Portraits - Week 6 - #oneperday18 - Photography (QUT DXB202)
For this week's daily images, we needed to take five different types of photos with different subjects. Since I have more than one image for each of these, I have chosen one as the "main" image, which will be the largest one, but then will attach smaller ones below that I still wanted to show just for the sake of it.
Self Portrait(s)
Technique -
Photography with natural light (and artificial lighting in the additional studio photo)
Process -
These were...interesting to do. Since I'm a bit of an idiot most of the time, I wasn't fussed for getting a serious, professional self-portrait, and was hoping to get some images of me doing silly faces and things like that. A self-portrait should, in my eyes at least, convey your personality through the photograph if possible.
I chose the one of me eating the muffin as my "main" one, since I just thought it had the best composition, and captured my personality best. Or I just thought it was funny. Either or.
Reflection -
I'm pretty happy with these, although maybe I could have gotten at least one that wasn't completely jokey. I don't really mind though, I've already made the muffin photo my new Facebook image. I like the way sunlight reflects off hair so that's part of it.
Also these were taken about a week before I finally got my hair cut, so that middle image of me looking startled showcases why I don't like having long hair.
The photos were taken by my classmates and friends, so thanks are in order for them!
A Stranger
Technique -
Photography with natural light
Process -
This one was a little trickier at first, but thankfully I came across this homeless ma--er, student on campus at the same time as me and got some good shots of him. He was happy to move around for different angles which was great. He said he was actually studying graphic design at the moment as well, although he's only in his first semester currently. We stayed around the same area that I already in for my self-portraits on the grass, and took a few photos with the natural lighting. I experimented from different angles - low, high and roughly parallel to the ground.
Reflection -
I'm pretty happy with these, actually. The midday sunlight on his black hair against the blurred buildings in the background looks quite nice. For the two extra photos below, I would have liked to have a more blurred background, or just provide some further contrast against the foreground subject. Having more control over the light would help.
For some reason, these extra photos are breaking the format constantly, so I need to have some pointless text here to fix it all.
Classmate - Cam
Technique -
Photography with natural light
Process -
For the image of our classmate, I took photos of Cam out in the grassy area of the Creative Industries precinct - near where my self-portrait and stranger photos were taken. I tried to capture some natural light in the background to add contrast, and provide a nicer effect when the depth of field blurs it all out.
Reflection -
I think these images came out looking nice, especially since I had another classmate's camera to use for the photographs. For improvements, I would like to have taken some closer-up shots with an even blurrier depth of field and some more light in the foreground.
Someone You Live With - My Dad
Technique -
Photography while playing with light - created a purple light over my lamp (Moto G4)
Process -
Since I took these at home and didn't have a friend's camera to use, I had to take this with my mobile phone, so the quality is noticeably worse. I took this photo of my Dad sitting on the side of my bed, with my lamp on, and being covered with a purple plastic bag from Comic-Con last year. I think this turned out looking pretty good considering my limitations. Looks like everyone's favourite shot from Blade Runner 2049 (please watch that movie).
Reflection -
I wish I could have taken this with better lighting and a better camera, but I only had what I had. With that in mind, I think this looks pretty good, but it could definitely be better. It's quite grainy, and perhaps I could have made that element at least a little better through better understanding of my phone's camera settings (ISO, shutter speed, etc.)
An Animal or Pet - My Dog (Tiggy)
Technique -
Photography with natural light (Moto G4)
Process -
I tried taking photos of my cat (Loki) for this one, but just couldn't get the right look that I wanted. Thankfully I managed to capture these nice shots of my dog lying down, and thought they were far better. These were taken on my mobile phone as well, since I had to take them at home without any of my friend/classmate's cameras to use. The midday lighting created a nice soft light that I think really benefits the photo(s).
Reflection -
If something could be improved, it would be the depth of field, but that's probably more down to the limits of my phone's camera. Perhaps the lighting on Tiggy's face could have been better to get a more dramatic look, but the natural sunlight coming through the window looks pretty nice. It's also not as easy to get your pets to pose for you when compared to classmates and family members.
POINTLESS BONUS IMAGES!
So I mentioned in my final reflection that my skills lie more in animation, film and rendering (specifically with 3D imagery), and that I have past experience with "in-game cameras". By that I mean digital photo modes such as "Nvidia Ansel" in Jurassic World Evolution, a park-building simulator from Frontier Developments that released earlier this year. It's pretty obvious that I love dinosaurs and the Jurassic Park series, and just a few hours before submission I thought "what the hell", and decided to upload some of my favourite photos that I've taken across my 80+ hours currently logged into the game.
It's worth noting that you are given full camera control here, these aren't just preset angles or anything like that. The player is given control of the field of view, the depth of field, XYZ position of the camera, tilt and angle, and output resolution. On top of that, grids for the rule of thirds are available, which I ALWAYS use because they help so much for creating captivating shots. Full info is here - https://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/ansel-revolutionizing-game-screenshots
These aren't here as the main attraction, of course, but since I felt quite limited for my photography in this unit (especially next week's "Texture and Scale" one), I wanted to show how I compose shots when the tools are there for me, just for fun.
I really love when games feature built-in photo modes and allow me to get creative with composing some cool shots, especially when they look as good as this one does. These images are all internally rendered at 4K resolution, to boot.
I'm particularly fond of some of the later images here that play with focus, framing and lighting really well. There's also a lot of T.rex love because...well, she's just the best.
