cities were unique in style. The programme, however, skirted over the work of Roger Fenton who five years before the start of the civil war had been photographing the Crimean war. Fenton had taken one of the first, if not the first, post battlefield image from the valley of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Fenton also photographed landmarks and images of fortifications mainly for propaganda images. Fenton’s work is also closely matched by the work of Gustav Le Gray who was photographing French troops during the Crimean war.

While not the first War journalist in the civil war, Forbes Weekly had commissioned the artist William “Alfred” Waud and Winslow Homer to draw and paint images from the front line which were then filled in and etched onto publishing plates for the printer. Gardner was in the unique position of having support from the Generals for the use of his roving darkroom to replicate maps during the war. Gardner’s printing skills came into use again after the assassination of President Lincoln where he was able to print images for handbills calling for the capture of the perpetrators.

Upon their capture Gardner was given access to the prisoners and he photographed their portraits both straight on and to the side, possible making these the first “mug shots” of prisoners. Gardner was given almost free access to the prisoners and his images are clear and well defined, considering that they were taken aboardship during the period of time when the prisoners were held. Gardner’s single access also took him to the prison here he and an assistant were the first people to photograph an execution. Gardner’s skill is shown in the image where he caught the figures dropping after the trapdoors were sprung for their hanging.

Most of Gardner’s images were never published in newspapers during the war but his images were displayed during and after the war and a selection was published in a book.

Certainly Gardner was in the right place at the right time; his knowledge and skills are shown in his images and his portraiture still stands today as wonderful images showing the soul of his subjects. He was almost certainly the first photographer to embed himself into a military unit and to share his images not only with the military but with the public as well.

Assignment 1

What: The main brief of this assignment was to take a number of portrait photographs where the portraits differed in style.

Where: At home, Outdoors and Indoors

When: Various times of the day.
How: Before I started I cast a wide net for ideas including; photography magazines, a number of books on film, National Geographic and some calendar shots.

The ideas we decided to try were:-

Sitting

• Face on, head and shoulders
• Reverse chair, dark background
• Against a wall with knees drawn up

Standing

• Face and fiddle
• In darkness, looking at a laptop

 

First Fiddle Shoot

For the first shoot I referred back to the basic lighting shots exercise, but this time switched off the room lights. I used a single, remotely-fired flash and moved in and out with the framing, adjusting the power of the flash accordingly so that it did not overexpose the image. I wanted to get a get an image of Lindsay with her fiddle. At first the images were too dark and I had to start all over again. This time I used a cloth backdrop to prevent the flash being reflected from the white cupboard doors in the background and kept the room lights on. I had to move the flash around a bit until I obtained the lighting and expression that I wanted.

Wrong Lighting on First Shoot – DSC_005

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens.

Snoot Not Working – DSC_001

Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,

 

Simple Face Portrait in Monochrome

After that I decided to try an outside shoot. I started by having Lindsay just sitting on a chair and after positioning the camera slightly higher than her head height, I used the natural light to capture the image. I turned the image to monochrome as it looked better.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), aperture f/3.2, speed 1/90 second, ISO 320, Shade white balance, Multi Segment metering, tripod mounted camera, 105mm  lens,

 

 

We went back inside for two shoots, inspired by the painted portraits I had seen in the National Portrait Gallery. In this session I wanted to try several shots, with a 50’s, 60’s and 80’s spin. The lighting set up ‘worked’, so I used it for all of the following.

Red Glove

While working on this image I went from landscape to portrait and back to landscape. I wanted to be able to capture just part of Lindsay’s head and hand against the dark background. I used a dark grey muslin cloth to cover the background to prevent reflection, allowing me to position the camera as I wanted and have the flash fire from beside me pointing over her left shoulder. This prevented her face from being over exposed and bleaching the glove.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4, speed 1/180 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

 

Black Hat

Lindsay and I had discussed this idea while working on the red glove portrait. Initially I wanted to produce a close-up of her face in the style of a ‘club’ banner. However during a discussion on the fabric of the gloves, we ended up getting sidetracked onto the idea of the hat and having her lean on her gloved hand. I used a lighter background, which was slightly reflective as I did not want to over-expose the back of the image and I wanted a slight reflection from the background to stand in for a back light.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4, speed 1/20 second, ISO 100, Flash white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

 

Fiddle

In the last set of images; I incorporated one of Lindsay’s hobbies. She is quite a musical person, so I wanted to get at least one image of her with her fiddle. When I first shot this, the images were a complete disaster and I lost a bit of heart with the assignment.

