Project 53: Fluroescent lights

The aim of this project was to observe the effect of shooting in fluro lighting, and to use colour balance (in the case of digital shotting) to remove the various colour casts that fluros give off. I took photos in 4 different interiors; a supermarket, home, shop and art gallery. In each of the photos I think the best (closest to reality) WB setting is Auto WB. I feel like both the Sunny WB and the Fluro WB at times give an unpleasant colour cast. I think the lesson with this project is to use Auto WB when shooting inside unless there is a lot of natural light around, or some test shots can be done with different settings at the start of the shoot. I have had problems before with using Auto WB if the photos are to be used as part of a set, and the colour cast changes throughout the set. This could perhaps be overcome by setting the WB manually (which I have not tried) or using the RAW files and manually setting WB that way (which I also don't often do).

Apparently the variations in colour cast are due to factors like the make of the lamp and that they can change colour with age. The only sure way to know how to set the WB is to do test shots or edit the RAW file later.

The four interiors are shown below, each set of photos with 3 different white balance settings:

From Project_53

From Project_53

From Project_53

From Project_53

Project 46: Choosing the moment

The aim of this project is to take a series of photos of exactly the same scene, and to watch how the shadows and light change across a few hours, nominally just before sunset or just after sunrise. I chose to do this project when we were on our summer holiday recently in Glencoe. The scene was chosen because it had a background (mountains which would catch the light), midground (trees and powerlines which might occasionally catch the light) and foreground (field and fence which would get bits of light depending on the clouds). I thought the composition was quite interesting, with the mountains being strong diagonals/triangles in the photo, and the strips of sunlight across the field horizontals.

I set up with tripod and cable release, and for the first few photos I experimented with exposure compensation. I ended up taking most photos with both -1/2ev and -1ev. This set of photos is all -1ev.

The light changes were quite dramatic. I was surprised with how quickly the light changed, and the way it changed on the foreground and background was different. This meant I took a lot of photos. For this project I have selected 16 photos which show the changes over the 1 1/2 hours I was out for and also some of the more dramatic changes which occurred over minutes.

The best photos are those that have dramatic differences between the brightly sunlit areas and the darker shaded areas, photo 14 in particular is a favourite.

All photos were taken with the same setup (except shutter speed which varied because of the changes in light levels):

35mm, f/9.5, ISO200, -1EV, tripod

Photo 1: 6:55pm, 1/250s

From Project_46

Photo 2:7:03pm, 1/125s

From Project_46

Photo 3: 7:24pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 4: 7:27pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 5: 7:29pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 6: 7:31pm, 1/125s

From Project_46

Photo 7: 7:32pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 8: 7:46pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 9: 7:48pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 10: 7:50pm, 4/45s

From Project_46

Photo 11: 7:56pm, 1/45s

From Project_46

Photo 12: 7:56pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 13: 7:57pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 14: 7:58pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 15: 8:00pm, 1/45s

From Project_46

Photo 16: 8:31pm, 1/10s

From Project_46

I have found this to be a very rewarding project. It has taken me some time to find a suitable location where I could be close to home (a caravan in this instance!) and the weather and location be good for taking a series of photos. I was surprised with the speed of change of the light, and also how dramatic the changes were. It was very refreshing!

Project 67: Rain

The aim of this (challenging) project was to shoot a magazine cover depicting the subject 'Rain'. I have found this to be quite difficult to execute. I thought of a number of ideas (eg, child in car looking through rainy window imploringly, or raindrops on a window and an interesting/colourful view on the other side), and saw some photos online which I thought were quite interesting. I made a note early on to make my possible photos in the portrait orientation, though cropping later would be an option with some photos. Making the photo interesting and attractive was a real challenge. I decided in the end to take some photographs on a rainy day, and chose closeup images of wet leaves and grasses. They were nicely reflecting and the greens were really varied and lovely. I think my resulting photograph, which I have cropped slightly because the original was quite busy, is attractive and fairly interesting. I have placed the main leaf slightly off-centre, used a shallow DOF and kept the colours mostly in the green tonal range. The water droplets are sharp and reflect the grey sky above. The inclusion of some brown/purple/red foilage adds texture and interest to the photo. The criss-crossing long narrow leave breaks up the photo but I think adds extra interest. Overall I feel the photo is a success and depicts 'rain' effectively.

From Project_67

68mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, ISO500

Project 64: evidence of action

This project is about simple illustration, the example being to illustrate 'evidence of action'. The suggestion in the notes was to photograph something either broken or emptied. I chose a slightly more obscure subject; a woman dancing. It is very obvious from her movements that she is in 'action', particularly when contrasted with the very 'still' gentleman beside her. I spied this couple at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival on Sunday and thought her enthusiastic dancing was wonderful and quite inspiring!

From Project_64

200mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO200