Shoot 5: Model 8; Steff

I was lucky enough to get Steff into a studio session at the same time as Matt, which turned out highly successful. Steff brought two items with her, the first a teddy bear which I do not know the full story behind and the second a letter, which she carries everywhere in her purse, from a friend who passed away shortly after writing the letter. Whilst we had some fun shooting the images with the teddy in, I particularly wanted to get a really good image of the letter, knowing its importance to Steff.

I am particularly pleased with how the image with the letter turned out, capturing a personal moment, looking over the shoulder and onto the letter, drawing all attention exactly where it needs to be. Even though the letter itself is in focus I did not want to go too close to it, wanting not to intrude that far into something that means so much to someone.

Whilst I also like the other images, the letter has to be by far my favourite of this shoot and of all my images that I have taken so far for this project. I can only hope that the next photoshoots get such positive results.

Images taken on the Hasselblad 503CW, digital back.

Self-Promotional Video

Here is a video I made of my book which I created as part of my specialisms project at college, 'Around The Corner' by Sarah Anderson:

Drew

The second person who I chose to photograph was Drew who brought his guitar with him as music has been always been part of him for in some degree or another. Even though he has many other interests, he hopes that music will continue to play a part in his life.

Whilst waiting as I looked through some of the images I had already taken, Drew then turned his guitar around and balanced it on his foot as he waited for what was to happen next. When I questioned him about it - after all, its not everyday you balance a guitar on your foot! - he said that he also does this with his skateboard when waiting around, often in shops, small supermarkets and the like.
Deciding to photograph this, we resulted in this image, which I like for its uniqueness and slightly humourous quality:

Image taken on the Hasselblad 503CW, digital back.

Cairwen

So, two days after my last photoshoot, I am back in the studio with three new models. Three! Having only booked the studio for two hours and not knowing what the three were bringing with them to photograph I was worried about having enough time to shoot the three of them. As it happens though the session went smoothly and I managed to shoot all three of them in plenty of time.

The first person I chose to photograph was Cairwen (Caz). With her she brought along her bracelet and a dress. She also has a tattoo on her wrist which means 'forever' in traditional Chinese and is in memory of her aunt and grandmother.The bracelet was present from her grandparents and her family have been adding to it since then, brining them closer whilst she is away from them studying at university here in Cornwall.

As for the rest of the images in this project, I have here used the Hasselblad 503CW available at the college, (if only I could afford my own!) with the digital back and using a smaller aperture than in pervious images as so to widen the depth of field. My favourite of these images is the first, which I have been told has a very gentle quality to it making it very pleasant to look at.

Studio Shoot 3



Back to my Final Major Project 'What Means Most' and my third session in the studio. For this shoot, Mike offered to model for me, in comparison to the previous two shoots where I asked my models if they would be ok to come into the studio with me. For the shoot Mike brought with him the keys to his van which he describes as being everything to him, "its my freedom my escape, my only thing I had left after I lost everything". I found this a difficult shoot as I found it difficult to arrange the shot and had some difficulty in deciding on how to shoot the image.





This image was again taken on the Hasselblad 503CW, which I plan touse for all the images, with a wide aperture for a small depth of field to focus the attention onto the keys. Of these images the first two are my favourite and will both be in consideration for when I exhibit this project at the Lander Gallery in Truro on the 10th June.

Back Into The Studio

Having got my book project and exhibition out of the way, its was time to think about what I would choose to do for my Final Major Project (FMP). I particularly liked the idea of going back into the studio to shoot some portraits as I had not done this in a while. From this grew the idea of photographing people along with some possession of theirs which has either some sentimental value to them or that is simply that important to them. I could picture in my head a shot of my brother, who is particularly into his music, with his electro-accoustic guitar.

On Monday I managed to book our studio and, as a bit of a warm-up or test run, took some shots of my friend who's ring has sentimental meaning to her. Having not used the studio in a while for concentrating on landscapes for my book project, I was a little rusty to say the least. Eventually I got the shot I wanted after much frustration with the Hasselblad and trying to get it to focus on the area I wanted it to.

Images taken on a Hasselblad 503CW Digital with flash lighting on f/2.4 and a 1/250 shutter speed. The first image being the final image taken and the one which I am happy with after much time trying to get the focus in the right area. Having wanted the focus solely on the ring, this caused much frustration as many of the images ended up focused primarily on the hands/ fingers with the ring being ever so slightly out of focus.

Conclusion: Back into the studio for more practice!

Studio Shoot

So the other day our lecturer aranged for a model to come into the college so that we could all get some more experience in the studio. So at one o'clock on tuesday our model, Sarah, arrived and the college's make-up department worked their magic to make her camera ready.

Whist 'under the brush' we set up the studio using only one light with a beauty dish on it. We would have the model sat on a chair to begin with and have to black boards situated either side of her, which would cause a slight shadow downt the sides of her face to aid in defining it.

• Using a Canon 5D Mark II set at:
  ISO 100
• Exposure Time 1/125secs (sync speed for studio lighting)
• f/4.5

Unfortunately at this time, I cannot remeber which lens we were using..

Anyways, here are the first couple of images taken:

For the second of these images, the boards that we were using either side of Sarah's face we turned around so that the white sides were facing in towards Sarah. As can be seen, this means that the light reflects off the boards and illuminates more of her face. Also for this photograph, I had someone holding a reflector to cast some light underneith her chin and on her neck. I personally prefer the second image for the lighting which I think is a lot softer than that in the first image.

Also in these images we used another light which was positioned behind Sarah at an angle so not in the shot. Over this light we put a piece of pink coloured gel which, as can be seen, gives a slight pink tinge to the right-hand side (can especially be seen on her hair).

For our other shots we asked Sarah to stand near towards the back of the studio against our white back-drop. As Sarah was not only tall but also was wearing 4inch stilettos, we had to then direct her so that we were able to photograph her whole.

Although not a full-length image, this was my favourite image from this set of pictures:

Specialisms

One of our first projects this year is our specialisms project and basically what we have to do is create a book. Literally make a book...

This project, we were told, could be a continuation from a previous project or could be an entirely new project altogether. There was mixed reactions throughout our group which resulted in some continuing projects from last year and others starting a fresh project.

My initial idea was to follow on from my last project, which was exhibited in the foyer of the Fal building at Truro College, which was to do with the idea of how space can instil fear within a person. However, this idea has slowly changed an evolved into the idea of places which people may not ever go to, what people don't see.

The inital first title of this book was 'Around the Corner', which is still currently the working title and here is the image from which inspired the name in the first place:

And here are some of the images which I am planning to use in my project, although I still need to decide upon what order to put them in within the book. Most of these are new images, however there is the odd one which I used last year: