The shadows photo session part 3

Here's part 3 of the shadows photo session. If you missed them, part 1 is here with the intro, and part 2 is here.

1. This one is a hint to where I was aiming the camera.

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6. You could be forgiven for thinking I was inspired by the 2016 movie 'Arrival'. Which if you haven't seen, it's terrific. I swooned at the opening image.

7. This is one of my favourite images. We had to work a bit to get things exactly right.

8. So many photos trying to get this one right.

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And last of all, the setting. So unglamorous. Darkness hides so much. I wasn't going to show this but the models insisted and we must keep the models happy. 

Mainly the images were captured as close ups so there was hardly any background at all, and what little there was could be controlled through the red and aqua channels. 

The light on the right was mostly pointed nearly straight up to bounce off the ceiling for indirect lighting to help keep the ISO low to control noise. You can just see the little halogen light off to the left we used to create the shadows. The windows were blacked out with cardboard. There's a little heater on the floor to the left to keep Michelle's feet warm.

I had some other lights and reflectors handy, but as it turned out we didn't need them. We're planning another session and might play more with lights and reflectors to shape and modify the light.

There's a recurring line in the Sherlock Holmes stories where Watson is amazed at the result of one of Holmes' and then once explained says it's obvious. Maybe you're all disappointed at seeing behind the scenes.

No of the day photos today, but it will return next time. There are some hyacinths being optimistic in the front garden bed.

The shadows photo session part 2

If you missed part 1 with the start of the story, it's here. 

1. As you can see, Linda helped out with the shadows.

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Go to part 3 here.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago. Susi has seen this one already, but seeing it again won't hurt her feelings.

Flower

Landscape

The shadows photo session part 1

Michelle and I have done several photo sessions, each one more interesting and fun than the last. She had seen some interesting black and white images and wondered if she and I could use them as inspiration for our own take. I showed her some similar ones that I had seen along the way, and we were off to the races. 

I set things up downstairs, almost like it was going to be a dark room. One of the studio lights was aimed at the ceiling for some diffuse light, and I used a small halogen light to create the shadows. We intentionally aimed for contrasty images, lots of shadows and texture, with a bit of brightly lit area. These are intended to somewhat abstract images. For the camera geeks following along, I'm using an f2.8 or f1.8 lens, mostly wide open or nearly so, and having to manually focus, which I don't do a lot of. For the non camera geeks, this means a shallow depth of field, and in some of the images the focus might look a little soft.

If you start to wonder what you're looking at, then we've succeeded. Enjoy. I'm planning to break this up into 3 posts, each linked together once complete so it's easy to follow along. 

1. Getting warmed up and finding the light and shadows.

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3. Starting to dive in, looking for interesting shadows and textures.

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7. No, I haven't forgotten about the hands project, I've just been distracted by other things.

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10. This is Michelle's number one favourite. 

In other news the great photo review and purge is still going on. Working my way through 2019 now, which started with just over 50,000 photos. So far I've deleted about 8,000. A reader asked about this process. No, this isn't a re-review of images. This is looking for out of focus, or unintentionally badly over or under exposed, or where I can see that I've edited one in a sequence, and there are several others essentially the same. I check to make sure I'm not deleting anything that I've actually edited, even if it is an over baked Photomatix monstrosity. And in some cases, like the steam punk museum on Oamaru New Zealand it's exactly the right effect. Here, in case you don't remember.

Go to part 2 here.

Of the Day

Driftwood (NZ)

Driftwood (NB)

Film

Linda

Newfoundland

New Brunswick

Why ever didn't I publish this, and maybe I did

90 days, or so ago This is actually New Years Day 2019. I found it during the great purge. 

Flower

Landscape