Week 1 - Sports related 3 brief project

The project for this semester is broken down into 3 seperate parts. This is a sports themed project so we have to choose a sport that we want to take photos of and use a model that does that sport who is not a class mate. I decided that i wanted to do Rock climbing as i have a friend who has been climbing for over 20 years. 

as part of the brief we have to complete the following:-  

1 x Enviromental portrait image using location lighting in the enviroment where our sports person does their sport.

3x Porduct photography of items related to our chosen sport in 3 different styles (portrait, Landscape & Macro)

5x Editorial shots of which 2 have to be action shots and 3 are  story telling / setup shots

I started by looking at environmental portrait images related to my chosen sport and found several that matched the tone and style that i wanted to go fo.

whilst they are all very unique inmages hey are also quite strong and powerfull end envoke the thughts of strength.

Week 2 - Product lighting

This weeks class was about product lighting. We spent time looking and the types of lighting you can use and also the camera and product setup. It was intresting to find out about how you can use layer masks and dodge and burn tools to add light and darkness to an image from mutiple different images. 

For example if you have 2 images where the first is lit correctly on the right side and the second is lit on the left side you can use the layer mask to bring both sides together so the entire product is lit correctly.

I spent some more time doing research into product photography and enditorial photograpy relating to my chosen sport so that i could better understand what was being asked of me this semester.

We also learned about Phase one cameras which are high Megapixal cameras that are highley detailed and used alot in product photography because of the level of detail that they are able to capture

Week 3 - Risk assessment and location shooting

This week we have been looking at the risk assessment process and the documentation that we need to follow when doing a location shoot. The risk assessment is a simple but important document that gets you to consider the risks whilst shooting on location and how to mitigate / minimise the risks. 

It is important to consider all risks when completeing this form as it can make you aware of things that you may not have considered previousley. 

Week 4 - Product photography

This week it was my groups turn to use the studio and phase one cameras to do our product photography. I did my shoot but it felt very rushed as i was helping the others in my group to do their shoot but then when it came to mine there was only 25 mins left of the lesson before we had to pack down so i was rushing to get the shots that i wanted of the equipment that i had brought in. 

Upon reviewing the images that i capture i decided that i did not like any of them and i believe that this is because not only was it rushed but also as we where the first group to shoot in week 4 i had only had a few weeks to do research and planning into my product photos. Im most likly going to try and get a studio slot later in the semester and try and reshoot my product photographs again.

i also met up with my sports person this week to discuss the project and find out what his limitations would be as he was 2 weeks into a 5-8 weeks recovery period after under going top surgery. We discussed potential locations of the shoot and setteled on High rocks in tunbridge wells as our primay location and canary wall (his climing gym) as a backup location. I reached out to high rocks but unfortunatly the denied my request due to the locaion being used for a wedding on the proposed dates of the shoot. I then reached out to canary wall who where very happy to help us out and let us use their location for our shoot. Below are images of the email conversation and also some shots of Lou climbing at the location we are going to shoot at.

Week 7

During the lesson this week we got our classmates to look at our images we had shot so far for the brief and got feedback. By this point i had already decided that i wanted to reshoot my still life so when talking with classmates i said that i already planned to reshoot so alot of my feedback was based arround playing with lighting styles and angles when reshooting.  below is a picture of the feedback that i was given by my class mates

eeks 8 - Shoot Week!

in class this week we were working on on our projects and developing the stuff that we have shot so far. For me this means that im prepping for my 2 shoots this week on my projects. I did a reckie of my location for my shoot to get some ideas of shots that i wanted to try and achieve when doing my main shoot. See below some of the images that i took as part of my recki.

I know my shoot was late this semester and it was not going to leave me much time to work on my edits but unfortunatly this was the earliest we could shoot after lou had recovered from his top surgery. He had been given the clearency by his doctor and was allowed to clime. We had organised with Lisa at Canary wall to arrive on location around 10 am and the plan was to shoot the editorial photographs in the morning and then after lunch do the environmental portrait. 

The morning shoot went well and i got alot of phots that i think will be very good for use in my project. below is contact sheets for my morning shoot.

In the afternoon for the Enviromental portrait i was going for a single light setup to try and give some dramatic lighting. Rather that booking kit from the kit store i opted to use personal kit. I used 2x Godox AD200 pro's on a dual head mount with a Softbox. I was shooting on an eos RP with a 70-200 F2.8 lense. During the shoot i experimented with different angles and lighting positions. We also chose to shoot on the outside wall as i thought that it might add to the conposition of the image. Below are contact sheets  of the enviromental portrait shoot.

My second shoot this week was the second attempt at my still life shoot. This time the shoot went alot better and i managed to capture the shots in the way i envisioned them in the first place.This time arround i changed up the lighting and opted for a 3 light setup using 2 godox ad200 pros's and and elencrom 1000 with a soft box. I also changes up the background for a blue colour which i felt better accented the rock climbing shoes that i was photographing

Weeks 9, 10 & 11

Over these weeks i have been working on my edits and picture selection for my final outcome. I went with pictures that i felt had the most dramitic look to them During my editing process i choose to edit some of them in back and white as i think that it gave them a more classic and dramitic feel

I also made the decision to not do standard crops on my images. Whilst this would mean that when printed there would be some negative space left on the page i felt that f these image were to be printed in a magazine or placed on a webpage they would be in the crop that provided the best look for the photo and not one that just fit onto a print.  I believe that my final selection was the strongest of my work.