Video Interview

The video clip is an interview of Liz Pierson introducing her favorite picture. Liz is a very friendly and talktive interviewee. The cooperation was a happy experience of mine.

We did meet some difficulties in the process anyway. Both of us had done the whole thing twice to make a successful one. In my first time, I did not set the camera correct, so the whole video was out of focus. It was really a silly mistake!

The lighting was basically like what we did in lab. One key light from the subject's left front; two filling lights for the background. However, I failed to make the background illumination as even as it should be, and it caused some trouble later when I tried to drop out the green wall.

I asked her several questions but only kept her answer of the first question, which was a description of how she took her favorite photograph and why she was fond of it. The photograph is vertical, so I could not make it a whole background. I choosed to put it aside of the subject, as if she was pointing to it and introduce it. She had a lot of gestures when talking, so I did not create much movement of the picture, in order not to distract.

Audio Inspiration

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/09/11/realestate/20090913-habi-audioss/index.html

I like it because it sounds mot perfect but very natural. The ovbious ambient noise makes me feel the lady is directly talking to me in the room. And the pauses, slight stutters, hesitations and repeating "you know"s in her description also strongthen this feeling. Because the topic is about a common but warm story, this natural, imperfect method of sound editing is just proper for it.

One word about the photography, I like the details which are not directly showing the lady with her cats, instead, some pictures show the cat carriers in her closet, and decorations of kitten image. They enrich the whole story and create a sense of real, daily life.

Multiple Flash

Qi An (Angie)

Multiple Flash Self Evaluation

   This is the most unsuccessful assignment I have ever done! When shooting on location, I found myself sometimes just forget I was dealing with more than one flash. Theoretically I am very clear that I should use a key light, a filling light and a light for either lightening background or emphasizing a subject. However, in practice I got everything messed up. When I changed my position and angle, I always forgot to tell my assistant where she shall move to cooperate with my camera, or which person she shall focus on. Also I feel sorry for my partners – my SB-600 seemed just not go with their SB-900, which caused a lot of trouble for our cooperation.

   Most of the outtakes have the problem of unbalanced lighting. The lady in white, who appeared in many pictures, got too hot. While the filling light was not used well, so the background was either too dark or too bright. Since people kept moving around, I did not make good composition. Another problem (I will not forgive myself ><) is that I used manual focus instead of auto focus all the time, just because in the last assignment I used manual and I forgot to change it back this time!

   In the first select, I intentionally kept the shadows on the wall, instead of softening them by filling light, because I thought the shape of the dancing people’s heads and bodies were interesting. In the second select I used a slow shutter to create sense of movement, but I did not know how to set rear mode on my flash, so I could not freeze the other dancer as I imagined. Both selects are not satisfactory. I guess I do need more practice on multiple flash.

Painting with Light

Qi An

Painting with Light Self Evaluation

   It is more like a game rather than an assignment! I have a happy experience with my partners. Anyway, it is also a difficult one; we have a good idea but we fail to make it as ideal as we imagined.

   Anna has two dancer friends who came to help us. We decided to use flash light to freeze their graceful poses in the air, and use a colored light to draw a ribbon-like line around them. However, it turns out not as perfect as we hoped. Problems we met include:

   Untidy background: we shoot in the studio; the backdrop could not cover enough space and we found a lot of unwanted stuff in the frame. I suggested that letting the dancers jump at same spot but we move camera instead; it might be a better way to put the four figures in appreciate positions in the frame. But others believed it was too difficult to control.

   Insufficient lighting: one flash was only enough to lighten part of the dancer’s body; but two flashes would make it over-exposed. We were trying hard to find a way to well light the dancers without extra light on background, but failed. And since Anna flashed the dancers in front of them, in some pictures we could see her shadow, and we did not find solution. I feel the most difficult part of light painting is how to lighten only what I want while avoid making unwanted stuff appear in the frame.

Some of the images we took: