Portrait Series

Molly Jeanne Lovewell works on a purple tree painting in the studio of Lee Hills Hall in Columbia, Mo. on May 3, 2015. Lovewell is a senior working on a BFA in drawing and sculpture at the University of Missouri. Lovewell said she paints "to better understand myself."

Carina Jimenez works on a painting of a hand in the studio of Lee Hills Hall in Columbia, Mo. on May 3, 2015. Jimenez is a junior at the University of Missouri working on her BFA in drawing and painting. "Painting allows me to meditate and cleanse my energy," Jimenez said.

Site Ma works on an abstract painting in the studio of Lee Hills Hall in Columbia, Mo. on May 3, 2015. Ma is a senior at the University of Missouri and is majoring in magazine design. "Painting calms me do," Ma said, "It makes me feel at peace."

India Watts works on an robot painting in the studio of Lee Hills Hall in Columbia, Mo. on May 3, 2015. Watts is a senior working on her BFA in drawing and painting at the University of Missouri. "I paint because of the rush I get when I'm creating something," Watts said, "it is truly what motivates me to live."

            I was looking forward to this assignment more than any other one this semester. I had everything planned out well in advance, and tested the lighting setup a few times to make sure everything was the way I wanted it. Then came the time to actually carry out my plan.

            The first issue that I had was finding people to participate in the shoot. I started about two or three weeks before I wanted to shoot. I had ZERO responses. I emailed professors in the art department, and talked to artists in the community. It seemed that I wasn’t going to find anyone. I finally got a professor to allow me to speak to one of his classes and I found my volunteers. This was the week before the assignment was due. They all agreed to meet on the same day.

            The day of the shoot went well enough with buying the supplies and getting everything setup. The first shoot went very well. I have no complaints. I made it about 10 shots into the second person and all of the batteries were dead in the lighting kits. I didn’t know that the packs could run on AC power. So I would let the batteries charge for about 10 minutes and then shoot until they died and repeated that process for the remainder of the shoot. The second person stood much closer to the glass so I lost the split lighting that I had created because she was catching the light that was illuminating the painting. The third shoot went ok. I didn’t notice until I opened the files on my computer that a ton of my shots had my reflection in the glass. I didn’t have that issue when I was testing because of where I stood when I was shooting. But for some reason this day had to be different. Another issue that happened was that I was getting a lot of spill in the background and I was able to see all of the stuff lying around the studio. I wasn’t able to see that on my LCD screen. So I had no idea that was happening.

            This was one of the more difficult shoots that I have had. And it was without a doubt one of the most depressing moments I have ever had when viewing my photos on my computer. I was already upset about the batteries not being charged, but then to know that out of 100-150 shots I was only able to get a very small number of usable images really set me off. It would have been one thing if I could see the flaws in the screen, but there was absolutely zero indication of that. I definitely plan to try this again and again until I get everything the way I want it.

Light Painting

A light painting technique was demonstrated on a rock wall at the opening of a small cave on the Katy Trail East of Rocheport, Mo. on April 27, 2015. This site was chosen because of its remoteness and lack of ambient light.

This was my first attempt at light painting. I understand the concept well and have always wanted to try it but never got around to trying it. I think it was beneficial to try the technique in a group setting first rather than on my own. It takes a lot of work and time to get it right, and I was glad that there were others there that were working to achieve the same goal.

            My job for this shoot was to light the inside of the room. It was the only flash that was going to fired multiple times and I had to change the power from quarter power for the shot on the wall and through the door, to eighth power for the shot through left and right edges of the room. All of the other flashes were fired only once. Another reason that I was inside was because some of the other people were afraid to go into the room at night. There was a lot of moonlight, but they way that the cliff was over the room, there was no light going into it.

            We went about this a different way than the way at Rock Bridge. We set the camera exposure to 30 seconds and did a test shot to see how much light pollution was coming from the moon. There was very little, so little that on the LCD it didn’t show any at all. So we left it at 30 seconds and then added one light at a time. I am a big fan of adding light as I go along, rather than having a bunch of light and trying to figure out which one is doing what. This was all my idea for not using an open shutter. I understand that if I were doing this alone I would have to use open shutter because I wouldn’t be able to move around and fire each of the flashes and use the flashlight in only 30 seconds. Another reason that I wanted to stay with 30 seconds was so that we had a defined time every time. Since part of the shoot had light painting with a flashlight we wanted to make sure that the exposure time was fixed so that was one variable that we could count on being constant. The flashlight painting varied from five to seven seconds.

