The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Buildings

Looking at different Architecture photographers and I’m starting to realize how hard these next assignments will be. I think the hardest thing is finding buildings with great interiors and then getting inside said buildings. It is now time to stop the procrastinating stop being scared to talk to people and find something new. I have been trying to get some inspiration for all of the upcoming shoots for Architecture. Starting off is High and low rise, I want to see how some of the pros do it without copying them of course.

When looking at some exteriors I found Lincoln Barbour. I liked his views of each building. To me it looks like he is able to capture the building’s personality. This one is my favorite of his Architecture work but all of what I saw on his website is beautiful.

Seeing such unique buildings makes me want to get out of Atlanta even more. After seeing the same buildings for so long I have taken them for granted. I no longer see the beauty that they have or the uniqueness they had when I was little. I do however still look forward to capturing  my high rise. Hopefully this weekend I get get at least some of the assignments.  Oh and in case you were wondering, there are no bad or ugly buildings in this post nor will there be when I start posting my images up.

Architecture: the Low

The High rises may be a challenge to shoot but in my opinion low rises are just as hard. I should have looked more to find interesting buildings but that was my mistake. I did find a few that may work, its just a matter for getting the best angle and the best light. I think this may be one I try with much better buildings.

 

This is a church in Atlanta near W. Peachtree St. I liked the colors and the style of it and I think with better lighting it could look awesome. Now the challenge was the second building. The second one I found was park of the Fox theater. The front of it is a nit boring but around the side is an amazing sight. The only problem I found is trying to find the best angle. But I think with again better lighting the colors could pop and look great.

Architecture: The High

One of the feared assignments. Difficult, challenging and back to the 4×5 cameras. I am still not sure how think about it but everything so far has been a great learning experience so it should be fun in some way. So that means we are finally out of the studio and I know I’m ready to hit the streets of Atlanta in search of buildings. Starting the half way point of the semester with High Rises, 10 stories or more. I did a bit of scouting today and here are a few high rises that I found interesting.

This first one I’m not sure what it is for but it was right by Underground Atlanta and I found the painting very interesting. The second, is the Flatiron building across from Woodruff park. This one I like because of the unique shape.

 

Dinner is Served

This assignment I really enjoyed, however, I should have been more focused on the day I shot. With this assignment we had the option to shoot it at home over Spring Break or wait and enjoy the little time we get off. I chose to shoot at home and get it done with since I know I am horrible at procrastinating my projects. The one thing I wish I had done better is to take my time and work out what I wanted more. I made a big mistake when getting ready for the shoot, I didn’t eat. This meant I was very hungry and I rushed it a little. However, I did have really good light. Soft but still bright enough for my little camera to do some good with inside lighting. In my house, I am also very lucky to have a big window in the dinning room right by our table and I took full advantage of it. When setting up I me sure to pull the table a little closer to the window so some sun light would hit it but no too much where it would blow out my whites.

Here is my camera set up. Please excuse the empty plate and the booster seat. I got hungry and forgot to take this until after I had but the dinning room back together and ate the meal.

So after many different shots, with different lighting, from the sun changing, I ended up with a decent image I think. Shot digital again, with my Canon Rebel XS using a 18-55mm lens at a focal length of 40 mm and a f-stop of 5.6.  I wanted to make sure the background was blurred out which is why I used such a low f-stop. Without further adieu, here is my final image. The colors are a bit bland compared to the printed version.

Food Photographers

Food is probably the one thing every one has in common when it comes to photography. We have all looked at cookbooks, seen advertisements, flipped through magazines. All over there is food. What most people don’t consider is the amount of time and styling that goes into making those pictures. Before I did this week’s assignment I tried to look at different photographers in order to get a better idea of what would be a good way to position the food and my camera. However, what I found is that I couldn’t find just one photographer that helped me. One that I liked the best was Theresa Raffetto. A lot of her work has an at home feel to them and that was one thing I wanted to try to achieve.

These for example have soft light almost like it was shot at home. What I also like about her work is the creativity she puts into some of the images.

Here is twist on PB&J sandwich 

Or this one which I have found many times and I’m not sure why I like it. I guess for the way it is different.

Food

Food is one of my favorite things. I love cooking it, eating it, learning more about it and it was my back up plan if photography fell thru. Being in the kitchen calms me down. So when we got this assignment I was happy, even more when Mr. P told us we weren’t going to be collaborating with the Culinary Department this year. Not that I don’t like them, I just like having the creative ability to do anything instead of what ever they make. The only problem I see in the future of this shoot is styling. Most food photographers have a food stylist to tell them how and where to place things. We, however, have to make sure we research A LOT!, (which I have been) and to have lots of back up ideas and back up food for when the time comes.

There are two types of food photography, Advertisement and Editorial. Advertisement has VERY strict guidelines for how the client wants the food to be shot. That is because each client has a certain way their product is viewed in commercials and they don’t want it any other way. Editorial however, is a bit more lenient on how the food is styled. When shooting a hamburger you don’t worry about how melted the cheese is or the number of pickles there are. For this I think I will go the more Editorial route just so I don’t have to worry about how “perfect” my food is.

First one is pretty simple. I got the idea from a photo I saw on foundfolios.com done by Cat Gwynn. I liked the simpleness if it and when ever I cook I like having fresh herbs and spices and it reminded me of how I want my kitchen.

