Blog 26 Reflection of my 1st photo shoot in the college studio

Low Key image practice

From This 

         To This

Shown here are some photo's of my niece Hannah who kindly agreed to model for me for my first studio session at the college.

The top photo shows my model Hannah in the studio before I started  the session.This photo was the starting point from my first light metre reading in the studio which read 5.6. As you can see the photo was very overexposed and totally washed out.


The bottom image above demonstarates what I achieved after some experimentation and a lot of patience


Please read the pages below which detail how I changed lighting and camera settings to achieve some quite pleasing low key image results






My first photo shoot using the college studio proved to be a very good learning curve to help me to produce some images of this type of photography.


I had pre arranged for my 19 year old niece Hannah to come in to the studio and pose as a model for me for this photo shoot. Hannah is very friedly, so it was easy to build up a good rapour with her and made it far easy for me to feel at home with my model


I have only ever used the college studio once before so this first session seemed very daunting and I was feeling very nervous. I'm mainly an outdoor photographer and a photoshop man so I wasn't looking forward to the session. I asked some fellow students to accompany me into the studio Eric and Pip. This I found really helpful and I would recommend it the first time you use the studio if you feel nervous in anyway. They were able to assist me and Eric, having used the studio before gave me some invaluable tips to help with the lighting setup


Tip of the day. I put on some low background music on the mac in the studio. This I found helped both me and my model to relax and produced a layed back sort of atmosphere




Planning


The type of images I wanted to produce were very low key images of faces or portraits. I only wanted just a hint of light to reflect off the models face, shown below here are a couple of examples that gave me inspiration. I copied these from the net, they are not taken by any particular photographer but I would like to emulate these types of images

I will be considering changing some of my images to grey scale after the shoot to give me more options and to improve my creativity. I first made some plans before I went into the studio and had sourced some images off the net which gave me some inspiration and ideas. I knew exactly what lighting I wanted to achieve and the poses that I wanted my model to perform before I set foot in the studio. It was very important to pre plan the whole shoot so I didn't waste any time in the studio. I would recommend this approach to anybody using the studio and is essential as not to waste studio time.

Equipment

I used my own camera, a Canon 400d body with a 17-55mm wide angle L series lens. I choose this lens because I wanted to get up close to my subject for some nice portraits. This lens is very fast having a max F stop of 2.8. This was synced to the two college lighting heads by the use of a wireless flash sync transmitter attached to my hotshoe interface on the top of my camera


I used the colleges new heavy duty flexible tripod to mount my camera for the shots. This is a very good piece of equipment which is easily adjustable and surprisingly easy to move around the floor. It can be manoeuvred in all directions and adjusted to move in real close to your subject

Posing my model

Lighting my model to acquire the desired light effects proved a lot more difficult than I anticipated. I did eventually get the results that I wanted but this took some considerable time and a lot of experimental exposures.

Shown here is a basic studio plan which shows all the equipment positions that I used to photograph my model. Shown also are a some photos of my model hannah and my studio set up

I didn't need much equipment just 1 lighting\flash  head with barn doors atached. A black curtain drape and the camera with a radio sync adapter attached  to trigger the lighting\flash head

I first set up my model, my niece Hannah sitting on a stool in the middle of the studio and positioned a black backdrop curtain about 5-6 feet behind her. I knew I wanted the studio in total darkness and wanted to use just one source of light. I used one of the studio's flash/lighting heads to start with to light my models face from the left hand side as I looked at her through the camera.


It was trial and error at first and the lighting seemed a little harsh and was flooding the whole of my model's body. As I only wanted to illuminate just the side of my models face in one particular area I tried using the barn doors attached to the lighting head. This made a massive amount of difference and I was able to direct and concentrate the light source directly on to the desired spot of my model's face. I then reduced the light source intensity by turning down the flash and ambient light controls on the side of the lighting head. I had now roughly achieved the desired lighting effect that I desired


I took a light meter readings using the college light meter which gives an incedent teading. I know that this meter is more accurate then using my camera's in built reflective meter.


I set up the meter at 100 ISO. This is my lowest camera ISO setting and the one I wanted to use as I wanted my images to be pin sharp and didn't want any noise in my shots. I spoke with my tutor Mr Steve and he recommended that I use a shutter speed of 1/60th or i/125. I took the first meter reading, one from the front of the model's face which read F 5.6 and one from the side of the models face where the light source was directed. This second reading read F 8


Shown below is one of my starting images. This shows me using the college lighting meter to set up my fist image. The light was far to intense so I new I had to change things

I experimented with the lighting and different apertures shown in the 3 images below. I wasn't achieving the correct lighting effect and correct exposure so I needed to change something.


I had my model in the correct position and the lighting falling on her face was in the right place,it was the intensity of the light reaching the models face which wasn't right. I did try adjusting the intensity of the light source but still could'nt achieve the desired effect I wanted


I decided to change the aperture size or F stop to create the desired lighting effect that I required. Shown here in the bottom image at F 18 there wasn't enogh light reaching my subjects face, by increasing the aperture size to F 16 as shown in the second image let in even more light.


This second image still appeared to be too dark so I decreased the F stop even lower to F 13 which opens up the aperture even more letting in more light. This was the ideal F stop for this particular shot producing the correct lighting effect on my subject

Problems and recommendations

You need total darkness in the studio to produce this type of photography and this did cause some problems. You can't see a thing and trip hazards become apparent


I would recommend a torch or even a strap on head torch which I used to view camera settings and to help find my way around the studio.I would also recommend the help of a colleague to assist with props,turning on/off and adjusting lighting and to assisting your model with different poses This helps to free up your time and leaves you to get on with the photography and experiment with exposures and camera settings.I know the next time I use the studio I will have a little bit more confidence and experience of using the equipment which should enable me to produce some even better images


The session got easier as I went along. Gaining more confidence as I became more familiar with the equipment this has proved to be a invaluable experience of using a photographic studio.


Shown here are a few of the final images taken on the day. I have booked the college studio again in about 3 weeks time. On this second shoot I hope to produce the final 10 images for this subject

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