co2 - The smokey effect!

Using Dry ice(the solid form of carbon dioxide) to produce a dry ice fog. since Carbon Dioxide is denser than normal air it sits low to the ground causes a very low level "rolling" fog. With coloured light being shone through this fog it will hopefully produce a random smokey look because of the random movement of the particles making up the fog.  This video demonstrates the production of the fog using dry ice and very hot water.

Using a few of these pots within the frame of my image would create a large amount of low level fog filling the bottom of my frame.

Light Graffiti

 The large framing of this photo gives a feeling of "the wonders of the universe" with start trails and the trees give a touch of nature. The colours used in the light painting its self are very natural and warm, this provides an almost subtle effect rather than the quite harsh cold light of some light painting. This photo includes an orb that is created using several lights on a hinged piece of an equipment(which i will produce another blog around) I feel this orb gives an almost out of this world effect which goes well with the start trails. 

I've nicknamed this photo the "ghostly angel" though the light involved in the shape of the angel is quite randomly placed it still forms a fairly strong shape of an angel which shows strongly the "join up the dots" effect that the mind does so well. The blue light used for the light painting contrast the warm colours of the surrounding area which further supports the imagination in created the image of the angel as they are often depicted as "glowing" figures. 

The use 

Location Shortlist

The Bulls Head Inn

Situated in Alton, Staffordshire, this hotel/freehouse is within an easy car trip from my house, so transportation is no issue. It has quite a vintage traditional style which is what I am looking for.
Url: http://www.thebullsheadalton.co.uk/

A twin or double room costs £55-£75 per night. Rooms are available from 2pm and have to be vacated by 10am. If you presume that you wanted to get all photography done on the first day. that would give you from around 3pm to 9pm which gives 6 hours of shooting time.



Smile Studio

This is a professional studio for hire, the difference between this and using a hotel is that the studio is set up in a way to encourage photography and help it on the way. The hotel will not be set up like this so there could be potential problems like availability of power sockets.  This studio is available for £110 for 8 hours but comes with lighting and backdrops.

Choosing a Location

Choosing my location to do my photo-shoot has proven to be more of a problem than i first thought. using a professional studio based location is out of the question due to very high costing. The next option and the one that is probably going to be most successful, is to use a hotel room as my location.
below are some of the images that are inspiring the location I want to use:

I am currently finding some hotels to shortlist for the shoot. which i will put on this blog once i have contacted them to see whether they are likely to accept the idea.

Jason Christopher video blog

My first attempt at a video blog. enjoy`

James Nader

James Nader does a lot of studio photography he also has a large range of location work, demonstrated below.

In the picture James uses a balance of ambient and controlled lighting to produce a halo of light around the model and also a small sun flare through the window. 

Both these photos taken in a theatre demonstrate good communication between the photographer and the model with the model giving almost actor like poses to match the environment and the angle and light to match the normally quite subdued lighting in a theatre.

Jason Christopher

Jason christopher is a major source of inspiration for my location photography. His clean use of the female form and seamless integration between model and location produces some stunning images, like the one above. The photo above utilises both ambient light and controlled lighting. The ambient light coming through the window creates a contrasting light forming a halo around the model and the directional flashes give contrast and texture to the skin.

In this picture he also uses a balance of ambient and controlled lighting to give a very warm natural look to the photo. This balance is what I hope to obtain in my set of photos, all of which will be shot on location within a building. So when selecting my locations I am going to have to pay close attention to the about of ambient light that enters the room.

The very simple pose in this photo produces a very simple but fantastic photo the light coming over the floor from the right gives a very natural look and the one sided lighting gives a lot of contrast on the models skin.

Studio Session - 12 March

Today I'm going to have a first controlled go at some light painting, though I will be using this on location for my final images I am having my first go within the studio as it will give me a more controlled environment to experiment on different techniques.

I will be using a combination of lighting including torches and also an ipad.

Using an ipad in Light Painting

because the ipad is almost entirely made up a hi-res screen it is very useful in lighting painting. because it allows for the creation of an almost infinite number of combinations of lights and shape to create very impressive light painting on the final frame.

This is one of the most successful images from my first session using an ipad for light drawing. the image displaying on the ipad was a static white circle on a black background. moving the ipad through the fame produced the cylinder effect.

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting

Light Warfare

Hennessy Campaign shot only with Light Painting (Long Version).

Units

Unit 205
Photo imaging equipment and materials.

Unit 310
Photo image output

Unit 212
Working to a photo imaging project brief

Unit 307
Location photography

Statement of Intent

Theme 1


Editorial Female Portraiture put together to form a small magazine spread to be used for advertising or a feature article

The work of Jason Christopher, which I will analyse in more detail in further blogs, is a good example of the type of photographs I wish to produce. I am also inspired by the "tradition" for most magazines to have a feature in their magazines usually a few pages and often featuring full or very large frame pictures following a theme and I would like to create something similar.

I will be using a Canon DSLR for all of the image capture and a combination of portable studio lighting and Canon Speedlights to provide a wide range of available lighting solutions. The photos will all be produced on location so I will also be working with ambient light which I want to use to my advantage to provide a more subtle lighting solution.

These are some of the best images from my weekend photoshoot in derby:

For this photo I used a Speedlight mounted on my camera and a secondary Speedlight at camara left to give a contrasting light to the side of the models face. The red highlights on the righthand side are from a old side street light giving out a very warm glow, to take advantage of that I used a fairly long exposure to give time for the ambient light to fill the photo.

Photo shoot - Saturday 12th Feb

Taking my own camera (canon 1000d) and two speedlights(580EXII and 430EXII), and all the other accessories; tripods and lenses. I'm going to try and get some shots of this male model

This shoot is going to be after nightfall and I'm going to use the speedlights to give some strong contrasting light like below:

Though this is a headshot it is only an example of the kind of lighting I want to achieve. I am planning to produce mainly 3/4 and full lengths shots with possibly a couple of headshots at most. 

Equipment

Camera:

My own camera the 1000d is the basic model of the canon DSLR range but still has the advantage of the SLR by having full manual control of ISO, shutter speed and aperture. It has 

Rankin

Though this is a studio photo, the clothes she is wearing is a good example of the kind of outfits I want to use. Though I have said I want to a lingerie theme, this is the level of "nudity" I want to include to keep it classy but still include a fair amount of skin, as to show the true form of the model not the clothes they are wearing.

More Inspiration

This picture is almost a perfect match to the ideas I have in my head. I would like to do a set of images based around lingerie but to try and show that it doesn't have to be in a "lads mag" style. 

Finding The Location

Obvious by name a good location is key in location photography. I have found this website to appear very helpful at first, http://www.locationpartnership.com/index.php, it contains a vast database of locations and allows searches for type of location making it very easy to find what you want. I haven't yet gone on any further to identify how much it will cost but that will be my next move.

New Start

This is my second time on the city and guilds course and I'm going to use the units I've already got to build up to the Level 3 Diploma in Photography and Photo Imaging. Having already completed unit 306 (studio photography) I'm going to use some of the skills gained during that unit, to assist me in unit 307 (location photography) I am really interested in this because of the combination of ambient lighting and fill flash.

(http://jasonchristopher.com/photography/fashion/2)