Visual Experiments

Final Project

2009-12-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

Here's our final project for Advanced Techniques. We worked in a group of four and followed dancers from the Missouri Contemporary Ballet. Here it is:

EPJ Final Update

2009-11-30T06:13:00.000-08:00

I wasn't aware of needing to do these updates. So, I'll catch you up. Audio is gathered; Photos are gathered. I'm toning and cutting now. Later this week, I'm arranging a sit-down for the video piece, which I'm excited about. I'll be cutting all of that and sticking it into my project.

Latin Dance

2009-11-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

So this time, we did an assignment with multiple flashes in a group assignment. This was a really fun take. You can probably figure out that we were emulating the club lighting with a colored gel as rim light. We were in a group of three, so two of us held up the flashes while the third shot. I got my husband to hold up another fill flash. Here's the picture:

Joel Hernandez leads Maritza Huerta through a turn during the Latin Dance Night at the Underground, a coffee shop in Columbia, Mo., on Wednesday November 12, 2009. "It's very nice to dance here. It [the space] is not too big but it's perfect for us who want to dance," Hernandez said.

And the lighting diagram:

Fill and Balancing

2009-11-10T17:20:00.000-08:00

This week for Advanced Techniques we learned fill and balancing. Our eyes can perceive details in a scene for a wider range of light than a camera sensor. So, we had to shoot in day light and use our flash to fill in the shadows in either situation so that the camera sensor can see the details in both the light and dark areas. It was tough to get the light to look believable using a flash on a cord. Here's my select:

Blair Bopp (left) and Ataley Boulicault (right) refine their t-shirt design for the MU Horticulture Club at Acme Hot & Fresh T-shirts on Ninth St. in Columbia, Mo. on Nov. 09, 2009. While neither MU student majors in horticulture, they participate in the club to support one of their friends who is an officer.

And here's the lighting diagram. As you can see, this was done at +3 bouncing off of the ceiling. The poor flash had such a hard time since I was kneeling and the ceiling was relatively high.

Psst.. wanna see a cool multimedia project?

2009-11-07T16:07:00.000-08:00

Here's one that's really well executed, though I might argue that it's a bit long before you hear voices. It's Fireline Afghanistan by Balazs Gardi. The gun shots and intense spans of silence/plane drones really puts the user into the field. The images match the tone of the subject matter and environment, harsh, high contrast and grainy. For those interested, I think they used final cut for this. It's also found here: http://www.viiphoto.com/video.php.

Super awesome museum flash!

2009-11-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

Ok. So this doesn't really count toward any class (I don't think...?), but seriously. I'm not really an OMG type of person, but this flash makes me want to permit the use of the phrase (word?). You know all those books about pirating, dragonology, etc. that they're making now that have the cool little flaps and documents? This is the flash version of those. I think it was made by the Philadelphia enquirer as an alternative reporting method. No really, check it out.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/special/30621649.html

Mandala Sand Painting

2009-11-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

So this week, we were sent out to do color correction. So we went out into an artificial lighting situation and tried to match our strobes to the color of the lighting. I chose to correct the color temperature in camera by changing the white balance to the correct preset. In the case of my final select, that would be tungsten. From there, we could tweak the color in Photoshop. Also, we had to make a print, which wasn't half as bad as last semester now that the monitor and the printer are calibrated.I knew immediately that for one of the shoots I wanted to photograph the mandala sand painting going on here at MU. It's such an interesting and highly symb

olic tradition. I'll let the caption tell the rest. Here's the photo:

Tibetian monk Yeshe of the Drepung Loseling Monestary forms lotus petals on a mandala in the middle of Ellis Library located on the University of Missouri campus on Oct. 28, 2009. Tibetan Buddhist monks have practiced this tradition for centuries. Working in a team to draw the mandala with colored sand, the monk uses a specialized funnel, or chak-pur, with notches that, when rubbed with a stick, cause vibrations that cause the sand to flow smoothly out of the funnel. All mandalas have a spiritual significance; this particular one signifies the monastery’s mission of compassion. During the closing ceremony, the mandala is destroyed to represent the impermanence of the material world.

