This is my first image for assignment 4 – “light” and aims to bring use light to highlight the colour of the subject (a Leffe bottle, which will feature in all the shots for this assignment).
Colour – Red
ISO100, 1/200s, f/22. Click to see large on Flickr
Shot on manual, hand-held (because my tripod was other-wise occupied as the section below on ‘Taking the Shot’ will explain). I’ve boosted the ‘exposure’ in Lightroom to +0.5 of a stop and increased the sharpness.
The red here compliments the brown bottle and brings out a red tone to it. When I originally conceived this shot I thought I’d bring out the yellow of the label, but I found it a less satisfactory shot. I’ve still done versions of it throughout – and this is how it looks:
Alternative in Yellow
The original idea came from a post on a DIY under lighting box – which I had researched after my tutor’s feedback on the olive oil bottle shot in assignment two, where it was suggested I light to bottle from below. I followed the advice to use a box and a picture frame. Here’s the original post on it.
Taking the Shot
I introduced lights bit-by-bit, initially starting with my flash gun underneath the glass with a colour filter on it – a hole in the back of the box letting light out to light the wall behind. The lights were triggered by two wireless remotes (pocket wizards and a calumet setup I got free with my bowen studio lights) and a wired hotshoe.
This is how the first shot looked:
Dusty Glass
I didn’t get beyond the first test shot here before realising I needed to sort the glass. It didn’t appear dusty at-a-glance, but the flash soon proved otherwise.
Glass cleaned
After applying some glass cleaner it’s much better (though still shows some dust). I wasn’t happy with the colour – or the amount of light coming through the beer in the bottle.
Front light and more-direct light
I put in a front light, using an umbrella as a diffuser, and pointed the flash more directly upward. I opened up the back of the box more too. Not happy with the umbrella reception – it’s fairly rough and obvious.
Reflection improved
I adjusted the position of the umbrella and, after feedback on a previous version, tried with a piece of card under the glass (a hole cut in it below the bottle) to try and make the glass division with the background more deliberate. The final shot doesn’t suffer from the same problem that prompted the card – (the previous picture to this shows a kind of highlight/reflection on the edge of the glass which is messy).
Two lights
I thought I’d try two lights now, both through umbrellas. Thinking about what I’ve read in Light: Science and Magic, I figured the skeleton of the umbrella should be essentially treated like a ‘gobo’ – so moving it closer to the light-source should minimise it’s impact. I think it improved it, but not enough. I’m also not happy with the strength of the light in the background – the colour isn’t very strong.
With parchment paper
So I placed one of my studio lights in the box in place of my flash gun, and put the flash gun behind the box pointing at the wall. I removed the card – mainly because I was concerned the tungsten modelling light and the card might not play nice and I wasn’t keen on flames providing the yellow or red for this shot! I replaced the umbrella with some parchment paper I had bought for an exercise. The role was put on the end of my camera tripod and positioned in front of the light. It’s created a much smoother reflection, which I was happy with. The only remaining issue is the strength of the colour toward the top of the bottle.
The same issue was apparent on the red shot:
In the final shot I moved the flash closer to the wall and pointed it up at a steeper angle. These pictures illustrate the final setup:
Front light and parchment paper on tripod
The white card just to the left of the bottle was put over a plug socket which – at some angles – reflected in the bottle. It was quite subtle, but annoying none-the-less. The tape is just visible in the final shot. I’ll let the viewer work out where. I could have shot from a different angle to avoid it by putting the label in the way – but I prefer the shot when it’s not at an angle.
Box light and rear flash
I haven’t performed this exercise quite as intended – primarily because the tracing paper I have wasn’t suitable. The instructions required me to make a cone of tracing paper to surround the camera and subject – but the stuff I’ve got wouldn’t stick with tape (and I tried a few different kinds) and I don’t own a stapler (and nor am I buying one just for this exercise).
I got quite annoyed and frustrated trying to make the tracing paper cone. That might be evident in the tone of this write-up so far! 
The first step in the exercise was to find an object that was so shiny I could see my face in it, then take a reference shot with the flash close to the camera. I actually selected two subjects – my iPad and a spoon. Here are the reference shots:
Direct Flash - iPad
Direct Flash - Spoon
Apart from the light from the flash not being diffused, you can also see reflections quite definitely in each – particularly of the flash gun itself.
As I couldn’t make the cone I used my light tent which, in all honesty, is pretty much intended for this kind of use (though it’s not perfect as the images below will show). There is a front section which attaches to allow me to place the lens of the camera through a small hole, diffusing the light and minimising the reflection of the camera and other items in the room:
Light Tent - iPad
Light Tent - Spoon
The reflection is still visible in the spoon and the camera lens can just be seen. Changing the angle of the flash would have minimised it’s reflection further. The lens itself can’t really be eliminated, given the shape of the spoon. As mentioned in the exercise text, in thee cases the only solution (straight out of camera, at least) would be to include something else in the composition to ‘hide’ the reflection.
