Personal Shoot plan “tattoos”

A photoshoot I have been asked to do for a tattoo artist. He wants a portrait series so he can use the images on his website “the crazier, the better…” he said.

Inspiration

I want something quite moody looking as I think it matches what he is looking for and the style of the shop so I looked for inspiration and stumbled across this image which was mad men inspired. I want something similar looking to this but more detail of the face.

A quick lighting diagram sketch, I want something simple and soft and I think this will achieve this. And the model has quite a lot of tattoos and i want to make sure i get as much soft light on them as possible so they look more detailed. Studio is booked 4-closing on the 5th June.

Shoot INK

I decided to assist a Dat Vu another photographer on an ink based still life shoot. This was again something new to me, as I had never worked with ink before in photography. I found this shoot really interesting as it is something I never really thought about photographing before and I like how assisting people can be helpful to each other as we where both teaching other things on this shoot. Although really messy which is why I am glad we had gloves. I think the only thing I think we should do differently next time is bring in another assistant as there was defiantly not enough hands for something as fiddly as this, although we did mange to make it work I think we could of got stronger image if we did. And although we did have a few problems with equipment I think we did get good images in the end.

Sony World Photography exhibition

It has been my aim now to visit more exhibitors as I feel we can learn more by looking at other photographers work as I was looking for inspiration of one my brief I decided to visit one of my favorite exhibitions in London called the Sony World photography awards which is the world’s biggest photography competition and its aim is to recognize and reward the best contemporary photography in the world.

Upon vising the exhibition I can say without doubt that it didn’t fail to amaze me as this year there was defiantly strong contestants such as the winner John Moore as the winner of this year’s $25,000 first prize from the Aprison Aprison, Indonesia, Shortlist, Arts and Culture. There wasn’t a piece that I could argue didn’t deserve to be in the exhibitions as all the image I felt were strong contestants and all could of easily one the prize. Picking my favorite would be hard so I would defiantly recommend you visit the exhibition as its defiantly worth the money.

Watch Photography

Defiantly being one of the hardest types of photography I have ever tried the smallest movement of light and it completely threw off the image. Although from my advice and research before the shoot I was told three soft boxes would help achieve a strong image however on the day I felt the lighting look horrible so I adopted a new lighting set up which suited it much better and was easier to control. As we worked on the Phase One cameras I knew the amount of detail we where going to get on the camera would be a large amount so I cleaned up the props as much as I could, however I still had to do a lot of post on the image. Which is why I am glad the brief only required one image because it took me about 2hours to get the image how I wanted it and to clean it up. I would recommend defiantly using black cotton based velvet when shooting something like this as I did notice the fabric absorbed a lot of the light. I would also recommend doing a lot of research and practicing before hand to know more about what your doing. Although I did really enjoy this shoot and I feel like a progressing slowly but surely with studio lighting. Here is the outcome;

My first movie

Where to start, I have defiantly learnt a lot from this project and I should defiantly experiment more using this medium because I want to start being more comfortable with it. As I worked on movie when I did my foundation course I thought it would be a breeze and I didn’t realize how hard it was actually going to be. My foundation movies where nothing like this, although it didn’t help me with coming up with ideas and developing them using storyboards etc. We didn’t use zooms or continuous lighting but now we are looking to be professionals so we have to know how to use things like this.

While editing this video I found it is quite difficult working with premiere pro. Not my favorite mediums I have found working in film quite hard and am still learning. I also found it difficult to match the audio with the video, but we found it easier to sync when there was a visual clap to match with the audio to be more simpler then trying to sync with just matching the sound from both sides which I need to bare in mind if we want to work with sound for our film.

Although I am happy with how the movie turned out I defiantly need more practice so I can develop my skill. Take a look a look at the link below to se how it turned out.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgBJ9P5EZzbwEctIfh4T-Hw

Advice

Working in photography it is so easy to make mistakes or miss things we are human its part of our nature. We can’t be everywhere at once and have eyes on everything as much as we would like to.

I have collected a lot of advice form people over the past few years and thought I should share.

