Alexa Meade: Milk

I came across this work by Alexa Meade quite by accident and it had really aroused my curiosity.  The end result is a photograph, but it is the performance, if it can be called that, which matters.  She describes herself on her facebook page as an artist who paints directly on her subjects so that the perception is that of a 3D subject which has been compressed into a 2D space.  The result is extremely effective if somewhat disturbing in some images.

Returning to "Milk", the actual title of the work is: "MILK: what will you make of me?" and is a collaboration between Alexa Meade and Sheila Vand.  The first of the references below, links to a site which fully describes this project, complete with behind the scenes photographs and video.  Curiously this performance, because that what it is in my mind, was repeated at the Galerie Ivo Kamm in Zurich.

Preparation of the canvas

To me, Alexa Meade has taken the concept of flattening a 3D subject into 2D one stage further, with the impact of the milk filled bath, ever changing.  It is this which also, when photographed, demonstrates snapshots in time, which can never be repeated in their detail.  Whilst the concept is repeatable, the detail is not, as the paint works its way into the milk and the slight movements by the performer create unique patterns in time.  Recording these using a stills camera captures those moments, though I hesitate to go so far as those being decisive moments in the Cartier Bresson mould. The performance has a very short lifespan as the moment the subject is submerged in the milk, the paint and the milk morphs and continues to change

The way that the subject blends in with the canvas is the key to the dimensional flattening which is well illustrated in the video at Alexa Sheila Video.

There is a series of black and white images which, to me, become almost like line drawings.  The lighting used contributes to the flattening effect as there very little shadow other than that which has been painted in by the artist.

The main web site at http://alexameade.com/ is worth looking at as this gives an insight into other works done by Alexa Meade, all of which are incredibly striking.

References:

Milk: Alexa Meade and Sheila Vand
Alexa Meade Facebook
Huffington Post
Alexa Meade web site

Exercise: Tungsten and fluorescent lighting

Tungsten and fluorescent lighting prove to be particularly challenging, especially fluorescent which has a narrow colour spectrum.  Tungsten lighting, in a domestic and commercial environment, is now less common, and has not been available to the consumer for several years, at least in the UK.

I tried to make sense of what colour temperature settings should one be using with this type of lighting, including the Compact Fluorescent Lamp (CFL), as I have always experienced difficulty, particularly with the strong colour casts on photographs taken under fluorescent lights.  I was also interested, going forward, what will be happening with regard to LED lighting, as, looking at the manufacturers' websites, such as Philips and Osram, LED lighting appears to be the product which ultimately will replace Fluorescent or CFL as well as incandescent light sources such as Halogen bulbs.

Wikipedia was my first stop and, though not helpful for incandescent lighting, the entry for fluorescent lighting was much more revealing.  This told me that typical incandescent lighting, which is yellowish-white would have a colour temperature of 2,700K.  This is near enough for my purposes to 2,850K which is the temperature given for Tungsten in Lightroom.  However, Canon uses 3,200K as its setting for Tungsten light.  I refer to Canon, as I use Canon cameras.

Fluorescent is much more complex as its colour temperature can vary considerably due to the mixture of phosphors which the manufacturer has used inside the tube in order to achieve a given effect.  Here the range can be from 2,700K through to 6,500K.  This is supported by looking at, say, the Osram catalogue.

Lightroom gives the Fluorescent setting as 3,800K and Canon is a close match at 4,000K.  I find that, many Fluorescent light sources emit a greenish light and it is this which causes the greatest difficult in achieving a natural colour rendition.  It is interesting to note that Lightroom also a +21 Magenta tint for Fluorescent, clearly intended to counter this greenish hue.  The Osram web site tells me that Fluorescent bulbs are  available in three "light colours".  These are:

• warm white, below 3,300K
• neutral white, 3,300 - 5,000K; and
• daylight white, >5,000K.

Seeing these figures it is little wonder that I struggle with colour when shooting under Fluorescent light, due to the range of tubes available.

Looking in more detail at CFL's, I read on the Osram web site, that these are rated as being around 2,500 - 2,700K

Turning to the exercise, it is in two parts; the first asks you to compose a photograph in which both the interior lit by tungsten lamps and the exterior at dusk are both visible.  Three photographs are then to be taken with the WB set to Auto, daylight and tungsten.  The second part is to take photographs in two different interiors, setting WB to Auto and then to fluorescent.

Part 1:  Tungsten

As the light levels were very low, I have used ISO1600 throughout in order to enable me to hand hold the camera.

