On day 12 I looked at combination of natural light and flash, I wanted to explore both shadows and silhouettes originally however I had a flash with me and decided to have a practice. I am pleased with how these came out and it was interesting trying to shoot directly into bright sunshine.
The first image is my favourite image I got playing with shadows. What drew me to this was the shape the light makes on the wall and how crisp the shadow is, I also like that you can still see some of the person creating the shadow. I was shooting at 45degrees behind my subject and positioned the camera so that the pool of light started at the top left corner to create a line leading to the centre, this 'line' continues down the subjects arm and legs to the bottom right corner guiding your eye across the entire image. Overall the image is quite a dark photo, I exposed for the highlights to make sure the shadow was crisp and that the pool of light was noticeable. Doing this made the shadows go very dark however I used Lightroom to bring some detail back into them and I am happy with the final exposure. I also tried this image in landscape orientation to include the entire person in the frame, I think that this would've been my preferred composition however the uk sun didn't want to play ball and went behind some clouds.
The fourth photo is an image I took trying to create an interesting silhouette, I think this is my favourite of the three below as I like box the end of the carpark creates in the frame and I'm not too far away that my subject gets lost in the scene. To achieve this I used a combination of a small aperture and a fast shutter speed to only expose for the sky behind my subject. The image has two strong leading lines either side of the frame taking your eye to the centre of the frame as well as the shadow of my subject going up from the middle, this combined with the separation you achieve when taking silhouettes creates a bold yet natural looking photo.
Image six and seven are portraits I took both with and without flash and in this case I actually preferred the image taken without. The light in these images were soft and colourful and when I added flash it made the whole image more punchy and contrasted which I felt didn't work as well for this image. What drew me to this composition was the colour of the sky and clouds as well as how that colour was complimented by the red and green on the floor. The colours work together to create a happy, summery feeling. Despite the image being lit in soft light it is not a flat image, the contrast between the road and the coloured spaces helps add depth and the black trousers my subject is wearing creates clear separation between him and the background helping you eye fall naturally on him. Another way I made sure my subject was clear and large in the frame was to shoot with a wide lens and get up close, this allowed my subject to be large in the frame as well as still allowing the viewer to see the clouds behind.
The last two images are much better portraits with flash, the flash really helps add contrast and exposure into what would've been a dark and flat image. For these I got my subject to dance around whist smoking a cigarette, this allowed for unusual body positioning which adds interest to the image. I think the first of the two works the best as there isn't a light coming out the side of his head. I like the pair of white leading lines leading from the right side corners, I like that the top line takes your eye fully through the image whilst the bottom line stops at the subject.
Comments