Exercise 7: Focal Length and Character

Now I moved onto the focal length project. I was using my Canon 24-105 IS L lens (on a 5d MKII, a full frame camera, so no crop factor is applied), so I took three shots, one at 24mm one at roughly 70mm, and one at 105mm. I decided to do full body shots, otherwise I would have been extremely close to Emma on the wide end of the lens:

This is the shot at 24mm, it has exagerated features that are close to the lens, such as Emma's legs. In this pose it doesn't work so well, is not particularly flattering, but if I was trying to emphasise the height of a model, shooting from low with a wide angle lens with really accentuate a models legs, and could be used to great affect. It also shows a lot of the background and Emma's surroundings, so would work well for showing the environment as well in a portrait. It also requires a fairly close working distance between photographer and subject, making it uncomfortable for the subject, often showing up in the photographs with slightly awkward poses.

This is the shot at 70mm. It is flattering, gives a very natural perspective on Emma, and Emma's features are very much true to life. This is very much a good focal length for a general portrai, giving very much a true to life view, if not slightly giving a flattening effect to the image. It also gives a good working distance between photographer and subject, not being too far apart, but far enough that it is easy for the subject to relax into a pose.

This was shot at 105mm, and it is a lovely focal length for a portrait. It has a flattening effect on the image, so all the features of the face are very appealing to the eye (no exagerating nose sizes like the wide angle does). It also gives a narrow field of view behind the sitter, so if there is a small area of attractive background (as there is here), it can really help make that part of the portrait. Overall this is my favourite focal length, because of the flattening effect it provides, though I would probably use it more for head and shoulders portraits because of the distance between the subject and the photographer require for a full body portrait is rather large.

Exercise 6: The best of a sequence

So I continued with my same model for this project (thanks Emma!) As I moved onto best of a sequence. I continued with a location I had used before, the back of my garage, as this also gave something for Emma to lean against whilst posing, making it easier for both of us. Below is a sample of some of the shots from the series I took:



This is at the end of the series. At the time I generally felt the expressions got better as the session went on, as Emma relaxed into it better, got the general idea I was after better too, and so did the poses. There were the odd anomaly where I caught Emma mid expression change, but generally those were my feelings. I chose to stop shooting with this last shot, because I felt I had acheived the best shot I was going to from the session with the last shot, and felt that it was best to finish on a high.

I have already sorted the images above, and already scraped the "not good" rated images (about 8 in total, mainly capturing with blinking eyes, or mid expression change). From above there are about 5 acceptable images, 6 good images, and the single best image being the last one shown, and shown larger below:

I felt this was the best image, as Emma had truely relaxed into the shoot at this stage, she is looking at the camera, with a lovely smile on her face, and her eyes are fairly wide drawing the viewer into the picture. Her pose is also very good, it is very relaxed, and aesthetically pleasing. Overall I think it is a very good result to obtain from the sequence of pictures.

Exercise 5: Eye-contact and expression

I moved onto exercise 5 and this time I got my friend and fellow photographer Emma to pose for me (http://www.hopephotographic.co.uk/). This time I was looking at eye contact within a photograph.


The first photography has direct eye contact with the camera. This gives a very personal feeling to the photograph, and combined with the very warm smile in this image, gives a very friendly, welcoming feel to the photograph


This next picture had emma looking up and slightly away from the camera. In my opinion I do not think this photograph works as well because it is slightly unflattering, with a lot of the neck on show, and the eyes are slightly less prominant in the picture, removing the personal connection.
Now side on is far more flattering, still looking slightly up, but the facial features are well presented, with the nose not breaking the cheek line. It gives a very classical feel to the image as well, and is less personal. It gives more of a feeling of capturing a moment in time rather than a posed portrait as well

Probably my favourite of the four photos, this one is looking to the side, but not up, instead looking straight. It again gives that classic, less personal feel to the picture, and the facial features are flattened slightly by the angle. I personally like a mix of images of straight on, looking at the camera, and turned away, looking away from the camera. Both have different feels, and both are images that work. Looking away from the camera needs to be controlled more carefully, for example the nose not breaking the cheekline, as this can look rather odd, but both posed right are portraits that I like.

Exercise 4: An active portrait

So yesterday I moved on to the active portrait exercise, and for once, I wasn't using my brother as the model. My friend, Chantal, is at university studying English and Philosophy, and she is aiming to become an author so I couldn't think of a better subject for my active portrait than Chantal, and to produce a "writer's portrait".

