Light control technique:how to create black background part 1 eric's work

Drown out ambient light!!

Eric explains about setting your shutter speed to at least 1/250, for most indoor lighting. 1/250 will do the trick, who ever he suggested to shoot faster if the light is bright, or there is sunlight coming through the windows. most flashes will finish firing before your shutter closes, so you can use your shutter speed to control the ambient exposure without interfering too much with your flash exposure settings. he has suggested to set the settings to:

shutter speed:1/250

aperture f/13.0

ISO 100

my first intentions/purpose of my photos is to take night life photography so trying this method will help with the details of lights and colours within the photo, to capture the mood of fun and  inspiration of the atmosphere of the event.

my reason of the selection of the theme is night life is always my thing of passion. i love capturing fun, Adrenalin rush and joy of people faces that give me that kick to do this theme. including i already take photos for a local bar so plenty of space to try these new skills.

i will be taking photos at blush on saturday 9th for there hollywood night and see how this new way will come out for me 

day at the funfair (daytime)

Nice day at the Burton statues fair!

well on my break at work but the day was cloudy with a bit of sun which made a great day for some photos. in this little project of mine, i wanted to see what different effects, tone and basicly wanted to try different settings and what was best for each photo i took. These are my best ones i thought that worked , i will explain what i did and settings i used.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop 4.5
ISO 400
lens 18mm

in this photo i liked all the colour that is bright and catches your eye. i positioned myself  kneeling on the floor to get a taller look of the object and keeping the object more in the centre of the photo.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop 5.6
ISO 800
lens 55mm

the mirror maze was quite amazing with all the lights reflecting on each other, bouncing back and forth to get this illusion with the blue lights including the motoworld sign reflecting off it.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop 5.6
ISO 100
lens 55mm

i loved ghost trains even as a little kid but i loved the grim reaper figure i took it with ISO 400 but it was too light i wanted it to be darker looking so i changed it to 100 and this gave a better look to it. More dark and scary looking including it caught the green colour giving a glowing look to it.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f4.5
ISO 100
lens  19mm

At first i tried it with ISO 300 and it was too bright and you couldnt see the glowing green effect it was showing with the lights and picture, so putting it down to 100 made a much better picture and made it look darker for a very sunny day which made it very spooky looking

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f5.6
ISO 100

again like the photo before i wanted it to look dark and scary and it came out well including i angled the shot to give a twisted look to go with the theme of the shot i wanted to get. I started to like this glowing green light and the background detail still came out so you could still see the grusome pirate face looking at you!

shutter speed 1/400
f stop f5.6
ISO 100
lens 55mm

for some reason i like this sign "extreme" it was eye catching. I still kept it on the dark setting as i wanted to make the sky darker so the main focus was the sign with lights on it making it noticable and was my main focal point.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f4.5
ISO 800
lens 26mm

Now this one i was messing with the settings and i came across this one which i love for some strange reason. i thought it was it was very artistic and it catches my eye making it look like a dream funfair where someone might be dreaming it, you could still see all the colour and lights on it still. I felt drawn into this picture.

Shutter speed 1/800
f stop f4.5
ISO 400
lens  19mm

same as last photo i wanted to carry on with this dream look effect i made but put the shutter speed up so it would catch the ride without bluring it up i would love to try and see if i could get the lights spinning and bluring next time in the night but i know it wont work in the light.

Shutter speed 1/800
f stop f4.5
ISO 800
lens 26mm

The next couple of pictures i have taken are the same but i wanted to test out different ones with different angles and shutter speeds i noticed the faster the shutter speed  the clearer the ride and people were.

Shutter speed 1/4000
f stop f4.5
ISO 800
lens 23mm

again the ride and the people are much clearer.

Shutter speed 1/1600
F stop f4
ISO 1600
lens 26mm

right in this one i slowed down the shutter speed and put the iso up and noticed there was more light and there was a fog effect not looking too clear but it looked good in a way as sometimes i noticed that when making photos it doesnt need to be clear but giving a style or a look that makes the photo unusual and different to improve this one i would put the ISO to about 400 may make it look better or put the f stop to 7 or 8 to take less light in.