Auto WB

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/45 sec

The image appears pretty close to how I saw the scene, with a distinct orange / yellow cast arising from the tungsten light.  Clearly the overhead light is not tungsten as it does not give out that yellow light, but, looking at the bulbs, I cannot tell what they are, possibly CFL.

Daylight WB

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/45 sec

This has a distinct yellow cast, which is not surprising as the daylight setting in camera is 5,200K and the scene is lit by a tungsten light at, using the Canon setting, 3,200K.  3,200K is at the yellow end of the spectrum, hence the strong orange / yellow cast.  I would not recommend using this setting indoors.

Tungsten WB

ISO 1600, f/4, 1/45 sec

This photograph comes closest to the colours in the scene, so in this case the tungsten WB setting in camera is certainly the one to use.

In summary, the daylight WB setting is the least accurate, with the tungsten WB setting being the most accurate.  There is not much to choose between tungsten WB and Auto WB, the latter giving quite an acceptable rendition of the scene.

Part 2: Fluorescent

My choice for this was Jubilee Line station at Canary Wharf and the National Theatre on the South Bank.  I suspected that in both cases fluorescent lighting would be used, but could not be certain.

Canary Wharf Auto WB

ISO 3200, f/6.7, 1/30 sec

Auto WB appears to be coping with the lighting pretty well and this image appears to be reasonably accurate.

Canary Wharf Fluorescent WB

ISO 3200, f/4.5, 1/60 sec

To me, this looks a touch green, so the Auto WB setting has done this much better.  Examining the settings, the Auto WB had an extra +10 Magenta tint which can explain this.

Canary Wharf Daylight WB

ISO 3200, f/6.7,  1/30 sec

For comparison, I took a shot using daylight WB, and here the yellow / green hue is really apparent.

National Theatre Auto WB

ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/15 sec

I really should have increased the ISO here, but I got away with a handheld shot, though braced, at 1/15 sec.  Again, I have found that the camera's Auto WB setting is coping pretty well with the lighting and has rendered a pretty reasonable result, though there is still just a bit of green visible.

National Theatre Fluorescent WB

ISO 1600, f/5.6, 1/15 sec

Here the green has gone pretty much entirely, so this is the more accurate result.

One thing that I have found in this exercise is that overall, Auto WB copes very well with a variety of conditions, and may need only a small tweak during post-processing.  Understanding the colour changes due to the colour temperature of different lighting helps with that task.  It is, of course, possible to set up a custom white balance in camera for each 'take', however this is time consuming, though there are accessories which provide help with this.

References

Wikipedia - Incandescent light bulb
Wikipedia - Fluorescent lamp
Philips lighting web site
Osram lighting web site
Canon EOS 5D Mark II and EOS 50D manuals

Exercise: Cloudy weather and rain

This exercise looks at the way light changes from clear sunny days through to overcast days and the impact on the image. Many years ago, when I first started taking photographs, the general advice was only to take photographs on sunny days.  This has changed somewhat and photography has become an all weather activity.

Successful photographs do not need to happen just in bright sunlight, in fact that could be detrimental to the result as contrast is likely to be high, the dynamic range of the subject is likely to outside of that which can be successfully captured by the sensor.  When there is a thin layer of cloud, this acts as a giant diffuser or light tent, so whilst  there may not be any shadows and texture may not be as visible, it will be possible to see greater detail which would otherwise be blocked out by the shadows.

There are three parts to this section:

• the same scene in sunlight and cloud;
• overcast; and
• rain

Sunlight and cloud

Here I took advantage of fast moving clouds to capture the same scene under both sunlit and cloudy conditions.  Throughout, the WB was set to daylight.

Top:  Sunlight, ISO 200, f/16, 1/125 sec
Bottom:  Cloud, ISO 200, f/11, 1/125 sec

In the above pair, showing the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and though there is only one stop difference in exposure, the colour difference is quite marked showing a blue tint to the image.

Left: Sunlight, ISO 100, f/8, 1/250 sec
Right:  Cloud, ISO 100, f/8, 1/90 sec

Again, there is a distinct blueness to the photograph taken in cloudy conditions, with nearly a two stop difference in exposure.

Left:  Sunlight, ISO 100, f/11, 1/250 sec
Right:  Cloud, ISO 100, f/11, 1/60 sec

Photographed in the courtyard in Somerset House, the neutral colour of the stone shows a marked blueness in cloud.  I found it quite a startling change which really was not apparent to me as I took the photograph.  The cloud cover was denser than in the previous photographs in this section and this is reflected in the greater difference in exposure of a full two stops.