“if your on time your late”…

This has probably been the 2nd most helpful advice when working in the industry as especially when Im working on events I should be at least 20minutes early to scout the place and make sure Im comfortable with it. I even had one event where they told me to tun up at a specific time I thought I should be early like I normally do and the event was already closing I was able to quickly grab a few people and take their pictures. So if i was on time I would of missed the opportunity to take the pictures and wouldn’t of got my pictures.

“be prepared for anything”…

“be flexible”…

Again photography is a crazy industry you have to be flexible and work around it and be prepared for anything I have seen a few crazy things and heard a few crazy ideas when working but Im able to get the pictures I need.

I also learnt that advice can come from strange places but be so helpful. As some advice I have been given hasn’t come from photography but working in other areas like waitressing I was trained as a waitress for a well known silver service company and a food chain. They gave me advice that I always took with me and also found it very helpful when Im working in any type of industry.

“presentation is key”….

You have to sell yourself in a way. your face is the business and if your sloppy people won’t use you. People are going to want to use someone who looks professional and who acts professional.

“a smile fixes anything”…

my first day as a waitress I was really nervous I thought I was going to make a lot of mistakes and I think it showed on my face. A waiter that had worked at the company fro a while came up to me and and we where talking about being nervous. The soon said to me to relax, be myself and just smile. And it actually worked I would make a mistake for example a customer had been waiting awhile for their receipt I just smiled and apologised and they instantly calmed down. I took this when i was working in photography especially street photography I had a rather tricky shoot one day when there wasn’t many willing models so I would take the pictures without them looking and if they caught me some would glare, my solution was to smile back at them and they would 99.9% of the time just smile back.

My first wedding

Although I have done a few weddings now and my events and weeding is now my main source of income. I will always remember this day, it made me grow so much as a photographer although it was only a favour and I wasn’t being paid as much as I do now, it helped me in so many ways. Although I wouldn’t say anything went ‘wrong’ i learnt what to avoid and how to handle situations because of this day. I normally struggle with making my voice heard and wasn’t really sure in what direction of photography I wanted to go into but I think I found my footing more and now have more of a stable idea of where I want to go, I know wedding and event photography isn’t very glamorous but I feel like this is where I want to go. I felt as well that I just automatically had more confidence I was in control, I was able to make my voice heard because so many people where relying on me so I had to. This has helped me so much on other pieces of work I have done and I am so glad that I have done it. I think I was made for this area as I am quite a calm person and this normally rubs off on the people I am around so this is defiantly helpful when working in wedding photography as it such a stressful environment.

24hr

On the 10^th of February we where asked to participate in the 24hr challenge being a second year this also meant I could teach the first years what I knew about the Phase one a lighting. I found the day not only a lot of fun but I love working with different people as I think teaching helps the information in your head more raw and I think as I had to teach the students what I knew about the equipment I now feel more comfortable with the equipment.

I worked on a still life shoot for mine, something I hadn’t done before as I thought I would take this opportunity to try something knew, and as we also working with still life in our actual uni projects I again thought it would be a good idea to take the time to practice with still life lighting and set up as we have the tutors to help answers our questions if needed.

I now feel more comfortable with still life lighting and know what I should do and what I should avoid when working with still life lighting. I also know which direction I want to go for my actual still life project as my original idea for my lighting type I wanted to experiment with I feel was to harsh so I will now work with something softer.

All in all I found the day really helpful and would defiantly do it again.

Taylor Wessing

Today on the 9^th of February I visited the National Portrait gallery, I am always fond of the National portrait Gallery as they hold one of my favourite exhibitions the Taylor Wessing photographic portrait prize.

The exhibition is home to few selected images, many of which where on display for the first time, with many exploring different areas of photography such as traditional and original approaches to photographic portraiture so there is always something for everyone which is the main reason why I love the exhibition. The exhibit explores the nature of portraiture through intimate images of friends and family alongside revealing portraits of famous faces.

There were many strong pieces of work in the exhibition that I felt deserved a prize although one of my favorite pieces being Laura Pannack piece named Chayla in Shul and another piece that didn’t win a prize was ‘Jenifer’ by Shelley Calton, from the series Concealed, She’s got a gun. The image shows a son hugging his mum in their house, while she holds a gun in her other hand, this image was taken in Texas, where many people carry a gun for protection. The image is so raw I just loved how the photographer is able to capture a normally quite touchy subject and make it seem so domestic and normal.