Objects



The Assignment



This unit is intended to provide diverse opportunities to learn fundamental photographic techniques associated with image production within a controlled enviroment.
The term 'objects' is used in order to encompass not only photographing inanimate forms but also 'still life', close up work and commercial products.  these may include 'pack shots' product photography, photographing three dimensional artwork and recording natural forms. Opportunities will be provided for the design and construction of 'sets' suitable for photographing more complex scenes. Substancial emphasis will be placed upon lighting theories and techniques, digital asset management and digital manipulation.

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand fundamental theories of light, lighting and image capture.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of camera formats including digital and relevant film based systems.
  • Design and construct basic 'sets' working independently and as a member of a team.
  • Create darkroom and digital images using fundamental imaging processes and image storage techniques.
  • Adhere to health and safety practice and regulation outlines.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the utilisation of object based photography.

Task

You are requirred to produce a paper based portfolio of 6 'objects' photographs. Whilst there are no strict instructions on the type of photographs you must make, you should respond to each of the following study areas:

  1. Close up and Macro
  2. Mini set build
  3. Commercial product
  4. Highly reflective subjects (chrome,glass etc.)
  5. Historical objects and there narrative ( with Blackburn Museum)
During the work carried out for unit 1 (systems and processes assignment), you will learn several important lighting techniques. You should attempt to use these acquired skills to help you create atmospheric and expressive photographs.

 You must accompany each photograph in the portfolio with a written evaluation of the work involved in its production (research-design-treatment-post production). Try to limit each evaluation to no more than 150 words.

Your portfolio size should be a4 minimum with images suitable print media. Accompanying evaluations should be placed behind its relevant Photograph.

Assessment Criteria

  1. Investigative research within a controlled lighting enviroments, with recorded evidence of technical and creative findings.
  2. Detail and accuracy of descriptions and evaluations for portfolio images.
  3. Ability to work both independently and in a team, to produce effective and appropriate photographs.
  4. Understanding of key area's/genre's of objects photography.
  5. Attendance in appointed tutorials and lectures appropriate to the objects assignment.


    Health and Safety in the Studio 

     To prevent any accidents in the studio photographers should follow these simple guidelines:-

    • To prevent tripping up all photographers should make sure all all tripods lights and props are secure on there stands and that there is enough room for people to move around in the studio.
    • Be careful of banging your head on hanging lights such as soft boxes.
    • Always make sure that loose cables on the floor are covered with coloured gaffa tape to prevent any tripping.


    Health and Safety on location

    All the following are based on doing a location based photo shoot:-
    • I should take out a risk assesment were i want to do the photo shoot or assigned to do the shoot.
    • I should check to see if there was any fire precautions or any information on what to do if there was a fire.
    • If i was to have an assistant i would share any health and safety concerns with them.
    • I should check if all equipment is maintained properly and is safe to use including any type of lights i have taken out.
    • Always make sure there is no water in or on your electrical equipment unless they have been water proofed. 
    Risk assesments are done so that you can see if there would be any possible dangers when out on location and to try and prevent this from happening.

    Blackburn university Department rules and procedures

    All formal communication will be kept by tutors by email and letters and any other information will be given out in class tutorial and through moodle. ( moodle is the colleges virtual learning enviroment). And always keep in contact with your tutor about change in address or keeping up to date with your work and progress.

    Attendance to all lessons is mandatory and to be successful on the course you will need regular contact with your tutors to discuss progress and the college requires at least 90% attendance. Abesence's for things like illness, family crises, medical or appointments will have to be told to your tutor as soon as possible. Were as if a student has a medical condition or mental health issues or on medication that affect your attendance or punctuality then discuss this with your tutor so they can make reasonable adjustments for the student.

    Do not turn up to timetabled lessons late as the staff/tutor has the right to turn you away for that session to prevent any disruption from the class, if this is the case your personal tutor or course leader will be informed of this matter and will discuss this with the student.

    Mobile phones are not allowed in sessions as can be very disruptive, phones should be switched of and not put on silent ir vibrate, in exceptional circumstances e.g family emergency talk to your tutor and they will consider you leaving your phone on silent, also UCBC has strict rules on taking phones into an exam, if you take your phone in and it rings you will get zero marks for that particular exam.