Shutter speed 1/1600
f stop f8
ISO 1600
lens 18mm

with changing the f stop it has helped and cleared the image up, so taking less light into the lens makes the image less glared by the sun.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f4
ISO 200
lens 28mm

With this shot this is the best place to try my evidence on how eric hamlinton does his photos. now he explained about lowering the ISO and putting the f stop to 13.0 but after i put the f stop that low it was too dark for my image so i put it back to f4.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f4
ISO 200
lens 28mm

again i liked how the lights are bright and you can see the glare from them i think with his way he uses other equipment, i only have the basics so i keep to what i thought was good till i know what extras can help me get that perfect image like his.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f8
ISO 200
lens 55mm

the image was great and having the f stop close in stops the glare from the sun.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f8
ISO 200
lens 55mm

with the next couple of photos i wanted to catch the fun and use what i learnt on that day. Some of them i changed the f stop as the sun was too bright and kept the shutter speed high so it doesnt blur up.

Shutter speed 1/400
f stop f9
ISO 200
lens 46mm

Shutter speed 1/800
f stop f9
ISO 200
lens 31mm

As the ride was getting faster i put up the shutter speed to help focus the image

Shutter speed 1/500
f stop f6.3
ISO  200
lens 34mm

Shutter speed 1/500
f stop f6.3
ISO 200
lens 24mm

Shutter speed 1/500
f stop f6.3
ISO 200
lens 30mm

this one is one of my top pictures as this one has got more of a big impact to it and the picture has more defintion. The colour is sharp and the contrast is great, you can see the people and pictures very clear and having the sky pure white gives the ride a big focus.

Shutter speed 1/500
f stop f6.3
ISO 200
lens 26mm

again same as last photo the colour is sharp and clear with all of the detail showing.

Shutter speed 1/125
f stop f6.3
ISO 200
lens 28mm

This one i wanted to give more of an action shot giving more impact in the frame

Shutter speed 1/320
f stop f6.3
ISO 200
lens 30mm

with the carousel i wanted to capture the colour and detail of the houses. i loved all the little detail on them and wanted every bit of it to show in my shot.

Shutter speed 1/640
f stop f5.3
ISO 200
lens 46mm

i changed the f stop to take more of the light to catch more of the colour and the shine off them capturing the gold  including the shadows which made a good touch to them and i zoomed in to see more detail on the horse faces. The poles give a lot of depth within the picture including the shadows gives that 3d dimension to it.

All these photos are my first approach with using no auto and to get used to what my camera can do. With giving myself a chance to see what skills i have now and how to improve them for future.I have experience in how you can play with light and and how you can change your exposure and how to control the bluring with moving objects and capturing depth and colour. All of these photos have not been photo shopped and it shows me that you don't need it to get a perfect picture.

My next challenge is night time fun fair (when it comes to Swadlincote) capture the lights, colour and fun people are having.For my first attempt it wasn't to bad but these still show a lot can be learned and i cant wait to see what i can do next.     

5 photo task

last week i was given a task to take 5 photos with 5 different objects using the presence of a person in different locations. The first 1 i used is a simple photo to start with using only manual settings for the first time!! 

with this photo it was taken in my house in my living room. As i only have 1 camera and 1 lens which is a  Nikon D3000 with a AF-s nikkor 18-55mm lens. 

I took the photo in normal indoor lighting  with the TV on which helped with giving shading on the left side to give texture and shape to the image. the ISO i used 300 and the f stop on f5 which gives a darker look this gives a more toned look as i tried a higher ISO but this made the skin texture too pale, Including you could see the chain glitzy shiny effect.  The Main focus was the Pentagram which i made the focus on which is more in the centre of the photo so it will catch your eye then 2nd focal point was his chin giving a dark contrast part of the photo. the speed shutter i set it on was 1/100 to help with the detail and not catch to much light. the aim on this photo was to give a mysterious look with great pride of who he is so i would of call it 

"WITH GREAT POWER COMES PRIDE"

but for a start its not too bad photo but would of like to make the back ground black or darker to help the person to be more of focal point and show more detail of the shape and curve of his body.

