Assignment 2: Exposure

“Objective is to develop control over image creation process. An ability to previsualise, to know exactly how a print will look before you release the shutter.”

For this assignment, I wanted to take two photos playing with aperture and shutter speed respectively. Below are the two final images presented during class.

Untitled
Taken with Canon Eos 30D with 50mm len, f4, 1/100sec, iso 800, early evening indoor with no lighting, freehand.

Inspiration for the above photo struck when I was hanging out at a friend’s. His place is one of those black and white conservation colonial houses. In one of many spontaneous moments of creativity, he spent an entire afternoon sticking black decals on alternate tiles of his white kitchen walls.
Voila! The drab kitchen was transformed into a retro looking space. The bottle of vanilla (white) vodka and collectable (black) vodka looked right at home.
I initially wanted to frame the photo showing the contrast between the wall and the bottles (I thought it was somewhat “cute” having the white bottle in front of a black tile and vice versa) but somehow only this photo looked “right”.
It reminds me of Michelle’s photogram too.

Usually, I would achieve depth of field by dragging exposure and by using a small aperture (high f value). In this case, I opted instead to use a high iso setting and a large aperture (f4) due to the lack of ambient light in the kitchen. The lack of depth of field in using a large aperture is compensated by the 50mm lens used.

For the second submission, I wanted to experiment and twiddle around with the exposure duration, shutter speed. The following is the result of a Deep Purple inspired moment. (Smoke on the water, fire in the sky…)

Fire in the night sky.
Taken with Canon Eos 30D with 17-40mm len, f7.1, 25sec, iso 100, 11 p.m outdoors, with tripod.

A little background here. The reservoir near my place overlooks a industrial estate/park/whachamacallit. You can see smoke stacks, chimneys and a riot of lights every night.
Every night, it looks like the sky has been set on fire.
I went to the reservoir after a light drizzle. (rain has the effect of clearing the air, don’t you think so?) With a tripod stabilizing the camera, I could drag the exposure to 25 secs even with an iso100 setting.
With such a long exposure, I was able to capture the gorgeous cloud trails as the wind blew and shifted them about. I took a number of photos showing different amount of the water surface and it was tough picking out a photo which had the right feel/amount of cloud movement to it.
In the end, the above image was chosen for submission. I picked one with the least amount of “water” shown so as not to divert attention away from the negative space of the moving clouds.

It was pretty cool working on this topic. In my case, I had the opportunity to go through two scenarios that most photographers go through. With the bottles, I worked with circumstances and equipment that can be controlled, very much like in a studio setting. With the late night shots, I had to work with the uncontrollable clouds movement and make quick adjustments accordingly.
This time round, Mei Mei’s shot of the retro Alfa Romeo is the best in my opinion. The image is excellently balanced and the red of the car has a soothing antique muted feel to it. A refreshing change from the exuberence of most red sports cars. She gets a 90/100 (40 for creativity and 50 for effort) from Mike!
Comparing Mei Mei’s, Paul’s, Jialin’s (interesting perspective for the radishes) and Yikang’s photos, I would give myself a 90/100 (40 for creativity and 50 for effort) too.

Below are some other images taken.

Standoff
I like this too. Each holding the other at bay.

Thanks to all visitors, especially those who linked me and commented. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Enjoy!

~ by crankymike on September 5, 2007.