    Moodle is the college's/university's e-learning system which used throughout the college. It is used for many different purposes such as information about the course a student is on, lecture notes and additional learning resources as well as quiz's and chat rooms. Once you have activated the account you can access it with any computer with internet access.

    This course holds many international trips which are both educational and cultral, the purpose of these trips is to broaden your field of inspiration, witness new developments and assist with research.

    As this course requires specialist equipment you must take responsibilty for its purchase, maintenence and take it into class when necessary, failure to do this may result in you falling behind on your work, and there is also a chance that the tutor will bar you from seesion's if you do not bring the appropriate equipment.

    Study time should be around 10 hours a week per credit, this means that for a 15 credit module you should set 150 hours of study in total. This amount includes college hours, private study and working toword's assesment activities.


    Points to help keep you safe when in college/university buildings

    • Always listen to the tutor carefully when discussing safety.
    • Take notice of any safety signs and notice's.
    • Always tell a member of staff if are worried bout your own or somebody else's safety.
    • Walk around college do not run.
    • Never block fire emergency doors and exits.
    • Do not sit or stand in corridors and stairways.
    • Do not mess around with fire extinguishers or any other equipment.
    • Always tell a member of staff if you notice broken equipment.
    • Use all equipment as shown by your tutor or technican.
    • If there is a risk assessment in place for the activity you are carrying out, make sure you read the assessment any any guidance before you start.

    Emergency procedures

    If you discover a fire:-
    • Operate the nearest 'break glass' point to raise the alarm.
    If the fire alarm sounds:-
    • Close all windows and isolate equipment.
    • Proceed to nearest fire assembly point leaving by the nearest safe exit.
    Remember:-
    • Close all doors behind you.
    • Do not stop to collect any personal belongings.
    • Do not use the lifts.
    • Do not obstruct exits.
    • Do not re-enter the building unless told to do so.
    If a student has a disability or a broken limb then talk to your tutor and they will tell you how to evacuate the building.

    If you have an accident while at the university a first aider can be called by dailing the campus emergency telephone number which is 2222. If the accident is more serious then your nexyt of kin will be contacted to escort you to medical centre or an ambulance will be rang depending on the seriousness of the accident.


My understanding of lighting


I have been doing some research on studio lighting on what types of lighting that you can use in the studio and there are two types of light there is the type of light that you switch on and they are called continuous light sources for example a continuous light source is a light you switch on that doesn't flash and stays lit like a house lamp. And then there is strobe lights these are quick burst's of light that flash in sync with the camera.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5397820_types-studio-lights.html

Continuous light sources can come in all different shapes and sizes and always incandescent.

This is one example of a incandescent continuous light
source



Here is an image i found on flickr were the photographer has used a continuous light source.





Flash systems

Pack and head system

There are two types of flash systems, there are pack and head systems and mono-lights.

Pack and head systems have a flash head that emits light and usually come with a power pack that one or more heads can be plugged in to. Most of the electronics and controls are on the pack which can have smaller or lighter head designs. These packs are powered by either power of the wall or by battery, and each head is attached to a pack using an electronic cable.

Here are some examples of pack and head units i found on google images.












                                 




Monolights

A mono-light is a self contained flash unit, each mono-light has its own independent power source. Unlike the pack and head system it doesn't depend on a centralised power supply. Mono lights also have there own controls were you can control the power settings and how much light out put the photographer wants to use. A mono-light usually consists of a power supply, power connector and a flash tube. And usually a mono-light has several features such as  a flash tube and strobe light, a modelling light which is constantly lit and this helps the photographer to compose the image, a power connector, a power switch, a slave sensor which senses other strobes or flash's and flashes the unit in use by the photographer , a reflector to bounce light back on to the subject matter, a stand socket to which allows it to be mounted on to a standard light stand and umbrella socket.



Colour Gels / Filters

A colour gel or filter is a transparent coloured material that is used in many industries such as theatre, cinematography, videography and photography and are used to colour light or colour correction. Usually now in the modern age they are made from polycarbonate or polyester and are usually placed in front of the light source. Gels usually have a limited life and can melt or fade the colour at this point they would have to be replaced.


