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A reminder that my chosen phrase is: “The day passed much as the day before had done”

So, my first attempt at time lapse photography…

My first thoughts were to set the camera up on aperture priority and let the camera sort the shutter speed out, but then I realised that I didn’t want ‘perfect’ exposures all day. When it was dark in the morning, I wanted the video to be dark in the morning. So I decided that manual was the best way to go, but needed some idea of where to start with settings. I did a bit of googling on Thursday night and found this very useful article on lightstalking.com. The article suggests a wide aperture, to try and eliminate flicker, such as f8, the article explains it better than I can! The article also suggests a shutter speed of 1/50th or slower, this is also to reduce flicker, again, the article explains better than I can. Setting a manual white balance is also suggested, to keep everything consistent throughout the shoot, I chose daylight. Finally because the settings I was using were conducive to bright photographs, I set my ISO to 100.

Final google was to find out sunrise and sunset times, which were 7am and 4pm. So I went a little either way and decided on 6am till 6pm.

Thursday night I was ready to set the timer on my camera and then realised that both of my batteries were flat. So I had to put one on charge overnight and set my alarm for 5:45!

Friday morning, I got up, arranged my camera and set it for an immediate start, 144 exposures at 5 minute intervals. I also set it to jpeg only. I wasn’t going to process 144 RAW files for my first attempt!

i must admit, the view that I framed isn’t what i’m hoping got my final submission. My 16-85mm lens on a DX sensor, just isn’t wide enough. I’m hoping for something similar to this, that I took with a beer can camera! But i’m going to need to get hold of a fish-eye lens.

Here is my simple setup, need to be a little lower next time to avoid the lines in the windows:

Little bit of work in iMovie this morning and here is my first attempt. 4 frames/sec.

Really pleased with it. Bit of a shame Friday is bin day, because this takes away from the day passing much as the day before had done. I’m also fortunate that it was a cloudy day. I think i’m going to struggle if it’s clear.

For my next attempt i’m going to try 1 minutes exposures over the 12 hours. (720 frames!) with a fish-eye lens.

Pride and Prejudice – Initial Project Research – 14th Jan 2014

January 14, 2014

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This project is to take some words from Price and Prejudice by Jane Austin and produce a series of photographs to compliment it. The words also needed to be included in the work somehow. Be it just in the border or something a bit more subtle. Visual language in photography.

Over Christmas I read the book and picked out some sections sections as either possibles or because they made me laugh:

Text	Thoughts
Her reflections were in general satisfactory.	Women doing makeup or getting ready to go out, looking in mirror with satisfied look, pleased with how they look
The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable;	Something based around a monopoly game, lucky enough to land on community chest and get a card for £10,000?
“Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances.”	Made me laugh. Could get someone to expose themselves in public places, may get arrested for indecent exposure!
The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak.	Visit the places and take landscapes?
They gradually ascended for half-a-mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance.	Find a stately home and try and re-create the short journey towards it
Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters.	I’m so childish…

None of this really inspired me, so I decided to use the search function on my Kobo eReader to find phrases. I tried searches for “How”, which I thought might pose a question to be explored, I picked out a couple of these,:

Text	Thoughts
“How can you be so silly,”	People pulling faces or doing silly things
How unlucky	Pose some accidents or close calls. play pontoon and get 20 or all money on black and get black?

Again, these didn’t really inspire me. I decided to switch it around, what photo’s would I like to take. I always wanted to do some time lapse photography, so did searches for words like “time” and “day”.

I came across “The day passed much as the day before had done” definite winner. After a bit of discussion with the lecturer I have decided to go with the time lapse project. Based on a days worth of photographs put together into a video. Our house is south facing, so the sun rises and sets across the front of the house. I have photographed this before in one shot with a beer can solar graph which was a 3 week exposure. There is also a lot of traffic and movement in front of the house so I feel this will all look good as time lapse photography.

White Dress Project Final image critique and conclusion 19th December 2013

December 19, 2013

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19th December, hand in date.

We were asked to bring our final 5 images in for a group critique where we put our images up on the whiteboard, talk about them and get feedback from our peers and lecturers.

Here are my final 5 images:

I got some really good positive feedback from the group. The image of Claire in sitting on the tree branch in the woods seemed to be favourite.

Feedback points seemed to be:

Good lighting on location shoot, although the sun on some was harsh.
A light behind the model in the tower would have been good to just highlight the hair and give it some texture.
Get a bite more movement and variation to poses.

