outdoors at night

Photographing outdoors at night in a city centre was the next exercise or at least that was a suggested place, I liked the idea for some of the photographs but I also wanted to take some photographs of people dancing at a live gig with the idea that I could include some of the band and I would have a different set of challenges ( I didn't want to think of them as problems) concerning the lights.

all of the above photographs were taken with shutter speeds of between 1/5 second and 1/30's second they were all hand held with an iso of 1250, the lights weren't quite as bad as I expected them to be and I found it easier to photograph with these lights than with fluorescent lights, there is blur to most of the photographs due to the low shutter speed.
The next set of photographs were taken in Canterbury City Centre I got there about nine when the light was just fading and I was surprised by how quickly it faded almost within about 15 minutes.

All the above photographs were taken with the camera on a tripod using a remote trigger with an iso 0f 200 and a shutter speed of between five and ten seconds. The first two were taken when I first got there and I would possibly have liked it to have been a bit darker but I thought it was worth including them and not just putting the ones that met the brief completely.

The next ones were taken about fifteen minutes later after I had been for a walk around looking down the side streets as I wanted to try and capture the beautiful old buildings, as I looked around they lit the cathedral up and I was able to capture not just the beautiful colour in the sky but also a lit shop window but also the cathedral in the background. I decided to walk a bit further down the side street to get a few more shots showing more of the cathedral. F stops varied from f8 to f25 for the shot with the lorry lights in, when I was taking the photographs there was quite a few people around which i didn't really want in the photographs so by keeping to the low shutter speeds I was able to blur most of them out.
The final stop of the night was a view over looking the city centre so that I could photograph the cathedral with its flood lights, by now it was a bit darker than I may have original liked but I was still pleased with the shots.
I had very limited experience of photographing at night and I must admit I did enjoy it more than i thought I would.
All I have to do for this exercise now is the tail lights and head lights which will be one night this week.

Well I finally managed to get some photographs by standing on a bridge overlooking the M20 on a Friday night, I took lots of shots and finally decided to add these four to this section,
I took them at f11 200 iso with a shutter speed of 5 seconds, apart from the one with the blue lights which I took at 2 seconds, although i have done this kind of shot on one or two occasions i was surprised by how effective the light trails could be and I started trying to look for lorries with unusual lights on their cabs to see how it would change the style of the photograph, I noticed that the blue lights were very intense in colour against the black. The bottom two photographs have had some work done on them in photoshop, purely as an exercise to see what would happen particularly with the photograph that also contains the moon. I don't like the first photograph I have worked on as I think it looks too unnatural and very bright, much brighter than when I actually took the shot, but I do like the other one.
Thats the end of another exercise and I have also done more reading this time I have been reading Existing light techniques for wedding and portrait  photography, please see notes on reading lists for more details, although it was not a book i used for this particual exercise it thought it was worth mentioning.

tungsten and flurescent lighting

This was an interesting exercise to undertake and the results were not quite as i would have expected, having watched the light carefully until the light appeared to be the same inside and out , I followed the instructions in the exercise looking out of the window for one minute then looking back into the room, it seemed to have a yellow tinge to it but after a couple of minutes my eyes did adjust to it, the light outside was also slightly golden.
below are my photographs for the first part of the exercise.

The first photograph was taken on auto white balance, but it made the room look very dark in comparison to the outside, the second was taken with a tungsten white balance and looks alot more like the actual scene and the final shot was daylight white balance again this just looked wrong it looked too warm in colour. I shot all of these handheld at f3.5 with an iso of 100, I also noticed that the light was more even over the daylight and auto white balance shots.

Now for the second part of the exercise this time I needed fluorescent lamps and basically do the same sort of thing as above and again note the differences in the photograph and how my eyes remembered it.

Again i decided to shoot hand held with a low fstop of 3.5 the iso was 200 and the shutter speed was 1/3s the first thing I noticed on looking a the photographs on the screen was the difference in the colour the fluorescent one looked really odd and nothing at all as I would have expected it almost made the walls look pinkey as if it couldn't cope with the colour, the auto white balance was slightly more in keeping but the colour was not even on either of the photographs.

for the next ones I used my office at work where although they are in the ceiling they are also energy saving and go off if there is no movement and therefore I was interested to see how the light might vary if there was no movement and the light went off then came back on with movement.

I took the first photograph again at F3.5 with an auto white balance and a shutter speed of 1/3s iso 200 the walls in the office are pale yellow but on neither of these photographs does the colour look correct. the second photograph was taken after the lights had gone off  (this only takes a couple of minutes if there is no movement in the office ) I then moved slightly to trigger the office lights and took this second photograph again the colour is totally wrong there is almost no colour in the second photograph.

What have I learnt from this exercise, well I have learnt that light can really change the mood of a photograph if you get the light right the picture comes alive but if the colour is wrong you can either get a flat colourless photograph or one where the light is the wrong colour eg green or yellow.

Cloudy weather and rain

Well this exercise should be a bit easier at least weather wise particularly the rain ones as we seem to have nothing but rain at the moment, I am jumping about a bit at the moment between the exercises to make sure that I do not have long breaks between each one,

The first part of this exercise is to take four to six photographs in pairs one in the sun and one under cloud, and to note the difference in f stops and other differences.

I finally got a day when the weather workd with me, and I managed to get these photographs on a day when the sun came out but the clouds were around too but moving fast.

The first one of the statue in shade f9 1/320's shows more detail for example his facial features and hair line than the photgraph taken with the sun full on it, the white balance for all the photographs was daylight/sunny.

The second one of the statue was taken in full sun F14 1/320's this one has a much softer feel to it but so much detail is missing that I feel the photograph is missing something and that it does not do justice to the statue.

