Assignment 3: Environmental Portrait Outdoors - Final

Having decided to shoot in the twilight, I came up against a few problems that I had not anticipated on the pre-light (sans actual lights) / scouting trip.

Number 1: It was around -20 with wind chill, and the winds were up to 30km. (At least it wasn't snowing.) I decided to use the small softbox, because even though it caught the wind like a kite, it was a little better than the umbrella.

Number 2: How do I get my background in focus, with enough light, and not overexpose my subject, and/or not have my subject blurry because my shutter speed is so slow.

Sure, it was easy enough to bracket my exposures for the background and do an HDR shot:

But how do I get that kind of clarity, with my subject sharp and not overexposed in the foreground?

I certainly didn't figure it out on this exercise. I have a 5D Mark 1, so my ISO only comfortably goes up to around 1600 (still with a lot of noise). If I shot with an aperture of around 11, so that the background would have detail, then my shutter speed would be so slow that it was almost guaranteed my subject would be soft. If I shot for my subject, then my background was in darkness:

I tried a few different things, but I had to shoot fast, because I was rapidly losing light.

And in the end, I brought up my background in post-production.

I had my subject stand on a stool, so I could angle my shot up and get the structures in the background, but not have the fence (which was just behind my subject) in the frame.

I had a small softbox on a stand just behind my camera/tripod set-up. I put it high enough to get a butterfly effect on my subject, and used a reflector to try and fill in the shadow under her chin.

I used a 24-70mm lens, with a focal length of 35mm, which allowed me to get the wider perspective of the overpasses in the background, but meant that I have a bit of the "big body/small head" effect going on.

My ISO was at 1600, my shutter speed at 1/8 of a second, and my aperture was F/ 5.6. I used a speedlight (on Manual, at 1/8), with an orange gel.

Successful? Not sure. A really intriguing learning experience, though. Definitely not pleasant to shoot outdoors in that temperature. But I know for next time: be much more prepared. And I think there are very exciting possibilities in this kind of location shooting. These kinds of dirty, industrial spaces in Montreal are beautiful at night. How to insert a subject in there, though, and make it work? I would like to explore that more...

Assignment 3: Environmental Portrait Outdoors - Prelight

I chose two images as a basis to think about what lighting I would use on the location shoot:

I had initially planned to use a male model, but this didn't pan out, so I used the above images just as a starting point, because I realized I would want my light to be softer for a female model.

I arrived at the location mid-to-late afternoon and tried to get an idea of what crop I would want for my image.

I shot a number of different spots on the location itself: with the river in the background; with the graffiti wall as background; with the perspective of the footbridge in the background. The one I found the most interesting was with the overpass structures as a backdrop:

Even though we were losing the light, I continued to shoot and experiment. We were shooting in the twilight and I felt the shot with the overpasses as background was suddenly much more interesting. When I got home, I played around a little in Lightroom, and when I switched the image to black and white (pumping up the orange channel), I felt I was on to something that I would like to shoot for the final:

On the actual day of the shoot, I plan to bring:

• 1 speedlight
• 1 stand
• 1 softbox
• 1 umbrella
• 1 reflector
• 1 tripod
• 1 orange gel
• 1 sync cord
• 1 umbrella mount
• Sandbags

Assignment 2: Product on location

How does that saying go? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans."

I had planned to do a food shoot in Wellington city during my vacation in New Zealand. I knew I would be able to hire equipment and there are loads of cafés and restaurants in Wellington.

As often happens on vacations, our plans changed completely. In the end, I wasn't going to be in Wellington until three days before I was to come back to Montreal, and it was going to make my assignment too late.

Most of my time in New Zealand has been spent in places either without internet at all, or in places where the wireless was too slow to upload images.

So I decided to try and go ahead and do a food shoot "on location" -- without lights, but using only the available light and whatever else was available.

I shot a digital polaroid to get my crop:

I had a few problems.

I ordered a seafood pizza from the owners of the place we were staying at, and the sun promptly went behind clouds. It made my shot look totally flat, so I decided to wait till the sun came out again. Not only did the pizza start to look pretty tired, but I had a few persistent guests:

I also wanted to try and fill in the hard shadows on the table created by the plate and wine glasses, so I used what was to hand: a steel garden chair. I had a couple of assistants to help with the "reflector" and the wasps. They did get rewarded at the end, though:

Finally, I shot in full sunlight at 1/6400 sec at f/3.2, with an ISO of 125, and a focal length of 27 (using a 24mm-70mm lens). Obviously I didn't have a polarizing filter, so I definitely have the greasy pizza look, but it was the best I could come up with, with the resources I had.