CCC Forum

S18 - Low Key - Portrait - SELFIE

This week’s challenge is Low Key with suggestion for a Portrait.
That means another selfie for me to do.
Yesterday evening, found that the darkest room in the house was a loft bedroom.
Looked at single light sources but all the lamps were too bright.
Settled for keeping the door, which is adjacent to a window, slightly ajar.
Decided to hand hold the Lumix fz1000 for a few trial runs.
The white walls were a problem.
Draped a dark blue light blanket over the wardrobe which worked effectively.
However, the fz was too unwieldy and wanted to use it red focusing light.

So, this afternoon decided to try my mobile phone - only a cheap Samsung!
I was able to manipulate this easily enough to centre my head on the dark blue background.
Took a dozen images.
Cropped and did a tiny amount of Photoshop.
Job done.

Week 19: Roll of Film

Open subject! Wow! Freedom to chose the subject!
Red roses had just started blooming and there was an easy arrangement or two here.
However, I felt I needed something much more challenging.

Our overgrown garden has the feel of a sun-dappled woodland with lots of wildflowers.
Naturally it does attract insects that bypass the neighbours’ manicured gardens.

On Thursday. I was pleased to see a speckled wood butterfly come into our patch.
It flitted around checking various sunny spots to sunbathe, settling for just 30 seconds or so each time.
I remembered that I was on a just one roll challenge and had to stop myself using the camera at this stage.
The observation stage must have lasted for well over half an hour.

The speckled wood finally selected a group of leaves in full sunlight.
Here, with wings closed, only one side was lit.
I made myself as comfy as possible on the lawn.
With camera manually set-up, apart from auto ISO and auto focus, I settled down to take a few shots.
Camera was handheld, with lens fully extended to 400 mm equivalent. (FZ-1000 - f/7.1; 1/500 sec/ auto ISO 500)
I moved slightly a few times to reduce interfering background, to reduce photoshop work later.
The butterfly flew off a couple of times but fortunately returned to virtually the same position.
Hence, I used up most of my virtual roll of film!

Nice! Your patience paid off!
I like shooting a roll at a time - old school!
What would give it a further edge is to darken down the green in the back ground.

Hi Frank,
It is always nice to get feed back on images that I post on SOTW. That is considerate of you to do so.

In the days of filming fish with a Pentax Z-20 with a 50mm macro lens, I always went out with 4 rolls of film!
Even then, I spent 20 mins observing the fish in the aquarium to learn their swimming routines and where they stayed still.

Your suggestions would certainly improve the butterfly image.
I have actually removed the greatest offenders by cropping and then pasting over a light coloured stick into the wing (cloning did not work to well).
Also changed the bottom right corner to something more measured.

I love your final minimalist rendition of the butterfly sent to me by email.
I will have to familiarize myself with some of the methods used.
It took you at least an hour to make those changes.
Please put all 3 of your images and text on the forum.
It is a good tutorial to help others too.

My main problem is that TIME is my Enemy.
I am already a week behind my third Fish compilation that I am hoping to finish by tomorrow.
Yet to start on it today but No sitting in the garden today should help.
10 more to do after that!

Feel free to write an honest comment on my minimalist self portrait if you wish!

Thanks Frank.
All the best,
Iggy

Hi Iggy,

as suggested posted below is the content of the email I sent, I'm glad it provided some food for thought. Hope others find it useful:

Hi Iggy,

Hope you don't mind I thought I would just do a quick and dirty illustration to show what I meant in my comment.

I have added dehaze, clarity and sharpening, additionally I have de-saturated the green in the background this was applied to the images S19 C and S19 M.

Image S19 DB was achieved by burning the background ( This took me 10 mins)

Image S19 M, this was achieved by cloning out the background, if it was going into a Nature shot they would not allow this. (Time spent 25 mins)

Image S19 C, this was achieved by de-saturating and burning the background. (Time spent 15mins)

The files I worked on were low res copied from the forum so I'm sure if you were to have a go on the original it would look even better.

