Today in my Senior Portfolio class we did what our teacher Nigel Poor called a Quick snap challenge. The rules for this exercise were simple; we had to go for a walk and collect things we found interesting, bring them back to our studio space and photograph them. Our time limit was ninety minutes, and then we shared one photo with the class for discussion. I thought this was an incredibly fun exercise, I got so carried away with re-arranging the objects that I almost didn’t get it done in time to share.
Exercises like this are helpful because I think that when you let loose and have fun with something like this you open yourself up to new creative possibilities.
I used this as a way to further practice some ideas I have had recently about how I document things I find interesting. Below are the results from what I made and a few from my classmates. Enjoy!
J. William Kraintz II
Try it yourself!!
Go for a walk and pick up things you find
Bring them back to your space and photograph them in any way you like
Give yourself a time limit if you like (playing around with setting different limits to what you are doing can also encourage creative thought).
Ronado Howard 2021Alyssa Dougherty 2021D’Ajuah Gordon 2021Franny Kenney 2021Franny Kenney 2021Patrick Wilson 2021Jesse Bjork 2021
I recently finished a short film titled Mean World. I made this in response to the world we are living in right now. Our critical thinking is under attack 24/7 be it through social media, television media or any other media. If we don’t take the time to choose what we feed ourselves with mentally then we will be left in a world of fear of the other and open to manipulation.
Mean World Syndrome is when you develop a fear of the world because all that you consume are things that tell you the world is a dangerous and scary place.
04/07/2020 We looked at and discussed Sarah Charlesworth’s work titled Stills. The quality of the images reminded me of the Xerox books that were produced within the Conceptual realm of art in the late 60’s. Later in the day Monday for Studio lighting class we did a still life demonstration. It was difficult at first with the new format of class via internet but it worked out. I ended up grabbing a dried bunch of leaves to photograph. After editing I though why not mix it up! So I made a few nice 8.5×11 prints and decided to make a photocopy and then scan the photocopy and see what happens to the image making sure to keep all the flaws.
This week we learned how ambient light sources affect our image when using studio lighting.
For the first section of the exercise I tested the lens at its widest aperture and simply adjusted the shutter speed to see at what exposures I was seeing any ambient light. I had all of the overhead lights on and you can see that even at 1/1000 of a second there is still some ambient light affecting our image.
Now I left the lighting the same but kept the shutter speed constant and changed the aperture for each frame. As you can see that f/22 we can cancel out all of the ambient light. If I could not turn off or had to control to eliminate the ambient light f/22 would be my choice.
With the overhead lights still on I added a strobe and set it to its lowest power and while keeping the aperture constant I adjusted the shutter speed. Now that I am using the flash strobe, the direction and temperature of light has changed compared to the first set of images and the light is more direct. Also, note how as shutter speed is increased the light gets darker but the ambient light stays constant.
Now with the ambient light turned off and I am only using the strobe, the light is more uniform and some of the lights that had been visible and gave unsightly reflections have been eliminated. In addition, I now have total control over the light, which doesn’t change because the burst of light is constant. Once I push the camera past it’s fastest sync speed we will lose that light and end up with what the last frame is.
Here I set the shutter speed to 1/125 and adjusted only the aperture with the strobe on the lowest setting.
As I adjusted the aperture you can see the data represented on the histogram shifts further and further to the left, signalling that I am starting to underexpose my image more each time I stop down.
I set the strobe to maximum power and followed the same method as before. It seems that f/11 looks like the best exposure. I noticed any surfaces nearby that could reflect anything were more prominent using such a high power.
Now here I am practicing maintaining consistent exposure through the power range of the power pack that the strobe is attached to.
Image number six looks to be the the best exposure of this set
Here I have adjusted the power of the light while using a constant setting of f/2.8 @ 1/125.
For the final set of images, I adjusted the power of the light while using the narrowest aperture f/22 and a shutter speed of 1/125.
Kraintz Photography 