Lightroom - White Balance

Using Lightroom it is possible to change the white balance of your photographs if, for instance, you don't like the original white balance. Using the white balance slider in the side-bar on the develop panel here is how I made a warm, grey, and cool image.

Warm

Grey

Cool

Lightroom-Workflow & Asset Management

When importing files into Lightroom I press file>import from disk.

I then select the location I would like to import my photographs from and press import.

This is then how the files are organized.

This is the way I choose to view my images but it is possible to view them in different ways by pressing one of the buttons in the dark grey tab underneath the images.

By moving down the side-menu you can change the file-name and type captions. You can also view the metadata for the selected image.

Lightroom is a very useful piece of software for organizing and basic editing of images.

Lighting Techniques - Bottle

For my bottle I chose a liqueur bottle purely for the fact it was a lot more interesting than a plain bottle of water. We had to use the different modifiers for lighting

units to light the bottle. The modifiers we had to use were; a masked soft-box, a honey-comb, a beauty-dish, and an umbrella. Below are my attempts.

This is the image I took where I used a soft-box to light it. The soft-box diffuses the light to get rid of any harsh shadows. For me it is probably the most useful modifier due to its versatility. The only problem I have with this image is the fact the left and right sides of the brand name is not really visible due to how the light has been distributed around the image thanks to the soft-box. Overall I like the rest of the image.

This for me is the lighting which works the best for this bottle. I used a honey-comb for this image which produce a very harsh direct light. It almost produces a 'spot-light' effect leaving some of the frame in darkness. This for me helps to make this image stronger and compliment the bottle. Another reason this lighting compliments the bottle is the dark colour of the background. I really like this image and find it quite a strong one.

I shot this image using an umbrella. Umbrella's work by facing the light towards the highly-reflective material on the inside of it and therefore bouncing the light back towards the subject. For me umbrella's are good to use as they are easy to set-up and produce a very soft, diffused lighting. I like how this image is lit.

This final image was produced using a beauty-dish. I had never used a beauty dish up until coming onto this course and so didn't have much; if any experience at all using one so found this quite a tricky one to use. I found it to produce quite harsh light; however not quite as harsh as the honey-comb. I think it works quite well and does give the bottle an element of beauty. I would imagine that it would be much more effective when used on a person rather than an object.

Lighting techniques - Pear

Of all the tasks on the Unit 01 Systems & Processes Brief I found the studio based ones the hardest. Studio is not my favorite area of photography and is therefore not something that I would say I a very good at. I am much more a documentary/location photographer.

We were told to experiment with different lighting techniques, all of which Andy demonstrated to us and all of which I had also learnt whilst on the National Diploma course prior to coming on this Foundation Degree. It was very helpful to them demonstrated by someone else to gain a different perspective on them. Below are my attempts.

This is my high-key image of a pear. I gained this effect by placing a flash-unit over the top of the pear and placing reflectors on the left and right side of the pear. I also bounced a little light back from the front too using a small piece of card. I found the key to this image was all the reflectors. They bounce the light back into the image to 'drown' out the shadows and make this image high-key. I like this effect but I don't particularly like it used on a pear as, for me, when photographing a pear it is about capturing the 'form' of the pear. The high-key effect makes the edges of the pear a little softer and with it some of the emphasis on the form of the pear.

This is my attempt at the low key effect. This is an effect I particularly like as it produces quite dark, contrasting images. I think it works especially well with the pear as it captures the form of the pear brilliantly. To gain this effect I used one light at 45 degrees behind the pear. I placed a black card directly opposite it to ensure no light was reflected back towards the pear. This made one side of the pear almost completely in shadow and really made the shape of the pear stand out on the background. This is what makes this image so successful in my eyes.

This is my attempt at 45 degree or Rembrandt lighting as it sometimes known due to how the dutch artist lit his paintings. This isn't really my preferred form of lighting for the pear due to the relatively strong shadow it produces. This for me works best with people and is not something I would think of first to use for an object.

This is is my photograph using the 'back-light' technique. This is a technique which produces quite a low key effect due to the where the light is positioned; at the back. I leaves the front virtually, completely in darkness. Like the low-key effect it is a technique which works well for the pear due to how it highlights the pears form. Overall I like this image.

This is my final image of the pear. For me this is quite a nice image as it combines both a low and high key effect very well. It lights the background very well; therefore completely washing it out but still leaves the pear in a little darkness hence making the shape stand out really well. It also produces a very nice, rounded shadow at the bottom of the pear. This is one of my favorite of the effects along with the low key effect.

Incandescent Lighting

Incandescent lighting is the lighting used in houses. Household bulbs are Incandescent bulbs. I found this one particularly hard as I didn't find things in the house that seemed like good photographic subjects. The lighting was hard to control as many lighting sources in houses are fixed and quite dim really. Below is my attempt.

I photographed this as I liked the shapes made by the switches etc. The lighting was from directly above; almost like a spotlight. Incandescent lighting is not a lighting source I particularly like using due to its dimness. I found it quite hard to produce an image which had a good contrast to it. Although this is not brilliant it is the best I could. As I used a very wide focal length the image became quite distorted. The plug socket seems slightly 'bent'.

Focal Lengths

Different lenses have different focal lengths. Different focal lengths can be put into different catagories i.e Fish-Eye, Wide-Angle, Telephoto etc. A Wide-Angle lens on a typical 35mm camera will be 35mm and under whereas a telephoto can be upwards of 85mm. Around 50mm tends to be standard for a 35mm camera. If you are using a camera with a bigger sensor or film-plane i.e a medium format camera, then the catagories come under different numbers due to the bigger sensor/film-plane

For part of the Unit 01/Systems & Processes brief we had to take photographs of an object using both wide-angle and telephoto lenses or focal lengths. Below are my photographs.

Above are my first two images. The top one was taken at wide-angle focal length and the bottom at telephoto. Depending on what you want to include in the image depends on which image is better. Personally I think that the second picture is better as you know exactly what you are looking at due to the telephoto focal length.

These are my other two images. With these two images I don't think it makes much difference which lens is used the window is the obvious focal point in each of the photographs. Personally I cant decide my favorite out of these two.


With my final two images it again depends on what you want the focal point to be. With the first one you would say the garage but second one; the wall/graffiti. My personal favorite is the second one due to the 'geometricness' to the image made by the lines in the wall etc.

Drop-Focus

Drop-Focus is a particular technique created by using a shallow depth of field and focusing in on a certain point of your image i.e creating a line of 'focus' in your image. Here is my attempt.

The college was closed today because of the snow so I utilized both of these and decided to take some photographs. This photograph was taken on The Coppice. The Coppice is a Hill/Park which overlooks Accrington and the surrounding area. I decided that this fence being the shape it is would be an ideal subject to use the drop-focus technique on. I like the perspective created by the structure of the fence; this for me is what makes this image a strong one.