Bench. and Beyond
Last Saturday I went up to London with Shirin, to shoot for the 1 year anniversary of the Bench. clothing store in Covent Garden. The day was a great success with the whole event going without a hitch. I was also pleased to be provided with a lovely room upstairs in the Bench. offices where I did a few shots with the two models. Generally the shots came out good, but one particular one really caught my eye, so I decided to experiment with it a little more, and after some heavy editing I got a result that really stood out.
Below are the before and after versions of the photo for comparison.
What I did (in the order I did it) was:
- Play around in Photoshop’s RAW converter, add some black, contrast and lowered the saturation.
- Duplicated the layer, converted the top one to Black & White with a blue channel filter and then set the blending mode to Soft Light and change the layer opacity to 60%.
- Adjusted the colours generally using the Selective Colour tool.
- This is where the real fun starts; I then used the Dodge tool to ‘paint’ in the light as if it where coming through the window.
- Once that’s done, I now ‘painted’ light onto the model herself where the light (were it real) would be falling onto her.
- Then I used a stock texture that had a warm-green hue and a slight vignette around the edge. I placed that in a new layer above the picture and blended it using Overlay, then took the opacity down to %50.
- I then duplicated the texture layer, flipped it horizontally, and again blended it using Overlay @ 50%.
- Finally, to finish off, I did what I do to all of my pictures; Un-sharpen Mask to sharpen the image up.
Hope you like the results
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Jakob
At Uni
Well I’m here! Southampton University. I love it, I’ve been here for exactly 7 days now and its great.
Unfortunately I can’t say I’ve been doing much photography in the time I’ve been here as I’ve been too caught up in the student life, but next weekend I’m doing a shoot for ‘Bench.’ in London which should hopefully kick me back into taking photos!
In the mean time, here’s a quick snap of my room for the next 10 months:
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Jakob
Quick Update
Just a quick update on what I’ve been up to since my last post...
I went down to Swindon on the 29th last month to shoot Shirin performing at a designer outlet centre. The event was for the opening of a new Calvin Klein Underwear store in the outlet. I also did a few fashion shots with the Calvin Klein model’s that day for any adverts etc. All in all a very fun day!
Since then things have been relatively quiet, although this Saturday (12th) I’m going to Surrey to shoot a couples 25th wedding anniversary. And the Saturday after (19th) I’ll be spending my day in Covent Gardens, Central London, shooting again with Shirin, for the clothing label ‘Bench.’ which should be pretty interesting.
I’ve also recently found out where I’ll be spending the next 10 months living, and I’m pleased to announce I’ll be moving into Montefiore 2 Hall’s of Residence, Wessex Lane, Southampton. So that’s where I’ll be based for the next 10 months (moving in on the 27th September) so if anyone fancies paying me a visit, your more than welcome!
Jakob
The Next 4 Years
Well I’ve finally got my A-level results and I’m pleased to announce I’m going to be spending the next 4 years of my life at the University of Southampton studying a Masters of Engineering degree in Computer Science.
How will this affect my photography you might be wondering? Well the answer is it wont. At least I’ll try and not let it interfere with my photography work. I’m still going to be doing photoshoots and commissions and I’m still going to be trying to expand my photography career in every way.
Now, I’m off to start packing, so don’t expect any more updates for several weeks...Oh, and if anyone else is off to Southampton, feel free to give me a shout :-).
Jakob
Shooting for Shirin
Last Friday I went along to Que Pasa Bar in Southampton to shoot Shirin, a new and upcoming talent in the world of music who’s worked with high profile producers such as Benny Cassette who have produced songs for the likes of Black Eyed Peas, Mariah Carey and Eve.
But that night I wasn’t shooting freelance as usual, it was infact my first gig as Shirin’s official photographer. So from now on, I’ll probably be doing a lot more travelling with Shirin to her gigs and taking photos of the performances. I’m also planning on multiple photoshoot sessions with Shirin and her dance team to get photos for her advertising campaign and upcoming live tour of the UK clubs.
Now for some information on how I actually shot Friday’s performance, and I have to say it was tricky. The big thing that I noticed almost immediately when I walked in there was the lack of light. The stage was dark, lit only by very dim coloured lights. I tried taking several test shots at first, with both my 17-85mm & 70-200 f/4 L and even at ISO 3200 and f/4 the shutter speed range for a decent exposure was about 1/2-1/3. Needless to say that was completely unworkable with. Luckily I brought along my 2 trusty flashes and the small white diffuser boxes for them. At first I went against all my principles and put the Nikon SB-24 on-camera and tried to bounce it off the ceiling. But as soon as I took a few photos and reviewed them I realised why I never use on-camera flash. The pictures where of the typical ‘rabbit in the headlights’, high key, plain light coverage type which looked absolutely terrible. But all was not lost, I had infact decided to bring along to the event my 2 wireless triggers. So in the end I ended up using the typical 2 side light setup by placing the SB-24 on a table to the front-left of the stage, and the 430EZ on the ground, pointing up, front-right stage. With that setup I got some surprisingly good results, and it also meant that I could drop my shutter speed down to about 1/5-1/10 to capture some of the colour and light of the actual stage, and also some nice movement effects, yet Shirin was still sharp as the flash pulse effectively only exposed her for the equivalent of about 1/1600. I did still have to use ISO 1600 which was a bit disappointing and meant my photo’s weren’t quite as nice and crisp as my usual studio shoots, but considering this was a live performance I think it worked out pretty well!
Below are a few shots from the performance, and a lighting diagram of the setup:
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Jakob
A Shout From Czech
For the past week I’ve been avoiding the apparently horrible weather that’s been going around England because I’m in my home country of the Czech Republic. The weather here’s delightful with temperatures reaching almost into their 40’s.
Naturally I’ve bought my camera along with me and so I’ve got a couple of nice shots of how things look here. I must warn you I haven’t done the photo’s I’ve taken here up to my usual standard but then again 1) I’ve had very little time to take the photo’s. and 2) I’m editing them on a rather old laptop, no graphics tablet, no mouse just a touchpad at my disposal which really limits what I can do.
Other then that I’ve just generally been enjoying myself in the scorching sun, topping up on a bit of a tan and catching up with old friends. I have another week left here as I’ve bought myself a plane ticket for the 10th when I’m flying back to Stansted. What I find a bit ridiculous is that the 600mile flight from Czech to London Stansted takes 1.5 hours, yet the the 100mile or so, journey from Stansted to Southampton takes just under 4 hours and requires me trekking across the whole of London to catch my train home. But hey, what can you do, I’ll just be happy when I get back home in 1 piece.
In the mean time here’s a few shots of Czech:
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Jakob
More Lighting
A few days ago I did my first shoot for 2 months and I had some extra toys to play with, in the form of another light and umbrella. So, below are 2 photos and lighting diagrams. The first used the full capacity of my 2 lights plus the ambient light to light the background. The second photo used only natural light. I wanted to demonstrate here that just because you have bags full of lighting equipment, sometimes the best result can be achieved by just simply using the available light and if I where to have inserted any artificial light into that second photo I personally believe it would have ruined it.
Using 2 lights and Ambient:
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Using just Ambient:
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Jakob
Mistaken Identity
Today I went to shoot the southern women’s synchronised swimming event in Petersfield and something very interesting happened which I really wasn’t expecting. I first turned up and spoke to the Press officer who you have to get permission off of to shoot the event. I was carrying my heaviest mobile setup (Canon 40D + Battery Grip, Nikon SB-24 flash attached, Canon 70-200 f/4 L Telephoto lens) and after being asked where I am from and me replying ‘Portsmouth’ I automatically got mistaken for a photographer shooting for the Portsmouth Evening News. But rather then correct the mistake I decided to play along. After all I had the gear and looked the part so why not! So with my fake new identity I not only got permission to shoot but also got poolside access, and by the end of the day I had all the other professional photographers there, shooting for various local papers, believing that I really was the Portsmouth news photographer!
So, if I have to make a point out of this story it would be this: don’t believe people on things just because they look the part. They may well be someone completely different just playing along for fun.
Anyway, I thought I’d also share a few of the photo’s I took at the event with you. Check below.
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Jakob
A Summer Return
As you may have noticed, over this past month and a half I’ve gone very quiet. This was mainly down to the fact that this has probably been the most hectic month of my life so far. I had my A-level exams, and life had just generally taken numerous flips and turns during this month.
But I’ve gotten through it and so I’m back! And what better way to come back then with a new photo for you.
So here it is; my first official photo of the summer. It’s a composite of 2 images, I replaced the sky in it to give a more ‘moody’ feel.
Before & After [Click image for larger view]
Jakob
First Photoshop Tutorial
As promised, i've made a short video showing you some of the processes I go through to create my images. The image I am doing the tutorial on is the second one in my What Lies Hidden series.
Hit play below to see the video:
Photoshop Tutorial 1 - Adding Smoke, Shadow and General Editing from Jakob Aungiers on Vimeo.
Jakob