At the end of May, I will be completing my photography degree and will move back to London. Here are some small brief I learned these three years. I also want to address the current progress about the course affected by the lockdown.
First year, creating a photographic user manual for beginners to revise our basic photographic knowledge. As with classmates, we can understand everyone’s level, and help each other. Learned lighting setups in the studio. Learn to engage your subjects to ensure they are comfortable, move out of your conference zone. In academic studies, arguing the ethics of photography. Researching other photographer’s topology and photo technique.
Second year, film photography, darkroom process and printing. Working and collaborating with the industry, to get a sneak peek experience of workflow and people in your job. I shot a few shows at different drama schools and worked as a wedding photo assistant. Creating a portfolio website with the targeted audience in mind to show your existence in the photo world. So, I created this website. For academic study, research photographic output in the twenty-first century.
Final year is to showcase what you have. Establish your own concept and idea, using your own photograph’s topology and technique in your final project. Building a network in your photography career. The academic study, I was researching about nude painting and photography. It is fascinating and frustrating how the internet has shaped our opinion on this topic. I should create a blog for this next.
Right now, I can not finish my final project as we are in the lockdown of coronavirus. The project required photographing people doing the tasks at their workplace. It is to cover the behind the scenes of a big group of performing arts people that consisted of the performers, hair and makeup, costume, props, sets, stage lighting and sound departments. A total of 8 weeks of time frame planned to document every department on the way from the beginning to the showing week. Unfortunately, I just got the first week shots before the lockdown.
I have been building up this idea via many post-projects, since the first semester. It is very hard to let go and switch to a new one, meaning that I have to reconfigure and restudy a new idea. Well, I shall move on. What should I do?
Solution 1, still life…
Solution 2, product…
Solution 3, …
Solution 2, product…
Solution 3, …
Update! I am giving myself a challenge to pick up my camera again, after staying in the house for 6 weeks. I decided to do product photography, utilising the house wall as the background. There are walls painted with colours in the house. Yellow in the living room, blue in the piano room, and purple in my bedroom.
Tools, I got 4 flashguns and a few tripods with me at home to start up. To soften the flash, I cover the flash guns from some kitchen rolls. For the product, the candidate requirement must be brand new unopened. It is easy to work on a product with no scratch marks, dust and fingerprints on the surface.
Test shots, to see the lighting effect in the background, need constant adjusting the backlight.
In the conventional product shoot, you can adjust the backdrop to align your composition, either in horizontal and shoot from overhead. But in my case you can only shoot horizontally facing the fix wall. The product will require some fishing line to hang in the air. I like the fact that shooting horizontally allows you to adjust the space between the backdrop and the object. It works exactly on portraiture with bounced back light. This feature allows you to step-down the aperture to get more depth of field on the product and still have the background blur.
I went through some still life photos online to look at the artistic element. Many photographers used colour paper and solid coloured shape to create the stands and background to accommodate their product. They also used geometry shapes and leading lines from the shadows created by these objects. The minimalistic manner seems to be the element preferred by the mainstream people. I should order something online for the next phase of the shoot. Stay tuned.