Not wanting to be thwarted, however, I returned to the challenge, this time deciding to keep the image full of light rather than just using one flash. We worked in two sessions on this. The first session was beside a window where there was a lot of natural light. While she was sitting down, I raised the camera to quite a high height and shot down towards her face as she looked up into the lens. I was pleased with the final result as she was not too underexposed compared to the background.

 

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/30 second, ISO 320, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 44mm (35mm equivalent 66mm), aperture f4.3, speed 1/8 second, ISO 1250, Auto white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,

 

For the second shoot, we returned to the room with the background and shot a few images there. Lindsay stood against the background, playing her fiddle while I positioned the camera directly in front of her and photographed her down the length of the instrument.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f8, speed 1/8 second, ISO 3200, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,

 

Laptop

I wanted to produce one image with completely artificial light, but not using a flash or a torch. I hit upon the idea usually used in sci-fi or action films were the person’s face is lit up with the light from the screen. We waited until it was dark and then closed and sealed the curtains to keep out any light. I had Lindsay wear a dark wool jumper, sit on a low stool and open her netbook. I then had her look at a blue background screen and then a white word document to obtain differing colours of light. I took two images; one from a distance where her body is slightly defined by the light from the screen, the second image a close up of her face being lit by the white light from the screen.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/20 second, ISO 1250, Flash white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 50mm lens,

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/20 second, ISO 1250, Flash white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens.

I did find this assignment quite difficult as every time I hit a problem, I would lose a bit of momentum and hope; partially due to my ongoing illness. In the end however I believe I have managed to produce a number of good images that I am personally pleased with.

Exercise 8

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a number of portrait photographs
Where: At home, Outdoors
When: In the afternoon, just after about 4.pm. when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide adequate light
How: before we started Lindsay who was acting as the subject and I sat down and looked through a number of magazines, including photography magazines, nation geographic as well as a number of books including one of posing which was called 500 poses for photographing women.

Perkins, M (2009). 500 Poses for Photographing Women. Buffalo, NY, USA: Amherst Media. All.

I did not really find the book that much use, and on reflection is a good reference, but at the time I was a bit lost and lacking in ideas it will not always generate a lot.

Other books I examined were

Photographing People
Hicks, R. Schultz,F. Larg, A. Wood,J. (2006). Photographing People. Switzerland: Rotovision. All.

Digital Photography Masterclass
Ang, T. (2008). Digital Photography Masterclass. London: Dorling Kindersley. p258-p270.

The Portrait Photography Course
Jenkinson, Mark (201). The Portrait Photography Course. London: A&C Black. All.

I did visit the photographer Rankins website and selected a number of his images which I was then able to use as reference. I also managed to view a TV program where he was reshooting classic Hollywood images and I found that listening to his instructions to the models was very helpful as it gave me an idea of how to guide someone quite simply and the terms of reference to use.

Another reference site I visited was the PhotoArts.com forum Benji. (2008). The Rules Of Portraiture. Available: http://photoartsforum.com/benjis_tutorials_the_rules_of_good_portraiture-t966.0.html. Last accessed 4th July 2012. where I had a good look at the rules of Portraiture by a member called Benji. Again this was a good reference as it clearly demonstrated some techniques, principles and ideas that I had not encountered.

We made a number of notes on what we wanted to try out and have a bit of fun with. As we worked through the poses we discussed how comfortable she felt as it looked at times as if she did not like the pose.
I discovered that a number of ideas we had discussed did not work out right either because of the limited locations and positions we could obtain as well as some of the ideas from the books not working due to the models having a bit more intent skills.

