Studio Photography 2

I wanted to experiment with portrait photography and different lighting setups, these included coloured gels, coloured lens's, flat light, badger and Rembrandt lighting; these were all used to show different shadows to show different emotions. Shutterspeed 1/60, 100 ISO.

For the first photos I used a high key flat lighting setup, this envolves using two strobes, two light stands, two 20" soft boxes and a white backdrop. The lights are angled towards the subject in hope to illuminate shadows, unfortunately due to the levels of light one of the strobes was lighter than the other causing shadows over the subjects face. 

I then decided to experiment with darker backgrounds and more shadowed lighting, this envolved turning off one of the strobe lights so the light would fall across one side of the subject face and body creating shadows. 

I then decided to experiment with coloured gels in order to experiment with more surreal colour schemes, thus would not work with the the flash of the strobes as they would over power the coloured gels. Instead, the flash was turned off and an ambient light setting was used on the light meter in order to determine what f number to use on the camera. The soft modelling lamps were turned up fully to the brightest setting to illuminate the subject as no flash was used. 

For the right light I used the barn doors rather than a soft box, over this I placed the coloured gel, this was folded over twice making the gel double thickness, this was to intensify the red colour of the gel. 

Camera settings; 200 ISO, f 5.6, Shutterspeed 1/30.

Finally I decided to remove the coloured gel and use the same lighting setup as before (barn doors on right light, soft box on left). Exposures were taken using a flash rather than the ambient lighting.

HEALTH AND SAFETY-

When working in the studio I had to ensure precautions were taken so that myself or my model were not harmed. These included;

🔻 No eating or drinking in the studio.

🔻 All words moved out of the way so there was no tripping hazard.

🔻 Main lights turned on when moving lights, as well as strobes being turned off.

🔻 When strobes were off, must be switched off on both the strobe itself and the wall.

Surreal Colour Schemes.

I wanted to experiment with different colour schemes and how they could effect the mood and overall appearance of the piece. To do this I first researched into the theory and psychology of colour, including Picassos blue and rose periods. I them created a colour palett using possible colour schemes and starting points that I was personally drawn too, and discussed the feelings created by these colours.

After I had decided my basic colour scheme I then used found imagery to experiment with before experimenting with my own photographs. To do this I used photoshop. 

I first selected the image I wanted to use and created a new layer in Photoshop which I filled with a block colour, this layer was dragged below the photograph and would become the background colour.

Once I had filled my background colour I then added the image over the top. I created a third layer which was also filled a block colour which contrasted against the existing background. I then used the colour range tool to select the background of the image and highlight this. Once the background of the image was selected I deleted it to reveal the block colour layer below creating a new background. 

Whilst the outline of the image was selected I also selected the top layer (colour block) and deleted everything selected around the outside. This left the outline of the subject filled in the chosen block colour on top of the coloured background I had created. 

Finally I selected the layer mode that I felt would work best which allowed the image below to show through the later mask on top of the existing photograph. 

For this particular sample I used the layer mode 'soft light'.

I then experimented with a slightly more pigmented layer mask, by choosing a darker shade of pink over the top of the existing image. 

I also perimeter with reversing this colour scheme choosing a pink background and a green/blue layer mask. 

Finally I decided to experiment with layering photographs over the top of each other, for this I used two different layer masks and two copies of the same image. I moved these slightly apart so they were not exactly aligned allowing the two different layer masks to show. 

For this sample I moved the layer masks as well as the images so they layer masks did not align completely giving a more abstract effect. 

This involved separating the different layers slightly so that different parts of the layer masks and images showed.