Day 96 – By the light of a lamp

I snapped these this morning before work. They are illuminated by a table lamp on the end table next to the sofa in our family room (with a little bit of ambient light in the background coming from the dining area).

Nina

Jezebel

Day 71 – Playing with fill flash

I’ve been playing a lot with my flash. Adding one more tool to my photographic toolbox is exciting. Up until a couple of weeks ago I avoided flash photography like the plague. I’d rather have noise than deal with harsh lighting, unflattering shadows, and on and on.

I am learning that I don’t have to put up with any of those things as long as I know how to use my flash effectively.

Over the past week or so, I’ve been playing with fill flash to make as much as I can of existing light and using the flash to fill in the gaps. I’ve also been experimenting with second curtain sync.

First experiment: Shooting inside next to a sunny window. Now, this is really a photographer’s nightmare! Talk about a huge difference in exposures in one photograph.

Here are two shots of my bedroom window and adjacent wall. I shot one using no flash and set the exposure for the lighted window. The second is the same shot, same exposure with an on-shoe flash used for fill. The trick to doing this is to stop-down your flash; that is, you can adjust the Speedlite so that the output is less that full power. In this case, I believe I dropped the flash output by 2 full stops. I also had my flash set to fire at the end of the exposure (second curtain sync), instead of at the very beginning, giving my camera the opportunity to use the ambient lighting to light the photo first. Notice that the shadows cast from the blinds aren’t completely blown out. My thought that if a person were sitting there, they’d be nicely exposed, and yet, the photograph would look as though the individual was lit merely from the light of the window.

Without fill flash

With fill flash

So, I had to try this with a living subject. Sweetie doesn’t have the patience for this sort of thing, and the dogs can get a bit antsy, but the cats were in the living room, so I was in business.

First up, Jezebel. The sun comes through our south-facing window (at camera left). I bounced the flash from the ceiling and filled her in nicely, but in you can still see the glow of the window light on her and the specular reflection of the window in her eye.

Next up, Maya. I shot her sitting in front of the storm door with fill flash and without. In both photos Maya has nice rim light from the light coming through the door, but in the one with flash-fill, you can see all of her coloring. Of course, deciding to use fill or not is all up to you. Depending on what you want to do in the photograph will dictate your choices. In these next photographs, the flash was pointing right at the cats (no bouncing), but I had it stopped down to limit its intensity.

Without fill flash. © Carissa Snedeker

With fill flash © Carissa Snedeker

Without fill flash © Carissa Snedeker

With fill flash © Carissa Snedeker

These last two were shot using fill flash.

Maya alert to Jezebel's imminent arrival. © Carissa Snedeker

Mother and Daughter © Carissa Snedeker

Day 70 – Scars

I’ve been wanting to shoot my heart-related scars for a while but knew that it would take effective lighting to pull it off. Our next assignment for class is to shoot and print two photos (black and white) using a hot shoe flash both on and off camera. You are getting a sneak peek at what I ‘m pretty sure I’m going to use.

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Day 56 – Lighting Wine Bottles

Last Thursday’s lighting class was held in our instructor’s studio and we were to shoot bottles of wine; one shot using diffused and the other using reflected light. We were put in groups of about six, and in my group, I was the first to attempt the assignment. As these sorts of things are a process of seeing what works and what doesn’t, I wasn’t able to get too many shots off (two to be exact) before I had to step away and let another have a go at it.

My shot was just barely okay, and I didn’t get the lighting quite the way I wanted, nor was I able to highlight all the parts of the bottle that I wanted so I knew that I’d have to do the assignment on my own. That’s what I worked on today. Here are the two that made the cut.

Chardonnay lit with diffused light © Carissa Snedeker

Pinot Noir lit by reflected light © Carissa Snedeker

Day 53 – Hanging Light or Abstract Art?

I shot this tonight at our Reno Freethinkers meeting. It was the light hanging from the ceiling illuminating the stairs to the second-floor room we were in. I shot it looking straight up from the stairwell.

Day 52 – Country Gas Station at Night

First day back at work after a three-day weekend, so of course I was busier than usual. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I need to leave early to make it to school by 4pm for my lighting class, so I don’t take a lunch. Tonight was critique night, so I had no chance to shoot anything until after class.

This gas station sits at the crossroads of Highways 50 and 95, the location of our town’s one and only stoplight; a blinking one. Shot at ISO 1600, f/13, 1/60s (hand-held).

About critique night. Our third assignment was to shoot a face lit from six different angles. This was the shot everyone, including our teacher, felt was my best. I’m very happy with this shot. There is always room for improvement, and it’s far from perfect, but for my first foray into the light studio, it came out pretty good. Shot with a diffused light camera right, with a white poster board reflecting the diffuse light to provide some fill for the left side of her face.

Daughter © Carissa Snedeker

Day 47 – Lighting class “quick fire” challenge

Our instructor was out tonight, but our lab assistant was there and between him and Jeff, they had an assignment for us for the night. The exercise we were given was adapted from Photo Workout: Flex Your Photographic Skills at Digital Photography Magazine online.

Light is critical to photography. Without light, you can’t take pictures! One of the keys to becoming a better photographer is to “see: the light and understand what it is doing within an image. The camera only sees the light and emphasized that light, even it it’s not flattering or beneficial for the subject. It is the job of the photographer to understand and properly utilize light for the desired effect.

ASSIGNMENT: Create an image using light as a creative or technical component to your composition. Illustrate how your light effectively interact with or within the composition (Does it affect the subject? Is it the subject? Does it provide movement? Does it increase or decrease the contrast Does it enhance the composition, if so, how?) You may use: natural, artificial, continuous, flash or any combination of them all. Your image must be shot in class time. Print one copy of your image, black and white or color. HAVE FUN!

Tips: Using the techniques that you have learned so far, find, create and/or use light in an interesting manner! Pay attention to both the quality and quantity of the light, and the effect it is having or producing. Look for spots of light, colored light, edge light, light contrasting with shadow or shadows themselves (as shadows are as much a part of light as the light itself). Look at the light, and what it is doing in your photograph. See how the light might be interesting in and of itself. Look at how light and shadows are interacting throughout the image.

So…

We were given an hour to go out and shoot, and then we were to come back to the lab to process and print one photo. We grabbed our cameras and out we headed out. I shot a lot of photos, and some of them su-u-u-cked, but I managed to shoot a few of interesting shots.

A light on the wall in Knowledge Center:

Palms near the windows in the Knowledge Center with sun shining through their leaves.

Outside the Starbucks located in “The Joe” (Joe Crowley Student Union) I saw a table stacked on another. The shadow the leg cast on the brick wall captured my attention for a bit.

Finally, I headed back to class and as I started to walk back through the Knowledge Center, these ceiling lights caught my eye:

So which picture did I choose to print? And did I choose color or black & white? And will I change my mind before Tuesday?

Six Photographs

I’m starting a new photography class at UNR on Tuesday. This is the Photographic Lighting class and I’m really looking forward to it. The instructor sent us an email today telling us to bring six of our best photographs to our first session to share with the class. Here is what I’ve chosen. Regular readers will recognize that four of them come from my 365 project.