We started by having Lindsay sit on the wall, I stood across the sunlight so that it would not flood into the lens and so that we could have a better suite of backgrounds rather than the limited hedge and fence.
I sent a bit of time directing Lindsay on her hands as I had read an article in a magazine about positioning of models hands and I used that information when directing Lindsay on how to position herself.

As we moved around the garden I had Lindsay move from sitting to standing to lying down so that I could obtain a number of differing poses; Sometime just getting her to move her hands or her gaze one direction or another helped to make the image more or less interesting. I also moved the camera from position to position, sometimes looking to break my own preconceived rules by using ideas like Dutch angles and deliberately getting in close to her face with the lens.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manua, focal length 46.0mm (35mm equivalent 69mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,



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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 70mm (35mm equivalent 105mm), aperture f8, speed 1/350 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,


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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,



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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f8, speed 1/750 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 50mm lens,



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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Auto, focal length 46.0mm (35mm equivalent 69mm), aperture f8, speed 1/125 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,



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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 27.0mm (35mm equivalent 40mm), aperture f8, speed 1/350 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 18-70mm lens,



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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 27.0mm (35mm equivalent 40mm), aperture f3.8, speed 1/1500 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 18-70mm lens,



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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 27.0mm (35mm equivalent 40mm), aperture f3.8, speed 1/4000 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 18-70mm lens,


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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 27.0mm (35mm equivalent 40mm), aperture f3.8, speed 1/350 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, hand held camera, 18-70mm lens,



We had a bit of fun with this, but I did find one important lesson which was that although I may like an image and think that I can use the same pose it will not always work due to lighting/simple positioning or the way the model holds herself.

I have also spent a few hours a week looking over a number of websites at the photography on there.

The sites include;

Laessig, Gavon. (2012). 2012 World Press Photo Winners. Available: http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/2012-world-press-photo-winners. Last accessed 19th June 2012. http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/2012-world-press-photo-winners Stopera, Matt. (2011). Every World Press Photo Winner From 1955-2011. Available: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/every-world-press-photo-winner-from-1955-2011. Last accessed 19th June 2012.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/every-world-press-photo-winner-from-1955-2011

Richie. (2010). 50 INSPIRING EXAMPLES OF EMOTIONAL PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY. Available: http://richworks.in/2010/06/50-inspiring-examples-of-emotional-portrait-photography/. Last accessed 15th June 2012.
http://richworks.in/2010/06/50-inspiring-examples-of-emotional-portrait-photography/

Google. (2011). Google Art Project. Available: http://www.googleartproject.com/. Last accessed 2nd July 2012.
http://www.youtube.com/googleartproject?feature=inp-rs-art

Taylor, Alan. (2012). In Focus - Not Where They Hoped To Be. Available: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/06/not-where-they-hoped-theyd-be/100320/#. Last accessed 29th June 2012.
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/06/not-where-they-hoped-theyd-be/100320/#

A lot of these sites reminded me that I should focus on the person as well as the context, compositon and framing.

Exercise 7 - Portraiture Using Differing Focal Lengths

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a number of portrait photographs where the subject was posed and the camera was moved back and foward using different focal lengths to achieve the same framing.
Where: At home, Outdoors
When: In the afternoon, just after about 2.pm. when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide light with slight cloud.
How: In each part of the exercise; Having positioned the subject in a chair with a plain hedge behind her, using the first lens which was a 70-300 I moved as far away as possible and framed the portrait.

I noticed that the light was not as bright as I wanted and that the light was a little too blue through the clouds giving the image a cold blue cast. I setup a small camera flash unit to fire remotely. Setting it on half power and covering the flash head with a small orange filter adjusted the light colour giving a warmer look to the images.
Moving towards the subject I zoomed the lens focal length down trying to keep the framing the same size and position as possible. I had to adjust the camera position and the tripod several times during the exercise to keep the framing the same for all three positions and setups as I found that the closer to the subject I got, the higher the tripod had to be. When the 70-300mm lens became unusable as I could no longer zoom in or out I changed to an 18-70mm lens and continued moving in to the subject.

