Found Light Test

A few days ago my neighbors parked their car in front of their house, and as the sun set their rear reflector caught the light perfectly and bounced sharp red light through my blinds and into our office. I thought it looked pretty cool, so I grabbed my camera and took a quick shot of it. Like this:

Kinda cool. I found some light, and it was decent. Today I started thinking about that light, and how bouncing in sunlight through blinds could be interesting in other ways. So I grabbed a light stand and a mirror, taped a green gel to the mirror and set it up outside my office window like this:

(Tako’s not sure about all this)

The mirror was way more reflective than my neighbor’s tail-light, and a lot more light came in than I was expecting. Also, since I taped a gel to the mirror, the light was really really green. When using gels and mirrors, you have to remember that the light is going to come down, pass through the gel, hit the mirror, and then pass through the gel again… so you effectively double the gel when you’re doing it this way, since the light goes through it twice. After color correcting for the super-greenified light, I got this image:

It’s a cool effect. The mirror and gel are making a really interesting light pattern on the wall behind me. I wish the light source was higher, since it’s about at my eye level so the shadows are going a bit weird. It was also really intense, I had to squint in order to not be blinded by the light.

This is really just a proof of concept type setup. If I wanted to continue with it I would probably start setting up some flash equipment and move toward really defining shapes in the picture. I do like the pattern the mirror + gel is creating on the background, I can definitely see myself using that part again in the future.

 

Found Light Test

Woman as Car Idea

This is an old idea that I had, I was looking at some pictures of cars and I realized that a lot of the same lighting techniques and approaches are used when photographers shoot nude women as when they shoot cars…. there’s an emphasis on line and curve, form and lustre…. so I was thinking it would be interesting to shoot a nude-ish picture of a woman who is being prepped the same way a car would be…. skin being polished, a buffer shining up this area or that…. to kind of connect the dots between woman as object and car as object. I see a lot of that kind of thing…. take the techniques that are usually applied to this kind of image, and then apply it to that kind of image. So you get nude as landscape, or body as product (very common), there’s a lot of that kind of cross pollination in photography. It would be even more interesting to go the other way…. shoot a landscape the way you would a portrait (gonna need a really big beauty dish for this one) or shoot architecture like a car. There’s a lot of possibilities there. A lot of conceptual things to consider. Keeps things fun.

Woman as Car Idea

New Work - Casual Portrait for Rosemarie

Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved * Tim Lewis Photography

A more informal portrait of Dr. Rosemarie Downey-McCarthy. This setup only has one light, so it’s very simple. I often like to start with simpler setups because they’re less distracting to me as a photographer. I’m not adjusting four or five different lights, busy trying to balance all these spinning plates, instead I can slow down and spend ten or twenty minutes talking with the subject, slowly getting them to relax, getting them used to my style of shooting, the pace, the random things I’m going to say to them… Starting simple like this can calm the subject a bit, and you can move to more complicated setups afterwards. Plus you get great results like this one on the way.

New Work - Casual Portrait for Rosemarie

How to Make Stronger Photographs Through the Process of Visual Design

I really liked this article by Barry J. Brady on how to make stronger photos using visual design. I always think that photographers that come from a strong graphic design background have a bit of a leg up with regards to balance, composition and color theory. One thing I’ve been pushing myself to do here lately is take more pictures with elements that are designed or arranged intentionally. You start to reach that point where taking a picture of someone in front of something pretty or grimey or interesting just isn’t enough. It seems like a natural step in a photographer’s evolution to do all of those things, but eventually you grow past it, and start saying things like “In a perfect world, what would the background for this picture be?” and then you go and create it.

A lot of it comes back around to creating something unique. If I have someone stand in front of a brick wall at sunset and take a great picture of them, what makes that different from the time you had someone stand in front of a a brick wall at sunset? How can my pictures be different? All it takes to be a photographer is to own and sometimes use a camera. That’s easy to achieve. But to be a unique photographer? To do something that is actually different and special? That’s really difficult. Visual Design is one way to get there.

How to Make Stronger Photographs Through the Process of Visual Design

Slanted Lens Video on a Reflector Double-Bounce Technique

In this video the Slanted Lens guys demonstrate how to bring sunlight into even the darkest set, using a double bounce technique with two reflectors. It’s a very useful technique, although you have to compensate for the sun’s movement when you’re working on set for a long time. Still, great trick and very useful way to get light into interesting places.

 

Slanted Lens Video on a Reflector Double-Bounce Technique

Portfolio Website Updated!

I’ve added new work and updated my portfolio on my website a bit! Click on over and stay awhile!

 

Portfolio Website Updated!

Water Drops

I’m really interested lately in putting things between my lens and the subject. This being Eugene, I thought maybe some water droplets would be fun to try. So this is that attempt. Some thoughts – 1. It’s hard to focus on the droplets themselves, to get the image inside of them sharp. 2. The water droplets distort in a really interesting way that’s not always flattering to the subject — this is more appropriate for use on a surreal subject, or a model with unconventional looks. 3. It doesn’t take much glass to get this effect. It could almost be done carrying a small piece of plexiglass around… perhaps attaching it to my lens itself would be interesting…. this way the focal length would never change, and I could just walk around and take pictures through the drops.

It’s an interesting experiment. I’ll probably play around with it some more down the line.

Also, it sometimes creates great bokeh:

 

Behind the Scenes

Water Drops