"Stephanie, Emote" - The Portrait Assignment

This assignment certainly had close-to-endless creative possibilities. That idea was not only exciting, it was a little daunting. No less daunting was the fact that I was paired with photographer extraordinaire: Stephanie. The minute we sat down together, Steph already had her plan for how she was going to shoot me; I was nowhere near having an idea. And when we went into the studio, my ideas were still pretty slim. It was not that I hadn’t thought about the shoot (it was more the exact opposite) it was the fact that I did not know how to use light to convey who I knew as “Stephanie.”
Stephanie is an amazing person. Since knowing her last semester, I’ve been inspired a good deal. She’s explored away from her home of Seattle, Washington, playing volleyball for three different schools, working, and following her passions. She’s incredibly driven to say the least, and I admire her for finding what she wants to do with her life. Steph also gave me some of the best advice I could have ever had last semester about following my heart. Therefore, I see Steph as a very introspective and motivated person. Her tattoo of a turtle represents the Hawaiian word “Hanu” which means “direction.” This tattoo seems fitting for Stephanie’s character. She says that it reminds her that, even through all of her adventures, she’s always known where she wants to end up, always had a sense of direction.
My first picture reveals the tattoo. At the same time I think it captures some of Stephanie’s quiet satisfaction in knowing where she’s headed in life. The portrait was set up with two lights and a reflector. One spot with a blue and green gel was aimed at the grey backdrop from the back right. A large soft box was at the front, a little left of center, at shoulder height. A reflector was placed on the left to insure illumination of the tattoo. The shot was taken at f22 at 125 at ISO 200. I would have liked to see her right side in a little less shadow; a reflector or low-wattage light might have been helpful on the right. I can’t decide if I like the blue-green background. It corresponds to the color of the tattoo, gives a sense of both boldness and serenity, and is also Steph’s and mine’s favorite color. However, it seems somewhat gimmicky. Thus, I don’t know how successful the picture is. Is the blue too overwhelming?
In my second shot, I captured the other side of Steph that I’ve begun to know this semester, the goofy side. She’s an upbeat girl with giggles and smiles and some funny stories. In my second photo, I think I captured this funny side. I shot this photo at f16 at 125, ISO 200 with one light with a barn door on it. I chose the barn door, quite frankly, because I didn’t know what it’s light would look like. I think the specular light is a bit harsh for this photograph and somewhat defeats the lightheartedness of the image. I wish I had used a reflector on the left so that there was not such a difference in stops between the two sides of her face. If I were to shoot this photo again, I would do it in a more high-key environment.
Overall, I think I did an ok job on this assignment. I really felt clueless (i.e. not at all artistic) on how to set up the lights in order to portray the “essence of Stephanie.” I need to work, too, on communicating with my subject while I’m shooting. Stephanie surely helped me by opening up and displaying different emotions, but not all subjects are going to be so honest.

Some other favorites:

Changing Light

The Alpha Chi Omega fraternity just celebrated the beginning of its 85th year on the University of Missouri campus. The front façade of the chapter house, which faces westward on Richmond Avenue, is surrounded by plants that model the chapter’s official colors: red and green.







In my changing light assignment I photographed the outside of the Alpha Chi Omega fraternity house. I picked this place because it incorporated a variety of textures and colors, and I like the pretty window box; it was also a convenient location to shoot. While the subject matter may have been slightly dull, I learned more about metering and exposure in different lighting circumstances.

While it is embarrassing to admit, I had never before looked at the histogram information on my camera. It was an eye-opening experience to use it during this assignment. I played around a lot with both my aperture and shutter speed, trying to even out that histogram for each shot. The most troublesome time I had shooting was at midday. Shot cl_petel_HR_03 was the best from that time frame. Because the sun was almost directly over me at 12:50 pm, I had a large shaded area on the left side of my frame and a very bright area on the right side of the frame. The difference between the two areas was greater than 2 stops. I averaged the meter readings for the bright area and the shaded area to find an exposure in the middle ground that slightly favored the shaded area since it took up a majority of the frame. However, my shot still does not look quite right. Midtones rule this picture; when I was shooting I did not know how to expose for the shaded area without completely blowing out the tree and the sunny area in the frame.

I took my favorite shot, cl_petel_HR_01, during the “magic hour” right after sunrise. I like the warmth in the windows and the detail and color in the elephant ear leaves. This shot was easier to expose for than others since the light was diffuse and illuminated most of the shot with the same intensity.
I am working a lot on trying to understand exposure better. This assignment surely helped me move away from relying on the camera’s automatic meter. I need to work on calculating what kind of exposure will work, but I think this assignment provided a good start.