2015 52 Week Project // Week 8: Breaking The Rules (With Before & After + more images!)
Happy "I've made it 2 months into this project, and haven't quit, run out of ideas or models" day to me! Out of all the things I've tried to make habits out of (running, waking up early, deleting Facebook), I think this is the one thing I've stuck to the longest. So hey, if nothing else, hooray for personal accomplishments!
Something that all of my teachers at SFCC always told us was this:
"You have to learn all the rules before you can break them."
Which totally makes sense, right? In terms of photography, you have to learn about basic exposure, posing, editing, lighting, and all that stuff that most of you could care less about, before you can go and essentially do all of those things wrong, and still come out with some cool images. This shoot was a perfect case of that. One of my good friends had recently taken some really cool shots on his iPhone in an old abandoned barn, and I totally fell in love with the lighting. It was unconventional, highly contrasty, and not something you would usually think to do, but it immediately sparked my interest and I wanted to do something similar.
This is not the first time I've attempted to shoot someone in weird, and potentially unflattering shadows. In my Fashion Photography class, I shot this image:
Let me tell you: this was WAAAYYYY more difficult than it looks. Throw some fabric in front of a light and shoot? Nope. Not even. Not. Even. Close.
So, anyways, I went into this week's shoot knowing that I was attempting something that wouldn't be easy. But every week, I've been trying to challenge myself to learn a new skill, so it had to be done!
Something interesting about light, for those of you that aren't photographers: it changes fast. And by fast, I mean literally by the minute. So when you're dealing with the sun, and small, lit areas, you have to think on your toes a little bit! It also took some trial and error to figure out what worked and what didn't. The barn that I originally wanted to shoot in didn't have the light I was looking for. And the one we eventually shot in had totally different light than I was expecting! (Props to friends who have access to multiple, unused barns that I can do photoshoots in. Something that would literally only be useful to a photographer.) If nothing else, this profession has taught me to be the worlds fastest problem solver.
At one point in our shoot, I was using the light coming through the top of the barn to backlight Sara, and I noticed something awesome: dust, when in small sections of sunlight, becomes glitter. If you've ever been around me when I'm shooting and I notice something awesome, then you know exactly how I reacted: I became a 6 year old in terms of excitement and lost the ability to speak correct English. However, like I mentioned before, this didn't stick around for too long, because of the light changing so rapidly. Just another thing that's trained me to work fast!
This week, it was a lot harder for me to stay away from senior photo style images. Girl + field + barn + golden hour light is a pretty solid concoction for a yearbook picture. I think we did okay with that, though. What do you guys think?
I also slacked this week and completely forgot to ask Rachel (my week 5 model, and Sara's sister) to snag some BTS shots for me, but I did manage to sneak this screenshot of a Snapchat. Close enough, yeah?
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