Objects

Objects Andy Farrington Wednesday 14th November 

Brief details

This unit is intended to provide diverse opportunities to learn fundamental photographic techniques associated with image production within a controlled environment.

The term 'objects' is used in order to encompass not only photographing inanimate forms but also 'still life', close up work and commercial products. These may include 'pack shots', product photography, photographing three-dimensional artwork and recording natural forms. Opportunities will be provided for the design and construction of 'sets' suitable for photographing more complex scenes.

Substantial emphasis will be placed upon lighting theories and techniques, digital asset management and digital manipulation.

Learning Outcomes

• Understanding fundamental theories of light, lighting and image capture.
• Demonstrate an awareness of camera formats including digital and relevant film based systems.
• Design and construct basic 'sets', working both independently and as a member of a team.
• Create darkroom and digital images using fundamental imaging processes and image storage techniques.
• Adhere to health and safety practice and regulation guidelines
• Demonstrate an awareness of the utilisation of object based photography

Task

You are required to produce a paper-based portfolio of at least 6 'object' photographs. Whilst there are no strict instructions on the type of photographs you must take, you should respond to each of the following study areas:

• Close up and Macro
• Mini set build
• Commercial product
• Highly reflective subjects (such as glass, chrome etc)
• Historical objects and their narrative (with Blackburn museum)

During the work carried out for Unit 1 (Systems & Processes), you will learn several important lighting techniques. You should attempt to use these acquired skills to help you create atmospheric and expressive photographs.You must accompany each photograph in the portfolio with a written evaluation of the work involved in  it's production (research - design - treatment - post production). Each evaluation should be no more than 150 words.Portfolio size should be A4 minimum with images produced on suitable print media. Accompanying evaluations should be placed behind its relevant photograph.

Assessment Criteria

• Investigate research within controlled lighting environments, with recorded evidence of technical and creative findings.
• Detail and accuracy of descriptions and evaluations for portfolio images.
• Ability to work both independently and in a team, to produce effective and appropriate photographs.
• Understanding of key areas/genres of 'object' photography.
• Attendance in appointed tutorials and lectures appropriate to the objects assignment.

Theories of Light

There has to be a fundamental point of knowledge on how i took the images they could be the best images in the world, but if i am not fully confident in how i took the images whats the point. Therefore i will document every step in the planning of my images to reference back too when needed. light is a physical object and i need to know how light work and why it affects an image. understanding light is key to good photography. 

I decided to find a book from the library to find out more about how light can effect an image, i found a book called "Digital Photography in Available Light" page 94.

Light is the essence of photography.without light there is no photography. in order to manage a light source, we must first be aware of its presence. often our preoccupation with the content and framing can make us oblivious to the light falling on the subject and the background we naturally take light for granted. this can sometimes cause us to simply forget to "see' the light. when light falls on a subject it creates a range of tones we can group into three main categories highlights, mid tones, and shadows.

Light Source

Ambient light is the existing light present in any environment. Ambient light can be subdivided into four major categories.

• Daylight
• Tungsten
• Fluorescent
• Firelight

Daylight- A mixture of sunlight and skylight. Sunlight is the dominant or main light. it is warm in colour and creates highlight and shadows. Skylight is the secondary light. it is cool in colour and fills the entire scene with soft diffused light. without the action skylight , shadows would be black and details would not be visible.

This panoramic image was taken when i was on holiday in Spain looking out on the balcony. The image shows how without skylight shadows are black and most detail is not visible. But the effect is warm in colour because most of the light is sunlight.

Tungsten
A common type of electric light such as household bulbs/globes and photographic lamps. A tungsten element heats up and emits light. Tungsten light produces very warm tones.

Kelvins 
Basically, when shooting in kelvins for white balance, I think about what kind of light I am shooting in. Does the light look yellow? or blue? or neutral? if i am shooting an image in the evening under tungsten lighting. The light will look yellow, and my subject will look yellowish. so i would need to change the settings to around 2800K as a starting off point, and go up or down from there. It will immediately look better, If it was still yellow, i would use a lower temperature, like 2500K. If it looks blue, i would use a higher temperature, like 3000K. i always  (check the LCD repeatedly) until the image on the LCD looks as if it were shot in neutral light.

Sensor Cleaning

• First of all i need to set my camera to its highest f-stop with my canon 550D SLR this would be F 22
• Set to automatic also the lens needs to be at it highest focal length 18-55 highest would be 18
• put the iso low as possible 
• set the camera to infinity § eight on the side also clean the eye view and check the focus
• focus on something white and take the picture
• Upload the image into photoshop or Lightroom his will show me were the dirt is on the sensor, select image and auto contrast.

