Here are a couple self-portraits I took last weekend. Rob and I enjoy dancing to soul music and I thought it would be fun to capture a few shots. I know mirror shots like that can be corny but I want the outside view of an intimate moment.
090820 Verizon - photo shoot from Dave Hill on Vimeo.
Doing this shoot made me realize how much I've grown over the last year, and even in the last 8 weeks or so. I had to go check out a light kit from the cage Saturday morning, dash over to his house, set up and shoot in 45 minutes and then run off to work. I'd also never been to his apartment, so I had no idea what the ambient light would be like, what his "environment" would be like, how much space I'd have, etc. Sure, if I'd had more time, there are things I would've tweaked, but overall, I was able to balance the natural light nicely and use the strobes more as a fill like I wanted. I used to toil for hours trying to get my lighting to even look remotely like what I envisioned, but it all feels much more natural now.
I think the first is definitely my favorite, but these are a couple outtakes that I still like.
the ability to retain an accurate, detailed visual image of a complex scene or pattern (sometimes popularly known as photographic memory) or the ability, posessed by a minority of people, to 'see' an image that is an exact copy of the original sensory experience.
Hi Everybody,
SPAS Student Honors Show 2010
Call for Entries
Eligibility
All SPAS matriculated students are eligible to submit work -- any work created since June 1, 2009 in connection with any courses/programs within SPAS will qualify. Your entries are coded with your RIT e-mail address (initials plus 4 digit number).
There will be at least $3400 in
purchase prize awards !
Submissions
Bring your work for the SPAS 2010 Honors Show JURY to the 4th Floor Studio UC #13. Entry FORMS available at check-in and can be filled out just prior to submission.
Tuesday, April 27 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Wednesday, April 28 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Thursday April 29 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Robert Riger, photograph of Yogi Berra, Yankees catcher
I chose Napoleon as my allegory inspiration piece . I was trying to focus most on representing strength and determination. This isn't my final piece. There are more edits to come, but I wanted to post what I had.
Here's the photo of my drawing teacher that I showed yesterday-- this is it right out of the camera. It had a pretty good exposure to begin with, so I started with adjusting the white balance and adding some blacks and clarity to give it the subject better separation from the background. I sharpen and reduce noise, then will generally make a slight curves adjustment and adjust the brightness some. Like Patti says, set your whites and blacks first, and then work everything in between mainly using gamma.
At this point, I opened the image as a smart object in Photoshop to start proofing it for work prints. The file was a little too magenta for the substrate I was going to, so I made a curves adjustment layer, added a very slight s-curve in the shadow/midtone areas on the master channel, and then went into each of the RGB channels, set a midpoint and adjusted each of them very slightly to make it more balanced (in fact, looking at it on my screen at home, it looks a little too green now...).
Lastly, I just used the clone stamp on an empty layer to get rid of that soda cup in the bottom right corner. I had some wider shots where the clutter on her desk looked nice, but that one soda cup didn't really work.
I really struggle with self portraits. I admire people that are able to do this as part of a daily routine, like brushing teeth. I also have trouble with focusing and things that are much easier to do when you're behind the camera. It's a challenge to compose, light, and focus on yourself; the only thing I can really say is that it does get easier with practice somehow. Using greater depth of field or placing another person or an object where you will be and pre-focusing can help. Honestly this picture is far from perfect-- the light and composition is nice, but I am still back-focused just a little bit and it drives me nuts. It's amazing how something simple like focusing can throw you off. It also helps to remember that, even if your lens isn't really bright, when you are all the way open, even the plane in focus will be just a little bit soft. Try stopping down to make focusing easier at first, and when you get everything else worked out, then I'd try using depth of field more creatively.