For this portrait, I sat Chantal at my desk with a few stragically chosen books (by Chantal) and a pad of paper and a pen and just asked her to write something, anything, that would get her to relax and into a natural writing pose. Whilst she started this, I set up the two lamps and allowed her time to settle, before looking for the best angle for the shot. I then waited for the right expression, and took a few shots as her expression changed. Below is the result of the shoot:


I am very pleased with this shot, the two lights were set up with one to Chantal's left, picking out her hair on that side and spilling into her face, and lighting the table somewhat and one on her right to mainly light her face and body, and the scene in general. I think this shot captures a natural writing pose, it is from a good angle where Chantal is clearly the subject of the picture, and she, and her writing, jump from the dark background.

Exercise 3: Experimenting with light

So I moved on to the third exercise the next time I had some free time. I had arranged for one of my friends to pose for me, but she had something else come up, so my brother had to suffice again! (just kidding, thanks Rob). The first image (below) was lit using window light on a cloudy day alone:

This is a fairly soft, but nice modeling light. It is reasonably directional, but just generally from the right hand side of the picture as it was a large window. It creates shadows on the left hand side of the nose, and face, and under the left hand side of the chin. It is appealing light, and models the face well.

Next I used the same light source, but I've added in a silver reflector on the left hand side of the picture to bounce light back into the face.

This is a very soft even lighting, with just enough modelling, but very few, and very soft shadows. This is very flattering lighting, and is a light I would use quite frequently with female sitters, as it gives a very soft look to the skin.

Next I used the blind to cut out the natural light and resorted to a flashgun. This light was bounced off the wall and the ceiling behind my head

This is an interesting lighting, it creates soft shadows under the chin, dimples in the cheek, and around the eyes. This isn't perfect, and would work better if a bit more light reached the eyes, but mimics daylight lighting quite well with the directional lighting from above.

Next I utilised some desk lamps I had laying around. This had one lamp directly behind the head, and one behind and to the right (looking at the photo)

This lights the narrow side of the face, causing the side of the face nearest the camera to be in shadow, and creates a rim light on the hair. This is a fairly dramatic lighting. This could maybe benefit with a bit more light reflecting back into the shadow just to lift a bit more detail from it, but this sort of lighting would be good for maybe a writers portrait as it is dramtic, and almost creates that dark work room sort of look.

The last shot I went for a shot with flash again, this time off camera and direct, from below and slightly to the left, using a fairly narrow beam

This has created a very harsh light, a very dramatic light, with very hard shadows on the left hand side of the face and nose, and a lot of the hair disappearing into the background. It creates the appearance that the sitter is almost emerging from the unknown. It does emphasise any imperfections on the skin though, so has to be used with care.

Exercise 2: Thinking about location

I am a bit late with my write up for this excersise due to a busy two weeks. I actually did this excersise in conjunction with exercise 1, which shall become obvious later in this write up. I went on a little trip in my local area, searching for locations, and I managed to find quite a number of varied views that would work for backgrounds

My first location was on my way to Dungeness, I spotted this nice desolate location, within some dead looking trees. This would add interest to portraits as well as helping to create a bit of a disturbing atmostphere. I think it would work best in monochrome too. There are some problems with the location though, it is very open, which means it is often subject to direct light. This would mean I would either have to use diffusers to create a softer light, or wait for a cloudy day, to create an attractive lighting and not be too harsh



On arriving at Dungeness I immediately headed towards the sea to lie on the stones and relax listening to the sea roll in. Whilst I was doing this and looking out to sea, I realised that this was a beautiful scene, and would work well as a portrait location, and with the sea being so vast, it could be photographed from a number of different angles without changing the view much, so could be adapted to the best light, as well as actually being used as a prop in the photos too, by having the model in the shallows of the sea, maybe lying down with waves lapping over them, or just splashing round their ankles. However this again suffers from the direct sunlight problem, and introduces water into the equation, so clothes might get wet, so there are quite a few logisitics that need to be worked out.



