This is a place to comment my Week 9 self-portrait. This time no additional photos. No trivia or anecdotes. I will write about it later.

Now I want your opinions. What do you think? What do you feel? Leave your thoughts in a comment…

Let’s begin with a video that my friend Natalia has showed me today:

This short clip is women’s answer to the viral Dodge Campaign shown below. Do you find it funny? Interesting? I think both of them are greatly executed. However, women’s version wouldn’t be accepted into TV (swearing). I have read a few thought-provoking comments on it, and my feelings are kinda mixed. I understand that man’s version was meant to provoke, that’s basically why it went viral. Women’s version can be taken as a joke, strike-back or a feminists’ answer. I think of it as a funny strike-back, although I’ve seen many negative voices. I guess it all depends on attitude.

I’m not a particular fan of male artistic nudes, however, I have recently seen more and more greatly executed artworks featuring men. Art is art, the subject doesn’t matter, so here you go:

I hope it will get you inspired:)

For the end I’d like to show you a bit more political advert. It is NATO’s campaign that brings up an interesting problem: wars are men’s job. What if women had equal rights, would there still be wars? The question is actually very serious as nowadays wars occur in places, where women have little to no rights. Watch, think and decided yourself:

This is my Week 8 comment thread, feel free to share your opinions and ideas.

I have a few additional shot’s for you today. The set-up is at the bottom.

Trivia:

• I was actually in a bathtub for this shot. It would impossible to get side-lighting in my shower…
• The process was a bit troublesome. Took a few test shots, I felt it should look good so I got myself under the shower head, took another couple shots just to find out that the light wasn’t quite as I imagined. Had to dry myself, change the set-up, air the room (the water was too hot at first and it got steamy) and get back in.
• When I got the idea for the shot I wasn’t thinking about Manjari Sharma at all. She got on my mind when I was under water already.
• When I looked through the shots for the first time, I thought: Where the hell are all those cool shots I saw in tethered!?! Fortunately, after drying my hair, I found a few that stood my sifting.
• I was shooting tethered, so I had a decent preview after each shot. There was a towel over the keyboard just in case.

The below pics are 100% crops from the final image. I have prepared a 4-step walk-through so you can check out my post processing approach:

The straight-from-camera shot, a bit too saturated and the hue is way off from my concept. However, the shot is well lighted and has plenty of information for strong post processing.

My first step was to to lower the saturation. I lowered it to 0 and then used opacity to taste. Then added color balance for some greens and blues in midtones and shadows.

The above pic is already in the mood I wanted to achieve, although it doesn’t have the harshness I wanted. I have used curves on luminance blending mode and another saturation layer for control.

Now this is harsh. I know some of you would say that it’s way too strong, however, remember this is a 100% crop. To get such effect I have used 3 highpass layers with different settings and masks.

And below is my bathroom – the set-up shot. Thanks for reading.

I have prepared a short video with my story about street photography. I hope it will encourage you to try it out yourself:

Remember, all it takes is to get away from your computer and go out shooting.

Thanks for watching.

This post is dedicated to my Week 7 self-portrait, feel free to comment and share your ideas.

As I mentioned in the Info, I had a completely different idea for today’s photo. Actually I have prepared it last week, but this one is way more interesting.

Trivia

• The ripple effect is obviously inspired by the Matrix.
• The idea popped into my head after the actual shooting. I was opting for “agent looking for evidence” look, but I took a few photos of me inspecting the mirror as well. Turned out to be a good choice.
• 83 photos taken, it was pain to get my face in focus, after few tries with auto focus I decided to focus manually.
• The lighting was achieved in camera. Besides the fx on my hand and mirror there was almost no post done.

Fringe

I’m a huge fan of sci-fi, horror and crime series, but only those that are really well made when it comes to lighting, the props and have strong characters. The plot is usually not so important although crappy plot equals a bipping warning sign.

As I can recommend Lie to Me to all crime stories fans, I can also fully recommend the Fringe. If you liked The X-Files, you should like Fringe too, even though it isn’t so dark. Below a trailer:

If you are interested try this sneak-peek. It is a bit dark thou;)

Hope to see you guys soon on the next In Search for Style article on Friday. Take care!