And the horribly illustrated lighting diagram:

This was a cool subject to shoot, but it was hard to get a clean background in the library. Also, I think I spent an extra hour there waiting for the monks to take a break so I could get their names and some caption info. I'm pretty happy over all, though I could have used a slightly higher shutter speed for this shoot.

Great photos, but the Flash needs work

2009-11-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

I looked at Kadir van Lohuizen's “Katrina Diaspora” project at Noor, a small photo agency out of the Netherlands. This is an important topic and, so, is appropriate subject matter. Even though Katrina is thought of as over by many of us who were untouched by the hurricane, many still have to live with the consequences. The photos, black and whites, are clear and show a variety of content and angles. That said, it seems like almost everything else could use work.

First, I think that this project could have greatly benefited from audio. Hearing the voices of the subjects would help the viewer to sympathize with their plight. Also, hearing the sounds of the apartment complex and the places the characters go would add another dimension of reality to the situation.

Noor seems to have a flash template which all projects follow. This isn’t a bad thing so long as the template is well designed. Unfortunately, theirs leaves much to be desired. The photograph is displayed largely, but the caption, which appear upon rolling over the photo, manifests as a large black box that blocks most of the photo. It seems that narrow horizontal caption boxes would be far less distracting and would detract less from the photography. The play/stop button floats awkwardly on the right, unaligned with anything. If the photos are treated as a slideshow, each photo takes a second loading. While the photo roll at the top is an interesting feature for navigation, it is distracting when it moves as the photo changes.

It's nice that the user has a choice between scrolling though the photos using the arrow keys or clicking through the photo roll, the photo roll has a few issues with navigation. It’s difficult to tell which photo is currently on the screen. It appears that the designer tried darkening the unselected photos, but it would be better if the current photo were greater highlighted, perhaps by using a white outline or further lightening the picture. Also, if the user clicks on a photo to select, the roll pushes that photo past the back arrow and the next photo is only half visible on the far left. This is a major problem as it impedes the user’s navigation. Finally, the “View All” page could stand improvement. All of the photographs are lined up in four rows, but none of them take the user to that photograph enlarged.

Greater attention needs to be paid to the user’s experience in the project.While the photos are well executed, the over all project could be implemented better.

The ghost of the silo is bored...

2009-10-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

This painting with light assignment was a group project. We we sent out armed with flashes and flashlights to show something with light that would not be seen during the day by normal light. Our group headed out to Hinkson Creek to photograph dead gnarled trees and an abandoned silo. After experimenting with a few ideas, we ended up with this.

Caption:

Look really close. There are two of our ghost. She's hiding in the back, and blending in with the grasses. I'm pretty happy with this photo. We all had a role to play, and I think everyone did a good job. The silo and the grass look really firey, which is what we were going for. Look below for a diagram. I notice they get more sketchy as time passes.

Single Flash

2009-10-22T13:23:00.001-07:00

So we tried out some single flash this time.Basically, we had to overpower the existing light. As a result, it was tough to get a good photo using direct flash. All in all, it seemed to go very well. Here they are first the diagram, then the photo, and the caption:

Bounce Flash: Lauren Young, president of the MU Ballroom Dance Club, pauses to think through the footwork while helping Cameron Olsen with a Cha-cha routine during the club's weekly beginners' class on Sunday, Oct.18, 2009 in MU's Mark Twain Ballroom. As president and member of the club for four semesters, she helps teach the beginning students, but teaching the lead can be confusing. "I have to think about the guy's part because it's the effectual opposite [of the women's]," she said.

Direct Flash: Beginner dancer Madeline Komes checks her partner Andrew Bunge's footwork while they practice American style Cha-cha at the MU Ballroom Dance club's beginners' class on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009, in MU's Mark Twain Ballroom. Both started learning ballroom dance this semester. For Komes, ballroom is an extension of years of competitive dance experience while, for Bunge, it's an experiment in "being a renaissance man." He practices Pretto's principle that one can do 20% of the work to get 80% of the results. "I'll do this for about a year. Then, I'll move to something else, like martial arts," he said.