Learning points that i’ve taken from the critique and the project are:

Try different colour backgrounds
Take a list of different poses for models
Take pictures of models in different poses to show models, give them a better idea of what i’m looking for.
Have lots and lots of idea’s to try. Don’t run out, make sure the time is used fully. Last thing a model wants to do is be standing around, possibly getting cold if outdoors.
Make sure I get portrait and landscape shots of each pose, location and setup.
Pay more attention to makeup and hair. I was fortunate with this project in that the fashion students had an idea for each model and just went for it.
Pay more attention to small shadows etc in low key images. Place lights, the model and their limbs very carefully. Look closely at face, do I need a reflector or extra light to get rid of shadows around eyes, nose etc.

Overall an enjoyable project. Fortunate to have superb fashion students who were good on communication. I am really pleased with the images that I shot, especially on location. I feel my lighting and exposure was good straight off the camera. We had a wonderful location, which I feel we made the most of with a recce visit before hand to choose locations. I also felt very comfortable in the studio, especially with the high key lighting. I have learned a lot and would be happy to do a similar project again.

White Dress Project Image choices and editing 15th December 2013

December 15, 2013

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For the hand in, we are required to submit 5 images. I have made my choice based on personal preference, peer comments, lecturer comments and feedback from Nicole and Gemma. I am also aware that the images are for a fashion ‘client’ so made sure that the dress and model are the focus.

For editing, the images need to be sized to be printed on A3 paper. I have also done some work darkening the backgrounds and enhancing the dress, making sure it is the focal point. The studio shots needed some cleaning up of the ‘white’ background. To finish I have added a 1cm border around the edge of each image.

Here are my 5 final images. Both ‘off the camera’ and in edited form:

I picked this one because it show’s the ‘wings’ of the dress as well as other details. It’s a pose that might be associated with the Charleston dance/ flapper girl image. I also like the framing and the shape of the body. A little editing of the background to clean up (right). I have also got rid of a tattoo on her arm and a few bruises on her legs.

Bit of a ‘marmite’ image this one. Got mixed reactions, so I decided to put it in for that reason. Simple edits (right). Try and clean up the background and I put a bit of work into trying to pull the hair away from the mouth.

Bit of a ‘marmite’ image this one. Got mixed reactions, so I decided to put it in for that reason. I like the pose, I feel that she looks like she’s going to ‘take off’ the ballooned cape also gives the effect of air flowing. Simple edits (right). Try and clean up the background and I put a bit of work into trying to pull the hair away from the mouth.

Although this doesn't show a lot of the dress detail, it does highlight the headdress, hair and makeup. Very little work on this one (right). Slightly darkened and a little highlight of the eyes.

Although this doesn’t show a lot of the dress detail, it does highlight the headdress, hair and makeup. I felt this was important to show the excellent work that the fashion students had done, aside from the dress. It is also a different perspective. Very little work on this one (right). Slightly darkened and a little highlight of the eyes.

My favourite shot out of the set. It shows the dress well and it's detail. An almost fairytale look. I have darkened the distracting background light and highlighted the dress (right).

My favourite shot out of the set. It shows the dress well and it’s detail. An almost fairytale look. The model looks relaxed, in a world of her own looking off into the distance. I have darkened the distracting background light and highlighted the dress (right).

This was my favourite out of this sequence. The dress was well exposed, so the detail is visible and I like the look of the model almost soaking up the sun. My edits (below) were to darken the lighter background area's and the turret and slightly highlight the dress.

This was my favourite out of this sequence. The dress was well exposed, so the detail is visible and I like the look and pose of the model soaking up the sun. A suggested improvement was a light inside the tower to illuminate the hair slightly. My edits (below) were to darken the lighter background area’s and the turret and slightly highlight the dress.

I picked two images from the location shoot and two images of each dress. As well as an extra head and shoulders shot. I am pleased with my selection.

White Dress Project Studio Shoot 6th November 2013

November 6, 2013

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Four hour studio session at college today. Started off a bit slowly, but steadily gathered momentum. Got the remote light triggers working perfectly so we could have a high key lighting setup (sort of thing you see with family portraits, bright white background) at the infinity curve end of the studio and a low key (one or two lights, generally dark background, moody) at the opposite end at the same time with a model at each.

Claire, who had modelled Nicole’s dress at the location shoot was available again, but Sylvia wasn’t. So i’d arranged for one of my work colleagues, Sarah, to model Gemma’s dress. Unfortunately I got a very apologetic call from Sarah at 8:30am this morning to say that one of her children was sick and could I possibly find someone else to model. Aggghhh! I emailed the group and Gemma came back pretty quickly and said her friend Danielle could make it, what a star!

Malcolm, Lindsay and myself got to college around 5pm and started looking at the two lighting setups. The high key is fairly simple, we used 4 lights, two in front of the model, two behind to light the background. We set the main ‘key’ light of the front two to be f8, we set the other front light to f5.6 (to get some light shadow and shape to the face and body). We then set the two lights at the background to f11, to blow it out and make it white.

