Lighting on Location – Work Sheet 6
On the 22nd of October we worked in small groups and we headed to the Old Building in Bradford College to work on a body of work, exploring different lighting conditions, sources and techniques.
At first we headed to Henri Mitchell Hall and as a group we created this concept of creating an image, using the Genisis lighting kit as a brief fill in flash, against a half open doorway, where one of us would be looking out holding a small candle lantern (battery candle lantern – Health and Safety). We wanted to capture a very brief light on our subject, maintaining a night time atmosphere to the shot. My camera settings were: ISO 250, shutter speed 1/90 of a second, aperture at f/13. The fill in flash was from the Gemini Kit placed slightly to my left. I was using a 18-55mm lenses and the focus was at 55mm. Here is the shot:
Just about when we had completed the task, I caught my colleague, playing with this mask. The Gemini Kit was behind me to my left and added fill in light towards her chin. I used in Camera flash to illuminate the mask. It was a great mystery shot. My settings were: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/90 of a second and aperture f/13. For this shot I also added a highpass filter in the mask itself. This is the final result:
Before Progressing to to other venues I went on exploring some of the magnificent architecture on the Hall, on my own. Applying both the use of my inbuilt camera flash as capturing the ambient light.
This image I used my in camera flash, ISO 100, shutter speed at 1/125 of a second and aperture at f/15.
Turning my view point to another angle, I captured this shot, using the ambient light. Capturing not only the details of the pillar, but also showcasing some of the light settings from the Hall in the bottom background. My settings were ISO 1250, shutter speed at 1/6 of a second and aperture /5.6:
From this we changed our location and headed towards the other end of the old building. From there we had a great view of the roof of an interior smaller building. For this image I added a sandstone texture in Photoshop. I saw that the composition of the image allowed for a modernized and quirky touch. My camera settings for this shot were ISO 640, shutter speed 1/45 of a second, aperture at f/11, using ambient light only; no flash.
Again working within the group we explored several options on how to balance the artificial light from the Gemini kit with the ambient light coming from the window. All the test shoots and attempts can be found in my learning journal. Here I only include the 3 successful choices. There are 3 images as we compared the impact of how adjusting the shutter speed of your camera allows more or less ambient light on the frame. The settings applied to illuminate the subject was f/5.6 and ISO 200. The shutter speeds varied from 1/30 of a second, allowing more of the ambient light to fill in the frame, to 1/60 of a second, when ambient light is present but not prominent; to 1/125 of a second when the ambient light coming from the far left side, is barely noticeable. Please see the 3 images bellow, accordingly:
Lastly, again exploring the abstract and quirky aspects of the dated features from this building, on my own, I captured the interesting and mysterious intertwining of this old traditional water whose. To add texture and intensity to this image I applied a highpass filter at the ratio of 4.5 pixels, Linear light blending mode at 75% opacity. Camera settings were ISO 800, shutter speed at 1/8 of a second, aperture at f/4.0 and no use of flash.
The Camera I used throughout this project is my Canon 60D.
Susanne Silveira
Techniques and Processes 2-A
Photography BA Hons – Y2
Bradford College 2012/13