Final Class

Tomorrow is the final class for studio. For the last assignment I worked more on my "smile" series where I take a mask I got at a dentist office of a female's mouth smiling and showing her teeth and placed it in front of portraits. For this incarnation of the series I made my own masks. I shot several students with a glamour light set up (soft box above camera, straight on) and then cut out various parts of the face such as eye or eyes and mouths smiling or not smiling. I then asked people to pick there favorite facial-feature-on-a-stick and hold it up. Here is what I ended up with. I took these pictures to the next level and desaturated the backgound while leaving the mask as shot but with less contrast. I would have a set up shot with these but I ran out of card space. I set up the camera at least 6 feet from background and the camera with the focal length to its maximum to throw the background out of focus. I also had a light with a grid spot to light the backgound to help emphasize the figure.

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Portrait Assignment

The pictures from my studio assignment for portraits was set up around the idea. The set up included using a crane stand to hold up the lamp. The lamp was so heavy that we had to use a stand to hold it up which led me to clone it out in post. The camera was set far away from the backdrop to help blur the lights on the background. I stretched from one curtain to another in the studio. In the end I think I would have liked the pictures better with more light on the model's face. I had a soft box set up with the modeling light set very low. I also cloned and moved the "fireflies" around for balance in post.

Portrait Assignment Idea

Here is the idea for my portrait assignment. I want to use christmas lights behind black fabric with a self powered lantern. I will use strobes to produce a hair light or edge light. This time we are using digital cameras but I was thinking to shoot a couple of 4x5 transperecy.