We then took a look at the low key lighting setup. As I mentioned in the initial meeting Malcolm had found a picture in a magazine that we all liked and wanted to re-create. It involved a single light illuminating a model, in front of some patterned wallpaper. Probably more suited to Nicole’s dress, but we thought it was worth trying with both. Unfortunately we haven’t got the picture anymore, but it was something like this (except with a female model in a dress in front of patterned wallpaper but the lighting is similar):

Malcolm had been very busy during the week, getting wallpaper samples, getting a preference from Nicole and covering a sheet of 8×4 plywood to bring in as a background. This was put into position and one of us acted as model to get an initial position and strength for the lighting. We were ready to go!

By about 5:30, both models had arrived and were changed and made up, so we started to shoot. This was really difficult! We needed the wallpapered board to be about 3 times wider. To get the whole dress in the shoot we had to shoot quite wide, but we were getting lots of ‘rubbish’ in the background, i.e. the rest of the studio.

We didn’t want to move the models any closer to the background, because of shadows, so we tried the model standing in front of one edge of the wallpaper, it works quite well. But we were also having trouble with harsh shadows from the single light. In hindsight we probably needed a small light or reflector on the opposite side of the model, to lessen the shadows.

I then went onto the high key lighting setup while Lindsay and Malcolm used the low key. I was more comfortable with this, there is a lot more scope for movement with less harsh shadows and the worry of a thin background. I tried some static poses with Danielle:

I was quite pleased with this. But then wanted to get some movement into the dress, make use of all that material. For this shot I got Malcolm to throw the dress up into the air and then jump out of shot.

We then swapped and I took a few shots of Claire in the high key setup. We introduced a clarinet as a prop to start with:

I then asked Claire to use some of her dancing skills and do some Charleston moves:

I did a few closeup shots to show off Nicole’s makeup and headdress:

Finally I did a few more shots in the low key setup, where Lindsay had made some changes and added an orange gel:

Again, there were tricky, there were lots of shadows from the triangles on the front.

Everyone was tired by the end, but enjoyed the evening. Definitely an experience. The next time I do this I need to have some more idea’s of poses for the models, there were a few times when I ran out of idea’s and the model was left standing. Claire and Danielle were excellent, but working with professional models may be easier, they may have idea’s and poses that they can bring to future shoots.

Here is a selection of images from the shoot. Click on the images for a slideshow and some notes that i’ve made on each one:

White Dress Project Location Shoot 27th October 2013

October 27, 2013

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Shattered! But had a really enjoyable day! Plus, the weather held, we were very lucky, a couple of short sharp showers, we even got some sunshine!

During the week, Lindsay had collected the studio lights from college. We had then arranged to meet at the Field Head Hotel, Markfield at 10:30am. I was collecting Gemma and then her model (Sylvia). Malcolm collected Nicole and her model (Claire) and Lindsay came along with his van (plus his wife Nadia came along as well to help out wherever she could).

I left the house at about 9:00 am to get to Syston for 9:30, collect Gemma and then off to Braunstone to collect her model for 10am and then to Markfield to 10:30am. We then drove in convoy to the wonderful house and estate that Lindsay had found. We spoke to the owners, just to say hi and introduce ourselves. We then all piled into Lindsays van and drove to the other side of the estate for our first shots. We planned to make our way back to the house during the shoot.

We parked up and piled out of the van. While Lindsay, Malcolm and I took kit to the location, the models got dressed and had their makeup done in the back of the van. Because it’s quite big and heavy we decided to leave the studio lights in the van and try with off camera flash.

We started with shots in and around one of the ‘turrets’ always conscious to keep moving and swapping models to keep them warm. Our first shots were the models standing in the windows, us shooting from inside the turret, getting the water and woodland in the background. Although i’ve not got any of these shots, because I shoot Nikon and the off camera flashes that we had are Canon. I did however take a few shots using Malcolm’s camera.

The photographers then moved out of the turret, the girls turned around and faced outwards. I really liked these shots. We didn’t need remote flash as the sun came out, although it was a bit frustrating because it was in and out, so we had to be careful with exposures.

Lindsay and I then moved around the lake to the top of the rocky outcrop (see recce shoot) back towards the tower. We got the models to sit and stand, individually and together in the window spaces. Again, no flash, just the sunlight, when it came out. Really like these shots and the reflections. Lindsay also went down to a lower level to get a different angle.