Having used zoom lenses before in taking portraits I knew that they can be used to create simple but stunning portraits as the zoom lens has the tendency to flatten the overall image due to its optics. A few years ago I shot this indoors self portrait using a zoom lens at 110mm and two low powered studio lamps.

A Self portrait.
Nikon D50,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 110.0mm (35mm equivalent 142mm), aperture f11, speed 1/500 second, ISO 200, Auto white balance, Centre Weight metering, tripod mounted camera, 55-200 lens, Small studio lights to the subjects left and right both studio lights were at half power level and were fitted with diffusers.



With this exercise again I used RAW and JPEG setting on the camera so that I could quickly review the images shot so that I could reshoot where necessary. I was planning to shoot with the camera tethered but the spots of rain that came and went made me choose not to use the laptop just in case it rained.

Head and Shoulders

I started as far back as I could go in the garden and with the lens at the maximum focal length where I could contain the subjects head within the frame I started to shoot, moving the focal length downwards as I went.

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Nikon D80,Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 240.0mm (35mm equivalent 360mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 70-300 lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



I chose the aperture of f/8.0 as I did not want have a narrow depth of field.
After reviewing the image I decide that I had not framed her head correctly, so I moved the focal length of the zoom lens down a bit until I was happier with the framing.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 195.0mm (35mm equivalent 292mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 70-300 lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 70.0mm (35mm equivalent 105mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 18.0mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



The lens distortion at 18mm renders the image unusable; it looks like it was photographed in a hall of mirrors. While the effect may be suitable for a different style of portraiture it is not suitable here!

Torso Portrait

Again I chose an aperture of f/8 to ensure that none of the image was rendered out of focus by the depth of field.

DSC_0019
Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 125mm (35mm equivalent 187mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 70-300mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 95mm (35mm equivalent 142mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 70-300mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 52.0mm (35mm equivalent 78mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 18.0mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



Again on closer review of the images I can see that the focal length of 18mm has made the image slightly distorted in the middle centre of the frame. It makes thesubject look like she was leaning back instead of sitting straight up. An unusual effect which could be used to my advantage at some point.

Full Length Portrait

Sticking with the same aperture, I performed the last part of the exercise, repeating the movement in towards the subject.

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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 70.0mm (35mm equivalent 105mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 46.0mm (35mm equivalent 69mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



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Nikon D80, Exposure Mode Manual, focal length 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), aperture f8, speed 1/180 second, ISO 250, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 18-70mm lens, Small flash to the subjects right with a colour balancing sheet fitted on the flash head.



The full portrait was probably the easiest to do as I could practically take all three images using the one lens.
The main issue I had was trying to level the tripod head at each location to ensure that the images were framed in the same way.

In each of these portraits I can see that the lens has had an effect on the overall image and in some cases showing that the lens is unsuitable for that type of portraiture. For example the head and shoulders image shot close up at 18mm distorts the face making it a long distortion in the middle of the image around the nose.

It was fun however to use a different lenses from what I would normally consider which is my prime 50mm f/1.4 lens. It reminded me that I can use different lenses for different situations and that it can help with the creativity to sometimes stand back and photograph from a distance.

Excercise 6 - Scoring a Portrait Session

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take roughly 20 portrait photographs in one sesion and while shooting give each image a score. Then open each image later and score the images again looking at them on a larger screen. Compare and review the scores given.
Where: At home, Indoors
When: In the afternoon, just after about 2.pm. when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide light into the room but not directly and it was cloudy enough that the light was diffused.
How: I used the same setup for Ali as I did for Mark. The daylight from camera right was diffused by the clouds before passing through the window and was then bounced back using a white deflector for fill light.

I positioned Ali sitting on the sofa and then adjusted the reflector and camera position until I was happy with the position and the amount of reflected light. I practiced giving directions to Ali, who having observed Mark in the previous exercise was much more ‘up to speed’ and confident at receiving instructions.

