For Advanced Color Portrait class, we were supposed to create hollywood lighting using butterfly lighting and Rembrandt lighting. I sided with doing two sets of people (though I did pull in Isaac for a couple shots after Katie’s shoot) and going from there.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625881521301/show/
Filed under Advanced Color Portrait 2011
In my materials and processing class, our last assignment was refraction- showing bending light waves and such. I wound up shooting dice in a champagne glass filled with water for the assignment, then made it into an advertisment/public service announcement.
After hearing a couple of friends talking about how much money they spent getting drunk and partying (and basically acting stupid), I decided it was time to create an anti-drinking poster. This was the result.
It started out with a class assignment to create refraction- the bending of light. Notice how the bottom dice looks bigger and in strange proportion to the others? They are actually all the same size, sitting in a glass of water with sunlight shining on them. Note, aside from basic levels adjustments and sharping, I only edited the text. The dice have not been digitally edited.
Filed under Materials and Processing 2011, Personal Work
Recently I was asked for examples of my photography related to interior architectural type photography. While I didn’t have any recent examples, I remembered taking a lot of architecturally based photography last spring break in Dallas, Texas. So I pulled out the earlier external harddrive and went through the photos to find the ones I felt best represented the potential client. Then I used what I knew about levels and masking with layers to improve them with my current skill level. I sent them the slideshow of photos along with five other relevant photos for thier review.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625811495552/show/
I don’t know if I’ll get the job or not, but it did help illustrate the importance of being visible in the community (the client found me while I was selling posters at the Holiday Market), and of working quickly to provide a portfolio.
Filed under Personal Work
After much trouble trying to get a texture accepted onto Texturevault, and nearly giving up on it, I finally went into their forums to ask why my photos weren’t being accepted. I had sent in roughly ten photos over the past couple months, with everything being rejected based on too much noise or not being sharp enough. When I looked at my photos, I found that all of them seemed to have the same amount of noise, same slight blur, and I couldn’t figure out how to get it any sharper. The support on Texturevault forum suggested I try an ISO of 100, and I decided to finally look up how to test for lens sharpness (which I had been meaning to do for the past month).
I found this review (http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/lens-sharpness.htm), which seemed rather harsh to me, but I came out of it with one very particularly piece of information in mind- that lenses have a sweet spot where they will be at thier sharpest, not necessarily at the wide open apertures (which I typically like to shoot), and other apertures won’t be as sharp. Pushing a lens to its extreme will result in photos that “test the limits” and aren’t as sharp.
Keeping that in mind, I went out into the afternoon light and took a few pictures- all at ISO 100, but at 1.8, 10, and 22 apertures. Immeadietly afterwards I loaded the pictures onto my computer and looked at them at 100%. The results were surprising- I finally saw what my teachers and books have meant by Chromatic aberrations (1.8), my pictures seemed to be hopelessly blurred at 1.8 and 22, but at 10- they sharp. Not extraordinarily sharp, but definatly sharper. And there was no noise.
Woot!
I chose the two pictures that were the best and submitted them to TextureVault. This time they were accepted. I am happy to say I now have a way to test for lens sharpness, and in the meantime, I’ve just got to take more texture photos and figure out how to make sales.
View My TextureVault Portfolio Here: http://www.texturevault.net/view_photog.php?photogid=1067
Filed under Personal Work
These are a few of the production photos I took for University of Central Missouri’s production of The Birds. Due to the nature of multiple things happening on stage at once and the use of acrobatics (the birds flew across the stage, meaning that even certain staged shots had to be moving), I asked Dr. Mollenkamp (the director), if my fiance, Isaac Flint, could help me out in shooting these production shots. Since he’s more familar with the Rebel XS, I shot with the 30D. I gave him the shorter lens, letting him take the wider, full scene shots, whereas I went for the more troublesome closeups. I think about thirty of the hundred-some pictures I turned in to the threatre were shot by him.
To see all hundred-something photos of the colorful performance, see the my Flickr slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625754405596/show/
Filed under Client Work
Yesterday my mom and I went to a Thai restaurant called The Magic Noodle Bowl. Knowing how nice they present thier food, I brought my camera with my new 50 mm, 1.8 lens. I used window lighting and available light. These are a few of the shots I got. We ordered steamed dumplings, pad thai, and lo mein with chicken. They also served soup.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625746283610/show/
Filed under Personal Work
These are the front of house photos I took for University of Central Missouri’s production of The Birds. The play was directed by Professor Mollenkamp, and was their first enviromental play. The costumes and staging was all recycled or reused, and the audience sat in the round to watch the acrobatic antics as the story unfolded. I used the on-camera flash, covered with a piece of clear plastic to soften it for the tech photos, and alien bees for the cast photos.
I intend to upload the production photos in the next couple of days.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625612759777/show/
Filed under Client Work
One of the last assignments in my Origins of Photography class was to emulate a photographer. We were told to choose three photos that we were interested in trying to emulate, and the teacher signed off on one or two of the photos. Once we knew which photo we were doing, it was our job to make a photograph as similar as possible to the original one.
One of the requirements was that we had to show a before and after- or if using a lot of Photoshop, we needed to show the unmanipulated photo. I chose a photo by Colin Anderson (http://colinanderson1.wordpress.com/), because I like his style and the science-fiction/adventure illustrations he has created appeals to the type of work I would like to be able to do.
His Original:
My Emulation:
All of The Photos Used:
The point of the assignment was to be able to carefully scrutinize a photograph to study lighting, poses, placement, color, and any number of things. In general, it was not expected that we would be able to perfectly replicate the photograph. And in any case, it is not meant to be an infringement on copyright, only a learning tool. The things that I learned in this process were how to previsualise, along with gaining a better understanding of digital painting in combination with photography.
First of all, I looked at each part of the image and decided how I would get the picture, or where. All of the images needed to be our own work. For the car, there is a hill overlooking a parking lot, which I wandered by several times until I found a car that looked close enough for my purposes. I took a few different shots of it from different angles to achieve the needed angle. For the model, I started her off in the basic pose, then slowly worked up to the actual photo in the picture. This turned out to be a really good exercise in direction, a skill I’m weak at. It also turned out to be a learning point in Photoshop CS5, when I discovered that the puppet tool allows you to move the subject matter in a realistic fashion to obtain the final pose you need. I never did get the back leg quite right, however. One of my favorite things to play with was the fire- which was done using digital painting techniques and a Wacom tablet. Her armor is also made using digital painting, and the overall image underwent a number of layers with blending modes to try to achieve the finished image.
There are still a number of issues that I can see with the final image I created that keeps it from being at the level of Colin Anderson’s work. A lot of that comes from a need to practice more with Photoshop, and to learn more techniques that will finalize the image. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this assignment, as it forced me to test the boundaries of what I can do in an image while learning new Photoshop skills.
Photos posted with Colin Anderson’s permission.
Filed under Origins of Photography 2010
I’ve finally started using DeviantArt again to promote my work. Though I figure it will take a while to actually acrue any sort of large following to successfully sell prints, I think it could prove useful for gaining comments on photos I have taken as well as my manipulations, along with serving as fresh inspirations for new photos. Below is a link to my account, along with a screengrab.
Filed under Personal Work
These are some of the photos that I used in Mid Program for my portfolio. I focused on digital imaging. Also, I presented mock book covers (though Distant Horizon is a mock book cover for a story I am currently working on with my fiance) and movie posters as ideas for potential clients.
Flickr Slideshow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbibb/sets/72157625181255815/show/
Filed under Personal Work
Stephanie Flint - Author and Artist 