             I think the shoot came out well. I stayed in the room for much of the shoot, and would check the camera every third or fourth shot. I relied heavily on my team to articulate what was working and what wasn’t with the shoot. There are some things I would have done differently with the ratios but nothing that is worth mentioning. I would happily work with this group again.

Video Interview

Matt Hellman explains the process of making an omelette in a video interview in Lee Hills Hall in Columbia, Mo. on April 20, 2015.

This was the second time that I have shot a video interview. The first one was in the fundamentals class and we didn’t do any lighting adjustments except for picking a different location. So this would be the first attempt at lighting for a video. It was not a very good experience.

            I understand everything that needed to be done. But the output wasn’t what I had hoped. The video was underexposed. It looked fine while I was recording, but I was just looking at the screen and since it was in a dark room with no light in that area of the room, it obviously appeared brighter. I also was to tight with the crop with the main camera angle. I should have backed it out a little bit more. The secondary shot I was fine with.

            The audio worked well, and I have no complaints about that. The only possible issue was from the vocal range of my subject. There were a few instances where the audio clipped, but they were in sections that weren’t essential to the interview so I was able to edit them out.

            The editing process was fairly easy, and I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. There are some quick cuts but there are 100 percent on purpose. The subject had a lot of moments where he would have an addition to his comment, so I wanted it to seem like it was another part of his brain talking in that moment. That is why I cut to a different angle for only a second or two. It was purely a cinematic technique.

            I definitely understand how to do everything with this assignment. I just wasn’t successful in my application. I would have like to reshoot this assignment but time constraints didn’t permit that. This type of work is something that I am definitely interested in pursuing further, especially the editing part.

For my interview conducted by Matt Hellman, check out stylesync.wordpress.com

Multiple Flash

Flynn Bryan climbs through an inflatable obstacle course at Tiger Bounce in Columbia, Mo. on April 15, 2015. Bryan was attending a birthday party for his sister's friend. "I like running through this," Bryan said, "You have to be fast or the monsters will get you."

            This is my first experience with using multiple flashes on location. The set-up went pretty quick. I found where I wanted to shoot and position the flash that was on the stand where I wanted it. I was holding the flash that was the key light. I set the power of the background flash at 1/16^th power and the handheld flash at 1/8^th. All of the exposure adjustments came from either the camera or the key flash. The background flash remained the same throughout the entire shoot.

            The only technical issue was that I put my Canon flash on the stand, and was holding the Nikon flash (from the locker). For some reason the Canon wouldn’t act as a slave. So I switched the Nikon to the back position and then held the Canon flash. This still wasn’t working. I had the Canon on master and the Nikon on receiver. I found out that there is a setting in a menu on the Nikon flash that activates the slave function. The switch on the body of the flash is apparently just for show.

            The other issue was that I had an area that I was focused on in the inflatable obstacle course and the children kept going on the other side. I would adjust, and then they would go to the side that I was originally set up for. I eventually had one child go in the middle, which worked out well because that was in the coverage area.

            This was another assignment in that I was looked at oddly while I was trying to shoot. My partner had little issue with photographing in Tiger Bounce. A possible suggestion for next semester would be have an assignment where the students work on headshots and make badges for the class. It is interesting how having your picture on a card around your neck makes you “official.” This is just a thought.  The timing was a little off because of a birthday party at the place. So for large chunks of time there were no children running around. Other than that, it went smoothly.

Fill and Balance

Justin Hsu plays a piano outside of the Fine Arts Building at the University of Missouri on April 8, 2015. The galaxy painted piano was placed outside of the music department's section of the building in honor of Johan Sebastian Bach's 330th birthday. "It's great," Hsu said, "I'm a biochemistry major, but I like to play [piano] for fun."

            I have had some experience with using balance and fill flash. I have used this technique with the portraits but never in a journalistic sense. Usually I will either attach the flash or my camera to the tripod and then handhold the other. With this assignment, I handheld both. It gave me freedom to move around the seen much more easily. The downside to shooting this was that sometimes I wasn’t exactly sure where the flash was pointing.

            For the first take, I shot on the shuttle to my apartment. I had limited success with this because the area I was shooting in was too small, and the angles created by the shape of the interior of the shuttle cast shadows in different directions. If was going to do this assignment again I would try to get a wireless transmitter set. This would allow me to place the flash on the dash and improve the angle.

