Derby Feste 2010

Steve rang me to see if I wanted to go to this last Saturday. We set off after 4pm, but only really got the interesting bit in the vening with Les Commandos Perc, a french band, offering a frenzy of furious percussion and pyrotechniques, absolutely amazing.



There were other events, this was a fitness do, but who's watching?



This guy wanted his picture taken, why? so I did.

This was by no means a stilted performance.

Art deco stuff

Art Deco work flow

I was thinking about what I would like to photograph and I had the idea of Art Deco. I have stayed in the Hotel in Speke which has influenced me, and my friend Liz has some Art Deco pieces.

I would like to photograph various pieces Liz has in her possession and they include:-

Jewelry – a Necklace, ear rings, a brooch and a hair slide.

Other items include a small vase, a Claris Clift teapot, figurines and a lamp

Some pieces we will not use are the mirror and a cabinet.

Liz has kindly lent me these things to photograph, and is also going to be there to be the model for some of the pieces.

Liz has also lent me some books on the subject, the main one being “Art Deco source book by Patricia Bayer”, which is a fabulous book. I have taken the opportunity to photograph some of the detail. These will follow at the end of this piece.

I have explored various web sites, the one I have illustrated here is http://www.mschon.com

Art Deco was an innovative design style, with its sleek, streamlined forms conveying elegance and sophistication, and functional and modern. Paris was the source and the trendsetter of Art Deco, (only described at the time as 1925’s style) and had its origin in the 1925 French art exposition at Musee des Arts Decoratifs, but the term Art Deco only came into general usage soon after the 1966 exhibition. The period did not last that long, and was only revived as an art form in the 60’s.

One of the most memorable buildings of this period is the spire on the Chrysler Building in New York.

I have the use of the college studio which will affect all the lighting needs. Lighting is the most crucial part of this project.

Liz kindly came into the studio one Saturday and we attempted to photograph her jewellery.

This image was of Liz's brooch and hair clip. The lighting used was for a model lighting, so therefore is incorrect, but it does show the detail within the items. I quite like the reflection here, but more work needs to be done to light the items to show them off to their best. this has had no work to the image. there is enough room on the image for the text required to advertise these items.

This is an image of LKiz's art deco necklace. I have had comments on the background being too much, but i do not like the bare white bakgrounds that you get in the main advertisers images. I agree that the background can be distracting, so I need to address the levels of lighting, but the sparkle should remain.

This is a close up of the necklace, and needs a small amount of additional lighting to enhance the sparkle.

Lit with one light, this was the first attempt to show the jewellery on a figure. The lighting needs adjusting to enhance the detail in the necklace.

This is slightly beeter and shows the necklace, and earring, to better effect. I think an additional light on the jewellery would make a difference.

Turning Liz to one side has produced a better effect, but the detail of the necklace is missing,

This is the fianl image showing the necklace.

                               

205 Photo imaging equipment and materials Part 3- Health and Safety

Health and Safety

Photographers have to be aware of the environmental and health issues in Photography. Not so much now but many of the chemicals that are/were used in Photography can be and are damaging to your health. The 1974 Health and Safety at Work etc. Act needs to be referred too. Employees and public must take reasonable care. Risk assessments should be made for all activities, including fire precautions, using display equipment, manual handling and control of substances COSHH, either in the studio or out on location. The Photographer should have the appropriate current employer and public liability and vehicle insurance. The photographer should have a formal agreement with the customer.

Studio

Setting up a studio eg means you must comply with the health and Safety Act, especially if you hire an assistant and have the public in. If you are using chemicals then proper ventilation must be in place, not annoy the neighbours with the smell, and have proper methods of disposing of the used chemicals. It is also important to have the proper insurance in place when running the business.

In the studio trip hazards are a particular problem, with trailing cables etc. At Burton college studio for example the majority of the lighting is suspended from the ceiling which eliminates many trip hazards. Safety cables must be fitted to ensure that no accidental damage can be done. However, care must be taken to ensure the correct fixings are stable. Trailing cables should always be taken and routed away from the working area as much as possible. Props, backdrops and materials should always be put away when not in use. Models should not be asked to move props etc, nor adopt dangerous or uncomfortable poses. The minimum number of people should be in the studio, and all should be briefed on the potential hazards. Check all equipment is in good working order prior to your subject arriving.

