Photographing People - "AirSculpture"

The following pictures and text are taken from my C&G submission.

	Pete "Moon" This picture is one of 3 that were taken after a rehearsal. There was one of each of the band members, however Pete was the only one of us to keep his head still for long enough to achieve a sharp picture. I have combined all three pictures digitally to create a band shot for use on tee shirts. This can be seen at the front of the work book. I used a torch to illuminate the face and spot metered from the highlight on the cheek. I set this as zone 7. The film was obviously a bad choice for speed! I was hoping to achieve a very sharp image that would stand enlargement, but the long exposure countered that aim. However, this one shot has been quite successful. Technical Details Camera : 35mm Focal length : 70mm Aperture : f8 Shutter speed : 10s Film : Agfa APX25 - ISO25
Adrian This picture was taken with a self timer from a floor position using the wide angle lens, and this position has created an unusual perspective. The rehearsal rooms that we use are very plain and I wanted some way of hiding the box shaped room; the shot does succeed in this respect. The negative is under exposed, mostly because of the use of the built in metering. The meter has been fooled by the bright lights and stopped down too far. This is a problem with the wide angle lens and self-timer approach. This film is the first 120 roll I developed myself. I did struggle to load it in the changing bag and this can be seen in the quality of the negatives. There are some bad scratches and creases at various points. However, I do like the basic composition. Technical Details Camera : 6x7 Focal length : 43mm (20mm equivalent) Aperture : f8 Shutter speed : 1s Film : TMAX100 - ISO100
	Pete & Keyboard The last of the individual band shots, this picture illustrates the effect of enlargement of a cropped 35mm negative. This picture tightly frames Pete and his keyboard; I have tried to remove any other distractions by cropping at print time. The film is TMAX100, which is small grained, but when enlarged to 16x12 from part of the negative, the grain is very prominent. The picture is quite light, mostly because of the centre background, I have burnt in the centre section to try and reduce its prominence. I think this type of image lends itself more to a fine grained approach. If I were taking it again, I would use the medium format but perhaps illuminate the background several stops over in order to loose all details, creating a high key picture and allow the viewer to concentrate on the subject. Technical Details Camera : 35mm Focal length : 70mm Aperture : f4 Shutter speed : 0.5s Film : TMAX100 - ISO100
Punter in the Sun This is the first of the pictures taken at the music festival in Holland. For me this is a magical picture. I was sitting behind our CD stand, it was early afternoon when suddenly I noticed the sun come through a window. I looked around and spotted this man who was listening to some CD's. The sun light hit his scarf. I leapt off my chair and grabbed my camera and manually focused. Fortunately, I had previously been checking with a meter the lighting conditions. I was able to capture this moment before the sun went in again. I am especially pleased with this image. I was able to capture it quickly without losing the moment and the metering and focusing were spot on. Because of the fast film, I was able to hand hold using the long lens. In this case, I think the grain has enhanced the image. I think the image could benefit from cropping, especially at the top to remove the white blobs, but some extra space around the image would be needed for balance. Technical Details Camera : 35mm Focal length : 150mm Aperture : f4 Shutter speed : 1/200 Film : TMAX3200 - ISO3200, pushed processed to ISO12,500
	CD Browsers This candid photo captures several customers at our CD stand. Again, being able to use fast film has allowed me to get close to the individuals, using a long lens, without alerting them. I like this picture because of the expressions on the faces, there is great concentration. On the right of the picture the image is dominated by someone holding a CD box. At first I thought this was a distraction but after studying the picture for a while, I think it gives the picture a more candid or intimate feel as it encloses the space otherwise present on the right. Technical Details Camera : 35mm Focal length : 200mm Aperture : f4.5 Shutter speed : 1/200s Film : TMAX3200 - ISO3200 pushed to ISO12,500
Café Lunch During the day, we went out for lunch at a local café. I took this opportunity to capture the three of us relaxing. This picture was taken using the self timer. I set the aperture to f22, the smallest available on this lens and placed the camera on the table. Unfortunately John moved during the exposure; however this does provide a bit of movement. What this picture does illustrate is the enormous difference between 35mm and 6x7. Compare the difference between this, push processed picture and Pete with Keyboard above. Apart from the lack of grain, the smoothness of tone in John's shirt is very striking. The other technical detail of note is the relatively long minimum focusing distance of this lens. It can only focus down to 1m, compared to about 1foot for my 19mm lens on my 35mm camera (see Lens experiments in the Experiments section of the work book). Compositionally, I think I have cropped a little too much from the left, however, it is difficult to compose this type of shot. Technical Details Camera : 6x7 Focal length : 43mm (20mm equivalent) Aperture : f22 Shutter speed : 1s Film : TMAX400 - ISO400 pushed to ISO1600
	Vidna Obmana This is one of the performers at the festival. I wanted to throw the background into black and concentrate on Vidna, so I metered from his forearm and set this as zone 7. This ensured I correctly exposed for the highlights while under exposing any areas not directly lit. I am very pleased with this picture, it has achieved everything I set out to achieve. The highlights hint at the subject, leaving your brain to fill in the details. There is action in the picture, but it is focused and well exposed. I knew this lighting situation would occur during the performances and this is why I used the fast film and push processed. Technical Details Camera : 35mm Focal length : 200mm Aperture : f4.5 Shutter speed : 1/200s Film : TMAX3200 - ISO3200 pushed to ISO12,500
More CD Browsers This picture captures another pair of bargain hunters, this time closer up. If you look carefully at the bottom right, there is a ghostly image of a third figure. Again, the serious nature of their quest is clearly evident on their faces! This picture has again benefited from the fast film and long lens approach. Slightly tighter cropped this time, I do like the faint face on the right. The open lens has created a small depth-of-field which has ensured that only the closest face remains in focus. Technical Details Camera : 35mm Focal length : 300mm Aperture : f5.6 Shutter speed : 1/200s Film : TMAX3200 - ISO3200 pushed to ISO12,500
	Girl on the Stair For this candid, I placed my camera on a shelf while I had a conversation with someone else. I roughly pointed it towards the stairs and stopped down to get maximum depth-of-field. I used the self-timer to do the deed. I did not realise until I developed the film that the man on the left had got up and walked away during the shot. It makes for an unusual picture. Even though the camera was flat, the wide angle lens has created some interesting perspective distortions. These are quite evident at the top of the right hand column and the light next to it. Technical Details Camera : 6x7 Focal length : 43mm (20mm equivalent) Aperture : f22 Shutter speed : 4s Film : TMAX400 - ISO400 pushed to ISO1600
"3am In a Bar With a Bok" At the end of a long day, we went into town to celebrate. Obviously, this was no place for my usual camera equipment. I had taken an Ilford single use camera with me and took photos at various points during the evening. This picture was taken towards the end of a long evening at arms length. The flash had severely over exposed my face (second from right). The picture was printed with a lot of dodging in the centre to balance this. Technical Details! Camera : Ilford single-use camera loaded with HP5 Focal length : Unknown, but probably about 30mm Aperture : Unknown Shutter speed : Unknown Film : HP5, pushed half a stop
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