This exercise is a quick one – basically to demonstrate the concentrating of light to fall on a particular part of a scene, with the surrounds in shadow.
I used my Pringles tube ‘snoot’, positioned fairly high above the scene and just to the left of the camera. This is what I got:
Concentrating Light
So the Cylon Raider and Colonial Viper are lit brighter than the surrounds. Because the light source is small the shadows cast are very hard – as seen best with the Cylon Raider, which is mounted on it’s stand.
I’ve used the snoot previously to direct light in the image “Breaking Through“, to direct light on my feet, to appear as though it were coming from the crack in the door.
My main ideas for the “Shape” of the object is a silhouetted image of the bottle against twilight, a sunset or a sunrise, perhaps with a bit of edge lighting, and a shard of smashed bottle, reflecting an intact bottle in it. However, one of my initial ideas had been to show the bottle smashing, and liquid leaking out. I don’t think it’s a strong illustration of “shape” (or the fragility of the object’s shape, which was where the idea came rom) but, as I needed to make some broken glass anyway, I decided to shoot it.
My setup was daylight – which was mostly sunlight – and a flash in high-speed sync mode as a fill-light.
Smashed!
The best shot is below, but the sun had gone behind a cloud very briefly so it ended up under-exposed, so I’ve had to boost the exposure in Lightroom by 2 stops to compensate. I’d have tried again, but this was my forth and last empty bottle of Leffe. I’ll have to endure the hassle of manufacturing more if I’m to try this again!
No beer was harmed in the creation of these images. It’s just water stained with tea.
Spot on... almost. Click to see large on Flickr
The reason I want to give this another go is because waiting for the flash, and timing the bottle drop meant I couldn’t shoot in continuous mode. I’d like to see how this looks in just daylight, without flash, and using continuous shooting mode to increase the likelihood of getting a good version of the bottle smashing. I may need an assistant to help with that.
As you might guess, I didn’t get this right first time.
Bottle One
This was what happened with bottle number one:
A little too late and too little
The bottle had bounced back up out of frame at this point. I like the liquid pouring out, but there’s no bottle. I switched to shooting in portrait after this – then cropped where appropriate.
Bottle Two
Very late
As you can see, the bottle is settled on the ground – no sign of motion at all.
Bottle Three
Too early
Too early. Fortunately the bottle survived this drop, so I got to have another go with it.
A little too late again
Just slightly too late this time – there’s some sign of motion – glass and liquid in the air, and the glass on the left of the image and just off-centre-left haven’t settled on the ground – but there’s little sign of liquid having come from the bottle, apart from a hint of a ripple in the liquid on the ground.
This exercise is about controlling the contrast – the difference between light and shadow – within an image.
The first shot was taken with a flash setup to right of the subject, without a diffuser in front of it:
Undiffused
The second is with an umbrella as a diffuser in front of the flash. Contrast here is reduced, bringing out more detail in Batman – particularly areas that were previously in complete shadow:
Diffused
The third shot is with a large white reflector (my light tent, folded up flat) held three feet away from the subject – on the opposite side to the diffused flash. Much of Batman remains the same as shot two, though with some small reduction in contrast on the left side – the cape, leg and gauntlet, on the left of the image:
White Reflector - 3 Feet
This fourth image has the reflector distance halved. The reflected light travels further across Batman now. Contrast is reduced on the left of the image, more so than before, and the reflected light has reached the head and arm on the right of the image:
White Reflecter - 1.5 Feet
The next image had foil placed in the same position as the reflector above, with the matte side facing toward the flash. It’s a more effective reflector, so reduces contrast further:
Matte Foil Deflector
The foil was turned around for this shot. Contrast here is increased – with highlights standing out more under the more efficient and harsher reflected light:
Shiny Foil Reflector
Finally, the foil was crumpled up and then flattened again, so it took on a texture. It’s a less uniform reflector than the smooth, shiny, foil previously and also less uniform than the matte foil or white reflector. It brings out more contrast in places, while still filling some of the shadows on the left of the image:
Crumpled Shiny Reflector
It’s an effective method of controlling shadow to bring out detail and control depth and texture in an image subtly. More lights could be used to further reduce shadows, depending on what effect is aimed for.
Something to note from the text is that increased contrast may be desirable – in which case a piece of black card or black velvet opposite the flash would reduce the light reflecting back off other surfaces (walls/ceiling etc).
The effect of high contrast to create atmosphere is demonstrated by two pictures by Stieglitz and Weston.
In Stieglitz “Dorothy Norman“, it creates a dark, brooding, atmosphere.
In Weston’s “Guadeleipe Marin de Rivera” it creates a sense of cold tension – isolating the subject’s head and hiding their eyes.