Light meter's and metering


A light meter is a device used to measure light, and is used to determine the proper exposure of a photograph. There are two types of readings there is incident, this is were you point the light meter at the
light source from your subject and then there is reflective readings and this were you point the meter at the subject and the meter reads the light coming of that subject, you usually have one of the reflective meters in your camera. You can buy light meters were they are both built in to the one device or you can have them in two seperate meters.



This is a light meter with a refective meter built in and
an incident meter built in

This is a incident light meter only

This is a reflective light meter only




Digital file storage and file types

JPEG- A jpeg file compresses the file size so you can fit more on a memory card and it does this by getting rid of information that cant be seen by the naked eye.
TIFF- A tiff file only slightly compress's an image.
RAW- A raw file doesnt compress any information and is the closet to film quality and doesnt get rid of any information so this would be the largest file.
While im at university i will store my images on an external portable hard drive like this:-






Objects Assignment session 2





I decided to photograph the Versace perfume Woman

I firstly starting doing some research on the advertisements that had been done to advertise this perfume originally and from other perfume adverts, and i found that the most simple pictures tend to work the best, they seem to be more aesthetically pleasing on the eye.All though i did find adverts that do tend to use females in the image a lot.

Research

First i have decided to research how Versace originally originated from how and why?
So i checked out wikipedia and found that Versace ( versus ) became successful after running Gianni Versace SpA in the early to mid 1980s, and after his success the company's founder Gianni Versace created a new line in fashion and then fragrances

History of Versace perfume Brand

Versace released his first fragrance in 1992 which was called Gianni Versace.


      This was the first perfume Gianni Versace created and released.Here are some examples of other perfumes i have found by Versace


 
I love how the photographer has chose to light this image i love the gold look the bottle has it almost looks like its glowing.


 I also found this shot which i think looks great, i like how the photographer has colour coordinated the background with the scent bottle and got bokeh in his image by using a macro lens at around f/2.8

 This is one of Versace ad campaigns which I've noticed they have taken a shot of the bottle in the studio and then using editing software has placed it on some images of a glamorous lady, i think photographers to do this to associate the scents with glamorous people which makes the consumer associate with rich glamorous lifestyles.

Versace advertisement campaigns

I decided to look at past Versace ad campaigns to see how they advertised there product here is what i found:-


    







I particularly like how this bottle has been lit, the photographer has clearly lit this object from behind and i think they have possibly used a colour gel over the light source to get this pink-red light, which compliments the precious gem like appearance of the bottle, suggestive rich warm colour also compliments the overall look of the bottle.

Although this image looks quiet busy i quiet like it, the gold metallic foil sort of acts as a reflector, although if i was going to to do this shot a don't think i would have  folded the foil as many times as this photographer would as its starting to shadow the gold edges on the right of the bottle.






MY WORK DAYLIGHT STUDIO SHOOT
Here is my contact sheet of the images i created as you can see i have bracketed my exposure to see which one has my desired look. So using a Nikon D3100 and a table top curve i placed my camera on a tripod to prevent camera shake.






As you can see I've played around with the composition of the bottle to see which shot looks aesthetically pleasing on the eyes.



















MY FINAL DAYLIGHT SHOT


When creating this image i set my camera to 1/60 of a second, my aperture to f/4.5 my focal length to 60mm and my ISO speed to 110. I also have my DPI at 300 and lens selection was a macro lens.And will be using this image as my highly reflective image. This image is more about the composition of were i placed the perfume bottle, i think if you look at my contacts you can see that the perfume bottle worked better to the left than in the centre or to the right of the frame, i also think that placing my camera in landscape has made the image more appealing than set in portrait, i would say its more aesthetically pleasing on the eye.