After my trip down Dungeness for a bit of photography, I came back home and continued my search for locations, and I was amazed at what I found. Their were plenty of bright colours and different textures in my garden alone and I managed to find four very varied backgrounds to complete the set here. Below is the first, our garden shed. This has a beautifully strong wooden orange colour, along with a gorgeous wooden texture. It isn't the largest shed, so would require some restricted posing, and as you can see from the photograph, there is uneven lighting so again would require either working to the light (which could create some interesting results) or reflecting and defusing the light. With the right model, and some work I do think this would be an interesting background to work with though

Not far from my shed we have this line of trees, and although geographically they are very close, in a background for a portrait shot, they would look completely different. The strong green colour and great texture, as well as adding a natural theme to the photograph. The light here, although direct, is also shaded later in the day, so it is quite a versatile location as it gets both natural direct sunlight, and shaded light, so can be used for a variety of effects.

I love this next background, it is a very modern background, and the sort of style I like to photograph. Very bold blue colour, contrasts great with some cloth, and compliments certain eye colours, and other clothing choice. The metal is also reflective so adds another dynamic to the photograph, allowing you to both see more of the model, and some of what they are "looking at". Care would have to be taken though over the reflection of the photographer not appearing in the image though as this would spoil the effect in my opinion. Although I didn't choose it for my portrait this time, I would love to try it in another one of my shoots.

And now this location should look familiar, as it is the one I chose to use for my portrait, or portraits, as I looked for the location in this exercise, to do exercise 1 with. This for me was a very good background, a number of useful elements in it. Lines of the brickwork could be used well to lead the eye into the subject, the texture creates and interesting background, and the colour complemented my subjects eye colour. Also a big plus for me was the light. It was in shade, and so had a very even, but still bright enough light. It created a lovely soft light for the portraits. To see the examples of the portrait photographs I took here see exercise 1.



This was a usual exercise, it got me looking at real world objects, and seeing how they could be used as locations for my portraits. A number of locations work well as both scenic locations for a portrait, and an abstract background, meaning a number of different looking photographs could all be taken in one location. It has also definately opened my eyes to the number of different locations there are out there for portraits.

People and Place: Exercise 1

So today I took my first steps into the People and Place course, and started with the first exercise, 'Portrait, scale and setting'. For this my brother was the (not so willing) model, and after a brief scout, I decided my garage would supply a nice location, with the brick wall adding a good textured interest to the photos, and a very complementary colour for the portraits as well.

My first image was of the face cropped in close, out of the number of images I took I settled on this one:

I felt this image was the best as it was quite engaging, the eyes get the viewers attention, the focus is good on the face, especially the eyes, the background is out of focus so not distracting, and the angles are quite dynamic. I got my brother to look up at the camera to help accentuate the eyes to help draw attention to them, and help with the framing of the image.

The second image, the one for the head and shoulders shot, I chose this image for:

I think this image is probably my favourite of the group. The eye is lead in to my brother, both by the bricks, and his body, and the angle again adds a bit of fun to the picture. The eyes are not so much the main object of attention anymore, more so just the face itself. The background also adds to the picture with leading the eye.

The next two images were more of a challenge, having to think about more things with positioning the body as well. The next image is the one I chose for my torso shot:

Now I tried two poses for this, the first was with his thumbs in his pockets, and his fingers pointing down, but it didn't quite look right, because the finger position was never quite right, so I tried this shot as well. Posing the hands wasn't too much of a challenge, the main issue was not to make them look unnatural, and to have the fingers visable, so it involved the less natural of folding the arms with both hands on top. This has worked well. The casual lean against the wall helps the look of the image, and the expression being a smile as we were having a bit of fun at the time. Again I've gone for diagonals in the image as it is more engaging, but this time with Rob entering from the other corner, as this angle just felt more natural for this image. Again the point of interest is the face, and the torso to some extent, but it is well balanced.

The fourth image was by far the toughest and I took the most photos for this one, finally settling on this image for the full body shot:

There were a lot of things to think about here, the feet, the hands, the arms, the expression, and I don't think this is perfect, but it is still a nice shot. The flaws are his hand nearest the camera, the fingers would look better outstretched, they look like they are cut off at the joint in this picture and it looks slightly unnatural. The feet were spread apart to look slightly better, and keep the body in a good pose. The expression is natural, and the environment doesn't have any distracting object, and again uses lines to lead into Rob. The body as a whole is more of the object of attention here, as it stands out from the environment. If I were to reshoot this image I would try a sitting pose, possibly with one foot fairly close to the camera with the leg outstretched, looking along the leg into the torso and up to the face, this would supply a more dynamic and engaging image in my opinion.

We also did a couple more shots for fun and I thought I would include this last shot as it is quite fun and different. The expression could be better, but it was good to capture a bit of action, and a very dynamic pose: