Thanks Jeremy T

Thanks for the heads-up, I got confused by the blog name change, in case anyone else is wondering, the Fashion Workshop is a 2nd year class only.

Friday Fashion Shoot

Reminders:

Be at the Studio at 10am, bring cameras (lenses etc), warm clothes and lots of enthusiasm.

Job reminders:

Contact Co-ordinator: Christina
Food and Drink: Nathan, Tegan, Sarah
Care of Models: Emily and Jenna
Image Co-ordinator: Matthew
Image Editors - CD/DVD Prep: Jeremy, Julian L, Elmo
Video: Amy

We will be moving lots of gear so if you have a large vehicle bring it. If you have an even larger vehicle we need a change room!!!

See you tomorrow.

Introduction to and briefing by....Jorge Deustua

Jorge will be running Negotiated Study workshop on Thursday evenings, but before that you need to meet him and learn a little about him. Be at G103 on Wednesday THIS WEEK at 12 NOON. Even if you don't want to do the workshops it will be very informative, Jorge is an internationally respected photographer so be there or be square.

What we did at school today....

Just to recap the heady experience in the studio.

Jeremy was lit in the great Rembrandt tradition, one flood and, well, NO fill. The group was asked to guess the lighting ratio, 2:1, 4:1, 6:1, 8:1 they said, we measured the light falling on Jeremy's face (an incident light reading) and Mr Sekonic told us it was f32, an incident reading of the light (such as it was) falling on the shaded side was f1.4, a total of 9 stops difference, that's a 512:1 lighting ratio. (remember 1 stop difference = 2:1, 2 stop difference = 4:1, 3 stop difference is 8:1 and so on) Good portraiture is in the range of 2:1 to 8:1 depending upon needs.

Then we wanted to know what exposure to use in this situation. I've always recommended taking different types of light readings. If each of the reading types agree then all is right with the world, if none agree you might be in trouble, if most agree and one is different but you know why it's different you're doing just fine.

We took an incident reading from Jeremy's nose back to the camera position (recommended procedure) and it indicated f22, then reflected spot reading of a grey card in front of Jeremy's nose (also recommended) that said between f22/f32. They are both pretty close but we then took a reflected spot reading of Jeremy's lit cheek and that indicated between f32/f45. So what to do. The incident here would have been a fine call as far as exposure but the other readings were used to confirm the result. The grey card was slightly different because it can change depending upon the angle of the grey card to the light - realistically it was virtually the same reading as the incident. The reflected spot reading of Jeremy's cheek indicated there was 1 stop more light reflected from this compared to the grey card, that's correct since a grey card is ZONE V, skin is ZONE VI and does reflect 1 stop more light. Had we used this reading to expose the shot it would have been 1 stop under, skin rendered as mid-grey, to correct this you would increase the exposure by one stop, ie. between f22/f32, sound familiar?

Incident: f22

Grey card: f22/f32

Skin: f32/f45 (increase of 1 stop = f22/f32

Exposure used was f22

If in doubt slightly more for negative film is OK.

Transparency and digital, use the incident.

:)

What to expect this semester

Just 3 sleeps to go, are you as excited as we are? Below are some short descriptions of what you'll be doing in PT2, PP2, DI (ADV), Presentation Methods and VC History.

Photographic Technology 2 - Arata Kikkawa

Arata will be taking the entire 1st year group for a 'theory' class. There will be an emphasis on breaking down the DSLR camera (not literally however), your assignment in 1st semester was effectively your research for this topic. You'll also look at how the various types of electronic flash gear/kits work, close-up theory and some close collaboration with Geoff's class.

Photographic Practice 2 - Location Work - Belinda Pratten

Belinda will take the entire group for this topic. She will be showing you how to use flash on location and getting you to explore social documentary work through a range of field trips. You'll also be doing a real job for Communities @ Work where shots will be purchased for publication and inclusion on their website.

Photographic Practice 2 - Studio Work - Julian Stevenson

I will be running two small studio groups, you'll learn how to use studio flash in the production of portraits and small product work typically for advertising purposes.

Digital Imaging (Advanced) - Geoff Woolfenden

Geoff will be expanding your use of Photoshop and introducing you to Lightroom, workflow, archiving and printing requirements. There will be lots to learn in this subject since this has replaced 'olde worlde' photography.

Presentation Methods - Reflective Folio - Silvia Velez

This will be an opportunity to produce work that is not commercial in nature but is a response to ideas, experiences, other art-forms and by nature is more 'conceptually driven'.

Visual Culture (History) - Silvia Velez

Silvia will be taking you on a journey through the history of photography with more emphasis on the image than the 'gear'. Lots of discussions and gallery visits.

Folio Feedback

Individual folio assessment sheets are in the post.

As you know this was the last time that the traditional ‘wet-process’ black and white photography will be offered as part of the core studies in the photography program. In the new program, the Bachelor of Photography, traditional B&W photography will be offered only as an elective.

In the ‘good-old-days’ B&W photography, processing and printing were not only routine practices in their own right but they provided a perfect grounding for the development of skills in other areas of photography. An understanding of B&W photographic practices and the reproduction of tones was equally relevant to the use of colour negative/transparency film and printing. Indeed it has also been invaluable in terms of its relationship to digital imaging practices, many functions in capture and processing software for example have their roots in film based imaging and many default settings in equipment and software are based on film and paper characteristics.

So why all the waffle? Normally your B&W photographic skills would develop further over the course of the year and indeed the program. This last semester presented all of us with a particularly difficult challenge, to get your skills up to a level where by week 9 you would have photographs that could be shown in a public exhibition, the Legislative Assembly Exhibition and Competition. This was a terrific opportunity and you all rose to the challenge and produced some very good work. Normally, however, we would not be exhibiting or assessing final work until much later in the semester when your skills had developed further. I think you would all probably agree that your studio work demonstrated a higher level of skill than the early location work. There were and always are exceptions to the rule of course. Given the limited time to fine-tune your practices for this folio we have decided that to be fair to everyone we will award a Pass grade to all students. In-class reviews and discussions of this work took place prior to the exhibition and took into account the limited time for skills development. A grading now would only point out the limited skills and practices you had at that time.

The studio presented some different challenges for you (assuming of course that by that time you could expose, process and print).

Even with ISO 400 film you quickly found that a tripod and still subjects were necessary in order to prevent camera shake and subject movement. Typically with one tungsten flood at around 2m from the subject, correct exposure was around 1/60^th sec at f2.8. Without the use of a hand-help light meter many of you used your in-camera meter (film/digital) to establish a round-about exposure. Of course we all know the problem with the in-camera exposure meter, don’t we? They attempt to produce a mid-tone rendering of the subject. That isn’t a problem when the subject is mid-tone but is a particular problem when the subject is mainly white or mainly black, how many of you shot those subjects? White backgrounds will result in underexposure while black ones result in overexposure. Experience counts for a lot in photography and without a light meter you might be able to recall previous shoots where a particular lighting scheme and exposure combination led to a good result but this technique can easily lead to disaster. You should think about purchasing a light meter some time soon, we will cover this in the studio in semester 2.

The use of an incident light meter in the studio is commonplace but there are issues. An incident light meter produces consistent results because the reading is not dependent on subject matter, it measures the amount of light ‘falling’ on the subject and is calibrated to render a mid-tone as a mid-tone. There is one major problem with this, in high contrast lighting situations such as that produced by a tungsten flood or spot the subject luminance range is too wide for detail to be recorded in both shadow and highlight areas. The answer is to slightly overexpose the film (either directly or by underrating the film slightly) to increase shadow detail and to reduce development to prevent the highlight from becoming too dense and therefore un-printable. Ever heard of the rule ‘overexpose and underdevelop’? Many of you tried this and the results were evident.

If there is as rule of thumb in the studio it is to ‘use as few lights as possible’. Start with one main light to illuminate the subject and create the basis of the scheme/style. Only use extra lights if you wish to illuminate a background separately or to improve separation by creating a rim-light effect on the body or hair. The more lights you have the more problems you have and the less convincing the style is. The lighting should not be at the expense of the subject. It is also common practice to use fill from a reflector. It is easy to convince yourself that the detail you see in an unfilled shadow will be seen in the print. Ideally the ratio of light to fill ratio in general portraiture should be 4:1 or less. This ensures that detail is seen in the shadow areas of the print. For a 4:1 ratio there are two quick ways you can achieve it.

1. Take an incident reading on each side of the face (one lighted, the other in shadow)
A two stop difference will result in a 4:1 ratio, eg if lighted side indicates f8 and the shaded
side indicates f4 you have a two stop difference (4:1 ratio).

2. Using one flood to illuminate the subject (any distance) and a white foam reflector at
around half a metre from the shaded side will result in around 4:1 ratio.

Piece of cake.

We chose to set some parameters for the studio portraits to ensure that you would address some typical portrait issues, ie. head-shoulder, head-to waist, full-length standing and self portrait. These shots increase in difficulty in the same order because each requires you to progressively deal with more body parts and contextual issues. Along the way however the standing portrait somehow became a curled-up foetal pose for some, an honest mistake of course.

For the most part we were very happy with the responses to this folio brief, most of you took to the studio like ‘ducks to water’ and produced some imaginative and high quality work and it appears for had fun doing it. On the down side the studio was generally left in a dreadful state after each shoot (not entirely your fault) and that is something we will be fully addressing next semester. We also have some ideas for improving the studio space. Stay tuned.

The individual assessment sheets that have been posted have personalised comments and grades.

We should also comment on the topic of written assignments. Many of you had to resubmit assignments not because you cannot do them but because you failed to address the assignment briefs. At this level of study you must address the brief and complete the entire assignment as indicated. It is also your responsibility to ensure you understand the brief and when a draft is requested you should take up that opportunity. Structure, spelling, grammar and correct referencing procedures are also important issues that must be addressed. (Doesn't apply to quickly written blog entries) Assignments must also be your work!

Lastly, thanks for a really productive semester and particularly in the light of the curriculum development disruptions which incidentally continued over the course of the last three weeks. We would have liked to had all results and feedback to you a week ago but we were ‘flat chat’.

On the up-side, the panel that oversees course development met with us on Monday the 29^th and short of a comet hitting Canberra we will have a new program for 2010. We’ll be trialling some aspects of the new program during second semester to assist with your transition to the new Degree. There may also be some further changes to your timetable for second semester but we’ll try to let you know as soon as possible.

Have a great break and we look forward to seeing you in week 1 (starts July 27^th).

Regards,

Julian, Geoff, Silvia and Belinda