Assignment #13 Results

Assignment #13 Diagram

Vintage-looking 3 light portrait.

Assignment #12 Results

* No models were harmed during this re-making of "Psycho". Anything that appears to be blood is actually chocolate syrup.

Assignment #12 Diagram

Assignment #11 Results

Assignment #11 Plan

Assignment #10 Results

Decided I wanted to try a black seamless. Since I wanted it to show some light around me and fade to black at the bottom, I decided against the 2nd light on the backdrop and just used the one key light on the subject.

Assignment #10 Diagram

I have seen the "Surface Tension" show at the Met twice now. On my second visit with my digital imaging class, I learned that the Tom Friedman piece was a self-portrait done by selecting one row of pixels and cloning them to create what looks like a blur of color across a canvas. I thought it would be fun to recreate my own self-portrait in that style. It also gives me an excuse to play with the kino flos again.

Here's my plan (and no I won't be dressing up as Trent Reznor, but this image is a good example of the kino on white seamless that I want to mimic):

Assignment #9 Results

Assignment #9 Diagram

Assignment #4 - Test 2: Headlights Outside

Assignment #4 was originally done in-studio with hot lights to mimic the look of headlights. I wanted to see what real headlights would look like, so I re-did it in a parking garage. Here's the result:

Assignment #8 Results

Assignment #8 Diagram

Assignment #7 Results

Assignment #7 Diagram

While I am home over Spring Break, I want to experiment with shooting at night with only a small flash unit and a flashlight combo in the same frame. Popping the flash at the beginning of a long exposure will make the front of the car sharp, while the flashlight (operated by subject in driver's seat) will illuminate the inside of the car while also blurring the figure. Ambient light from the long exposure and any passing cars will add further lighting elements. I will be shooting with film while I am home, so it will be a little more difficult to see how it is turning out. I've shot a lot at night though, so it will mean bracketing to ensure a proper exposure.

Assignment #6 Results

Assignment #6 Diagram

Assignment #5 Results

Assignment #5 Diagram

Next I want to recreate this shot by Jen Davis of a woman on a bed with one light with a grid directly above her. I think I will need a reflector below bouncing up in her face for some fill and a black cloth hanging behind her to help blackout the background and counter any light bouncing off the sheets.

Assignment #4 Results

Here's the tests I did for this lighting assignment in the studio. My plan to recreate this at a motel was postponed, but I do plan on shooting this on location eventually. Doing it in studio first helped me figure out how to best position the subject and car once I do this for real.

Assignment #4 Diagram

This shot is a film still from "No Country for Old Men" that I want to attempt to recreate. In the movie, this double shadow was created by a car's headlights. I want to try to do it with an actual car headlights, but may end up shooting it in-studio with 2 hot lights if need be.

Assignment #3 Results

Diagram for Assignment #3

For this assignment, I want to recreate Robert Maxwell's lighting from his series "The Originals" shot for the New York Times Style Magazine. I also thought it was a good idea for me to shoot in-studio, since it is not something I would normally do.

Assignment #2: Recreating Eggleston's 5x7 bar photos

Assignment #1 Results / Diagram for Assignment #2

Here's how my assignment #1 turned out. Location: Bushwick Motel, Brooklyn NY.

Since the door to the room was at the opposite side of the room and unable to fit in the shot, I wanted to recreate the shadow of the door in the Todd Hido shot using the TV set. Because the room was so tiny, I ended up bouncing the softbox off the ceiling to avoid lens flare. I also had a silver reflector on the floor to the right of the boots to fill in a bit of the shadows on the bottom right of the frame. Here's a shot of the set-up:

And here's my inspiration and diagram for Assignment #2 based on William Eggleston's "5x7" book:

I plan to either hand-hold myself or have an assistant hand-hold a q-flash above and to the right slightly of the camera aimed at the subject in a bar setting. I expect the power of the flash will need to be somewhat low so as to illuminate the subject only, with only people and objects within 1-2 feet of the subject being also lit, then quickly falling off to black.

Assignment #1

The image on the left is by Todd Hido from his motel room series. The diagram on the right is how I would recreate this shot. While it appears in the original shot that Hido likely used natural light coming into the room from the open door and window (not seen in the image) on the same wall as the door, I plan to rely on a strobe with a softbox. Also, in order to get the TV to white-out, I would set the shutter speed to 1 sec and have the room dark so that once the strobe pops, the only light in the room is from the tv set for the remainder of the exposure.