Process: Final Hand in. (WK 8)

My focus for my final hand in was shadow and light, when researching, I looked at different kinds of light in portraiture and the ways it manipulated the outcome of the photograph. Chiaroscuro particularly stood out for me, light emerging from darkness. This first photograph, I hadn't aimed for anything like Chiaroscuro, but looking at the photograph afterwards, it's what it reminded me of. I liked this first photograph, the problem was, it was too dark and when I attempted to lighten it, I lost part of the shadow that I liked so much. It was then that I decided to re-shoot this photograph in a studio.

The studio made it much easier to get the result I wanted. I also used a different lens. The lens allowed me to have a smaller F stop, like the photographs I'd looked at during my research. The photograph to the left was my first choice (The black marks beneath his eyes only showed up when uploading to this site). The black background, half his head unseen because of the depth of the shadows, it was almost perfect. However, when I zoomed in during the editing stage, I found that it was a little out of focus. I think this is because it focused on the tip of his nose and with the narrower F stop, the rest of his face was only slightly out of focus. This was a little annoying and if I'd had the time I would've asked him to come back in and done a re-shoot in this lighting situation, except, I had a second favourite photograph that I could use.

The lighting was different for this photograph, we'd been attempting to emulate a Rembrandt style lighting. This was one of the successful photographs for that task, as you can see the triangle on his cheek. The lighting was also split in a way that it made it possible to adapt a similar style to that of the Chiaroscuro. I was able to crop this image, as it was much sharper, and alter the tones of the image so that the shadow became a lot deeper than what it is in the original photograph, I did this mainly using levels and curves in Photoshop, but also the brightness and contrast slider. Editing this image, I found it quite easy, especially now that I can properly use layers, it was easy to create groups and go through the process of adjusting one thing at a time until I was happy with the final outcome. The change to black and white instead of colour also helped this process. The shadows became deeper when I removed the colour in my final group on the Photoshop file (I did it this way so if i didn't like the black and white version I could always turn the layer off). It also made the high lights such as on his cheek lighter, but in this case it did kind of work there is a bit more brightness in the black and white version. I couldn't be happier with the end result, although I did like the edited colour version as well. I felt like the black and white showed more of what I'd been doing and also stayed within the chiaroscuro style a little better than what the colour did, it looks more like a photo where chiaroscuro was the immediate interest.

I only used one light in this photograph, but that one light was enough to create that Rembrandt style lighting situation, but to also help me emulate a small amount of the chiaroscuro as well. The studio light I used was in front and to the side of the figure. It was the angle of the direct light, with no diffuser that helped create this chiaroscuro-like photograph. During the editing stage, when I began the cropping process I attempted to aline parts of his face up with the rule of thirds grid, it wasn't very successful as I wanted a gap between the side of the frame and the lighter side of his face. It loosely lines up within this grid, but it's not so obvious.

It was quite a long process to get to where the photograph is now, but it works and I like what I was able to create from that one portrait that I happened to take during self directed time. I hadn't intended on taking a photograph that would eventually become my final, it was more that I was looking at different poses for male figures as this is something I've found quite difficult. So in trying to further my skills and knowledge, I gained an idea that turned into something I never thought I'd be able to create.