Post Production


For this shot i used photoshop to edit, to start with i cropped the image slightly and then on a new layer i selected overlay to give the bottle contrast and to make the colours on the bottle look rich and inviting and then i decided i wanted text on the image so i selected the type font optima which is the actual font Versace use and then i thought instead of having the text in the centre i placed it at the bottom next to the bottle as i thought it worked better, it sort of looks like its coming out the bottom of the bottle especially

 Location shoot

For this shoot i decided i wanted to do this outdoors, so decided to go on a wrecky to Dinkley woods, it was a beautiful day with the winter sun shining very bright, firstly i decided to put my perfume bottle on this broken up tree but wasn't really working for me. Then i spotted this log which i placed my bottle on and found some purple flowers in the woods to compliment the bottle but did have trouble focusing on the bottle, as it kept focusing on the flowers beside it, which is something I've got to practise. So then i decided to walk down to the River Ribble which is at Dinkley woods and decided to shoot on the water, this is the result i got.

MY CONTACTS


When creating this image i set my exposure to 1/500 of a second my aperture to f/13 my ISO speed to 3200 and my focal length was 60 mm and lens selection was macro. I think this image is very calming to look at, the blue and greens in the water are very natural colours. my intentions behind this image was an attempt to suggest the perfume has the quality's of natural beauty that are found abundant in nature.



Post Production

When i took this shot i had a double page spread in mind, so on editing this image i got the rulers out on photoshop to measure the the size of the image then cropped it to my desired size, then adjusted contrast and brightness, and when thinking about how the double page spread would look decided also with thinking about my composition aswell, i wanted it to be so my eyes or the viewers eyes followed the image round starting at the bottle on the left and your are dragged round to the right to the text, by doing this i think this images flows well.

  Extra location shot

Because i had done quite a few different variations for this shoot i decided to do two shots for this, so i found some purple flowers to colour coordinate with my bottle. When i got to the canal bridge i thought it would be a nice backdrop to use for my shot, again i stuck to the same composition as my other two shots above, then set my bottle up to the left of my frame and placed some purple flowers next to the bottle just to add a bit more detail into the image.

 MY CONTACTS



On doing this shot i set my exposure to 1/500 of a second, my aperture to f/13, my focal length was 60mm and my ISO speed was 3200, and lens selection was macro. On getting some feedback about this image a few people have said it has an element of class which was exactly what i was aiming for so was quite pleased with the feedback i received.

Post Production

When editing this image i wanted vivid colours so i increased the contrast to the highest i could get it without it looking daft, then i cropped ever so slightly and added some text using the optima font which is the same font Versace uses. I also tried getting the reflection out of the bottle but struggled with but i did have feedback of a few different people and the said it gave the image a deeper depth, and as the perfume smelt floral i thought it suited like nature in a bottle.


MY STUDIO SHOT

For this shoot i wanted to be creative with my studio lighting, so i set up the table top curve stuck a light under the curve shining up at my subject and stuck a orange colour gel over the top of my light then i but two soft boxes either side of the table shining in at my perfume bottle. Then i set my camera on a tripod to prevent camera shake which is always good practice.



 


For this shot i set my shutter speed to 1/80 of a second, my aperture to f/5.6, my focal length is 60mm ISO speed 450 and my lens selection was a macro lens. I quite like this image for its warm inviting colours to give the impression it has a warm smell, i also think this image looks simple and sleek.

Lighting Techniques used for this shot

When i set up my lights for this shot i used a table top curve and placed a honeycomb lamp underneath with a colour gel with two soft boxes at either side of my table top curve, i set my my lights up like this as i wanted my bottle to be high lighted at either side of my bottle.



                                         Post Production

When editing this image i made sure the measurements from the bottle to the edge of the photo measured the same, i sharpened the edges of the bottle. Then i added the typeface optima for the text and kept the size of the font to a small size so it wasnt over powering the subject. I think keeping it simple has worked really well for me.

Depth of Field

There are to different types of depth of field there is shallow depth of field and greater depth of field.
Shallow depth of field is when you focus on a subject in the foreground and everything behind them goes out of focus, this makes your subject stand out and look pin sharp, you get this by adjusting your aperture settings, basically on a standard 18-55mm lens to acheive shallow depth of field you set your aperture to anything below f.8 dependeing on how shallow you want your image, if you wanted a really shallow background then you set your aperture to the lowest number it will go to, on an 18-55mm lens it would be f.4-f5.6
When i first started learning about photography just over two years ago i found that this chart helped me understand depth of fields.

