Gossiping Girls

Gossiping Girls

I recently attended a short course in studio photography and more specifically on how to setup lights and pose a model. The last evening of the course I managed to get two models and various props which could be used during the shoot.

Starting the Shoot

We were a small group of photographers each given a turn to take pictures of the individual models, posing them and playing around with light setups. While browsing through my images I noticed two of the photographers in the group more interested in talking about things not related to the shoot. I am not sure what they were talking about but it gave the impression there were some gossiping. That is when I got the idea of doing a gossip photo.

Making the Photo

After everybody had a turn to take photos and we came to the end of the class I called the two models and asked them to pose together and pretend they see somebody and then start talking about that person. I must admit, the models were playing together and acted brilliantly. They immediately understood what to do (maybe it is a girl thing). I took some photos and decided to add the umbrellas and masks. The idea was to give the girls the typical "rich-high-class" look.

For this picture, only one light, an Elinchrom beauty dish 72 cm was used. It was placed just to the front-right of the model on the right side of the picture. A small white reflector was placed just to the left of the model on the left. As you will see later, this reflector did its job but also caused some light on the background. I was limited in available backgrounds and for this particular image a dark gray background was used. 

To get the background as dark possible, the models were moved forward so that less light will fall onto the background. The Elinchrom 500 Watt was set to level 4. The camera settings were ISO 100, f9, 1/125th.

Several pictures were taken but this one was my final choice.

Post Processing

The image required a lot of post processing like;

• Removing the white ends of the umbrellas
• Correct the reflection (over exposure) of the silver parts of the umbrellas caused by the flash
• Correct the over exposure and reflection of the masks on their faces caused by the flash and the very reflective masks
• The orange umbrella gave an orange reflection in the silver parts of the blue umbrella
• The backdrop was was not black or dark enough

All of these were corrected using Lightroom 4 and Elements 10 en then cropped. I was happy with the final result but having a second look at the image a while later I thought of adding a sepia tone to it. For me the sepia tone gave an older look and contributed to the image and the "rich-classy-look" became the "years ago-rich-classy-look". The only problem was the clothing was to modern and I added an off-center vignetting effect to highlight the faces of the model and not so much their clothing.

Final Image

The final image did very well for me in the club and gave me a COM, month winner and also best image of the year 2012.

Lessons learned

In terms of photography I realized again that we need to create / make a photo. I would never have thought of doing a "gossip" shoot as a theme but taking the immediate environment into consideration, taking notice of the two photographers talking and just think hey what if the two models were talking and not concentrating on the shoot resulted in a very interesting opportunity.

Another big lesson learned, was that backups must be made regularly. After submitting the image for the club evening I had a disk crash and lost some photos and this was one of them. It was only over the holiday period, preparing for another photo shoot that I found a memory card which was not used for some time and the original RAW file was there. I found the original image and had to redo the post-processing.

Summary

Although the girls were not professional models and have only done a few shoots, they were fantastic. Thanks to Francois Venter and Zoe Scholtz for arranging the models for me.

Francois Kotze

Picture of a Parking Area

Looking for some Architecture

I was driving around late one Sunday afternoon trying to find some interesting architecture to photograph. I could not find anything and after sunset gave up on my search. On my way home, I stopped for take-away coffee and for some reason I decided to drive through the underground parking garage at Lifestyle Center. I immediately saw the opportunity to take some photos. Armed with my camera, tripod and remote release I walked around in the garage looking for some interesting angles.

Scared and Lonely

Walking around alone in the garage and nobody around me made me feel uncomfortable and a bit scared and I wanted to take a photo that would express how I felt at that moment. My first attempt was a low and wide angle view with a drain cover in the left hand corner. The shot did not work for me as their was some distracting background and also did not give that "lonely" feeling.

Leading Lines

I eventually decided on taking position between two sets of different color pillars. The pillars formed a leading line to the parking exit which I found interesting. I setup as low as possible on my tripod and took a first test shot. The final re-positioning was to center the black line into the center of my frame.

Looking for a Subject

Although the photo was already strong, I still wanted a subject that would stand out and basically portray the feeling of "lonely"...almost "left behind". The only subject I could find was a trolley. I positioned it roughly on the top left thirds position and took the photo. Although the setup and photo worked for me, I still wanted to capture a photo with some more contrast and almost "creepy" kind of look.