All electrical appliances and equipment must be tested for electrical safety, and maintained by a competent person. Only trained persons should use and move any electrical equipment. All studio flash units should be covered with a soft box or similar piece of equipment to help prevent burns from exposed flash units. Only trained persons to be allowed to operate the lighting system. Need to ensure that flash units do not get too hot so as cause ignition or burn anybody. No naked lights etc are to be used. Where flames of some sort are required for the shoot, then the necessary fire fighting appliances need to be available, to be used only by competent persons.

All persons need to informed of all the safety regulations, evacuation routes and shown where the fire exits , smoking areas, etc are.

Location

The photographer should visit the location prior to the shoot to establish any hazards, and carry out any risk assessments required. If in a public place then this has to be considered. Consult the customer on any location risk and decide what actions are required, and take any actions to minimise any identifiable problems. Comply with any reasonable requests or rules at your location.

Observe the countryside code in all aspects when out on location. When in the hills and mountains take special note of the weather conditions. Plan your trip so as to use the minimum of equipment to carry. Ensure you are aware of your surroundings and plan accordingly. Don’t take unnecessary risks, and if appropriate inform somebody of where you are going and when you are likely to be back.

Some latest images

Some bale




Down in Swanage



Almost body surfing all for a coke

What you doing Steve?

A good night out

Fountains for all

The ghostly photographer

Nearly there

the eyes have it

a chip off the old wooden block

more wood to cap it all

eye stopping

don't let Flossy near here

petticoat lane for shoes

absailing down Lloyds tower watch it on TV in 3 weeks time

bench

not tied up today

Brighton donut

all blowing away

toot toot we're on our way

just round the bend

oh deer



205 Photo imaging equipment and materials Part 2

Advantages and disavantages digital v film.

There has been much debate over the years regarding this subject. Nowadays digital seems to be the main means of producing images, as the quality of even the cheapest cameras ( let alone some mobile phone cameras) is very good, Only the size of print decides which camera is used.

Image quality is obviously paramount. Digital cameras have a variable relationship between resolution and megapixel count, whilst film depends on upon the area of film used to record the image, 35mm, medium format or large format. Also the speed of the film and the quality of the lens has a great effect. Large format cameras are rarely digital.

Digital sensors are arranged in a regular grid pattern whereas film has a random orientation of grains, both of which affect the resolution of the image. 35mm Photograph resolution varies according to speed of film etc but a 36mmx24mm film with an ISO of 100 has equivalent pixels of approx 15 megapixels. Many professional quality cameras use medium or large format cameras. A medium format film image approximates about 50 megapixels. A medium format DSLR provides from 42 to 50 megapixels, but cannot be enlarged with the same level of detail as medium format film. However, the technology is improving all the time so it might eventually catch up.

Noise and grain can cause a problem for photographers (unless required deliberately). Noise is degradation of pixels showing an incorrect colour, whilst grain and film sensitivity are linked, in colour film grain being obvious in areas of even and delicate tone, not quite so in black and white, whereas with digital the long exposures tend to show more noise.

With film you do have the need for a darkroom, and the facilities for one, and all the paraphernalia required to develop both the film and the image as two separate actions. This is also a timely operation, whereas with digital all you need is a computer, a printer and relevant software to produce an image. There is a cost to both, but the time investment in film is more.

Dynamic range is another feature that can be assessed. It is difficult to play the two against each other but briefly;

Low-contrast film has greater dynamic range and higher contrast.

Do you use the data format as raw or jpeg?

The larger sensors in DSLRs and medium format cameras collect more light than the compact camera sensors, but the smaller sensors are getting better and the dynamic range is improving.

Variations in optics, sensor resolution, scanner dynamic range and precision of the analogue to digital conversion circuit cause variations in image quality. It is very difficult to compare the dynamic ranges between film and digital.

Optical versus digital prints differ between media and between images shown on VDUs. There is also a variable difference between venues/computers showing your images.