 To acheive greater depth of field if you set your aperture above f.8 upwards you will get greater depth in your mage which means everything in the frame will be i focus.

Task

My task was to take two pictures of the shoes i was wearing, one using shallow depth of field and one using greater depth of field.

Shallow Depth of field image



On taking this shot i used the day light studio and set my camera to f/7.1 my shutter speed to 1/30 of a second and my ISO is set to 3200.



Egg Project




Egg photography research

Before actually taking my images im going to research what other people have done in other photographs of eggs.




I think this image was lit from underneath so that egg glows like it is






My egg shots

 Back lit 

Front lit




Lit from left and right




Side lit from the left





Side lit and back lit with light bouncing of another surface




Under lit






Creative shot




 Lost and found










Here are some images i have gathered og Irving Penns work cigarettes




Irving Penn did many of these photographs over a sixty year period and as you can see he treated each image with the same style, treatment and composition by sticking the cigarette ends next to each other in more or less the same lighting and treatment.

My task

First thing first was to find an object to photograph so i went out for a walk with my camera and came across a pile of rubbish were something shiney caught my eye. When i found the object i was going to photograph i first had to photograph it the situation i found it in.

In situ contacts


Final shoot

When taking this image i set my shutter to 1/100 of a second, my aperture to f/5.6 my ISO to 1600 as it was a very dull day and zoomed in so my focal length was 55mm on an 18-55 lens.

After i had finished photographing this object i had found in situation i then went into the studio and did a forensic shot.

Forensic shot



For this shot i set my camera shutter speed to 1/40 and my aperture to f/36 and a mistake on my part was setting my ISO speed to 3200, with being in the studio i shouldnt have set my ISO so high.

And finally as my object had a little face in the bottom i decided for my creative shot to put a balloon over the top of the bottle so it looked like it was blowing the balloon up.

Creative shot contacts





With this shot taking what i had learnt with lighting techniques from my egg project i decided to light this image with a light underneath to the left and to the right so i had three lights lighting up my subject  matter, i set my shutter speed to 1/125 of a second my aperture to f/11 and my ISO to 1000.


Close up shot



Close up photography research

Close up photography is when a subject matter completely dominates the picture and this a medium close up style image which draws more attention to an area in the frame but includes other items in the frame.

Here are some examples i found on google images of medium close up photography as spoken about above.


sourced google images

sourced google images


As you can see above these are good of medium close up photography were there are other items in the frame and not just the subject matter.

My close up shot



 
For this shot i set my shutter to 1/125 and my aperture to f /7.1 and my ISO speed set to 160, using a 50mm lens, when i set up this image i wanted the fairy to just be stepping of the apple and the apple ever so slightly out of focus so that the eyes of the viewer were drawn to the fairy. When lighting this image i used a bowen's light source and a white umbrella to soften the tone, and taking what i had learnt from the mini egg task i decided to light my subject from the left hand side so that i got a highlight at the side the apple and the edge of the wings which i think helps give depth and doesn't look flat.

Post production

I didn't really do much in post production except from colour pick the colours out and bring the colour and texture out a bit more apart from that i was happy with the shot.


Contacts from the photo shoot  

place contacts here

Mini set build

Mini set build research

Here are some examples i found on google images of mini set build





A miniture set build consists of gathering together small objects, like toys for example and placing them together to create a realistic scene that could be quite possibly real life sized.

My mini set build

My idea was to create a set usng action men figures camping and this set will be done outside in the woods as this is more realistic to the atmosphere i want to create.

  For this image i set my shutter to 1/100 of a second my aperture to f/4.5 as i was using an 18-55mm lens and my ISO speed to 1600 as it was a very dull rainy day and overgrown with trees blocking the light. I think with this image i have managed to create a camping atmosphere but in miniture with very little objects, i am very pleased with how this image has turned out especially with sticking with earthy colours.

Post production

I have done very little on the editing of this image as i was happy with the overall outcome including composition, the only thing i had to do was crop the image as this was originally shot in landscape and not portrait.


