Painting (the Professor) with Light

The simple thoughts of a simple creature in a ruff illustration. Here, Professor, a 2 and a half year old Westie Terrier, contemplates the happier things in life.

So this was my first time painting with life, and I was paired with fellow group members Megan and Sam. I don’t even know how we came up with this concept. I think I’d asked if my dog could come, then joked about incorporating her into the project and then…magic ensued. Only it’s not as successful as I’d have hoped it would be (believe it or not, this took at least two hours to execute). We ran into a few issues with locations (the first location the girls wanted to go to had too much light pollution), so we headed back to the studio thinking it would be pitch black—only it wasn’t. We improvised enough to execute the technique, popping a flash on the dog (that should have been more powerful—the power level varied in the shots and we sacrificed the exposure in selecting this image for the sake of composition. We also could not figure out how to get rid of the lens flare).We also used flashlights with different colored gels to draw the thought bubble, tree and bone. Again, as simple as this looks, it took quite a bit of time and effort. Despite its shortcoming, it was entertaining and I got to finally incorporate my dog in something other than watching me right papers. Although I don’t think her participation made her feel terribly special. She was mostly excited to be around friendly humans.

Exercises in Multiple Light

Noha Mefrakes of Columbia prepares for her photo taken at her family’s shop, Mavrakis Fine Clothing, April 24. The Libyan family opened the shop last month on 9th Street. It’s run by Noha’s parents, Ramzi and Eman Mefrakes, while she and her brother Halim also help out.

Here’s the image I submitted for my multiple light assignment for Advanced. The goal for this was to play with combining different gels and such in the same photo and to light for effect rather than to light for reality. Below are a few others I toyed with submitted of a bike polo match I shot later that night (after the lighting diagram). With the bike polo, some of the images I tried to apply a dragging technique and others I’d aimed to freeze the action.

Springing into Spring

An image from spring break in NYC. And a reflection of what spring has been so far in Missouri.

 

Editing Ahead

In the past month, I’ve photographed more for myself than I have in a very long time—which was a wonderful thing. I went to NYC for about eight days last month and went to Denver last weekend. I have a ton of editing to get to (some of which I already began with my new personal project, Searching for Americana, and images of my friends and their baby’s first time at his pop’s tattoo shop), but I felt like posting this random image below I came across while editing NYC stuff.

And two side notes: I had some photos and musings of a somewhat recent music adventure published on my friend Jason Stoff‘s Encor.es and had images from last week’s shooting at the 4/20 rally in downtown Denver published on the Denver Post’s website.

Multimedia & Audio: The Beauty in “Waiting for death”

For my Advanced Lighting and Technique class, we had to search the web for a multimedia project (I believe Rita preferred audio slideshow) and discuss what we enjoy about it.

Liz O. Baylen’s piece, “Waiting for death,” is stunning. The audio is straight-forward, honest, raw. The images are intimate and lovely. This is it. This is what multimedia could and should be when done right.

Color Correction

(Untoned is above, toned is below)

University of Missouri journalism freshman Elana Sindelar, of St. Louis, helps open up shop at U Knead Sweets in downtown Columbia on April 15, 2013. The bakery, which features Asian-inspired sweets as its specialty items, first opened six months ago.

For this assignment, we had to correct color in a situation with our flash. This was a doozy because it looked like florescent and tungsten but the florescent was kind of warm, which threw me off. Also, it appeared more accurate in camera. Once I got to a computer, it was a bit too magenta for my taste. It was also tricky to finalize a selection. I may add more images later of what it was between, but I landed on this shot because it was one of very few times where I saw a reaction from her (which felt genuine and not posed for me). I went with emotion over interaction, which the other images had more of. Plus I was trying to get that reflection in the bakery case, but it’s not as successful as I’d have liked.

Fixing the Ugly

Fellow photojournalism masters students Greg Kendall-Ball and Alex Scott sit during a flash color balance correction exercise at the Heidelberg on Wednesday, April 10.

I will forever be in debt to the kind and patient folks I surround myself with as I go through this masters program at Mizzou. These fellas (along with the lovely Kelly Coleman) were especially helpful in tackling the first part of my color balance assignment for my Advanced Lighting and Technique class. The goal was to correct and match the color temperature of the flash to what the available light was—or “fix the ugly.” What I did here was I had one light orange gel on my flash and bounced it off the wooden wall to get a dash more warmth. I also zoomed the power on the flash since I’d be bouncing.

I have to say that I am officially in love with gels and have no idea why I’d never used them until this point. The first image I’m posting here is the one I consider my most successful as far as color temperature and exposure goes (despite the small glare in Greg’s glasses). It appears a little hot on his skin, but it’s not enough to bother me, mainly because there’s still detail and so nothing is blown out.

I also now understand just how bright my Nikon SB-900 flash is and am more empathetic to subjects (such as Alex in the image below) who at one point or another have been blinded by its power.

Side note: All three of these photos are unedited as far as tonality or contrast goes.

Photojournalism masters student Alex Scott sit during a flash color balance correction exercise at the Heidelberg on Wednesday, April 10. This is prior to any gels being placed on the flash to balance for tungsten light.

Photojournalism masters student Greg Kendall-Ball sit during a flash color balance correction exercise at the Heidelberg on Wednesday, April 10. The flash had multiple orange gels (to balance for tungsten light) in addition to being bounced off a wooden wall, which caused an excessive amount of warm tonality to the scene.