As I took each shot I gave a graded score between 1 and 5 for each one into a digital voice recorder. This allowed me to concentrate on getting Ali to listen and respond to my directions. I was hoping to keep Ali on the same position on the sofa and just adjust her expression and eye line, but I found that after 16 photos that she wanted to change position completely which meant that I had to readjust the camera position and the reflector and start again.

From time to time Ali would show the same psychological reaction to the camera shutter as Mark and would put on her “photo face”. I had then to stop and direct her before starting to shoot again. Ali responded well to the instructions and had a lot of fun playing for the camera.

After the session, I looked over the images on the camera screen and removed duplicate images where I had pressed the remote release too hard and had taken more than one photo. I then reviewed the images against the scores on the digital recorder to ensure that they matched.

My next step was to review the Jpeg version of the images on a large TV screen to get an idea of how they looked and allow Ali to see what we had been doing. I followed this up by properly reviewing the RAW images on a PC screen using Adobe Bridge allowing for white balance colour correction, looking at each individual image on its own and giving each image a score between 1 and 5 stars. I have prepared a screenshot showing a screen of the full set of images as shown in Bridge with their relevant star score.
Screenshot of Adobe bridge with scores given on review.



I compared these scores to the scores I had given during the session. In many cases the score differed; some which looked good on the camera screen were not as good when displayed in either the RAW or Jpeg format on a larger screen. I was pleasantly surprised to find a number where my score matched or was bettered on review on the larger screen.

Matched Score 4/5
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Nikon D80, focal length 52.0mm (35mm equivalent 78mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/30 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 17-70mm lens, No flash.



As soon as I felt that Ali was sitting in the right position with the right expression I took this shot and install marked it with a high score as I felt at that moment I had nailed a perfect image of Ali.

Surprise Match 2/5
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Nikon D80, focal length 52.0mm (35mm equivalent 78mm), aperture f4.4, speed 1/45 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 17-70mm lens, No flash.



I was surprised by this as this was one of the last shots we did and I blew a couple of plastic bubbles into the air just for fun so that Ali could see that these bubbles did not burst when touched. Ali of course being a scientist was amused to see such a thing. I thought that the shot I took looked pretty poor and that her eyes were too shaded and her expression was one of boredom, however on review I was pleased to find that I really liked Alis’ expression and that fact that her eye line was off camera as she was focussing completely on the bubble.

Low Score all round 1/1
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/45 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 17-70mm lens, No flash.



Just as I pressed the shutter release, Mark said something which made Ali suddenly change her expression. I was not happy with this image as soon as I shot it and gave it a low score, on review I was tempted to mark it down to Zero and discard the image entirely but felt that it should stay as a 1. Ali’s expression is not pleasing and with her looking off camera it just looks as if someone has been rude to her.

Low Score on review 3/1
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Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f4.5, speed 1/30 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, tripod mounted camera, 17-70mm lens, No flash.



On shooting this I gave it a mid range score, on review however I just did not like the image and marked it down accordingly.

The overall result on this exercise was not a great surprise to me as I had found on previous occasions that the smaller screen failed to show small movement blur and shadow definition.

I decided to upload the images, taken without looking through the eyepiece, where the scores either matched or showed the greatest difference.

I also find that as the camera is not a full frame sensor and the way the camera has been designed that the image presented in the eyepiece is only about 90% of what is actually captured within the frame I try not to rely on the back of the camera, preferring to stop and review the images on either a larger screen (such as a monitor or large screen TV) or on a laptop screen usually using my instant judgement on taking the shot whether I think that it is usable or not.

I try not to “chimp” and examine each image immediately after shooting it as I think this is a waste of time and opportunity.

Where I can, I prefer to shoot portraits where the camera is tethered to a PC or a laptop so that I can instantly see what the image looks like for review and re-shoot purposes. I try to ensure that the TV/PC/Laptop screen is colour managed normally using a colour management tool like a Spider so that I know that the colours shown on the screens not only are the same on each screen I use but they are closer to the final image colours than those displayed on a small camera LCD screen.