This assignment is a demonstration that practice makes…better, at least. Originally, my idea was to go to the renaissance fair on the Fairgrounds, but I realized that there was probably too much light for me to overpower and that the content would probably look unnatural with direct flash, but while I was at the fairgrounds, I saw that they were having roller derby later that night. As a former women’s rugby player, I have an affinity for rough female dominated sports. So I decided to try it. When I got there, I realized my first problem: the ceiling was too high. I thought I could use bounce flash off of the walls and some white mattresses that had been taped up against them (see the first few shots), but the strobe wasn’t strong enough for how far away from the wall they skated. So, for the first shoot, the photos were primarily direct flash with a few bounce flash attempts off of my white sweater (also failing).

One of the biggest difficulties I had with this first shoot was that the strobe just wouldn’t fire sometimes. I’ve figured out now that it was that the strobe needed to recharge, but as you can see, I kept trying. Also, I had the camera programmed to shoot series of photos so it fired without the flash sometimes if I held the shutter down. Otherwise, it was just a practice in avoiding distracting shadows.

My second attempt went much better. I knew that Mark Twain Ballroom has reasonably low, white ceilings. The lighting isn’t the greatest, but that was an advantage since this was all about overpowering the existing light. I did mostly bounce flash since I had done primarily direct flash before. I have to say that I like it much more. In general, I brought the TTL down by 1½ since my flash tends to shoot hot. I shot almost all of the bounce flash having my three center fingers for bounce onto the face. I think it turned out well, and I did better with the direct flash this time too. I angled it further down, adjusted the head of the flash, and powered the flash down further. I focused mainly on one girl, Madeline Komes, who interested me, and her two dance partners. This also had to do with access since she was on the end of the line, so I would have the most flexibility with lighting her. I also shot the teacher, the president and a few interesting happenings. I’m rather pleased with the results.

Humility doesn't mean you have to be small...

2009-10-18T13:02:00.000-07:00

I reviewed a multimedia flash project run on the Chattanooga Times Free Press called "Humility in hard times". It tells stories of people whose lives have been affected by the recession as well as of those who lived through both the Great Depression and the recession. This concept is very compelling, and the content could work great for a project. Comparing the history to the present in this way can help us to gain some perspective and guidance in dealing with these issues.

This topic was well-suited to a flash project as the project has two chapters (one each for the recession and the Depression). And has four stories in each chapter. Additionally, the “about” link has an interview with two of the four creators

When navigating to the page, the first problem with this project is immediately clear. The entire project was made too small. The text is barely legible. It’s unfortunate because there is clearly much more room on the Web page, and I’m sure the text is very compelling. Furthermore, the text is white on black serif. Being this small, it becomes hardly legible. The banner is done successfully in a sans serif that should have been used throughout the whole project.

The project works design-wise. The visuals are given the most real estate while there is a space for explanation underneath. The thumbnails for the other four stories line up vertically on the left and the navigation for other parts of the project are located at the bottom left. Quotations from each section run across the top in a banner like area. The only problem is that there is too much real estate given to this area.

Additionally, there are too few visuals to warrant creating a flash slideshow. In many there are only two or three portraits. They don’t tell us much more about the story or the person. It think it would have been better to have either only one photo or at least enough so that they could change every three to five seconds.

Overall, very interesting concept but could have been executed better.

Bathtime, studio style

2009-10-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

So, we had an assignment to shoot metal and glass in the studio. I picked glass. Pretty early on, I had thought about doing a bath theme but it was more based on the visuals in the Dove, Go Fresh commercials; however, as I played around with the idea, I decided that I would prefer to focus on relaxation rather than wakening. I still wanted bold colors, but I kept them cool. This particular interpretation went through a few variations before I ended with this one involving the sponge, the flower in the bottle, and the soap scattered. I liked this for its touch of whimsy. It's a somewhat classic still life, but I think the soap makes it look more like a sketch. So, here's the picture:
Lavender scented bath beads lie piled next to a hand-blown glass bottle holding a Stargazer Lilly on October 7, 2009. All of these items demonstrate that relaxation can go toward a good cause. The sponge, a natural sea sponge, was bought at Makes Scents while the lilly was bought from Allen's Flowers, both local mom-and-pop stores in Columbia, Mo. The bath beads and the glass bottle are both fair trade items found at World Market.

Lighting this was interesting. The concept of the light table is simple. light the entire thing more or less evenly. However, getting the ratio right for the bottom was kind of difficult because I kept getting halation with despite changing ratios. Moreover, lighting the flower, the candle and the sponge without getting any specular highlights on the photo was a challenge. We ended up using all four lights, a piece of black paper, and a lot of extra stuff like snoots and barn doors. Here's the diagram for the final picture:

Using flash and java to optimize the photographs

2009-10-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

While I was looking for photographer’s websites, I came across New York photographer Eric Ryan Anderson’s awesome portfolio, found at ericryananderson.com.

First of all, he gets points for putting his contact information in the page’s title with his name. Also, he keeps the design simple with a black and white all-caps sans-serif theme. The tabs are easily accessible at the top left of the page and follow a logical order by presenting the portfolios closer to the inside of the page and the moving toward the “about” and “contact” tabs. The portfolio tab has a drop-down drawer—a design element that I’m usually prefer because it keeps the page clean (though I’m not a huge fan of the black outline around this drawer). In this drawer, he has several different categories to choose from, which helps to organize the viewing experience. The photographs in these sections take up the majority of the screen, which is ideal.

The “about” pages are simple and to the point. The “contact” page gives the user several options for getting a hold of Anderson, having a form along with his phone number and email. I also like that he added a journal, (basically, a blog), but it would have been better if he had kept the navigation and the look more cohesive with the rest of the website.

One thing I absolutely love about this portfolio website is the number of options that he gives the user. Through creative implementation of flash and java script, he has enabled the user to click forward and back through the photographs or view them as a timed slideshow. The arrows appear when the user hovers over the photograph. In addition, he has a drawer to the right of the photograph that displays a vertical row of thumbnails when the user hovers over a dot. The user can scroll up and down by mousing in the preferred direction. Also, he has another box for caption information that pops up when the user hovers the words “Image info.”

The best thing about this interface besides easy navigation is that the photo is never permanently blocked. My only critique is that it may be beneficial to be able to click once and have the drawer stay open and again to close it. This would be better for the user, but it could distract from the photograph. All in all, I love this interface and would like to implement some of the concepts in my design (once I know how to do it).

Ladies and Gentlemen, the great Tim Rice

2009-09-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

Caption: Timothy Rice, a Photojournalism student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, poses for a portrait on September 22, 2009. Rice's exhuberant and eccentric personality is an extension of his approach to life. "I have a very active unfiltered persona and that is really me, but that's just me spreading some light heartedness. Why so serious? Its just life. Try to be happy. Try to ensure the happiness of others."

So here's my select for the classmate portrait assignment (anyone else upset with the way blogger interprets color profiles?). This project was very fun and extremely elucidating. I learned so much from doing this shoot and playing with the lighting. I'm fairly happy with the results, but now, looking back, I wish I had used a hair light. Ok, ready for the technical stuff?

I made the background light the strongest because I wanted a really intense pinkish red. I had originally planned to do an orange to red gradient, but I was difficult to implement. Honestly, I think that this was better considering his outfit (a Hello Kitty v-neck t-shirt, a black suit and a bow-tie) and personality. The light was a little more intense than I had hoped and it looks like it caused some over-saturation around his outline. I then made sure to have my key light the next brightest and the fill light the lowest wattage. All in all, I like it, but I wish I would have added a hair light.

