Best of Lighting People

Lighting People had to be one of the most stressful classes I have taken at Brooks so far.  Time management was key is finishing up the class.  I had so many shoots and people to meet up with that I had to write out the plans for everything weeks ahead of time.  This session had me try a stylist and renting looks for the first time ever so it was a good experience with working in the actual people photography world.  We learned how to use expensive strobes in the studios and how to light people with "beautiful quality of light."  There were mostly amazing shoots, with only 1 that I absolutely loathe.  I used many family and friends for this session, so it was great to get images for them.  As much as I love shooting people, this class was incredibly stressful and flew by so quickly.  In January, it will be the year mark at Brooks and I am very excited to have 6 more months of lower division classes.

I am including most of the assignments except the assignment called Final Six, which I will be doing a separate post for later this week.  That assignment is the final project where we can shoot any concept that we want, and it is one grounded in my love for shooting people, movies, and my heritage.

The first two assignments we had were outdoor posing with traditional posing that we would see in things like senior portraits or graduation photographs.  I learned how to be conscious of everything in my frame and find the most flattering position for the subject.

Lighting Patterns taught us how to have specific lighting patterns on people's faces and what looked best with every face type.  We have done this assignment in the past with continuous hot lights, but this time we got to use flashes and things over the flashes called softboxes to create a more even and flattering light on a person's face.

Hollywood Glamour let us use continuous hot lights to create looks that were popular in 1920's Hollywood.  We got to style our models and create a look that was reminiscent of the old Hollywood promotional pictures.  Morgan already had a suit so it was the perfect fit.  I had originally planned for another model, but Morgan worked amazingly well for a last minute request!  This was one of my best shoots and earned me full credit on it the first time around.  :D

We had an assignment called Chromazones (yes that's how it's spelled) that everyone hates in LP.  It's the equivalent to 112's Six Pack or 113's Grey Box assignment or LT's Blue Spheres.  It is a test of lighting and gels to create a multitude of solid color backgrounds using a single gel color.  From this picture, you can see that I had a total of 9 colors from just one gel by a single change in camera.  It beats having to buy a bunch of colors, but it is also a huge pain to get completely even throughout the entire background.    

Contemporary Glamour is my least favorite assignment probably because it included Chromazones.  XD  Glamour shots are always very beautiful and always shot with girls.  The hardest part was finding clothes to match the specific color backgrounds, and I ended up succeeding by purchasing a shirt from American Apparel's wide variety of solid color shirts.  Unfortunately my model was feeling under the weather on the day of the color matching shoot, but her white on white shots came out beautifully.

  

Studio couple was also a huge favorite of mine.  I have previously blogged about it in detail here and it was definitely one of my favorite shoots during LP.  Becky and Phil were amazing and I'm so glad I was able to ask them to model for an awesome assignment.  

Studio Artist is an assignment were you go to an artist's studio and photograph them with their work.  When I first heard about this assignment in the summer, I knew I wanted to ask my Aunt Joyce to model for me.  She makes ceramics, mostly cups, teapots, plates, bowls, and the like in San Francisco and I have been going to her open studios for a very long time.  Her personal pages on various pottery websites are very limited and if you look up her work online, only a few pictures pop up.  She was apprehensive to having her picture taken, but agreed to it in the end.  My teacher loved the composition of this shot, which is pretty great considering the space we shot in was very small and limiting.  The images I took out of the shoot though were great and I hope it helps my aunt start up an actual webpage in the future.  For now there is only a few pages with information on where to find her work.  

http://www.artspan.org/user/4847

Studio Musician was another great shoot because of a great model.  I have known Mike all of my life and currently he is a bassist in a band.  They used to be known as Cola-Cola but they have had some lineup changes and are currently working on changing their sound.  I got to sit in with them on a practice session and was the first person to hear their new sound!  It was so awesome being in a studio with them and having the music blaring throughout the room.  Unfortunately I had to rent out some of the lowest level strobes, and there was an accident early on in the set up the shoot that really threw me off my game.  Thankfully thanks to Mike's understanding and a few amazingly delicious tacos later, I felt much better.  =]  We had to put frames around these pictures to create personality and we also had to take a picture that exuded the feel of a song, or as the assignment calls it, "the essence of the music."  I am posting the song that I felt had the same power and energy that Mike has when he plays bass.  So listen to the song while enjoying these images.  :)  I love it when musicians get fully immersed into the music and just move and don't care if people think they are crazy.  It's always inspiring to me when I see musicians just rock out  because they love the music so much.  I wish Mike and his band all the best in the future and can't wait to hear their new things!  

 

LP was an amazing experience, as stressful as it was.  It was a lot of tedious work in the beginning, but by the end I was enjoying all the images I was producing.  I am very excited to post my Final Six for everyone so look forward to that.  Next session is Lighting Studio and I am going to do my best and stay on top of the game to make sure I can knock it out of the park.  :D