well, hello dolly…
Finally got back shooting today. Not doing coursework, just working my way towards the images for assignment 4.
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concentrating light…
A few months ago—if you’d suggested that I wanted to create stark, strong light and shadows—I’d have laughed at you…!
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contrast & shadow fill…
Using reflectors—homemade and store bought—to manage contrast and filling shadows in our images…
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the lighting angle…
The purpose of this exercise was to investigate how the angle and position of the light will light the subject…
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softening the light…
This exercise aims to illustrate the difference between hard [bare-bulb] and soft [diffused] light…
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softening the light…
The purpose is to evaluate the effect that diffusion has on both the quality of light and the required exposure…
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experimenting with light…
So I had a little play, thinking that it might cover the contrast and fill exercise, until I read the exercise afterwards…
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tungsten lighting…
Knew when Ylennia asked me whether I wanted to take some images in the new water villas…
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cloudy weather—3
Finding cloudy day images in our image library that would definitely not have been better in sunlight…
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rainy days and sundays…
For this part of the exercise, we were encouraged to take our cameras out & capture some ‘wet’ images…
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cloudy weather—2
Covering two parts of this exercise with these images—looking at colour, f/stop etc but also texture…
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cloudy weather—1
I know where we are going here—looking at shadows—and how clouds help to soften the shadows and the light…
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light through the day…
What’s more frightening—chased by a naked man in Windsor Great Parks—or attacked by aggressive terns…?
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colour temperature—2
In this exercise we look at whether or not a scene requires in-camera white balance correction…
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colour temperature—1
The fact that daylight has colour—and that colour changes through the day—is something I am aware of…
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higher and lower sensitivity
In my first post for lighting coursework, I said that occasionally I would try to pre-empt what was required…
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measuring exposure—2e
Okay, now this series has gone on long enough—I get the picture—I promise to make more informed decisions!
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measuring exposure—2d
Penultimate series of bracketed exposures for this part of the coursework—and an interior series…
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measuring exposure—2c
The third and final series of bracketed images that I shot in Venice—with a slight difference from previous…
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measuring exposure—2b
The second series of images where I bracket exposures and decide which one reflects the scene as I want…
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measuring exposure—2a
Here we go with exposure bracketing—creating a series where we deliberately under-and over-expose images…
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measuring exposure—1
An exercise which calls for a number of images that are deliberately lighter or darker than average…
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measuring exposure—intro
These exercises are designed to teach us to make conscious decisions about what metering system to use…
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silly games…?
I’m playing a game with myself and ‘lit’ photography at the moment—and it’s helping me ‘see the light’!
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lighting…thus far
Because I ‘played’ with lighting in assignment 1 and assignment 3; it seems a good time to take stock…
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lighting coursework…
It’s time to start all the ‘onerous’ tasks as background for the lighting assignment. Actually, I’m quite excited…
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indecent proposal
I’m still out on holiday, but you can see from the feature image that I have done some of my light studies…
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thinking inside the frame…
Been a really productive day—much blogging, reading and thinking—too grey outside to do anything else…
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black & white conversions
Been discussing the pros and cons of Lightroom vs Photoshop on the OCA forum, and the conversation has…
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colour into tones in black & white
It’s not often that I want to disagree with something that is written in our course notes, but maybe it’s about time…
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controlling the strength of colour
In this exercise on colour, the brief was to look at how we could control the strength of colour in the image…
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colour ratios
In addition to complementary hues, I’m also learning about the ‘correct’ ratios at which they should be mixed…
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complementary colours…
Having looked at the qualities of colour in terms of hue, saturation and value; I’m now investigating colour relationships…
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colour value
In addition to hue and saturation discussed in earlier posts, colour also has value, or lightness and darkness…
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dealing with saturation…
Still researching colours, and enjoying it; even though it’s taking longer than originally intended…
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feeling better about colour
Still continuing looking at colour; and colour wheels and colour qualities, I’ve not even got close to getting the camera out…
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primary, secondary & tertiary hues
Neither the course notes nor the ‘Basic Colour Theory’ document on the OCA website contained any colour wheels…
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colour resources
I’ve spent a while doing background reading for a better understanding of how I can use colour in my images…
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understanding the colour wheel
It took me quite a while to get my head round this ‘new’ colour wheel; after all I was an rgb/cmyk girl…
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getting to grips with colour
I’ve not picked up the camera in over two weeks now—intentional and not lazy—I’ve been training my eye…
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beauty & fashion photography
Watching Matthew Jordan Smith on fashion and beauty photography on creativeLive this weekend…
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rhythm & pattern
In this last set of exercises for module 2, we were required to find a minimum of two images—one which illustrated rhythm and one which illustrated pattern.