In this pair, whilst the sunlight provides the right conditions to show texture, clouds remove this contrast and the strong shadows, revealing more detail in the statue.  This is very much the case in such conditions, as will be further shown in the next section dealing with overcast skies.

Overcast skies

Turning to cloudy and overcast conditions, I consider these to as though there is a huge diffuser between me, the subject and the sun, acting much like a light tent.  The brief calls for three photographs which make use of the shadowless light.  The following photographs demonstrate this.

ISO 400, f/9.5, 1/125 sec

This photograph would have been very difficult to take in full sunshine, with so much gloss varnish!  Here the richness of the colours really show through with minimal reflections.

ISO 400, f/8, 1/60 sec

In this shadowless light, the real detail in this statue and the stonework can be seen.  The subtle green moss / colouring is seen at its best.

ISO 200, f/8, 1/125 sec

Here, again, all the subtle colours of the stones can be seen, as well as the detail of the roots.  It is very likely that in full sunshine, whilst displaying texture the subtlety of the colours and the detail would be lost.

Rain

Generally hated by photographers, after all cameras are not really waterproof, but this can provide plenty of opportunity, not only during the rain, but also after, looking at reflections in puddles and raindrops on surfaces.

ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/180 sec

Stoically enduring the rain, a lone spectator protects her 'territory' at an airshow in early May.  Only in Britain!

ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/80 sec

An abstract effect created by lights shining through a car window during a downpour.  Definitely an opportunistic shot!

ISO 200, f/16, 1/50 sec

 Chairs drying out after a downpour.

ISO 800, f/16, 1/60 sec

A sense of urgency in those legs!

In summary, this was a fun exercise, though finding rain at the right time proved difficult.  From this I have come away with knowing the way colour changes in a cloudy sky, how colours become more saturated in overcast skies and the opportunities there are to be had when it's raining!

Exercise: Variety with a low sun

This exercise was tremendous fun.  I had the foresight (makes a change) to jump to this exercise while still working on part 3 of TAOP.  I went with a group from the RPS Documentary and Visual Journalism (DVJ) group to photograph Brompton Cemetary at the beginning of March.  The lighting was perfect throughout the day; it made a change from constant overcast and rain!  As could be expected on such a day, the cemetary was heaving with photographers and sometimes had to wait to let another photographer take their photo!

The DVJ always has a theme to their outings, in this case the task was to produce either a book or record cover.  My effort is below:

With one exception, I have presented the set for this exercise as B&W as I considered this medium to be most appropriate for the subject matter and would also best illustrate the objectives of this project.  In preparing the final images I have also used Lightroom's B&W filters to generate the look which I desired.

The objective of this exercise is to demonstrate some of the advantages of shooting when the sun is low.  The aim is take a number of photographs to demonstrate the following:

• frontal lighting, with the sun directly behind the camera;
• side lighting, with the sun to the left or right;
• back lighting, shooting towards the light; and
• edge lighting, where the edge of the subject is lit.

Frontal lighting

I find that frontal lighting can make the subject appear very flat and two dimensional, as illustrated in the first of my images below:

ISO 400, f/9.5, 1/250, Blue filter

I had to step to one side in order to avoid my shadow appearing in the image, so it is not quite with the sun behind the camera.

An alternative shot which works better with this lighting is below.

ISO 200, f/4, 1/1500, Orange filter

Nevertheless, this is still somewhat two dimensional, when looking at the detail, much of the impact being due  to my choice of f-stop which has a limited depth of field.

Side lighting

For the first of my images I selected much more of a landscape, rather than a detail shot.  

ISO 400, f/9.5, 1/350, Blue filter

The Collonades which sit atop the catacombs and surround the 'Great Circle' in the cemetery are a dramatic feature.Here the side lighting, enhanced by the use of the blue filter, brings drama to the scene.  The blue filter also enabled me to retain the brick detail in the highlights.

This led me to consider another use of side lighting, that of using the shadows and highlights themselves to create the design.

ISO 400, f/19, 1/125, Blue filter

Again in the Collonades, this time observing the pattern created by the low sun.

One use of side lighting, which I like particularly, is to bring out the surface detail of an object and this is illustrated below.

ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/1000, Orange filter

Here the texture of the roughly hewn cross is enhanced by through side lighting.

Back lighting

Shooting towards the light, typically creates a silhouette where the shape of the object / subject is clearly seen.  This I have demonstrated in the shot below:

ISO 200, f/4, 1/4000, Yellow filter

In order to avoid lens flare, I positioned the sun behind the cross, and exposed, overall, for the sky, which I further darkened using a yellow filter.

The following image is the only one in the set which is in colour, but this is to demonstrate another feature of back-lighting.