Exercise 5: Eyeline in Portraiture

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a number of portrait photographs where the person was looking into the camera lens and also away from the lens at angles.
Where: At home, Indoors
When: In the afternoon, just after about 2.pm. when the sun was high enough in the sky to provide light into the room but not directly and it was cloudy enough that the light was diffused.
How: I started this exercise by reviewing some material in the book – The Portrait Photography Course by Mark Jenkinson. One of the points made in the book is to understand the use of shadow in portraiture, and in the case of this exercise I decided that I did not want a lot of shadow and that I really wanted to keep the image as simple as possible as I did not want to present myself with too many problems.

I had over complicated things by waiting for a good sunny day to do an outdoor photography session, but after waiting for two weeks for the right weather I got fed up and had Mark and Ali (my subjects/models) turn up and we would see if we could just photograph indoors. As Mark and Ali arrived, the weather did brighten up a little, but when I checked with a small hand held light meter I found that there was little difference in the amount and colour of the light outside compared to inside the house.

I set up the camera on a tripod and had Lindsay act as an assistant; holding a large white reflector off to the side of the seating position to fill as a fill light. I had a short shutter release cable attached to the camera which meant that I could move a little from the camera and not worry about how I was going to activate the shutter. This allowed me a little more freedom when I was photographing as I could swap hands as well as move away from the eyepiece. It also allowed me to check if the camera was positioned correctly. I did not want the portrait to be overly superior or diminutive so I took a while raising and lowering the camera until I felt I had the dominant eye in the right position.

After discussing what I wanted with Mark and then working through Lindsay and Ali to translate from English to Italian and back to English, Mark sat in position on the sofa. To begin with both he and I were quite nervous and I found myself telling him to relax, which did not help. I then stopped and had a short chat with Mark and while we talked I used my remote shutter to trigger a few frames through. Mark instantly reacted to the sound and we found that he put on his “photo” face and smiled directly into the camera. We took a short break and I asked him not to react to the sound of the shutter but instead ignore it and listen to my instructions instead. I then stuck a spare card into the camera and just randomly shot for a while in an attempt to stop Mark reacting to the shutter.

While I was instructing him, I started to talk to him about books he was reading at the moment and this helped to relax him. We spoke for a while and I gained his confidence when, after swapping to the card I wanted to use, I photographed him and then showed him the result on the camera screen. As I spoke to Mark, I moved away from the camera and tripod and went left, right, above and below the camera lens directing him to look in certain directions. I found that I could not get him to react to certain questions and directions as the translation took too long to perform and he had moved away from the expression or stance. Eventually I found a book, and had him read some passages from it as it focussed his attention away from the sound of the camera. I then continued to photograph him, while distracting his attention and used Ali as a distraction to help guide Mark, but in the end I ended up taking more photographs than necessary as every so often he would start to respond with his “photo” face again. While I was not looking for a deadpan expression from Mark I was hoping to achieve a number of natural photographs where I could get definitive shots of differing eye lines. As soon as I started to review the images I threw away about three quarters of them as they were unusable; Most of them were due to Mark reacting to the camera or moving too fast and blurring the image. While I was happy with the quality and colour of the light and the fill from the reflector I was not happy with the way the session had progressed, I found that I myself was quite nervous and in fact having Lindsay and Ali there as well was a bit of a hindrance as Mark would converse with them and not pay full attention to when I was directing him.

Looking into the Lens 1

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/750 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Tripod Mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.




Looking into the Lens 2

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/1000 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Tripod Mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.




Looking Right

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/500 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Tripod Mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.




Looking Down

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/1000 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Tripod Mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.



Slightly Up

Nikon D80, focal length 50.0mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), aperture f1.8, speed 1/1000 second, ISO 500, Shade white balance, Spot metering, Tripod Mounted camera, 50mm lens, No flash.



One thing I got out of this exercise was that it takes quite a bit of preparation work to get a good session and that with practise I should get better at directing people. I think that better notes and samples of what I am trying to achieve would also help as sometime I did struggle to find the right words and instructions when directing.

Having looked over the images and looking back at the day I have realised that I was not able to get Mark to feel comfortable and that there may be problems to overcome where the subject may have a weak chin, deep set eyes or receding hairline.