Jewellery Studio

This is the second lot of photographs I took of the jewellery, this time in the studio instead of with natural lighting. I used one light placed to the right with a soft box, turned right down to softly light the subjects whilst creating small and subtle shadows. I like the simplicity of the photographs, the plain white background doesn't draw focus, so the viewer instantly looks at the subject instead of the background, which I think may of been a problem with the cupcake background. 

Also, I used a macro lens for these shots instead of a standard 18-55mm f5.6, which allowed me to get a lot closer to the subjects. Getting closer in stopped the problem of getting the background and the edge of the mat in the frame.

This is one of my favourite shots from the set, mainly because of the large aperture used, it instantly draws focus the the cake at the front. 

I like the shallow depth of field used in the photographs, it draws focus to specific parts of the jewellery, but you can still tell what the pieces are in the background. 

Having the subjects slightly off centre is a point to the photographs that I really like, it's not very formally composed, which gives you a lot more room to work. 

I think the lighting looks best in the following shots. They're softly lit, whilst having subtle shadows to really highlight the details in the pieces, which can be seen more in the following photographs.

Having the black background in the shot in these photographs seemed like the best thing to do, because it split the photograph up, the light on the bottle almost blended into the background in the shots that were completely white, so having that darkness in the frame made the bottle stand out from the background a lot more.

Focusing closer to the centre rather than on the foreground was a part of the photographs I really liked, again because it wasn't formally composed. The positioning of the pieces were a key part of the shot, shooting in a straight line would of been too boring, so going diagonal made the photographs better in my opinion.

I reshot a few more of the pieces of jewellery, using different angles and focussing closely on the foreground. I prefer some of these, mainly because of the composition and lighting, they're all shot in similar ways to before, but positioned so that more of the subject is in focus. 

I like the ribbon being out of focus, it almost looks like smoke because it's that blurry, you can't tell what it is in most of the photographs.

I like the contrast in the pink, because of the light only being on one side, a smooth gradient of shadow has been made which really highlights the colour and detail in the subject.

Focusing on objects in the background rather than the foreground seemed like an interesting approach, the massively shallow depth of field meant that all of the foreground was blurred, instantly drawing attention to the subject rather than anything else.

The more detailed pieces turned out better in my opinion, mainly because more shadows were created, which really exaggerated the definition in the subjects. 

Martin Hannett - The Redemption

These are some shots from a night in Manchester dedicated to Marin Hannett. All the shots I've used from the set are in black and white, because the lighting isn't appealing in colour, as can be seen in the contact sheets. I used a 70-300mm f5.6 lens, an 18-55mm f5.6 lens and a 50mm f1.8 lens for the night, but mainly used the 70-300mm to allow me to work from further away, having more room to shoot. 

I like the range of photographs I've produced, the small exhibition of Martin's equipment allowed me to make more than just band photos, broadening the range of photographs.

This is one of my favourite photographs from the set, mainly because there's no detail in the people apart from a small amount of light on the top of their heads. You can only just tell that they are heads, which I think is a positive point to the photograph.

I did a lot of close up shots like this, mainly because using a longer lens allowed me to get much closer in to produce shots like this. I really like the close up shots, because they focus much more on the artist than anything else, it's a way of working I'll definitely use again, but in a broader range of work.

This is one of my favourite shots from the set, I love that the artist is oblivious to the photograph being taken, making it seem a lot more natural. Even though there is a microphone stand in front of his face, the large aperture makes the stand out of focus, and harder to see. I also like that the lighting is really soft on his face, because he is at the back of the stage.

If I was to reshoot this, I'd use a faster shutter speed. The drummer's hand is blurred because my camera isn't set fast enough to capture the hand still. It's something that's a problem in live music work, because the artists are constantly moving, but using faster shutter speeds means using higher ISOs, making the photographs grainy.

I really like the photographs of Spider Mike King, mainly because of the overhead lighting. His hat blocks out a lot of the light, creating large shadows on his face, making him seem more mysterious.

This one is the best example of the shadows, the artist is pretty much a silhouette because of the shadow from his hat. I think the photograph has been shot at a really good time, just as his face is almost completely blacked out.

A problem I had with using such a long lens was taking blurry or out of focus photographs, because the lens is so big, it's harder to keep steady, especially when shooting from long distance. Although I think I've produced some good work from the set, I will stick to using shorter lenses when possible to assure that more of the photographs are in focus. 

Body Photographs

These are some more photographs taken of people's bodies in the studio. I think some of these have turned out better, mainly because the model was a lot more comfortable being photographed. As well as that, the model being topless meant that I didn't have to worry about getting clothes in the frame.

This first photograph is my favourite from the shoot, the skin of the model look really smooth because of the soft box lighting, it also really highlights the tiny beads of sweat on the skin, which really draw your eye to the specific spots.

I like that you can't see all of the model's face in any of the photographs, especially these ones. It is something I'd like to do more often, because the main part of the photograph isn't the face, so it isn't needed in the frame. Saying that, I didn't want to cut the head out of the frame completely, so showing just the lips seemed appropriate.

Although more of the face is in this one, you can barely see any of it, both because of the angle the photograph is shot at and the model's hair in her face.

The rest of the shots from the set are below. Most of them I didn't use because of the composition. 

A Beautiful Body

I've been looking at photographers and artists who work with bodies and people, and this is one of the one I came across
http://www.abeautifulbodyproject.com
It's a photography project based around the body, and different issues with it.
This is one of my favourite pieces from it, titled 'It's Beautiful To Cry' http://www.abeautifulbodyproject.com/it_s_beautiful_to_cry_daughter_mother

It's based around the woman above, and her mother being diagnosed with breast cancer. She gives a short explanation on her feelings about it all, and how crying can be beautiful, which I thought was a really optimistic way to look at it. Seeing crying as a strength instead of a weakness wasn't something I'd come across before, so reading this woman's opinions was really interesting.
This lead me to think about photographing people showing a range of emotions, perhaps brought on by stories and objects from close ones. Photographing natural emotions, without trying to make the models look good like the photograph above would be a great series.