ISO 200, f/4, 1/2000

Here, I have used back-lighting to enable the glow of the yellow leaves, against the backdrop of the crosses, by having the light shining through them.

Edge lighting

With the subject back-lit, the object here is to create a rim light effect around the subject.  This is not the easiest lighting to show as lens flare becomes a problem.

ISO 400, f/11, 1/90, Blue filter

 The effect here is to isolate the subject from the background.

ISO 200, f/2.8, 1/500, Blue filter

Again, the cross is further removed from the background by the rim of light outlining its left side.

Use of low light proves extremely fruitful in providing drama as well as giving a greater degree of form and texture to the subject.  This is certainly an aspect which I have enjoyed demonstrating.

Exercise: Light through the day

This exercise, which I prefer to call "dawn to dusk" was something of a marathon.  I started part 4 of TAOP at the beginning of April and then realised that I was running out of time in which to shoot this sequence.  First of all, the sequence required fine sunny weather and I have ended up with a composite some two weeks apart as the first day clouded over in the afternoon and nothing was happening in terms of colour or quality of light.  Then, the weather at weekends simply did not co-operate, but I have put a sequence together which illustrates the changes in light from pre-sunrise to dusk.

The exercise called for around 12 images; I certainly shot a lot more and present more here as, particularly at the beginning and the end of the day, the light was changing very quickly.  I chose to photograph the scene, which included the Church of St Peter and St Paul, with Black Notley Hall farm and outbuildings in the background.  The camera faced South (approximately) with the church on the left and in the back ground Black Notley Hall and outbuildings.  Those to the right were perfectly positioned to catch the sun in the morning and the church was doing the same in the evening.

Throughout the sequence I kept the WB setting at daylight in order to have a constant setting, providing me with a clearer view of how the light changed through time.

Whilst I recorded the shooting information, I am not including it here, suffice to say that all images were shot at ISO 100 and the exposures ranged from 30 seconds at f/8 through to 1/350 at f/11.  I am presenting the images below as sets of 5, with a 'lead' photograph so that  the differences may be more easily appreciated on the blog.  They are arranged in time sequence from top and then left to right.

Early morning

My sequence started at 5 in the morning, and it was clear that the light was beginning to change quite quickly at this time of the day.

The sun rises

Here, as the sun rises, the blueness is diminishing and the light is now being reflected in the outhouses on the right.

To midday and beyond

Church goers got in the way slightly, but the blue skies of the early morning have now been replaced by the white light around the middle of the day.  The clouds which can be seen forming in the last shot of this sequence were to prevent any more meaningful work that day.

Into early evening

Two weeks later and there are leaves on the tree!  As the sun moves to the West, it is now illuminating the North facing side of the church.  A very yellow / orange light around 7-8pm, then with a transition into blue as the sun starts falling below the horizon.  On that day, I would look at 7-8pm as being the golden hour, with this lovely warm light and well defined shadows from the low angle of the sun.

Towards the end of daylight

The blueness of the night descends on the scene, and as darkness falls, it becomes easy to see the lights coming from inside the church.

The atmospheric conditions on the days when I took this sequence, did not provide spectacular sunrises or sunsets, so the colours are somewhat less dramatic.  Nevertheless there is a clear transition from the blue of the early dawn, through some early morning yellow as the suns glow picks out some buildings, through to the white light at midday and then the reverse occurring as the day goes into the afternoon and then evening and night.

Exercise: Judging colour temperature 2

For the second part of this exercise, the objective is to take 3 images, this time varying each image by altering the in-camera setting, so that for each set, one is taken with Auto WB, another with the daylight WB and the third using the shade WB setting.

For this I used the same setup as for part 1 of this exercise, with Gwideon the Griffin as the patient model.

Sun: Left to right AWB, Daylight, Shade

As could be expected, there is very little difference between the AWB and Daylight setting as these were taken around midday, however there is a big difference for the Shade setting.  Here it is not faithful to the colour of the scene at that time.

Shade: Left to right AWB, Daylight, Shade

This time, taken in full shade, I find that the AWB setting is too blue and my preference is for the Daylight setting.  This has warmed up the image just enough to make it pleasing.  The Shade setting produces an image which is far to orange as the natural colour of Gwideon is grey with a touch of green moss.

Evening: Left to right AWB, Daylight, Shade

I expected a more orange tint in the evening and found that the AWB and daylight settings were not giving me what I wanted, or how I felt were representative of the scene.  The Shade setting brought in the yellow/orange colour which I feel is more representative here.