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implied lines (ii & iii)
In the second and third sections of this exercise, we needed to assess and apply the concept of implied lines to our own photographs.
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implied lines (part i)
This exercise moves from real visual lines—which have been studied in the previous projects— to the more optical/virtual/implied lines which can exist between points.
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lines in composition: curves
For this exercise, we had to look for and take four photographs using curves to emphasise either movement and/or direction within the image.
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lines in composition: diagonal lines
In this exercise, we needed four photographs which illustrated the use of diagonals in the image.
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lines in composition: horizontal lines
A continuation of the lines in composition exercise, with this section concentrating on horizontal lines as an element of design.
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lines in composition: vertical lines
The purpose of this exercise was to discover vertical lines as elements of design within a composition.
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multiple points
We had to create a still-life using 6-10 similar sized, compact shape objects. The objective was to illustrate the relationship between multiple points. Bearing the following in mind:
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the relationship between points
The purpose of this exercise was illustrate how the introduction of a secondary point in an image destroys the basic simplicity of an image.
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positioning a point
Experimenting with the different positions in which we can place a single point in the frame. Notes say that placing a point in the centre very rarely works, because of the static nature it produces.
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vertical and horizontal frames
In this exercise we were asked to find twenty situations and shoot all those images vertically. The purpose was to not only force us out of the habit of shooting most things horizontally without thought for the subject or composition.
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positioning the horizon
Feel on more solid ground again after the balance exercise. In this exercise we were to concentrate on the placement of the horizon within the frame when composing an image.
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finding balance
In this exercise we had to identify balance within images, this balance could be objects, lines, tones or colour.
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In the previous exercise, the purpose was to note how changing focal lengths narrowed the field of view…
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understanding focal lengths
This was an exercise to study the effect that the focal length of the lens — that as we change lenses from one focal length to another — its effect on the amount of view we can take in.
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a sequence of composition
Not much of a people shooter — there was always a chance that this project was going to take me well and truly out of my comfort zone.
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object in different positions in the frame
For this exercise, I chose a small bench underneath a tree, and in front of a hedge, in Windsor Great Park.
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fitting the frame to the subject (II)
After taking the previous four shots, we were required to find alternate crops of the final image from the previous exercise.
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fitting frame to subject (i)
In this exercise, we were to experiment with the amount of space that a subject takes up in the frame…
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can’t pan, won’t pan…
An afternoon sat on the roundabout in Trafalgar Square, handheld camera with limited success …
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fixed position with shutter speeds
In this exercise, we would investigate how shutter speeds would either freeze motion, or allow motion to be recorded in an image.
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focus at different apertures
The images illustrate the effect that changing the aperture has on the depth of field within an image; and how the increased depth of field can be a distraction in busy scenes.
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focus with a set aperture (ii)
This set of images is a repeat of the previous exercise where I concentrate on focus with a set aperture…
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focus with a set aperture (i)
In this exercise we were to become familiar with how a wide aperture affected our depth of field in an image; and also how this affected our perception of the image when the in-focus area was rendered in different parts of the photograph.
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