We then moved around to an area next to one of the other quarry’s, just in front of a shear rock face. We did get a bit of a shower at this point and had to take refuge under a tarpaulin, was a good excuse to pause and get a bite to eat:

I took a few shots of Claire here, but wasn’t overly impressed. The pictures looked a bit flat without any off camera flash. I did try some on camera, but they looked terrible. Here is one of the better shots (no flash):

We then walked around to an open fronted wooden building that was in front of a small field, which was one of the places we’d picked out for a bad weather shoot. I’ve not got any photo’s from this location, because it had to be flash and I had the Nikon/Canon flash issue. While there Lindsay went for a walk up the hill towards the house and found an amazing old, huge, tree. So we made our way up there to take some shots. It was pretty light, so I could shoot without flash. Although I got Lindsay’s wife to direct a bit of light with a reflector for a few shots. I was really happy with some of these shots, here is an example:

By this time it was about 4pm and as well as being conscious about models and fashion students getting cold and bored we were shattered and decided to call it a day.

We made our way back to the house. Lindsay fetched his van. Models got back into their street clothes, makeup was removed and the photographers had a quick whip round to donate to a charity that the landowner supports (his only request, as well as not photographing to house).

We all went our separate ways. It was nice to talk to Gemma and Nicole on the way back, they had enjoyed the experience of the day and looked forward to seeing the final images. I have just emailed a few over to them. Here is a selection of my favourite images, click on them to get some notes:

White Dress Project Location Recce 23rd October 2013

October 23, 2013

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Lindsay, Malcolm and I arranged to meet in the car park at the Field Head Hotel in Markfield as close to 5pm as we can, so we’ve got some light. We then jumped in Lindsay’s car and he drove us to the location. He has previously arranged with the land owner that we were going to be there, so we parked up and had a walk around. It was amazing, even in the dimming light, we saw loads of potential and were pleased to see that there were some undercover area’s in case the weather turned bad.

Here are a few shots from our recce:

We came away really positive and went back to the pub to enjoy a pint and talk about the plan for the 27th, which had now been confirmed by photographers, fashion students and models. We discussed timings, who would collect who, and who would bring what. We made a list of things like, food, drink, towels, step ladders, lights, reflectors, camera’s, umbrella’s, toilet roll etc and them split them between us.

Finally I was designated as ‘secretary’ to email an itinerary to the email group. Roll on Sunday, fingers crossed for good weather!

White Dress Project Shoot locations 19th Oct 2013

October 19, 2013

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Lindsay had found an excellent outdoor location and got a potential weekend 26/27th October shoot. I’ve had to put my preference forward for Sunday 27th. The company that I work for is moving premises on Friday 25th and as i’m heavily involved in the IT will be expecting to be at work on the Saturday. We’ve got a good email group going now, so we’re all chipping in with idea’s. Just need to make sure we can all do the shoot on the 27th, although this only gives us a week or so to prepare. Plus the weather hasn’t been great lately so we are hoping to secure an indoor location as a backup.

Malcolm was able to do some excellent work looking at locations. Although for the most part, these are tending to be no good:

Beaumanor Hall – Only open during the day, unless it’s a function. Only available Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s next week as it’s half term. Cost to us would be £100, including a room to change and keep kit. Just too expensive.

The City Rooms – First available date Sunday 24th November, between 9am and 10am, cost £50. If we knew exactly what we wanted to could maybe manage 1-2 shots. 1 Hour just isn’t enough time for our lack of experience. Plus the cost is just a bit too steep for what we’d get out of it.

Prestwold Hall – Apparently has the same management company as Beaumanor hall, so costs and availability are likely to be the same.

Grand Hotel – Has a really nice staircase and a fairly quiet are upstairs. There is no cost, but this is a public area, which may not be good for people who haven’t modelled before. The only free date that they have is 6th November which is when our first studio session is. We do have a preliminary studio session booked for the 4th December, but this is cutting it a bit fine. I would rather try for a different venue and use the 4th December as a backup rather than loose the first studio session. (We have to shoot studio and location).

The Guildhall – If we go when it’s open and the main hall is free, there is no cost. Otherwise they will open specially for us £150! They currently no bookings on 2nd and 3rd November. Has an interesting staircase in the main hall, but may be a bit limited.

So, it looks like we’re struggling for an indoor location! We are going to do a recce of Lindsay’s location on 23rd October.

White Dress Project ‘Nicole’s Dress’ research 13th October 2013

October 13, 2013

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For Nicole’s dress I googled things like ‘short white dress’, ‘1920’s fashion’, ‘1930’s fashion’.

I was looking for a playful fun look to this dress. I did also like the idea of a burning cigarette in a holder, getting some atmosphere with with a plume of smoke, but wasn’t sure how practical this would be for an indoor shoot. I didn’t want to be setting off fire alarms! I was also still concerned about how short the dress appeared to be!

Nicole back