The idea and aim
I took photographs of more senior people, the texture and aging of their skin I hoped would lend itself to B+W photography. I wanted to take close cropped photographs of their faces so that the viewer focuses on the face and not distracted by their surroundings.
Method
I used only available lighting and a reflector to bounce an even light on the subjects faces. I experimented first with two ladies that volunteered. I positioned them inside, close to a pale wall where there was the least distraction of art work hanging on the wall and wall itself would reflect light on to the subjects.
The models were seated and I worked around them taking photographs. I used a digital SLR with 18-70mm zoom lens and adjusted the camera settings (ISO, shutter speed, and f-stop, manual focus) to try and get the best exposures and composition. I used as much as possible a shallow depth of field to throw out of focus the surroundings.
The dSLR automatically runs a white balance check when the camera is turned on. The white balance check is important because different lighting, especially when photographing inside where a mix of natural and artifical lighting may be used. The artifical light is influencing the overall lighting. This can effect the colour of the photographs, fluorescent and low energy bulbs can give a greenish hue to photographs, incadescent lighting produces a golden colouration to the picture.
I took many photographs, selected many of the photographs to take into Photoshop to experiment and convert from colour to black and white photographs. The RAW format photographs were adjusted on loading into Photoshop, many of the images were very dark because I used only available light. The import enables me to adjust and increase the exposure (I went up to maximum of +2), I also increased slightly the contrast to counter balance the lightening of the exposure, and also increased the vibrancy (up to 50%) and clarity (70%-90%) to make the images well defined. The changes could be seen immediately in the preview screen and each photograph was adjusted by eye.
The opened image file was then adjusted to convert to B+W, the process of conversion allows the intensity of colour levels of red, magenta, cyan, blue, yellow and green and how dark or light will affect the image when finally converted to B+W. These were adjusted and experimented with repeatedly to see how it influenced the final results.
My Opinion
The results were overall pleasing, but missing something. They were flat, they needed something to give them a lift, some character, make them more interesting, a theme that pulled the images together.
Note: The photographs ave been printed and displayed in my course work folder. The details of each photograph are here just as a record.
Figure 1 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 53mm
Figure 2 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal Length 55mm
Figure 3 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 4 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 5 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 51mm
Figure 6 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 7 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 8 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 9 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/4.5, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 33mm
Figure 10 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/4.5, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 35mm
Figure 11 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 49mm
Figure 12 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 13 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 14 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 15 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 second, Focal length 55mm
Figure 16 Canon EOS 450D, ISO-400, F-stop f/5.6, Exposure 1/60 seconds, Focal Length 55mm
I reviewed some of my photographs and found an image that I liked and this helped formulate the idea for my final piece.
09slyounghusband 