Remote Flash

I decided to place a remote flash on the ground, right behind the first blue pillar on the left hand side. The idea was to throw some flashlight onto the trolley which would allowed me to play around with various settings to darken the garage and only highlight the trolley. The concept worked perfectly and I immediately realized that a combination of highlighting the trolley and various settings to correctly expose the natural light in the garage would be perfect

Taking the big step - HDR

This was the perfect opportunity to try some HDR. I kept the same setup (tripod, low angle, flash behind pillar and remote release) and took several series each consisting of three shots at different shutter speeds. The final series that worked for me was this one,

6 seconds @ f22, ISO 100, 24-70 mm lens at 70mm

13 seconds @ f22, ISO 100, 24-70 mm lens at 70mm

25 seconds @ f22, ISO 100, 24-70 mm lens at 70mm

In all three cases, the remote flash behind the pillar was fired. The flash was set on manual 1/32 power and zoom 50mm. If you look closely at the final image later, you will notice the red handle of the trolley is almost over exposed.

Processing - Photomatix

I downloaded the photos and selected the above series which was imported directly into Photomatix Pro 4.2.

In Photomatix I played around with all the various default presets and decided to apply the "Painterly 4" effect. It gave me the contrast and "creepy" feeling I was looking for.

The only adjustments I made in Photomatix was,

• Adjust the strength = 80
• Color Saturation = 90
• Detail Contrast = 10
• Black Point = 1.196%

The final image was save and imported into Light Room 4.1.

Processing LightRoom 4.1

The HDR image was looking good but had some terrible highlights which was caused by lights in the garage. The best way to got rid of this was to apply an almost panoramic crop to the image which further enhanced the leading lines of the photo. I then adjusted the final exposure of the image and cleaned a few spots, specially the wall left of the exit.

Equipment used

Canon 5DII, Canon 24-70 f2.8 lens, 580exII flash, tripod, remote release and Hahnel remote trigger for flash.

Software used

Photomatix Pro 4.2, Lightroom 4.1

Final Images

Two images stood out for me but the first one was my favorite and decided to submit it for the 9th July 2012 club evening. The result was a COM.

Final Image - COM

Another attempt and my original idea

Food for Thought

HDR is just another tool that we as photographers have. When applied to the right photo and in moderation it can give you something totally different. If you ask me what will I do different next time....take somebody with you, it is really creepy being alone in a parking garage!!

Why this Blog

In the Beginning

After finishing school and further studies, I started working at a major steel manufacturer (ISCOR) in South Africa working in a main-frame environment mainly doing process control and reporting. It did not take me long to realize this was not for me. After about a year in this position I started my National Service (Army)  which was completed a year later. Due to contractual obligations, I returned to ISCOR but fortunately this time, in a different position.

Getting into Electronics

I've always had an interest in electronics and in my new position at ISCOR I've had plenty opportunities to do various projects. Some of the more interesting projects involved;

• Weld detection of a plate
• EBCDIC to ASCII printer interface
• Squash Court Light Control

These project gave me great opportunity to learn discrete electronics, micro processors and lastly assembler.  I've been in this position for almost ten years and then decided to move on.

Getting into Programming

A major concern to me was that one cannot make a living out of Electronics alone, especially not in South Africa. I've noted an increase in electronics designs which required interfacing to computers running custom software. I've started designing and writing this software and eventually found my new job and "hobby". After work I would go home and practice my "hobby", over weekends I would spend hours practicing my "hobby". I was hooked on my "hobby" and soon got fluent in,

• c and later c++
• Clarion
• Assembler (x86 and 8051)
• Pascal later Delphi
• GW Basic and later QBasic
• Visual Basic
• C#

Married Life

During these exciting "hobby" years of mine, I got married and my wife gave birth to our son Tertius. Soon I got into the situation where there was no time for my "hobby" and I had to get something else that we as a family could do, specially something for father and son.

Hobby

One of the best hobbies in the world is Photography. I bought two camera's, Cannon 5DII and Canon 500D for my son with a variety of top prime lenses.  Now that my son is a teenager, I also decided to get back into electronics specifically to expose him to it.

So Why This BLOG

To share all the interesting things we are doing with you and to also tell you how we have done it. We hope you will enjoy this with us and that you will also learn something from this BLOG.

Lastly, if your job is also your hobby.....you are doing something wrong!!