Week 30- Food Workshop Studio

This workshop was done in the studio. The light source was a tungston light reflecting onto a large white board to simulate a natural light window. The light was at a fairly low level so as to give longish soft shadows.

We did the exercises in pairs - I was with Steve.

Exercise 1: A custard tart. Props were a teapot & a white mug in the background. We used a reflector on the right side.

Exercise 2: Chillies tied together with red raffia. Two garlics in the background. Lighting was similar to above except the 'window' lighting was farther forward. I found when I downloaded this that it was not quite focused or there was camera shake. So I redid the exercise at home & really the images were not much clearer. The 2 images together - right was from the home shoot & the left was an earlier shot in the studio. Maybe the Tamron lens is not much good!


Exercise 3 (Composed by Steve): Two & a half pears on 2 old wodden planks. Texture was great. Steve decided to have low lighting to simulate an old french barn-type table. So we used no reflector & backed off the 'window'


Exercise 4 (composed by Steve): Risotto garnished with parsley & chilli on a textured mat with a fork as a prop. We increased the lighting from exercise 3 & photographed fairly close.

Week 30-Workshop 2-Monoblocs

Using the monoblocs we were instructed to do 3 exercises:

1. Portrait 1 - Student Enquiry - an image if a teacher helping a student.

For this shot we used 3 lights so both faces were lit as well as the background. Initially the background was too bright so we turned the light around & bounced it off a white card.

2. Portrait 2 - Director. A executive style portrait with a CIT prop - this person is the director of the CIT.

Lighting for this was tricky. We bounced the reflection of the light off the ceiling as well as using a polaroid filter as we didnt have a natural density filter. This was because we wanted the background to be out of focus. We used a 1.8 aperture 50mm lens.

3. Portrait 3 - Students - An outdoor shot of at least 4 students enjoying life at CIT.

We chose to take this shot looking down some stairs as the students climbed them chatting with each other. We found 5 students & had 3 on stairs & two at the bottom. There was a spotlight on the right to light the students & a reflector on the right. The background was quite bright. the photo had to be warmed in post production.

Week 29 - Lighting Exercises

Week 29 - Lighting Exercises

We were given several exercises to photograph. We had to tell the story in the photo

with arrangement of the subject, lighting & props.

(1) Our topic was to photograph a politician up for election in the

coming election who had the slogan 'moving forward'.

Amy, our model, put her hair back & donned a black jacket & her specs so she would

look like a politician. She looked straight at the camera & put on her honest

serious face.

Lighting was soft, from above at the front slightly to the left with a highlight on her

hair (back high). There was a reflector on RHS.

(2) A married couple who were celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary.

Initially we had them on some grass lying on their sides with Andrew

behind Amy. Head size was didn't look right. So then we honed in on the shot

& encouraged them to get closer. When Amy put her arm around Andrew it

framed the shot.

The blue sky was a blue acetate over the spotlight (in the cyclorama). The main

softbox was in front & their hair was lit by another light.

(3) Do a low-key portrait with one tungston light & person with a contemplative mood (I'd left the class by this time)