Macro 

Macro photography is extreme close up photography and is mainly used to photograph small objects and makes what ever you photograph look larger than it actually is. When taking a photograph using a macro lens and shooting something very small you begin to see textures and look very sharp here are some examples below that i have found on google images of macro photography.

 
by photographer Joakim kraemer



 

Sourced google images


As you can see from the images above the photographers have focused on a small part of the subject matter so that the viewer can see the subject in great detail, now if the photographers had used a standard lens and went that close up to the subject then the lens would struggle to focus and you would not be able to see in the detail that you can on these images above.

My Macro shot


When creating this image i set my shutter to1 /100 of a second, my aperture to f/5.6 on an 18-55mm lens using 12x extender to turn my lens macro and my ISO to 6400 as i was with limited lighting, i used my living room lamp which is a tungsten light, i had my aperture that wide because i wanted to get bokeh on the strap of the nurses watch. I paticulary like how i have orcestrated my shot so that the top of the watch was clearly in focus and i also think that the grain in the image adds a little more atmosphere to the overall outcome of my shot. Out of all the images i created for this photo shoot this was the shot that was more suitable to the brief.

Post production

I made a few minor adjustments in photo shop to this image, i firstly brought the highlights out a little so they stood out more,adjusted the brightness and resized the image ready for printing. 


Historical object

Ive decided to have a look for examples of historical objects photograph and find some examples 

 
photographer Man Ray

photographer Simon Martin

My chosen historical object

Narritive

This historical object is the figure of mercury, greek god of speed and safe travel. This particular  piece is a bronze vehicel mascot from between 1920s and 1930s, and you can tell this is an old piece as it takes a while before bronze develops its potena. The person i borrowed this from wasnt quite sure of the exact dates. There are at least two myth's that involve Mercury that are of roman origin. It is believed that in Vigil's book Aeneid, Mercury reminds Aeneas of his mission which was to found the city of Rome, but in Ovid's book Fasti, Mercury was assigned to escort the nymth Larunda to the underworld, but Mercury fell in love with Larunda and made love to her on the way, this act was seen as rape.

When creating this image i set my camera to 1/125 of a second, my aperture to f/9.0 and my ISO speed set 200,using an 50mm compact macro lens, i used a single light to light my subject, it was a bowen's pack and head system with an umbrella to soften the light pointing in from the right hand side. If i was to do this shot again i would find another backdrop as the line at the bottom of the frame detracts from the subject matter.

   Post production

In photo shop all i did to this image was crop my image slightly and adjust brightness and highlights just to bring out the worn bits on the figure.

Commercial Product

Commercial photography is when a photographer is paid for the images rather than working for there art. This style of photography is used in wholesale, retail and professional uses of photography.

Some genre's of commercial phtography

Advertising photography:- usually created to sell a product or a service
Fashion photography:- usually with a person involved in modelling pieces of clothing to sell.
Still life:- can be used to sell a product
Food photography:- to sell food in supermarkets or restaurants etc....

i gathered a range of images of google of examples of commercial photography

This image was created for print and web catalogues



to advertise commercial sports




commercial high fashion photography

My commercial high fashion photo

Firstly i tried shooting this product on a white background but it didnt have any atmosphere and the image seemed flat like this:-
I then realised that this image does not have any atmosphere injected into it and if i was to buy this product then i certainly would'nt entise me to buy this product because of this image 

Reshoot 2

On creating this image i set my shutter speed to 1/80 of a second, this is the lowest i can go without getting any camera shake, i set my aperture to f/5.0 to let as much light in as possible, my ISO speed set to 100. When creating this image i placed a wooden board on the floor, got a builders box spot light and placed the light at a 90 degree angle, by doing this ive noticed that my image has an inviting atmosphere were i would actually would want to try these chocolates, which was what my original intentions were.

Post Production

 I had to quite a lot of work in photo shop to this image as when i used the builders light it gave of a lot of dust so what i did was spent an hour or so using the spot heal tool to get rid of all the dust speckles that had landed on my product and the board underneath, after that i was pleased with my outcome.





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