#bretts class

Considering my work throughout this assignment I think my work was successful. I think it went well because of my photographic techniques and skills i.e. lighting, composition, vantage points and more.

The reason why the lighting went well in my photo shoots is because with the sports shoot I used two soft boxes 1 on both sides of the model at a 45 degree angle two get evenly spread lighting across his face and clothes and no shadows on the background. Meanwhile with my other shoot I used one lighting source to the right which created a lop shadow around his nose and a light shadow on the background to the left, which I wanted to create with this model when wearing the black suit. I wanted this because I found having a small amount of shadow in some fashion photographs especially shooting men in smart outfits adds a little extra feeling and atmosphere to the model and the image.  My camera settings for my fashion shoots were set to the same settings because I used the same light output which made having the same IS0 and the same shutter speed which was good.  My camera settings were ISO 400 – 1/125 seconds and the aperture was about f/10 which is a small aperture that lets less light strike the sensor and making a large depth of field making the whole image in focus. When taking my photographs of the watch in the light tent, I changed my camera settings twice to capture didn’t images. When photographing the watch with a wide angle so you can see a lot of the watch in the frame the settings I used were IS0 400 – 1/125 second shutter speed and an aperture of f/10. These are the same setting to what I used for my fashion photographs which will give me the same effect of a full focus. However my second set of settings were ISO 100 – 1/125 second shutter speed and an aperture of f/5.6 – this is where I have a large aperture which allows more light to strike the image sensor and giving me a shallow depth of field. I did this by increasing up the light output to allow more light out. 

The reason why the lighting didn’t go so well in the video clips is because I hadn’t set my camera setting back to the appropriate white balance. This is because when I took the photographs I set my white balance to flash but I didn’t change the white balance back to tungsten as the lights I was going to use were on all the time and not flashing. Not doing this gave some of my still life video clips a warmer light tone which I didn’t want. To improve this I could have re-filmed the certain videos or I had an idea to change each individual clips into black & white to see if that would make any difference. In my opinion I that having warmer lighting tones in my videos was good for me because then it gave me the idea to change my video into black & white which made a huge difference to my video for the better. Having the video in black and white was good because it added to the dramatic feeling and atmosphere to the video and it also gave off an old feeling towards the video which I also liked. Overall I found a solution to a complication and ended in a good outcome.

I think my posing for my model for both photo shoots went well however I still think I need to improve on this area to find more interesting and effective poses. Before my photo shoot I did effective research of men’s fashion photography with google images and photographers to see how males pose as they are different from women.

I think my composition improved during this assignment because I thought a lot about how I was going to pose my model and how I would photograph from different vantage points and what close up shots I wanted around the watch. I did my research beforehand on how different people advertised watches and when it came to shooting I remember what I saw and generated new ideas which I wanted to experiment with.  I thought about what I wanted in the frame and what I didn’t want and this made it easier for me to think about my vantage points.

I think my video is successful because of the filming techniques that I used to make it effective and I used panning; camera hand held; tripod, changing focus; close up, mid shots and wide angle shots, product movement, short clips and long clips.

The product movement was effective in this video because I used this technique a few times in different video clips which is where I moved the watch instead of the camera.  I also think changing the focus is effective as it makes the audience expecting somethings and wanting to see the end result. From videoing out of focus to manually changing the focus while filming is skillful and effective for the video.

What I also think that went well was the sound track that I choose because I achieved what I picked out to do, which was to pick a suspense and dramatic soundtrack as well as having the videos in time with the music which worked really well and made the full video feel dramatic. 

I found my investigation to be useful especially at the beginning of the assignment when I did my light testing and developing my knowledge of posing models and generating my own poses. Researching and investigating was a big influence on my work as fashion photography wasn’t something I wanted to do at the beginning of this assignment. Throughout this assignment I have been looking at a lot of photographs from historical to contemporary artist images like Chris Davis and Terence Donovan and several images off of google – this was to give me ideas of vantage points, composition, what to include in the frame and what not to, poses and lighting. I also looked through magazines like Vogue and dazed to look at their poses and lighting techniques.  My research for my video was useful because i look at two watch commercials for an omega watch.  Watching these to videos have inspired me and have given me ideas for my own video. There are two things that i want to achieve in my video from watching these videos are: the sound track in (omega globemaster) this is because it has a suspense and dramatic feeling to the music and secondly in both clips there are close ups of the watch, which was achieved when using either a macro lens or a macro filters. This is what i really want to achieve because it will help me gain my photographic techniques using macro filters and it will be really good when filming as it will make an effective commercial.

During this assignment I have learnt how to record from my canon camera and how to make a video on Imovie; How to get a really shallow depth of field. I also found an interest in fashion photography and that I want to develop my skills further and I know how to take better still like photography using the lighting tent and macro filters.

Concept: A commercial fashion video - this video will be mainly made of clips of the watch and then some clips of the model with the watch to show his fashion sense. 

location: studio

Equipment/props: the watch, macro filters, tripod, canon digital camera. 

lighting: soft lighting from two softboxes from both sides - upon the watch. Using softboxes when videoing the model - even lighting. 

Model: young male model

mood/atmosphere: Dramatic, suspense and cool. 

Fun Behind the scenes 

Practise Video:

I have taken short video clips in the studio of my friends to make a behind the scenes 1 minute movie clip. This was my first time shooting on film and the first attempt to work on Imovie, which is the programme that i used to put the clips and music together. 

The techniques i used in these clips were: panning, focusing, close-up, low vantage point, high vantage point, lighting off and on, jells, camera hand held, tripod, rule of thirds and camera zoom. Using these techniques made this video more interesting then just having a simple video throughout. 

This went well because i achieve the theme that i wanted, which was behind the scenes - which is seeing them pose and mess about. It was also successful because the clips are in time with the sound track; used different techniques all the way through and also kept the length of each clips different and mx and matched, so there are quick clicks after longer clips. 

In these two print screens blow show a contact sheet of my photographs that i have taken, from my still life to fashion, from sorts wear to a black suit. Through out these photo shoots i was practicing my photographic techniques like shallow depth of field, composition, manual camera settings, low vantage points and more. 

I will be doing a test shot for different lighting positions like split lighting, Rembrandt lighting, Clamshell lighting and Badger Lighting. Here are those four examples of lighting:

1. Split Lighting

Looking at this image the split lighting doesn't look good on this model as its not very appealing. So therefore if it doesn't look good now it won’t when I photograph him later. 

2. Rembrandt Lighting

I Like this lighting effect on my model because the lighting is appealing on him and flattering. I will use this lighting effect when i am photographing him in his suit as it makes him look more mature. 

3. Badger Lighting 

This is my first time using this type of lighting effect and and this type of lighting set-up. I am happy that i wanted to experiment with new lighting effects because i like this lighting on my model. I like it because it looks dramatic and appealing which suits my feel and atmosphere to my photos and video. To achieve this lighting I placed 1 soft box to both side of him at a 45 degree angle from the back and that’s how i have create a dark line in the middle of his face and that’s where the light a finished and cant reach too. 

4. Clamshell Lighting