In this photo, i took it at Breedon on the hill which is located near Ashby de la zouch. we went to the  church which had loads of detail trees, stones and monuments to give a good look of the medieval, which i wanted to do for this photo. Again i used the same camera and lens with the ISO on 300, f stop on f4 and shutter speed 1/200. The day was clear with no rain but very windy so i wanted to capture the grass in good detail and the colour of it helps break up with everything else. I didn't want to have the grass blurred so i put the shutter speed up to help that and you can see every strand of grass in the picture. I put a Crystal with the stones to give my main focal point of the picture and i caught it with the sun shining into it to catch your eye. i loved how i captured the detail of the stones and the gravestone as you can see all the engraving and colour differences in them and the grave stone was old and worn from the weather. The first thing i tried was playing with the shutter speed and noticed that the slower the speed the brighter it became and icouldn't see anything until i found the right one that made it right for me. Then i play with the f stop and i couldn't get any good shots except with f4 as it appeared better for the light conditions i had. i wanted to get a peaceful look which made you think a bit of sadness but with giving a sense of peace and hope with the crystal shining out so i like to call it "peace at last"   

    

In my 3rd photo i went into the church in Breedon and noticed it was decorated

for the Autumn festival, with lots of colour and texture, it was the perfect scene for me to play with( still giving respect as it is a church)and the light was OK but was dull and was enough for me. I set the camera to shutter speed 1/100 and this was a bit too bright and too blurry for the candles light so i changed it to 1/250 and this gave me the right touch for the light to glare out and give that shine effect. The ISO was set to 800 to catch the detail and the f stop on 5 as it didn't come out good on the others. I tried the 3 line rule on this picture with candles on the left line and the pumpkin on the centre which helps me make people focus on the candles then lead to the pumpkin. I loved all the colours that stand out from all the gray and dark that the church gives out but one thing i wasn't sure looked right was that the picture looked a bit pixeled but my thoughts were that it then gives it a old look and sets the mood for it. i like to call the photo "Autumn solstice".

now my 4th photo i wanted to play with light though the church window that just caught my eye the most in there and was perfect. i put my shutter speed to 1/350  and put the ISO to 800 and f stop to f3 which was great! i wanted to combine what i had learnt with what i done in the last photos and get that perfect shot. I love playing with light and getting that mood of darkness with the light bursting through the arch window, the yellow flowers were a great touch as it makes you focus on them making the dull dark room feel a little warmer. The shadows off the archway make it look 3d effect and the mysterious figure in the window was good as you dont notice first as your eyes focus first on the flowers which then leads you to encounter the spooky person outside of the window i call this one "shadow from the past".  

Saving the best to last! I wanted to leave this one last as i think this one is the best out of them all, i kept my setting from the last one but put the iso to 1000, shutter speed 1/100 and f stop at f5. I wanted it as dark as it could be just enough to catch the top of the hooded figure so it just blends into the dark and the light glare into the dark church that gives that perfect shadow touch with all my scenes and light , it worked perfectly together. The image gives you that 3d feeling that you can walk into the picture and the ghostly monk look was made by my partner kneeing down, with the light bouncing off his hood. I was very impressed and this photo i would be very happy with and wouldnt do any more to!. 

i would call this one " light in the dark".   

photographer Eric Hamlinton

BIO OF ERIC

Eric Hamlinton is a full time professional photographer in salt lake city utah. He has been doing photography and using SLR camreas for 15 years.
The Cameras and lenses he uses are:

Nikon D80 10.2 Digital SLR

Nikkor 18mm-155mm f/1.5-56 len
Nikkor 50mm F/1.8D portrait lens
Nikon SB-600 speedlight flash unit

including he has been working on digital images for 8 years.

He has built the first digital photo lab on Oahu and co-founded the sparks arts: digital arts festivals- an annual event held in salt lake city Utah. He has managed the photography and music competitions for the event. He has been the driving force behind the vision and goals of the sparks arts organizations. he has specialize commercial and editorial fashion, glamor and night life.

the road im taking in photography

in my course i what to take photos on night life, action, festivals and events so im looking into location photography which is more im into. assigment i be doing will be 208  and 211 that support what im looking into and progress with. i  decided to look into a photographer name eric hamiton to start with and see what he does and how i can acheive the same with my photos. He is a photographer on celebrity/ DJ / nightlife and that's what i want to look into to improve my photos and go in the right direction. email address dilve.com