Kind regards

Frank



3 Attachments

Hi Frank,
Thanks a lot.
That's very helpful.
All the best,
Iggy

Iggy wrote:Hi Frank,
Feel free to write an honest comment on my minimalist self portrait if you wish!
Iggy

Hi Iggy, here are my observations, firstly the image res is V, V low and the colour is not helping the image. I know that you used a mobile to capture this image, mobiles work best when used within their limitations, this particular mobile is not suited to capture images in low light; as a result there is a lack of sharpness and def.
It takes time to setup these types of portraits and I know time is not your friend at the mo. I would revisit this at some point in the future and use the fz. I don't know if you can recall a set of prints I did for one of our exhibitions "titled Reverse selfies" I had the camera on tripod I used a coat stand to get focus for where I would be standing, set everything to manual and used a remote trigger for the shutter.
Back to your portrait - Taking portraits of someone with glasses requires more care than usual, here you can see the shadow of the rim cast on your face, you also needed a reflector just to put a tiny bit more light back in the shadows. Hope this helps!

Hi Frank,
Thanks for taking time to give me your observations which I requested.
I accept all the points that you make from very low image resolution to definition and more.

I did try using the FZ1000 to take the selfie but it was too heavy to hold in the correct position.
The light source wasn’t great having to resort to a slit of light from a door held ajar.
So I was never going to get images as Paul Hester showed us how to do with a single soft light box.

Surprisingly, I rather like this self-image that I created which just enough detail to capture my sense of lockdown.
The spectacles just about in focus probably hold the image together for me signifying hope!
I am not looking at it as a photograph but rather a piece of art or a piece of self perhaps (?).

The very first image in my SOTW of 2020 was another self portrait captured that time with my FZ1000 on a tripod.
It was triggered remotely with an old mobile where I could see the camera view on the mobile.
Illuminated by room lights. I am not too keen on this image.
http://forums.croydoncameraclub.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3339

Unfortunately, I don’t recall your set of prints "titled Reverse selfies". Perhaps from before I joined CCC.
Would be interested to see them if possible.

Kind regards,
Iggy

Iggy wrote:Surprisingly, I rather like this self-image that I created which just enough detail to capture my sense of lockdown.
The spectacles just about in focus probably hold the image together for me signifying hope!
I am not looking at it as a photograph but rather a piece of art or a piece of self perhaps (?).


Unfortunately, I don’t recall your set of prints "titled Reverse selfies". Perhaps from before I joined CCC.
Would be interested to see them if possible.

Kind regards,
Iggy

Hi Iggy, I can understand your affinity with this picture, it has a painterly quality to it and so comes across impressionistic. As always the key thing is the picture achieves what you set out to portray and you like it. It's not always jut about the technical aspects. I can see how it can say we will come out of these dark times back into the light.

This is one of the set of the 4 prints that was entered into the 2014 Exhibition

Best wishes

Frank

Frank said:
it has a painterly quality to it and so comes across impressionistic.
I can see how it can say we will come out of these dark times back into the light.

Thanks Frank, Those are generous comments.
To be honest, the initial plan was to get a standard low key self portrait and go from there.
Lack of a suitable light source and a patchy dark background were hindrances that pushed me beyond the photographic boundaries.
However as soon as I saw the first results with the mobile phone I was drawn to them for their artistic feel.
So I kept with that format and decided to leave the colour from the spectacles and the blue collar in, as rays of hope.
Putting a matching blue line round the image edge totally destroyed the ambiance of the piece and was left out.
Hence image as is with just a bit of cropping, if I remember correctly.

I do like your strong image exhibited before I was a member of the CCC.
I expect that it was well received as part of your print panel in the exhibition.

Just finished my third fish book compilation in lock down that should be off tomorrow.
Number two should be back by the weekend.
Starting on the next one now!

Best wishes,
Iggy