Couple of places left on this workshop Now fully booked đ – at the fabulous 19th century mill that houses Atlas Studios. Call the studio to book your place!
Creative lighting workshop
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Category Archives: How Its made
Project Noir part II
This time we concentrated on one shot â a backlit interior concept with volumetric light (i.e. light given volume by some medium â in this case, an even fog). Caspar reprised his previous outfit, now complete with a nice black Fedora. I found some 20 year-old Gauloise Caporal white cigarettes when we moved house last year that really looked the part in a soft blue case. We also had a crystal decanter, glass, and the airgun we used on the last shoot. All of these went onto a nice period desk from another room in the old manor house.
Project Noir–Part One
Someone once said something like âCinematographers kick photographersâ asses, all day longâ. I canât remember who this was, and the Intarweb doesnât seem to know either. However, even though these are two different art forms, I do find that things some photographers seem to think of as new and exciting developments , are not news to DPâs and movie lighting directors whoâve been creating mood and drama with light for decades.
Headshots
From a session for stage and screen actor, Stacey Lynne Crowe. Actorâs headshots need to be pretty simple, and must show what they really look like â so no editing allowed. I process these in Lightroom and they have contrast and exposure adjustments made to lift the shadows, knock the highlights down just a bit and then I set the white and black points. On the skin I reduce contrast a bit , and put a tenth of a top into the eyes. Then sharpen the eyes, lips, and nose and Iâm done.
Chocolates
Just playing around with the scrim I made a while back. It’s roughly 1.5x2m with a frame made from 21mm plastic waste pipe (B&Q sell this along with all the corners, T pieces, 45 degree corners etc. to make any kind of frame you want). The surface is Translum plastic which is made by Savage. You can buy it on a roll 1.5m wide. The idea is to project light onto the scrim so that it drops to nothing before it reaches the edge of the scrim – and so there’s no edge visible. You can also try projecting patterns using something like the Lightblaster however on this occasion I just wanted a classic ball of light with a nice gradual drop-off towards the edges.
Books wot I Like
Books. Theyâre still a good idea if you ask me, even in this age of YouTube learning (which I also love). Especially for learning something visual like say.. photography: I like to have a physical, printed book. In this post, Iâm going to present some of my favourite photography related books, and why I like âem.
More GoBO options for your Lightblaster
If you love the Light Blaster from Spiffy Gear, but want more GoBOs (âGOes Before Opticsâ â the little masks that go in front of the light, but before the focusing lens on the front of any spot projector), then you have a number of options: use 35mm slides, mount Rosco size E circular gobos on card or the little plastic adapter you can download and print, or just make your own.  Whilst there are companies that will print digital images onto 35mm transparency film, Iâm not looking at that option here â I nearly always want a simple, graphical shape for my work, and metal gobos are the way to go for the best results â as they always block all the light where there is no hole cut in them, and have crisper edges.
Light Patterns
If youâve been making shots in a studio for a while, youâve probably collected a number of light âmodifiersâ â that is, reflectors, softboxes, umberellas and other bits of metal, plastic, foil and fabric to control, block, reflect and otherwise guide the light to where you want it. But do you know what they actually do?   Neil Van Niekerk tested some of his light modifiers and you can the results of Neilâs tests on his excellent blog Tangents <<- click.    I thought I had better test mine. I found some interesting and one or two unexpected results.
Safari II Tail sync–real world tests
(no this is not a tailsync shot â but it is pretty cool đ  1/160th f/22 ISO 32 â Brian Sanger.    Read on for wide apertures, high shutter speeds and blurry clouds đ
Disney On Acid
Intentional Camera Movement
Well, on coffee and a lack of sleep anyway. We boarded Tinkerbelle (one of the many things to like about Virgin Atlantic – they name their ‘planes like WWII bombers and this 747-400 was named after a fairy) for the 8 hour flight to Orlando. After much immigration, luggage, car pickup, instructions to retrieve key for house pickup, calls to rental company for 40 minutes after they gave us the wrong codes for the key safe.. we rolled into the Magic Kingdom at 2am UK time after dropping the luggage at the house.  I was pretty punch drunk by then and the whole place took on the aspect of some bizarre dreamâŚ. I decided to try and make some alternative views of Disney by night, using long exposuresâŚ.