Skills Development: Side Lighting

With side lighting, you are going to end up with deep shadows. These shadows may well enhance the mood of some scenes and be quite welcoming and effective, but for most photography, especially that of people, it can have the opposite effect unless you are aiming for a certain mood or look in the image. The face is lit more intensely on one side than the other. Front lighting is often the most pleasing for everyday subjects for example, the light source behind the camera and is the easiest to expose correctly because you don't have to think about shadows etc. However, problems can occur such as bright sunlight making the person squint which wouldn't give the desired effect.

Side lighting can suggest passion and seductivness, it is well suited for young women that have smooth skin and regular facial features. However, it is also effective for men whose rugged character lines should be emphasized. Focusing on just one side of the face can accentuate the jaw line on a man making him look more masculine and shows of the prominence of it.

Front lighting can ehance and soften females features because it makes the face look more pure. When taking a picture from the front, it captures every single feature on a specific spot, in this case the face. It shows all the purities etc. and when the picture is taken, the flash would relect and highlight the main features on the face. These include, the cheekbones, the nose, the brow bone and the chin. When the photo is taken, it enhances these features which makes the person in the photo look a lot softer and more enhanced.

When i took the photos, i found it hard to get just enough lighting because it was either too dark, then you'd move and it would become too light, or it was the other way. Especially on the side lighting photos. To change this, i decreased the shutter speed and then it seemed to take a better photo. To make it even better, i could take the photos at a different time of day or in a different light altogether. Maybe this is something i should take into account later on. At first, the images were blurry so we had to change the focus. I also think that the framing could be a little better in that they shouldn'y be just cut off where they are, before the shoulders. This should be payed more attention to in future also. I think the targets in the future is to take my time when taking the photos, take great care with the lighting that they are being taken in and also review the photos as soon as they are taken to make sure that they are focused and framed right.

Skills Development 5th November

Skills i have learnt:
In the practical, i learnt what shutter speeds are and how to use them. A shutter speed controls the length of time that light can pass through the lens, take a picture and then reach the memory card. It is measured in Seconds or fractions of seconds. For example, 1/1000 is a fast shutter speed and then 1/30 is a slow shutter speed.
Using a Slow shutter speed is good for low lighting and is good at capturing movement.
Using a Fast shutter speed is good for capturing a freeze frame movement. For example, a photo finish... what use would a blurry photo be? so the fast shutter speed is used to get a crisp shot of the movement.

How effectively did i use the skills?
I feel as though i used the shutter speeds quite effectively because the end pictures were quite good. I found that for the slow shutter speed in the low light, the 193 setting wasnt as effective as the 186. The 186 was the setting used for the final pictures. And then for the pictures we took outside, i used the 169 setting because this was more effective and took better pictures than the 200 setting that we originaly had it on. I was impressed with how quickly i managed to understand how to change the settings and how to make it look more effective however i think that the end pictures maybe could have been a little better, especially the ones that were taken outdoors. The indoor pictures of the light were quite effective and i was pleased with the final picture however, the pictures taken outdoor didn't give the total desired effect, it didn't show a crisp and a sharp finish on the picture as i would have liked.

How will these skills beneift me when it comes to my Unit 3 Production?
These skills will benefit me when it comes to my Unit 3 Production because i now know how to use the shutter speed effectively so i can easily get the desired effect on my product. I can now change the settings on the camera so that, when i know what i want the pictures to look like, i am one step closer to being able to reach that desired end product.

What skills do i need to develop further?
I need to develop my abilty to take photos that are in movement. For example, it was easy enough when i just stood to take the pictures of the light, but when it came to the actual moving pictures, it proved quite difficult to take the shot when i actually needed to, i kept on getting it either too late or too early which effected the photos.

In this picture, you can see that the arms are blurred so the shutter speed was wrong. The camera didn't catch the right movement in order to capture a crisp and smooth end image.

In this picture, there isn't as much blur as in the picture before however, there isn't any definition on the body, most of the focus is on the background and therefore, here again, the shutter speed was wrong so there wasn't a crisp and smooth end picture.

Here, there is no blur and the focus is on the person. This was captured as she was falling, i managed to catch her as she hit the ground. This picture is crisp and smooth and gives the desired effect.

Even though this picture is in focus, it would have been better to have captured more of the movement. Because i have recognized this, i will make more of an effort next time to capture the movement and make it look more like an action shot.

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

What was the tutorial about and what have i learnt?
http://tutorials.watchandlearnphotoshop.com/tutorials/ps/707lightadj.html
The tutorial was about Photoshop and using the tools to change the lightness and the darkness of pictures. I leant that you can change the brightness of a picture by using the brush tool and then changing which way you want to use it. To brighten the picture up, you set the foreground colour to white and darker, to black. You then scroll over what you want to change to what and then you have an adapted picture.

How would this benefit me during my practical work?
This would benefit me during my practical work because i will be able to change what my pictures look like to create a more effective look on the final product.