Today I would like to present you another movie: Mr Brooks. We will walk through a few frames and make some conclusions regarding finding inspiration in movies. Listen to this song while reading, it will assure the proper mood (music from the movie):

First of all I highly recommend watching Mr.Brooks. It is an incredible story about a serial killer, The Thumbprint Killer as called by the police. The plot is intelligent and characters… yea, characters make it exceptional. Even if you don’t watch crime stories so often, this one is definitely worth a try. OK, but let’s better get down to business:

Movies are not only portraits

Last week I have concentrated on portraiture in films. While we will come back to it, I would like to take a moment and look at those two scenes. Their main purpose is, in my opinion, mood building. Such scenes appear between the actual, character scenes. They focus on details, little things that create the atmosphere. Those scenes can take a movie to another level, add the proper blend of music and sound and we get perfect artistic frames.

We, photographers often pay especial attention to details. Joe McNally often suggests to get closer and observe those little things. Little doesn’t always mean small, rather things that seem obvious at first sight, but breathtaking when exposed properly.

(here is a nice, recent read from Joe)

Let’s get back to faces:

Lighting is pretty simple, no fireworks here, although it works well for the mood. It’s night, greenish street lights, usual blue to accentuate the time and slightly warmer, but still bit greenish light in the room. The basics that we so often see on the big screen. I’m showing you above frames to show the consistency in lighting. I find it very important while creating the atmosphere, so keep it in mind while working on your next photo-series.

Now, let’s take a look at something different:

The lighting is pretty simple. You can achieve the blue cast with proper white balance setting. Then just add the highlight on the face either with a reflector or a strobe. The composition is strong and the use of a mirror, while not so original, is very well executed.

I hope you already got a lot of inspiring thoughts connected to the above frames so lets take a look at some action shots. Action and dynamism are often very desired qualities:

The guns. I know, so obvious, they are probably used a bit too often, but what can we do. A crime story without a gun is like a naked ski jumper… (uh..yea, Olympics did its brainwashing;)

When viewing portraits you can distinguish those well lighted and badly lighted, those well composed and those badly composed and so on. However, when it comes to the subject, you can most easily tell apart the static ones and dynamic ones. It is just another quality that is definitely worth getting engrossed in.

The dynamism can also be achieved by confronting contrasting elements. Look at the below frame. The beauty contrasted with scissors. Maybe it wouldn’t be so unconventional if they weren’t in someones neck…

Mr. Brooks has even an artistic nude scene, however, I will leave it to you to find it;)

Maybe some conclusions:

As you can observe, movies can fulfill their role as an inspiration tool. I know for sure that there are many time-wasting movies, having both boring plot and technique. On the other hand there are a few exceptional ones. Maybe not always in our style, not our character, but you can’t argue, when it comes to lighting, those guys in Hollywood (and not only there) know what they are doing. Go after your taste, but get out of your comfort zone from time to time, I know you’ll be glad you did.

• Remember, movies are actually a big bunch of frames combined together.
• The bigger the budget, the less likely it is shot in natural light. They like to dim the whole scene and then use dozens of lights to achieve exactly the results they want.
• Don’t get me wrong, we can often achieve better results with two small strobes. The difference is that we need the light for that 1/200 of a second (or so), they need it for a minute or even longer.
• Don’t forget about composition. Movies have somehow different rules, camera above the shoulder of a second character to create the character of a real conversation.
• Be open-minded, don’t mimic! Translate what you see into our, photography language.
• Last but not least – characters. Models are used to static posing, often have one, learned face expression. Make them move, make them feel, make them play!

I hope you guys enjoyed that little series as much as I did. Next week we will go with a new topic. Take care and see you later!

Here is a place to comment my Week 6, at work portrait.

In addition to today’s self-portrait I have prepared a little, 4-pics story. No big plot though, just some funny faces, and two additional fill-ups below:

Click to view bigger on Flickr

Trivia

• The room is basically a hall that leads to the real cold storages.
• My ear is all red because of cold. It is around 2C (35F) there.
• Shooting took around an hour. My fingers were frozen at the end;)
• Actually I have prepared two different photos this weekend, so I can think about week 8 already.
• Week 7 will be totally different…
• Someone could say that this shot is levels below the previous one. I have to disagree.
• Hundreds have already viewed my 50 Weeks Project. Thank You!

I find that last face hilarious, tell me what you think!

Today and next week I would like to show you a bit more direct approach. I will present you two, completely different movies. We will go through them and acquire loads of inspiration in the process.

Let’s begin with promised The Fountain. It’s a highly artistic movie, presenting us three corresponding stories. Each of them has it’s own rules, perspective and reality. Basically we can describe them as a historical fantasy story, a nearest future story and a cosmic fantasy story. To understand what I mean you would need to watch the movie. It is worth a try! Main characters are played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz.

But even if you haven’t watched it yet, don’t worry. We don’t need a whole storyline to analyze the frame’s structure.

Do you see it? Yes, these are straightforward portraits. Lighting is just plain easy. The first one uses probably only one source over the camera. The second has 2 sources that we can easily identify by the eyes’ reflection and a 3rd that’s almost not visible. You could ask now if it’s so easy then why bother? Well, the important thing about those frames is the mood. The atmosphere and feel. Obviously you can like it or not, it’s a matter of taste. What is important is those two shots could have been taken in exactly same location, only with a slightly changed lighting, providing two completely different portraits.

Below we have another pair. As you can see I paired them according to the subjects look so the mood differences are even more exaggerated. One would say it is harder to change the mood then the subject looks the same, however, it’s the light that is responsible for it.

Would you be happy with such portraits? Would you know how to achieve them? If yes, then there isn’t much I can tell you, just go and watch more movies… or get working on those amazing shots!

However, if you aren’t sure what is going on in here, let’s take a closer look. Check the first from this pair. There are several possible scenarios to create such lighting. The easies approach would rely on two lights and a reflector. Main light would go from the right in a big soft-box. Reflector on the left. Second light would give that little highlight on hair from left back. Thou, we can see there is another light from the front, below the camera, probably a kicker to even the shadows or a little light for just the catch light, depending on the chosen setup. There are also million other ways to lighten that portrait.

The second one is actually easier. There are two scenarios, either the subject is lighted with natural light or he is completely in a shadow so the visible highlights would be created by an artificial source from left, behind and over the subject.

The actual goal of this exercise is not only learning how to recreate the lighting on any chosen movie scene. In my opinion, far more important than lighting patterns are abilities to change the mood according to the scene.

When you imagine the scene you would like to photograph you probably think about the subjects look, clothes, posture, gestures, mimic, eyes, skin… But these are all details! Details are not what attracts our attention in the first place. The two main features are composition and lighting, and they usually work in pair (especially in portraits where the composition can depend on what parts we highlight and which we leave in shadow).

The next time when you are up to creating a portrait, think for a second if the lighting is corresponding with the actual idea of the frame. Is it a happy portrait? Moody? Sad? Horror? Think what colors represent those emotions. If you don’t use color, think about hardness, harshness and texture of light. Think about the spill, maybe reduce the light from certain areas? Take a moment and check those things. When all those elements are creating the mood you are opting for then you are ready to create that strong, self-explanatory image both for yours and ours pleasure!

Next week I will go through Mr. Brooks and the incredible characters created by Kevin Costner and Demi Moore. Have fun watching movies and see you on Monday!

Here is a place to comment my Week 5 self-portrait.

No fill-up shots today, sorry! However, I would like to share with you a really cool series. I know, I know, not every one are into this stuff, although, “Lie to me” is worth a try as a best crime drama out there. The stories are consistent, character are played really well and the photography… Actually, if you don’t like series as a whole, watch it as a movie. Get the whole season and watch one after another, I would be surprised if you didn’t like it.

I certainly recommend it to all photogs just to check camera and lighting setups. I know I like them very much.

Below a little preview:

And the usual…

Trivia:

• I got the idea for this photo just after I finished the Week 4 session.
• I watched “Lie to me” every time, just after it aired. I only watch in English (everything besides the news actually).
• My fingers should symbolize thinking.
• I seriously love such frames. Don’t know why, don’t ask. It’s just how it is.
• I had glasses on in half of the frames I taken.
• I took many photos just to make sure that irises are perfectly in focus. You can see that the tip of my nose is already out of focus so I needed a few tries for irises.
• Yes, I do lie from time to time…

Stay tuned for the second part of Moving Pictures article this Friday.