            The second take started with me photographing a girl walking and carrying an umbrella. I tried to get the light into the umbrella so it would be both direct and bounce flash. The issue that I had was that she was walking much faster than I was able to walk backwards and shoot. So the distance kept changing with each shot. I wasn’t happy with what I got with this shoot, so I waited until the weather began to clear. I found a guy playing a piano outside of the music department. The piano was under a tent and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky so it was a very large lighting ratio. I had more success with this shoot because he wasn’t moving much and I was able to maintain the distance.

            I plan on working with this technique in the future. I need to get better with being able to move and still maintain the same distance. This will allow me to focus more on what I am shooting than trying to get the power right on my flash. I know that I can shoot ETTL and this will take a lot of the guesswork out of it, but for these I assignments I only shoot in manual mode.

Blending and Color Correcting Assignment

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Chris Willow works her sewing needles around the cap she is making in the Columbia Public Library in Columbia, Mo. on March 18, 2015. Willow is part of a group that she calls "Yeow" which means yarn every other week. The group meets every other Wednesday to work on sewing projects. "It slows down this time of year, but it picks up again when the weather gets cold," Willow said.

This was my very first experience with blending the color temperatures of light outside of the studio. I have worked with gels before to create a color cast in studio lighting situations, but I have never done it in a less controllable environment. I struggled with getting the lighting correct because each of the places I went had multiple light color temperatures.

            For my first take, I went to El Rancho on Broadway. The lighting above the eating area was tungsten bulbs and the lights above the place that the orders are taken and the food is assembled were florescent tubes. The lights above the grill were also tungsten bulbs. I was able to avoid having the tungsten light in my scene so I was able to balance to just the florescent bulbs.

            In my second take, I wanted to shoot in the greenhouses on campus. They have a very distinct color to their grow lights and they are all the same. I went to talk to the people about photographing the greenhouses and found out they are all restricted and off-limits to anyone outside of the program. They are doing research for Monsanto and they are keeping a tight lid on access. I ended up at the Columbia Public Library. This also proved to be difficult because they too have multiple types of lighting. I was able find a place that was mostly one form of lighting and balanced to that.

            This was the most difficult assignment thus far. It was extremely difficult to get my exposure right. In some I had the flash too strong so I would stop it down. Then the photo was too dark. Then I would lower the shutter speed to increase the exposure and to also allow more of the room light to hit the sensor. It was a very troublesome chain of events. I understand the concept completely. It is just the application that I had trouble with. If I had to do it again, I would look for a place that only had one type of lighting in it. It was also difficult to find people that would let me photograph them in the library. But I managed to find two ladies that let me.

Single Flash Assignment

Residents of the Den Apartment Complex check their bingo cards in Columbia, Mo. on March 11, 2015. The Den hosted its first "Grocery Bingo" night for the residents and have more planned for the future. The prizes were bags of groceries from Wal-Mart.

Anthony Hudson (center) laughs at a joke told by Amber Lucas (not pictured) during the "Grocery Bingo night at the Den Apartment complex in Columbia, Mo. on March 11, 2015. The Den hosted a bingo night for residents with prizes being bags of groceries from Wal-Mart.

 

The single flash assignment was definitely as step into a territory that I am not that familiar with. I have used flash before on portraits and that is about it. It is a completely different game using a flash on someone who is standing still, and aware of what is taking place. With this assignment, at least on the second take, my presence was extremely noticed by the people around the subjects that I was photographing.

            In the first take I followed two people that pick up trash in some of the parking garages around campus. I found them in the Hitt Street parking garage and asked if I could follow them and take some photographs. They seemed hesitant at first but allowed me to do so. But they had just finished that garage and only had the Turner garage left. This garage was much smaller but I followed them from the first floor to the top. They were in a truck and I was on foot so it was a chase from most of the time. The bounce flash worked better than the direct flash because the height of the ceiling made it very difficult to avoid the shadows cast by the direct flash because I was hand holding and couldn’t get the flash high enough.

            In the second take I found a bingo night close to where I live and photographed at one of the tables of participants. As I started photographing them, people at other tables started to move away from where we were. The bounce once again worked better for this shoot. I shot directly overhead and it created a nice, soft light falling down onto the table. Both selects came from this.

            I am not a fan of using flash in this manor. I understand that this is partly because of my inexperience with using it. But while photographer is invasive already, using a flash seems much worse. Using flash influences the scene to a degree that makes it difficult to use in a public setting. This is especially the case when not on an assignment. I don’t have credentials hanging around my neck, so I am viewed as nuisance. It is basically a “Look at me!” moment.