The effects of sensor size have an impact on your choice digital camera. Most sensors are smaller than the 36mm x 24mm exposure frame of 35mm film. With digital this has the effect of extending the effective length of the lens eg a 100mm lens then becomes approx 160mm(depending on make of camera). This is due to the manufactures using lens mounts designed for film cameras. If the camera has a smaller imaging area than the lens’ intended film frame, its field of view is cropped. This does have an advantage over the “full frame” cameras as the lens in effect becomes longer. It also affects the depth of field ( greater for digital), light sensitivity and pixel noise ( the smaller the sensor the more likely noise will develop). Here is an illustration.

Dust is the curse of photographers whether film of digital, as it can scratch the film, either in camera or in the darkroom, or get on the sensor and spoil the image. With digital this can be erased with software in the computer but adds additional time and effort to producing the image, and could occur in an awkward part of the image and be very difficult to edit.

Film can be scanned to digital with the correct equipment, and then manipulated on the computer. This is becoming an increasing part of archival life for instance, but takes a lot of time and is a very slow process. But decisions have to be made regarding archiving your images. There are many ways from keeping them on computer eg, or printing them. Archival printing is very expensive, but is keeping images in electronic form likely to last longer. This is a specialist area, and needs further investigation as to how best to preserve you images. What happens when computer software becomes redundant, how would you view your images in 50 years ? Bearing in mind that photography has only been around about 120 years??? In what medium do you store your images that you wish to keep? Many images can be transitory, but the rest???

Price is also a significant consideration. Film and digital imaging systems have different cost emphasis. Digital cameras are more expensive than their film equivalent, but are falling, and taking photographs is effectively cost free. High quality film cameras are less a complicated, therefore less expensive, ongoing film and processing costs being the major expense, and getting rarer. Film prices have risen as supply reduces.

I personally enjoy the freedom that digital photography gives me. EG when in the studio doing portraits I can connect my laptop to my camera, and can instantly show the person I am photographing the image. This makes getting the right image easier as the sitter can see the difference immediately and makes direction easier to achieve that. Also the sitter can have an impact by discussion at the same time. It also means I can change the lighting etc to suit the image I am trying to create. However I feel that the film black and white is much better than the digital version, albeit that the work has to be done in the darkroom, and depends on so many factors that are variable.

205 Photo imaging equipment and materials Part 1

Characteristics of a digital camera.

There are many characteristics associated with digital equipment. Nowadays 35mm photography is using nearly all digital equipment, including hobbyists, amateurs, professional, news and sports, and specialist photographers. This is mainly due to the ease with which the image can be viewed immediately and therefore easier to capture the correct image, even in the heady worlds of news and sports. The action can be immediately sent via the internet to where the images are required. Digital imagery has taken off due to the equipment having a great variety of types and prices, so is accessible to everybody one way or another, including some fairly decent mobile phone cameras these days.

 It is also very easy to edit the digital image at leisure or immediately, and can be done in a very small space, even out in the open eg with sports photography, via a laptop eg. There is a great deal of computer software to enable the images to be edited, the favourite being Photoshop, although there are several others that are just as good.

Digital images can be stored in several ways; an internal non-removable type of storage (normally reserved for video), a floppy disk(now almost redundant), a compact flash card(can prove expensive),a smart media card, a USB memory stick, an external hard drive attached to a computer, or on computer, either at home or what is known as on-line storage on a remote server, or uploaded to a web site, either your own or another source. The images can be downloaded via a cable to the computer, or in some instances by wireless technology. These types of storage replace film, either negative or slide, and are known as the storage media. I myself tend to keep 2 copies of my images on separate hard drives should I have a problem with my computer or one of the hard drives.

The larger medium format cameras and above are still mainly of the film variety. These are used mainly for internal fashion shoots and for large poster size prints, but the digital medium format camera is gradually being introduced.

Print costs are an issue with digital images. Most people tend not to get them printed and just leave them on their hard drive (as I do!), but I have invested in a digital photo frame and use this to look at my photos. It so serves as a means of viewing my images prior to printing or editing. It may take a while to study and look at my images, so this is a good way of viewing them over a period of time.

The current crop of Photographic magazines, both amateur and professional, are very informative with regard to reviews of many types of camera, and also give tests of new equipment on the market. As is the internet. Here you can find all sorts of information, including quite important information from the manufactures. Their websites give all the necessary information to enable you to make an informed opinion for you own needs and type of images you take. You can also see here all sorts of reviews and comments, but you have to use your own judgement for these.