Distracting colors, but great navigation

2009-09-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

The news website that I’ve reviewed is The Guardian web site. The first thing I noticed when I opened the home page is the amount of color they used. Like many newspaper sites they’ve kept a white background; they chose a cadet blue for their headers and black for their body text, which keep it simple. However, each of the section links on the top navigation bar has a different color, which was distracting, especially since some of the words don’t necessarily sync with their color associations. Even more distracting were the color bars across the top of photo links. While the gray bars on the secondary photos were acceptable, the bright red on the main one was jarring. The home page is full of images, but none are extremely large; however, I think that this is acceptable on a splash page. The treatment of photos within an article is fairly standard for a newspaper; the photograph is featured at the top of the page and is approximately 450 pixels wide.

The guardian website is rather successful as far as navigation. The user can pick a larger section and subsections of those. All navigation is available at the top of each page. The most helpful element of their navigation is that they display links that show each step the user has made so they never have to use the back button to get to the previous page.

One aspect that disappointed me was their “interactive guides” section under Multimedia. I specifically thinking of the “How I paint” guides, which is made up of slideshows that have a start and stop button and little written explanation. I would have preferred to have audio or roll-over elements. Otherwise, the name is slightly misleading in that it doesn’t show the process.

Ultimately, the guardian website is a very successful news website. Their treatment of navigation is very intuitive for the user, and may be useful to incorporate into my website.

Up close and personal

2009-09-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

I find I'm more attracted to studio photography that involves movement and light and form (like photographs of dancers, etc.), but, as far as one's that get more personal, I found a couple that I like:

Like this portrait called "Tanja" by Jens Fehlisch. While the freckles are, perhaps, a little over-treated, the color temperature and lighting of the photograph is very appropriate to its tone. I like that the photographer filled up the entire frame with the subject and that neither the photographer nor the model have an issue with showing so much skin texture. Also, the sharp fall-off on the left side of the subject's face adds depth and mystery. The subject calmly, innocently, and openly confronts the camera with a bit of a "Mona Lisa" smile. If it weren't for the graphical elements and the pose, I'm not sure that I would like the lighting. On the forehead and the cheeks, it's a bit flat. The pose saves it by adding contour.

Unfortunately, this portrait by Ron Brewer can't be copied to the blog as per the assignment, but it's really a beautiful job of lighting. The strongest light is the rim light from the left, followed closely by a light above the head to the right. He was able to fill the shadows enough so that they are a soft gray (though I also suspect some retouching), which really compliments the woman "Zoe"'s femininity and expression of abandon.

Copy testing

2009-09-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

The point of copy testing is to render an existing photograph or document as close to how it looks, i.e. no glare, even lighting, sharp focus. So, you have the subject flat in the center and one soft box on either side. They have to be about an even distance from the subject and in line with it enough to not create a reflection of the light.

Copy test of Timothy Kha's "The Roomate"

It's looking a bit blue despite a profile conversion, but here's my "Stump the Chump" copy test. The point was to find a photo that had complicated artificial lighting. This one has at least two...there's one in the sink, which is a bit weird.

Copy test of Jodi Cobb's "Geishas"

The idea was to find a picture where the lighting compliments the emotions in the photo. This soft white light and all the light colors play up the peaceful and relaxed feeling of the image. Also, if I'm not mistaken, it emphasizes the nonsexual nature of the relationship within the subculture (something a perhaps warmer color would suggest).

Unfortunately, while I was adjusting it, the top right corner got some stickiness from the tape around the glass cover. I tried to remove it, but I couldn't get it all. Since it was my only copy, I had to shoot it with the stickiness. That's kind of problematic in a professional setting or if this was a historical document. I've definitely learned to be more careful with the subject.

Playing with light

2009-09-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

Ok. So first post, first experiment. Here's the photo first and, then, the diagram of how the lighting went. I wanted to show the way the light was coming through the leaves. My first attempt was too dark because I had metered for the sky, so I opened up on both aperture and shutter speed to let in more light and allow a greater depth of field. I wanted to have just a little bit of definition in the leaves, but I wanted to keep the tree in a silhouette. I think it worked out...