The photograph of the chair is something I have tried to photograph on several occassions I decided to leave the table in the shot too as I wanted to see if that would throw shadows anywhere.

The first one is cloudy f6.3 1/160's again the detail is much more pronounced for example the blue of the chair and the flowers really stand out against the rest of the scene.

The photograph taken in the sun f9 1/320's is very bland there is no impact to the photograph it is too soft and the shadows spoil rather than enhance the photograph, I will be trying this scene again on a really overcast day to test how the colour will be shown.

part two of this exercise and I need to take some photographs outside on an overcast day,

I had already got one which I had taken at the car festival which i knew would be fine as I have briefly read throught the various exercises and taken some notes which i keep with me as you never know when you might come across an ideal opportunity,

I quite like looking at vintage cars but I do prefer it to be warm rather than feezing cold, but I couldn't resist taking some shoots like this one above of sections of the cars rather than the whole car, this one was taken at f10 1/125's with a cloudy white balance, I really liked the way the detail  in the spokes is shown, even downe to where the air would be put in the tyre, it was almost worth the trip just to get this photograph and several others I took of this beautiful morgan.

After the car show I decided to call at my sisters for a much needed hot drink and a walk around her garden, she keeps chickens and I liked how the red on the head of this one is hightlighted it really draws the eye to the photograph, I even went in with them to get this which is quite impressive for me, the settings were f7.1 1/160's cloudy whitebalance.

Flowers are something I have realised I enjoy photographing and I am noticing as I go through the course how I look at things with fresh eyes now particularly this module about the light it has really made me aware of how the light changes the look and feel of a scene.
I have put these two photographs together as they both highlight the colour of the flowers, I particularly like the photograph of the chive f8 1/500's cloudy white balance, as the main flower is the focal point and the rest of the photograph is blurred slightly as its not so important.
The lily's were photographed at f9 1/100's second and was really just an extra photograph I have added.

The final part of this exercise is to take photographs in the rain, well with the weather we have been having that wasn't too much of a problem in principal the reality was slightly different as I started trying to work out what I wanted to photograph, a couple of trips out in the car and I saw some great landscapes I could have taken but with nowhere to be able to stop they were a no no, but later on I looked at the wing of my car and liked the way the water run in rivulets down the wing and light this became the first photograph.

The settings were f10 1/100's iso 800.

Photographs two and three are of rainbows, my husband is used to me grabbing the camera and taking photographs but I think even he thought I had gone slightly made when I looked out the front door said there's a double rainbow and grabbing my camera and not bothering about a coat I was off.

unfortunately as soon as it appeared part of the double rainbow disappeared so its quite faint in the photograph settings used were f9 1/1600 iso 800, I went back indoors and this time got my coat on before taking the second photograph the sky had darken a bit more and the rainbow was more noticeable, settings used f9 1/2500's iso 800.

by now I am enjoying myself and looking around the area where I live, i noticed this lavender bush and how the heavy rain of a while ago had flattened it but also I could see the refection in the puddle and the ringlets of rain also hitting the path. Setting used for this f9 1/125 iso 1000.

Variety with a low sun

The brief for this exercise is to take photographs with frontal,side,back and edge lighting, and to try and take them all if possible at one time, I had to do mine over two occasions as I was struggling with the edge lighting and also I was unahappy with my fronal lighting and wanted to re shoot them.

These were taken in the newly opened country park not far from where I live on a trip with my photography group, as we had been asked to take some photographs that could possibly be used for the friends of the country park website, so in a way I fell into taking these by accident. The church was taken with back light and I love the glow as the sun is setting over the church, the other one I have taken so far is of the side lighting this time the sun is to the right of the photograph and you can see it shining on the silver slide, lets hope that when I go back to get the rest of the photographs the insects don't think I am a free feast again.
Well I took a second walk to the country park this time the weather had been better during the day so I was more hopeful of getting the rest of the shots I wanted and also maybe a couple of others, below are my frontal lighting photos

The first photograph was taken walking into the park, I liked the way the light was hitting the pile of stones to the left and I did debate whether to include this as a side lighting, photograph two and three were taken just walking the dog and looking around to watch the light change from when we got there to when we left, photograph two was taken on the walk back to the entrance. photograph three was really just a snap shot but I guess I just liked the photo.
The last photograph is of edge lighting this one caused me the most problems which I was expecting having read the brief for the exercise and I  struggled with this one until finally as we left the park I looked up at the church and saw that the light was just striking the side of the church tower.

My favourite photograph is the back lighting one of the church the soft orange glow from the sun seems to add atmosphere to the photograph.

Softening the Light

I am lucky enough to have a small studio setting at home so I was able to use my light and soft box for these photographs, I firstly took some without the softbox and just the naked light I then marked where the light was and then replaced it with a softbox.

I have to say about the differences that I noticed, colour is one of the first things I noticed the top photograph which was taken with the naked light has bright spots an uneven red in the flowers and the back drop should be black, I also noticed that the edges of the top photograph were not as defined as the diffused one which had an even light across the whole photograph, there were no shadows where you can see some shadowing on the naked light one.  I would say the photgraph taken with the diffuser was an improvement, also I have noticed that the naked light photograph shows  the crease line where the back drop goes along the floor and the diffused one doesn't again this is an improvement. 

I looked at the two photographs as if I was looking to buy one as something to hang on my wall and I had no hesitation in choosing the one with the diffused light as the one  I would buy.

These photographs were taken at f11 125/s and an iso of 100.

this is out of sequence with the exercises due to the weather being so poor I was unaable to do some of the exercises so went on to the ones I could do.