Phase One - shoot 2

Today was my second shoot using the phase one camera, I decided to hand pick my flowers from a florist to try and find the perfect looking flowers. This shoot I felt went very well, the exposure was good, the focus points look nice and the flowers look attractive.

I think now I have to decide on my final images.

Phase One Shoot

These are the photographs I got from using the Phase One camera. I am much happier with these shots then previous ones and feel I am getting much closer to finalising this technique.

I like the rose and the orange flower the most out of these four images. I thought I would experiment with the rose by changing its colour in postproduction. This is the results.

I am now going to experiment with using text with the images, to make them look more like a greetings card. I also have another shoot on Wednesday, for this shoot I am going to research the meaning of flowers and decided which work best from their meanings to go on greeting cards. I will use the phase One camera again because I feel it gives the best results and I like the focal distance that can be achieved.

Photographs from 2/3/11

These are the best of the photographs from the shoot on 2/3/11. On this shoot I tried to get close up photographs of the flowers.

I think this shoot has been more sucessful then the last, I think these photographs are more likely to be used as greeting cards. I wanted to get closer and try macro photography witht the flowers but couldn't  because the lenses that are available are not the right focal length. I have been advised to use extension tubes with a 80mm lens to gain the desired effect. To be able to use this combination I need to use the Phase One camera, I have been given training to be able to use this camera and will use it on my next shoot.

New shoot

Yesterday I had another shoot in the studio, I have tried to progress my photographs of flowers. I have tried to gett close up photographs however due to issues with the lenses available for the large format camera was not able to do extreme close up or macro shots. I will be uploaing the photographs from this shoot later today.

New Shoot

These are a selection of photographs from my second studio shoot. I used a largeformat camera with the H20 digital back, this is because the greeting cards I have been looking at are all square cropped. This time I focused the shoot around flowers. I had found an article in March's issue of Digital SLR which showed a way of using a black box to capture a single flower, I tried this out and felt it was very successful. These are the photographs I got from using this technique. The two with coloured background were originally black backgrounds which  changed in photoshop as an experiment.

Next time I am in the studio I will try using this technique but use gels to give different colour backgrounds. I am also going to use soft boxes instead of standard heads with a honeycomb attachment as I think the shadows are a bit harsh in these images.

I also photographed a bunch of flowers using the largeformat camera. I used quite a close up angle with a shallow depth of field to experiment with focusing on different flowers. Here are some of the photographs;

Overall I am with how this project is going so far but thinks there is still a way to go. I feel the individual flowers are my best work so far and want to explore that idea further. I think the bunch of flowers works well but I don't think that I have captured the best lighting and angle.  

New Studio Shoot

Yesterday was my second studio shoot, this time I experimented with lighting flowers. In the March issue of Digital SLR there is an interesting technique used for lighting flowers which I had a go at in the studio. I am currently post processing the photographs and then I will upload them.

Studio practise

This is a selection from my first studio shoot. I used a Canon 40D with a 50mm lens, I plan to use a large format camera with a digital back next time, as this was purely an experiment with the lighting. The 50mm lens gave me more control over the final photograph, I orignally shot some in colour and some in monochrome. I later changed a couple of the coloured images to black and white using photoshop.

 I think the coloured background has created the best results from this shoot. Trying to recreate Weston's work was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, catch lights from the softboxes I was using have created burnt out sections on the peppers. I am going to attempt this again and try and find odd shaped peppers next time to add to the abstract feel.

Research and first shoot!

This week I have been researching photography of still life and organic forms, Edward Weston's peppers have inspired me. I like how abstract the peppers look. I want to try and recreate similar lighting to that used by Weston. I am also going to try and recreate one of Steve Chong's photographs.

Proposal

Proposal – Specialist Studio

For this project I plan to create a number of Still Life photographs that could be used for greeting cards. This is a subject that I have briefly looked at before and would like to further my knowledge of the subject. I have decided on a number of objects that I could be used for the photographs, from my research into still life photography I have found that these objects are used quite frequently. Some of the objects that I plan to use are; fruit, vegetables, flowers, plants, plant pots and crockery. 

To start this project I have researched photographers that specialise in still life photography, I have also looked at greeting cards that are available that contain still life photography. From this research I am going to start experimenting in the studio with some of the objects listed above and try to recreate some of the photographs I have found. By doing this I feel I will gain further knowledge of studio lighting techniques, it will also give me inspiration for the types of lighting and sets I could use. From the experimentation I will plan my final ideas as I will then know what will work well and what I want the final images to look like.

From the research I have conducted I can see that the main elements to consider with still life photography are the subject, lighting, colour and texture. These four elements are what make a still life interesting and appealing to the viewer. To make sure I consider these when planning my final ideas I will create mood boards and sketches before entering the studio.

For presentation I will print 3 prints off of my final images as well as create the greetings cards to put the photographs into context. I also feel it would be good for me to find out about how to make greeting cards as this could be a job possibility for the future.

Specialist Studio Project

I have created this blog to show the development of my Specialist Studio Project!!