Another thing to remember is that most SLR camera have a program which can clean the sensor automatically every time you tern the camera off and on. Also always tern the camera off before  changing a lens this will prevent the static sensor attracting dust.

Photoshop Tools

1. Click on the layer that i want to apply the Gaussian blur filter to in the layer panels window.

2. Select an area of the image using the selection, magic wand or lasso tool. If i am applying the Gaussian blur to the entire layer, leave the image area unselected.

3. Click “Filter,” click “Blur” and click “Gaussian Blur…” from the sub-menu.

4. Move the slider left or right to decrease or increase the blur effect. I can also input a value into the “Radius” box to control the blur effect. Preview the blurred image in the main image window, or use the preview box in the “Gaussian Blur” dialog to see a zoomed-in preview of the image.

Egg Project, Objects Brief- 24th October 2012

the purpose of the exercise is to refine my lighting techniques and explore visual language.

Visual Language is the use of

• Line
• Colour
• Texture
• Tone (contrast created through lighting ratios)
• Shape and form (flat shapes can be made from silhouetting, three dimensional form is Created by lighting which shows the contours of the subject 
• Composition (placement of the subject, use of positive and negative spaces)

Start by photographing the whole egg

• Use on light to start with
• Experiment with a soft box
• Produce a side lit, front lit, back lit image and under lit image,
• Try bouncing light off another surface.

After you have completed this series you can introduce other concepts such as.

• Hands in the shot
• Props
• Breaking the egg
• More complex lighting 

This image was shot by irving penn called "cracked egg"it is one of ten images. the image seems to be shot using 2 lights, one top right and one top left, Maybe under lit as well?

Here are my contact sheets from my egg shoot. I started experimenting with a soft box shooting from behind heres the image.

I placed the egg onto a white plastic back drop, used blue tack to hold the egg upright, I decided to place the soft box behind the backdrop shooting through this creates the shadow in the foreground of the egg, the orange tone in the image is created from shooting with out flash so i got a tungsten orange background. I like the composition of the egg it reminds me of a sunrise. 

This image was shot with the same set up as the above egg, but i decided to experiment more with different lighting techniques i shot this image using a light with a snoot from above the egg on a slight angle so i still captured shadow in the foreground, 

This image was backlit using a soft box without the diffusing material over the box i used flash to get a high key background. I experimented by adding  a finger into the shoot because the light was coming in from behind the finger it has created a silhouette the finger has also reflected in the same was as the egg which is also interesting.

This image was a little more complex than the others, this was my more creative shot I placed the egg onto a white plastic back drop, used blue tack to hold the egg upright, I decided to place the soft box behind the backdrop shooting through this creates the shadow in the foreground of the egg, i used a reflector to get some definition onto the top of the egg. i decided to use the black card to absorb some of the excess light this has helped achieve the line around the egg, when shooting the card fell into the shot so i decided to incorporate it and i think it looks interesting.

Shoes Brief 10/10/2012

Research on Depth of Field

Shallow Depth of Field
The dragonfly has been isolated from its chaotic surroundings by using shallow depth of field. By using shallow depth of field the distracting background is blurred and only the dragonfly appears sharp. Viewers eyes concentrate first on the sharp areas of the photo and so the dragonfly gets all the attention.

Large Depth of Field

Usually it is good for landscape photos if all parts of the image appear sharp. There is usually no need to isolate elements by utilizing the depth of field in the landscape photos. All around sharp photo can be achieved by using large depth of field. In order to get large depth of field you should use rather small aperture. This also means that you must decrease the shutter speed. Therefore it's often necessary to use tripod when taking landscape photos.

Meaning of Depth of Field

There's a simple, direct relationship between aperture and depth-of-field - the smaller the aperture, the more extensive the depth-of-field. So if I want to keep as much as possible sharp, I should set as small an aperture as possible - preferably f/16, or even f/22 If i want to concentrate attention on just one part of the scene, and throw the rest out-of-focus, i can select a large aperture. Exactly how large this can be depends on the maximum aperture of the lens I'm using. On a 50mm standard lens it will be f/1.7, f/1.8 or f/2, but on a standard zoom it will typically be f/3.5 or f/4.5.when i want most of the picture to be in focus, i will set a middling aperture of around f/8 to f/11.

Shallow depth of field can be a great way to enhance a subject by throwing other elements out of focus. the control that has the most impact on depth of field is aperture. Bigger apertures tend to provide shallower depth of field. if you open a wide aperture (say f/1.8) you will have a narrow location in your image which is focused. If you set your aperture to a small value, say f/22, you will have a huge focused area.

