Every so often as a photographer you need to get out of the rut, try something new and get out of your comfort zone. Personal projects are ideal for this, it gives you the opportunity to learn new techniques without feeling the pressure of coming up with images that the client demands. Recently, I've become excited about light and more specifically the creation of light. I'm a huge fan of Gregory Heisler, he is a master of light, a well respected photographer and a really nice fella too as I was fortunate enough to meet him last year. So in order for me to learn more about light and to use it appropriately I decided a personal project would be ideal, but what?
I came up with the idea of photographing local artists and their art, I thought it would be a good way to highlight them and for me to get a real broad lesson in light as absolutely anything and everything comes under the umbrella of "art".
I was lucky enough to get Michelle Campbell as my first subject, Michelle is an amazing artist and you can see more of her stunning art on her Facebook page. We did the shoot in her studio in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire which also has a fabulous gift shop where she stocks not just her work but some amazing work from other local artists a great place for some last minute Christmas shopping.
To light the image I was shooting I used three speedlites, one for her artwork, one for the ambient as there was different colour temperature's of light and one for Michelle, the first image was to see how much light there would be at my desired camera settings, as you can see there's not a lot in there.
I came up with the idea of photographing local artists and their art, I thought it would be a good way to highlight them and for me to get a real broad lesson in light as absolutely anything and everything comes under the umbrella of "art".
I was lucky enough to get Michelle Campbell as my first subject, Michelle is an amazing artist and you can see more of her stunning art on her Facebook page. We did the shoot in her studio in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire which also has a fabulous gift shop where she stocks not just her work but some amazing work from other local artists a great place for some last minute Christmas shopping.
To light the image I was shooting I used three speedlites, one for her artwork, one for the ambient as there was different colour temperature's of light and one for Michelle, the first image was to see how much light there would be at my desired camera settings, as you can see there's not a lot in there.
The first light I set up was to light her fabulous artwork. I wanted to just light the artwork and nothing else, so a snooted speedlite was placed camera right aimed directly at the art.
Once I was happy with this light, I then set up another speedlite to give some ambient light for the studio, I placed it by the window as that is where the natural light would come from, the speedlite head is pointing upwards to the white ceiling so that it bounces and creates a soft wash of light to fill the room.
Finally I set up the main light that would light Michelle. At first I placed a speedlite on a stand, camera right, to fire through a shoot through white umbrella as this gives a nice soft even light, however it spread too much light around so changed the umbrella for a softbox, this gives the same beautiful soft light, but it is much more controllable and keeps the light where I want it.
Once we are happy with that it's time to shoot and with that I turn on all three speedlites and start taking some great pictures of Michelle.
It's great to feel challenged on a real shoot without having the pressure to get "the shot" and would advise all photographers to set yourself little challenges and goals with personal projects. This will be an on going project with lots more artists and their art for me to shoot, who knows where it will lead to and each one will be different in it's challenges, and for sure I will make mistakes along the way, but making mistakes is a great way to learn.
Thank you to the wonderful and extremely talented Michelle Campbell for sparing a couple of hours of your time and of course for the chocolate biscuits, even though I forgot to sneak them in my bag as I packed up... already looking forward to the next Artists & Their Art shoot planned for next week and if you're an artist and want to get involved please get in touch.
Here's the final image.
It's great to feel challenged on a real shoot without having the pressure to get "the shot" and would advise all photographers to set yourself little challenges and goals with personal projects. This will be an on going project with lots more artists and their art for me to shoot, who knows where it will lead to and each one will be different in it's challenges, and for sure I will make mistakes along the way, but making mistakes is a great way to learn.
Thank you to the wonderful and extremely talented Michelle Campbell for sparing a couple of hours of your time and of course for the chocolate biscuits, even though I forgot to sneak them in my bag as I packed up... already looking forward to the next Artists & Their Art shoot planned for next week and if you're an artist and want to get involved please get in touch.
Here's the final image.