Next is one of my favorite meals to make. The recipe came from a book by Giada De Laurentiis, me and my aunt first made this a few years back and I loved it despite my dislike for some of the ingredients.  When I think of this meal I always think of new ways it would look in cookbooks so that is what I would like to try with this shoot.

This next one is from my sister, Taco Lasagna. When I first heard it I thought she was crazy but it turned out to be a really good combination of a taco all in on casserole. I also got the inspiration for this idea from my room mate. Now meal wee cook is just a meal. She is very determined to make it a five star experience even if its just me her and her son. The biggest show she puts on is tacos. There is EVERYTHING you could imagine as a side or topping on the table when were done cooking. So with this on I wanted to combine both of these to crazy peoples meals into one photo shoot.

Lastly is my first thing my mom taught me to bake, kind of, these are no bake cookies but MUCH better than what they sell in stores. Again this one is simple. Just a plate of cookie and milk with a pan in the back ground blurred out.

Halfway There

Almost time for a mid semester break. So far I am loving the studio assignments no matter how challenging they have been. With today’s critique done with, it has got me thinking of re-shoots. At least for one of them. I really appreciate the feed back we get from class-mates and teachers. Without further delay, here are the final images from both Editorial and Fashion assignments.

This first one is from the Editorial, and is the one I want to re-shoot. I got LOTS of great advice from my class mates that I think may work better but still keeping the same general positioning.

Next is Fashion, still great feed back but I’m fairly happy with how this one turned out. Just had some color correcting issues but that was my mistake. I know some people were iffy about the background. Some liked it and others didn’t but to me I think it works with the boots.

Next week is Food so stay tuned for those sketches soon.

These Boots are Made for Walking

For those who have read my last few posts, I’m not into fashion much. I don’t scour magazines for what may look cool, I wear what is comfortable. However, this made our Fashion assignment very difficult when it came to coming up with ideas. I wasn’t sure how to make a great “Fashion” picture for a catalog or magazine. But in the end I was happy with this shoot and I kept it pretty simple and used my favorite pair of boots and my subject. What I did find challenging was a backdrop. I went through about 3 different ideas before I found the perfect one. I started out with just a plain black fabric with a back-up pair of boots, because mine are black, but soon realized that I didn’t want to use the back-up. So the challenge I faced was black on black until I found a cool yet very specular sliver fabric. I would have liked using this but it didn’t quite fit the feel of the boots so I needed something different and after going back and forth between chicken wire and the sliver my partner/assistant of the day Lauren found the best back ground EVER!! It is just a painted piece of sheet rock but its very well done. The sad thing is that it was buried in the very back of our prop room and apparently no one has used it in the last 3 or four years according to one of the teachers.

This week I was more prepared. I had my Canon Rebel XS fully charged and ready to go. I just had to get the lighting right. I knew I wanted to have a spot light on the boots so I had a snoot on the (camera) left side of the boots but the main light I wasn’t quite positive on. I finally decided on a light on a boom to give it light over head since I liked the way the boots looked when I shot them form that angle. However, the strobes didn’t give me the light that I was looking for so I used a Continuous Daylight balanced light.

With two different types of lights I had to measure for the shutter speed with the strobe and the aperture with the continuous light. With that being said, I had the snoot light set at 33 giving me the 1/15th shutter speed and f11 aperture I wanted to have the best light and had lens set at 18mm. This gave me the perfect distance to fill my frame. I’ll post the final images for this and the editorial assignment in a few days.

Fashion Research

While looking for ideas for this next assignment I found lots of photographers that had very interesting work. And not just the normal “fashion” stuff that most people think of when they hear fashion photography. One of the ones I liked best was Taylor Castle. What I liked about his work is his “concept” images. They aren’t just pictures that make you go “Oh that’s interesting” and move on. At least for me, they make me stop and look at what is happening in the whole scene.

 

 

 

 

 

I also liked Saverio Truglia’s Narrative work. He also finds a way to make you think about what your are seeing. Now some of his work looks to be more advertising than just fashion but I think that is good. It means he is producing ads that are not just the same old boring stuff that we all see everyday.

Editorial Tech

Another shoot done with this past week. It was defiantly much more difficult than I originally thought. I could have never guessed how challenging it would be to try and portray a topic with just the picture alone. Now of course I should have known this since nothing in photography is easy, but all in all I think the shoot went well. It changed quite a bit from my original idea and took LOTS of time to get the lighting right but I’m happy with it.

My editorial topic was Child Sports Injuries and with that I  had to create something to show this. Now the hard part that I found was the research. There were not many pictures to help me with references and all the web sites I found all said the same thing, “have the right equipment,  play with kids the same age/size, and don’t let them play something they don’t know how to (i.e if they can’t swim don’t throw a kid in the pool). So for my ideas I tried to show what happens when the wrong equipment is used and I defiantly got too many props, but better to have too many then not enough.

In the end I just used a broken bat and a ball. What made this interesting though was the lighting.My lighting set up was one Photogenic strobe light set at the lowest power setting, 15, with side lighting. This gave it a very dramatic, dark, haunted look. On the light I but a grid to create more of the dark feel.

Besides the lighting, another problem arised…I forgot to charge BOTH my camera batteries. Some how I still have not learned to check them. So while I started using my Canon Rebel XS, I had to finish the shoot with one of the school’s Canon 5D Mark II with a 24-105mm lens set at 45mm, an ISO of 100, shutter speed was 1/30 and the aperture (size of the lens opening) was f11. And I would like to thank Play it Again Sports for helping me get these props for cheap. (and the bat was not easy to break)