A photo is simply about light. Good light, bad light, bright light, low light, natural light, artificial light. Light. So if you understand light, you can make a picture. Of anything - a field, the sea, a building, a person. So why in the past have I always found pictures of people so difficult compared to landscapes for example? I'd like to think I'm a "people person" and can handle a camera but I'm usually happier and get better results if a picture I take doesn't have anyone in it!
1 model, 2 days and 331 shots gave me (and Naomi the model) a chance to work out what worked and what didn't. And why. The pictures you see here were from the second day of the shoot, and the result of more than a little input from Naomi (a good photographer herself with a very natural "eye"/ability to see a picture). I'd been very keen to try a particular way of lighting that I'd learned. You can see the result of this technique clearly in the picture above and below, but I think it was actually employed in all four of these shots.
I'd only ever walked across this bridge once before in my life but had made a mental note that one day (or perhaps on many days, though I haven't revisited it yet) it would make for an interesting place to shoot some portraits. The graffiti all along the bridge is so varied, and I may post a couple of extra pictures to this blog at some point to show what some of the other panels looked like. To be honest they are pretty much works of art in themselves. In some ways that is why I feel some of these pictures work really well in monochrome, the backgrounds can prove too distracting!
It's worth comparing this last shot with the one at the top of this blog. What a different feel and style to them, and I think only partly due to one being colour and the other monochrome. I used other lighting techniques over the two days which produced some quite different effects, but its these 4 (and a few others like them) which seem to hold my attention the most. I'm currently working on some more portrait ideas (and indeed have been doing some portraits for Radio Hampshire which have been different again), and will aim to post some of these here in the near future. I'm also still dying to try out my Lomo Fisheye2. If you have no idea what that is, all I can say is wait for a sunny day and keep your fingers crossed that I venture out with mine : )
RJC
1 comments:
Ooh a fisheye, I've been thinking about getting one of those for a while. I used to have a lomo helga camera but it was very hit and miss for someone with no pateince. Does your fisheye have a flash? And anyway how are you? Rosie
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