Studio Assignment Products - Lure

For my products assignment I decided to do fishing gear as it was something a little different. I wanted to try and show the images in sort of outdoor environments but obviously done in the studio. For this shot of the cod lure I grabbed a few fish tank rocks and drift wood to use as the setting. My first shoot of the lure I had it sitting directly on the wood as I thought it would look kinda natural, like a lure sitting on a fallen tree near a river waiting to be attached to a line. It looked pretty tacky as you can see below.

For the second shoot I decided to drop the background/environment right out of focus by hanging the lure with fishing line about a foot in front of the background. I used two softboxes to light the lure. One from the front to light the body of the lure and to give a bit of reflection to show its shape, and a another from behind/side to illuminate the bib of the lure.  I then cloned out the fishing line in photoshop later. I think the shot is much better than the first but could use some work. I found the depth of field to be amazingly small even shooting at f16.

Studio Assignment Portraiture Additional Light Source

The plan for the additional light source portrait was to use a plasma ball like the one below to look like an energy ball being controlled by the subject.

 The first attempt at shooting it was ideal. I had the whole studio to myself and could have it pitch black for the long exposure. The shots came out ok but not quite what I had in mind. 

Initial shoot with Matthew

I wanted to be able to see the bands of electricity more clearly and have more emphasis on the plasma ball.  To achieve this I switched to a wide angle lens (14-24mm) and got right up close to the ball with the subject looming over the top. The plasma ball had a sound setting which only set of the electricity when there was a sound or bump. Each time a sound went off the first bands of electricity would always shoot to the subjects fingers. So after some playing around I worked out that about 8 taps at ISO1600 gave a decent rendering of the bands before I could fire the flash to illuminate the subject.

I used two strip softboxs directly either side of the subject on a pretty low setting with a single flash head behind the subject for rim lighting. I wanted the side softboxes quite low to give some dark edgy shadows. Overall the shot came out pretty well and with some editing in PS I was happy with the result.

Studio Assignment Portraiture Research Full Length Portrait

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for my full length portrait but I wanted to make it kinda creative. One weekend I was watching music videos and I came across a clip from Sarah Blasko which showed subjects dancing/performing in what was almost pitch black but there was just enough light falling on them from both sides and above to create highlights on on certain parts of the body.

For some reason blogger couldn't find the full video which is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1blDx3ZEuQ

The below vid is a shortened version which doesn't show the lighting as well.

From the clip it seemed like there were only 3 light sources. One above and behind the subject and 2 from either side lighting fairly evenly. 

Studio Assignment Portraiture Research Couple Shot

I had in mind a black and white image for the couple shot. I wanted to keep the lighting as simple as possible while also having it super soft. After doing a bit of research I found an image which I really liked and wanted to try and replicate. 

Sharon_Alagna_Photography_Creative_Engagement_Photographer_Los_Angeles

From the looks of things the photographer used a single large softbox facing the couple from the right. It creates some dark shadows but I think in black and white this adds to the feeling of the image. It also falls off quite quickly to the right of the image. Im guessing that the softbox was quite close and on a low output.