Photography and the Studio

THE SET AND LIGHTNING

In the studio in school they have a white or black backdrop. The white backdrop might be turned into grey with the lightning. (Backdrop = the paper on the background) Unless you want to have a shadow effect in your photograph (then you should stay closer), it is recommended to stay five to six feet away from the backdrop. 

While photographing the lightning is very important. In the studio there are two big soft boxes, which soften the light that is reflected on to the model through flashlights. You can also use a white umbrella to soften the light, though soft boxes are better to use. To make sure the model or the room will not become too hot because of the lights there are fans in the soft boxes. Everything works with flashlights, the lights in the school studio are trinity flashlights. When you take a picture the flashlights will go on and off without blinding your eyes. The flashlights have the settings one to six, which decide how bright the light is going to be. Six is the brightest setting, one is the most dimmed flash. When pressing the flashlight or when taking a picture, you will hear two beeps. The second beep tells you that you are ready to take the next picture. All lights are connected with each other through infra red through a little mechanism called 'godox' which sends a signal to the transmitter from the camera to the lights, and from the lights to the lights.

On the set there are also reflectors used, which are round, rectangular or triangular objects that reflect light. They can be white, gold or silver. In school there is a gold and white one. They will help you dim the light. For example: you can remove the shadow of a persons face under their nose and lips. An assistant or your subject can hold it, you can hold it yourself or lean it on something or buy a stand made specifically to hold it. 

CAMERA

There cameras in school are a Nikons D7000 18 million megapixels with a 155 millimetre lens or a Nikon D40 with 7 million mega pixels and a 150 millimetre lens. On the camera there are two buttons on the left hand: AM and S. A means 'aperture priority' and S means 'shutter priority' (focus).

Aperture Priority makes you choose how big the lens and the size of the opening in the lens gets while you take the picture. The larger the lens is, the more light it gets in. If the lens is set on Shutter it will focus automatically by itself, but when it is set on A you must focus it yourself. This works good when you want to focus on a close up, or when you want to decide how you will use your depth of feel.

Depth of feel is when the background and foreground are both focusses similar, when there is no blur in one of them. Shallow depth is that the foreground and background are both different focussed. For example: when you have 2 people and one is standing in the front and the camera is focussed on the one in the front, it is shallow depth. 

When taking a picture you should look through the view of the camera, because if you look through the main screen you will not be able to see how the picture is going to be.

OWN PHOTOGRAPHY IDEAS, LIGHTING ETC

Exactly same pose, arms crossed, light directly on face, use golden reflector to remove the shadows under lips, nose and eyes


Again Elvis: again the same lightning technique: no shadow on face (reflector) and light coming from one side, the side his head is turned to. Since the magazine is going to be a Christmas edition, I want my model to stand in front of a christmas tree or in snow (snow might be photoshopped)