Cya!

Instead I will try to encourage you to take a closer look at the next movie you will be watching. I bet you will find there a lot of inspiration if you look for it!

The techniques used in movies are usually a bit different from the ones we use in photography. When the action is important, things going around matter less. Obviously it all depends on the type of a movie. I have observed that there are actually three types of films when it comes to art:

• Everyday drama
• High fantasy or science fiction
• Artistic drama

And I’m not using drama according to series, just a story.

Everyday drama is a movie which cares about the story, not visual effects. It usually takes place during the day, eventually during the night under way too bright street lights. However, the scenes are prepared to show us everyday places, they show “reality”. I’m not saying these movies are bad, no, I watch a lot of them actually. They just aren’t much interesting photographically.

“High” fantasy or sci-fi are movies with high digital (or overall fx) budget. They usually have beautiful, painted sceneries, great effects, lots of green-box and beyond. There aren’t many such movies that would have a good story at the same time, but I watch them anyway to check out what are the newest digital trends. People into photo-manipulation usually love those.

Artistic dramas… well, these rarely come by. It can be a piece of art by itself or at least a damn beautiful movie.

I know, I know, it’s all theoretical! Actually only a short bit of my theory… I just wanted to show you my point of view. To be clear. Below, I will be talking about the pictures, the lighting and the mood, not about stories or characters!

With all that clear we can begin with an everyday piece called The Nines:

Except the psychedelic feel of the movie (which is great btw) most of the frames are as plain as the one above. Lighting is soft, like during the cloudy day or under trees, or in a room with big, bright walls. And that’s basically where most of the action is. No big deal. In this movie, the plain lighting was creating an illusion of reality. It was showing that everything is normal, nothing to worry about. Sun is at it’s usual place, world is normal.

Let’s try another everyday film that, however, has quite a bit of sci-fi scenes:

Overall the Knowing is quite dark, lots of night scenes and indoors. Although look at Nicolas Cage. Usually, his movies contain a lot of perfectly prepared “portrait” scenes. You can think of his acting whatever you wish, that’s not the point. Each of his movies has at least a few scenes that are actually portraits. They usually happen to have awesome lighting, no matter what hour, weather or place there is. Look at the right frame. It is night. They are in a dark house with no lights inside. The only source of light should be the flashlight and, eventually, the moon. And what do you see? The background is quite bright and the face? Yup, if you look closer there are two sources, one definitely over the camera to the left and second below to the right, probably softboxes.

Want more examples? Try National Treasure. You will be amazed how bright the underground can be… I’m not saying the light needs to look natural, I’m far from that.

Ok, but let’s move on. Anyone seen Iron Man? An interesting sci-fi movie with definitely nice budget:

When it comes to lighting techniques there is a plethora of examples in there. Every time the mood changes, the lighting is different, however, what is quite unusual, the lighting is consistent. There are no jumps of mood when the character is in the same place and time. We will talk about realism in sci-fi another time…

I know I’m not writing a lot about how to achieve those moods. The purpose of this article is to sensitize you to the lighting in movies. Learning to observe the light in movies is harder than in paintings mostly because it’s moving, changing dynamically, making you look at the action, not the little details.

If I told you that most of those impressive movies such as Iron Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers or new Terminator look bad, you would laugh at me. The thing is you never looked at actual frames, but went with a flow of the movie. They look great while moving, a lot happens, it’s hard to catch up with details. I often wonder how do they make such a great illusion… Photographers have it harder, what is not in the frame is just not there, no way to pretend, nothing moves, nothing distracts, spectator has all time he wants to look closely at every detail.

There are movies that care about all those little details, these are what I call artistic dramas. But again, it’s totally subjective. For some examples try Lost in Translation, or Elegy, or American Gangster, or MR. Brooks, or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the genre really doesn’t matter when it come to artistic movies. There is more, we will come to it, don’t worry. For a little sample see this frame from The Fountain:

See you next week!