Shoes shallow depth field

This image was shot on a SLR digital camera using a 18-55mm lens shot on low aperture f/4.5 this gave me a shallow depth of field. I decided to take this image using the rocks as a base because this adds interest and the also the composition of the shoes, once i took the image i decided to improve the saturation and the contrast on photoshop i think this help the final image stand out.


Product Shoot Reflective

This is the set up i decided to use for my reflective product shoot,  i wanted to create a lip of light around the  bottle i achieved this by back lighting the bottle with 2 soft boxes half covered in black card to eliminate any unwanted light that would affect the final image. although back lighting the image gave the effect i wanted this also underexposed the front of the bottle giving me a silhouette affect. i decided to use a continues light shining through a hole in a piece of card directly on the label of the bottle.

I used a 60 mm macro lens as this lens produces 1:1 magnification for extremely detailed close-up images. There was some post processing involved in the final image as the label on the bottle was grazed so i used the clone stamp tool on the whole left side of the label. i also increased the saturation and brightness to help the image stand out. i think the final image has some good potential for a promoting shot. but i feel the image would be improved by adding fruit like Tomatoes or green leaves to add extra interest 

Product Shoot 2 Calvin Kline

i have created this image using the set up shown in the diagram, i have placed the product onto a wooden box covered in matt black card, i used matt card as i didn't want the material to reflect the light. i have placed the box several meters away from the wall to achieve the black background, this is because i haven't let the light travel onto the background leaving it under exposed, i have also covered the wall with black material just incase. i have used the 2 white fluorescent light to add extra interest, I positioned  the lights in all different ways to see what looked good i felt the way i have chosen leads the viewer into the product, also the logo of the bottle in very straight and clinical which works well with the look of the lighting. i have used a continues light source with flash directly onto the product using a snoot, using the snoot directed the light onto the product and not light up the whole set. in the final image i have used the clone stamp tool to remove imperfections from the product and i have also darkened the foreground. shooting in RAW file gave me the highest quality.

Product Photography

Mens Grooming

As this image has to capture the intention of a male audience i decided to keep it simple and masculine,for this type of shot i knew the composition had to be just right so i was very meticulous were and how the product were being placed. i wanted to create a fun eye catching advertisement, i chose a few funky bottles different shapes and sizes and composed them to show a more relaxed side to product advertisements for men. i decided to shoot with a bright coloured background to clash with the bottled this helped them to stand out.

I decided to shoot the products in the studio which i set up at home, at first i decided to take the image with the bottles on the curve and shooting straight forwards, but this looked formal and fair boring, so i decided to try out some different ways of displaying the bottles and finally came up with shooting straight down on to the bottles this gave me the option to compose the bottles, and create something a little more interesting. i have used 1 continues light source facing down onto the products this reduced the amount of shadows and also brought out the colour of the backdrop, a negative point to this was the light overexposed the soap bar in the middle as the paper it was covered in was glossy, to help reduce this i placed some blue tak under the bar with reflected the light elsewhere. 

Lost and Found   

Todays photo project is progressing on what I have been doing in the previous weeks, but this time it is up to me to find and object and photograph it in three different ways.

• Forensic-in a studio environment
• In situ-where i find the object
• As i like it-do something creative

I decided to take a look at some of the work of Irving Penn as he too has done something similar when he documented the discarded cigarette ends of prostitutes. The set of images are really interesting to look at and it makes you think about the everyday objects that could become a great image. The colours in the image are great, I really like the touch of red created from lipstick I'm guessing. Everything in the image tells a story.

This is my forensic shot that I took in the studio I decided take the image on a white backdrop so there is a definite distinction between evidence and background, a Forensic Photographer  must take good quality photograph. I would expect that a Forensic Photographer would produce clear and complete images which will adequately document the evidence items, injury, or scene. A Forensic Photographer must be able to produce good images of evidence items, i added the ruler for proof of size and also labelled the item. 

This is were I found the item in Blackburn town centre, I decided use this item because the colour of the cigarettes against the grey stone looked good and also it was movable from the scene.

Historical 

Firstly I decided create a spider diagram of thing that were historical. I came up with numerous objects in which were historical but "light bulb filaments" stud out to me.  

History of Light Bulb

The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. This is called an electric arc.

Much later, in 1860, the English physicist Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914) was determined to devise a practical, long-lasting electric light. He found that a carbon paper filament worked well, but burned up quickly. In 1878, he demonstrated his new electric lamps in Newcastle, England.