Hello Again

Hey everybody!  Sorry no post last week, but I haven't had a spare moment til now!

This week and last week were (again) messed up due to snow storms.  Man, we just keep getting slammed with snow over and over again!   Anyway, last week we worked with speed lights (They are the big flashes that go on top of cameras)  When you think of flash photography, it usually isn't very pretty... until you get the flash unit off the camera body.  Then you can make it look like $5,000 worth of studio equipment!  The trick is to have more than one flash linked up together and fire at the same time.  Then you can add in things like umbrellas or softboxes to soften and spread out the light.  We also learned and experimented with using very long exposures in complete darkness and firing the flash several times to freeze what was going on in the room.  The products can very widely depending on what you do, but once you get the hang of speed lights the options are endless!

This week we are working with portraits outside the studio.  So doing them at peoples homes, outside, anywhere but a traditional studio.  Too bad the weather was so bad we could only go out for a couple of hours total the whole week.  But regardless I also learned a lot about the business side of portraiture.  I just can't wait to get out of school and hit the ground running!

As always, here are some shots from the past two weeks.  Enjoy!

B

(These two are examples of using a long exposure in the dark and firing the flash several times through out it.) :)

Another Week Done!

Hey guys.  Here are some more shots from this week.  I loved getting to play with all the different light setups this week.  Getting to shoot each other in different light settings you really get the hang of using light to sculpt the face.  Another high point of the week was when professional bassist Mark Poniatowski came in and allowed me to photograph him. He was great to work with and is very talented!  If you get a chance check him out!


Hope everybody has a great weekend!

Small Post

Just a quick post to show what we're working on this week.  More portrait work in the studio, but this week we're working with Rick Ashley! (one of my favorite instructors.)  Post more later this week.

Night!

Portraits

This week we worked on learning how to create a classic portrait.  We learned the different ways to light a subject and a few ways to pose, including masculine and feminine.  However, this week was kind of thrown into a loop because of the blizzard we all had to deal with.  We picked up around a foot and a half!  Because of the storm, school was closed for a day, meaning we had our chance to work more cut short.  However, luckily next week we are also studying portraiture.  Here are a few examples of what I did.

Til next week,

Breanna

Happy New Year!

Hello all :)

Hope everybody is starting their new year off right!  I really enjoyed this week of class because it was heavy in photoshop, and I love all things photoshop!  This week we worked with taking several images and compositing them together.  The first half of the week was spent photographing several objects together in one shot.  However we would focus on one object at a time, make sure it was lit properly, then take the picture.  Then without moving anything we would light the next object and so on... it was super important not to move anything because when you get into photoshop to mask all the images together if anything moved then it wouldn't line up properly.  The final image is has everything lit exactly right, even if they call for different lighting techniques.

The second part of the week was spent photographing each other on a full seamless, then masking each other into a different image.  The tricky part was you had to manipulate the image after to make it look like it actually belonged there.  It had to have weight so that it wasn't floating in mid air, be the correct tone, and have correct shadows, along with many other things.

So here are a couple of images from this week.  Enjoy and see you next week!

Breanna

Past Week and a Half

Hey everybody!  So the past week or so has flown by!  I'll update you on what we have been working on.
Last week we were working in photoshop again on Panoramas and HDR shots.  HDR stands for High Dynamic Range.  This means that if you were shooting in a room with windows instead of just either the room being properly exposed or the windows being properly exposed, they both are.  This is achieved by making 5-7 exposures, all with different shutter speeds, so some are under exposed, and some are over exposed.  Then you put them through a program called Photomatix Pro and it compiles them.

When doing Panoramas it is important to keep the camera completely level.  You also have to have several pictures, all with overlapping elements.  Finally, in photoshop, you can stitch them together.  This week we are working on Architecture Photography.  This includes working with a special type of lens called a tilt and shift lens. These help keep the lines of building parallel.  We are also working with lighting interior spaces and learning how to color balance multiple light sources, all which have different "temperatures"

Well, thats all for now!  Here are some pictures from last week and this week.

Still Here

Hi everyone! :)  It's been a while since my last post, but I was on vacation and this week was CRAZY busy (but in a good way!)  This week we continued shooting still life products in the studio.  However, all this week we were paired with a class of graphic designers.  Together we collaborated to make a poster and a cook book page.  The designers came to us with ideas and sketches of what they wanted, and together we worked in the studio to get the images that they wanted.  It was definitely interesting working with them to say the least.  Also, as "extra credit" we could work on building a catalog spread.  We were allowed to choose the subject of the catalog, then had to photograph lots of images to fill the pages.  We were then given a template to put the images into.  I think mine came out pretty well!  Here are some photos from the past week.


Enjoy!