Looking at some of the individual characteristics then;

Resolution – Digital cameras store images in pixels. Each pixel has its own information, colour and brightness. The more pixels the image has the more detail is contained within that image. To view the image on an external monitor, eg a computer, then the resolution must match. The viewing of images is determined by the resolution of your viewing medium, be it computer screen or TV eg. Pixel density in your camera of choice would be an important consideration. You also need to be aware that the camera uses a compression algorithm .There are various forms in use, the most popular is jpg, but there is also tiff, and more commonly RAW, which gives a lot more latitude when editing. The computer however needs to uncompress this information to enable viewing of the image, so your computer needs the software to do this. Many computers include a picture viewing software package as standard on the hard drive, which means all you have to do is select an image to view it. You do need specialist software to view RAW images though usually.

 When printing your image you will concerned with two things: the number of pixels across and down in your image; and the number of pixels per inch in your image. You would therefore have to match your printer requirement with your camera choice to the size of print you would want. However, with printing I use an on-line printer outfit to produce my images. Various software packages allow to insert images into documents, so you do not have to always adjust your image to fit, a very useful bit of software indeed.

Exposure- There are many different setting for exposure depending on your choice of camera. Most have Auto exposure(except the top end cameras eg Canon D1range)and many have the means to select a manual exposure of many varying sorts. The exposure will depend on the light, and the photographers preference to the image he is trying to create eg. The quality of the lens used, the aperture of the lens needs to match the lighting conditions encountered, preplanning will be necessary to achieved the best combination. Price of some of the lenses will dictate the use and of the image making. The different shutter apertures will also need to be considered when deciding which equipment will be needed on any particular shoot. Some examples are noted here.

Lens-these are a very important consideration to how your intended image are to be produced. Some cameras have fixed lenses, such as the modern compact camera, but the SLR does have interchangeable lens, which enables you to capture the image you intend. Consideration has to be taken as to the time of day, location, intended image, and also whether to have to carry the equipment any distance. Choice of lens before you set out is very important. There is such a wide variety these days. EG landscapes may require a wide angle lens, whereas a portrait might require a 105mm lens. Zoom lens are excellent these days and you can cover a lot of assignments with just two very good zoom lenses.

Viewfinder-There are two types of viewfinder, the LCD display and the optical viewfinder. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, but the modern cameras now mainly now come with both. Some of the smaller compact cameras may only come with an LCD display. Some of the latest DSLR’s now have a vary angle LCD display screen that rotates, which can be very useful in some instances, care needs to be taken though not to damaged it. See pros and cons below.

Video output- many of the DSLR cameras include a port and a cable that can connect to the RCA jack on television monitors. This allows the photographer to show the images directly on large screen display without ever having to pass an image through a computer. Some cameras now have a “slide show” option, where the camera will show individual images advancing at a specific time increment, or by a touch of a button on the camera. An example of this use would be in teaching, sales pitches, and could cover a wide variety of subjects.

Power supply-Since all cameras are mainly portable then a portable power source is required. This is usually by battery, and there are many different sorts. Some cameras require a special power source to that type of model. It is also advisable to carry a spare charged up battery to suit your camera at all times. When in the studio for instance though and the subject matter is compatible then an AC to DC adapter may be used as an alternative.

ideas

Saturday 18th September 2010

Another session begins today hurrah.

This morning I started the final leg of my attempt to complete my City and Guilds level 3 Diploma. Steve Davies once again is the main protaganist, and the class is 13 of us today, but I need to enrol to complete the course, at least there is one more to come.
I am really looking forward to starting again, and I am hoping that I can complete it.
I will be looking to be completing 7512-03 Level 3 Diploma in Photography and Photo Imaging units 205(describe the application and maintenance of equipment and materials),310 (produce photographic prints), and 212(interpret a brief). I will take a look at the option of 305 as well.
Suzy, Jim, Steve and Pete have also turned up to finish the course.
To start with I have to decide a theme for my BRIEF so I need to get this to Mr Steve as he will then provide a brief for me to work to. I am interested in furthering my portrait images, so will be looking to come up with a theme for this. I would like to do more in the studio and also on location, looking at maybe the 40's or 50's.

FACTORY WORKER eg