Photography Classes Online – Icon Photography School › Forums › Photography Lessons › Lesson 7 › Lesson 7 Assignment
- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 6 months ago by
Duncan Rawlinson.
-
AuthorPosts
-
March 7, 2010 at 1:19 am #18113
Deepak
ParticipantThe top photo is my example of ‘soft lighting’ and the bottom is ‘hard lighting’
March 12, 2010 at 6:56 pm #19558Duncan Rawlinson
KeymasterBeautiful work with this assignment.
This assignment was a technical assignment where our main interest was seeing your ability to compose two different images under different lighting environments. In your first image, not only is your lighting much softer, but your unique molding of shadows helps you create a very dramatic composition.
My initial reaction to this photograph was very positive. You’ve used a diagonal shadow that essentially cuts your photograph in half. It even slightly shadows the bottom of the woman’s face while allowing her eyes to be touched by the light. This helps you draw your audience’s attention to the top half of the photograph (specifically towards your main subject’s eyes). For example, the highly textured wall in the top of the frame is more pronounced than the stove in the bottom of the frame. In the past we’ve discussed ways of using colors, simplicity, line and object placement to help you draw your audience’s eyes towards specific areas of your composition. However, shadow is another great tool that also helps you guide your audience through your composition.
I really like this composition a lot. I love the lighting, the texture on the back wall, the simplified color palette, the dramatic red highlights, the emotion and the story.
The only thing I would have liked to see is a better sense of focus. If you enlarge the image to its largest size you’ll see that the woman’s face is not in sharp focus. It seems as through your camera is in sharp focus on the tools behind her head. In photographs like this the sharpest point of focus should be on the subject’s eyes. Eyes are the most important part of any portrait. It helps if your camera has “focus assist” or “expand focus” feature to help you double check your focus before you take the shot.
Your second photograph is also great. With this image it was important to us that you didn’t blow out your whites in such an intense lighting environment. You’ve done a great job of maintaining a strong exposure. Great job. I’m also very impressed with your ability to ensure a strong frame in such a large environment. The 4 walls of your image are clean of any distracting amputations. You’ve also done a great job with balancing this photograph with foreground objects, background objects, and the hill slightly “weighting” the balance to the right.
Great work on this assignment!
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.