Taking this to a different situation, I took another sequence using these settings, this time some of my neighbours' houses were the subject.  This was taken about 7 in the morning in sunshine.

Morning in Bradford Street: Top to bottom, AWB, Daylight, Shade

In this case, my preference is for the image with the Daylight setting (in the centre) as this seems to give both that morning glow without going over the top as the image with Shade WB.  The AWB image is rather too neutral.

The importance of understanding colour temperature and judging how this will affect the final image is the key lesson to be learnt here.  There are two ways of looking at this:

• use the manual in-camera settings to give the best representation of the scene or the desired effect at the time of shooting; or
• shoot RAW at AWB and adjust in the RAW editor.

There are benefits to both.  The main difficulty with the first option is seeing whether the chosen setting is giving you the desired effect.  I find that using the screen on the back of the camera is sometimes difficult depending on conditions, so would not use this to make such judgments unless working, in say a studio.

Strong colour casts can be introduced by adjusting White Balance, and these must be considered as part of the creative input into the overall composition of an image.

My preference is always to shoot RAW as this captures all the information I need and I can then adjust using my preferred RAW editor, Lightroom.

Exercise: Judging colour temperature 1

This section looks at colour temperature and being able to recognise colour changes throughout the day.  It would be very easy to get caught up in the science, but for practical purposes, ie to help me appreciate the colour of different light sources and their impact on the image, all one really needs to know are some of the basics.

First of all, I would like to illustrate this with a single image.  This I took in the City of London in late afternoon a couple of weeks ago and I felt it really illustrates the difference between colour temperature in the shade and in bright sunlight.

ISO 400, f/6.7, 1/45 sec

The differences between shade and sunlight are very marked, considering that the stonework is a consistent colour throughout.  I used auto WB for this shot as I wanted both the sunlight and shade to be treated equally.  Here the stonework which is in the shade has a blue colour and this is very much attributed to the almost cloudless blue sky, which I can see in my images taken of other buildings adjacent to this at the same time.  The warm colour of the sunlight is really shown up in this image.

One of the benefits of shooting in RAW is that all information available at the time of recording the image is preserved and not altered in any way, so that it is then possible to alter the white balance of a photograph if the "as shot" does not look right.

The original was shown in Lightroom as being shot at 4900 Kelvin (K).  I then altered this in Lightroom, creating 3 further images, and these are shown above with the following settings, left to right:

• Daylight, 5500 K;
• Cloudy, 6500 K; and
• Shade, 7500 K

To me, the most pleasing colour balance is that described as shade, where the "cold" blueness of the stonework is "warmed" and there is less of a contrast between that and the sunlight flooding in at the back.

There are very many charts and other diagrams available in books and on the Internet, in particular from light bulb manufacturers, so I am not reproducing any of these here.  A summary of the science is that the temperature, expressed in degrees Kelvin (K), is recorded for the colour that an object would glow at if heated to that temperature.  An objected heated to give a red to orange glow would be at approximately 1,000 to 3,000 K.  Heating the object further until it emits a white glow, will record a temperature of 5,500 K.  Applying further heat, the object will take on an increasing blue colour, in the range of 6,000 K to 10,000 K.

In photographic terms, therefore I would expect the following:

• Midday sun is generally white with a temperature of 5,500 K as all the wavelengths making up light can be seen;
• Blue sky goes up to around 10,000 K
• Shade under a clear sky will reflect a large amount of blue and therefore will be between 7,000 and 8,000 K;
• Cloudy sky will be around 6,500 K;
• A fine morning or evening sun will be around 3,500 K; and
• Sunrise / sunset will be around 2,500K

Particularly in the morning and evening, at sunrise and sunset, atmospheric conditions will affect the colour and give a tint, due to diffraction of particles causing the short blue wavelengths to scatter, leaving the longer wavelengths.

Moving on to the exercise itself, the objective was to photograph a neutral coloured object in full sun in the middle of the day, in shadow at the same time and then towards the end of the day.  All need to be shot using the daylight WB setting.  

This is where I noted differences between the interpretation of settings in camera and those generally accepted and seen in Lightroom.  For the Canon EOS 5D II the following settings are given:

• Auto - 3000-7000;
• Daylight - 5200;
• Cloudy - 6000; and
• Shade - 7000

Left to Right:  Sun, Shade, early Evening.

My garden does not see much sun in the late evening, so I chose to take the last image in early evening, where the light was already tending towards yellow / orange.  Not the best of sets, but it does illustrate the point, with the shade being a bluer colour than sunlight.  

One of the learning points which I have noted during this and the following exercises, is that the eye sees colour differently to that which is recorded on the sensor, so the blueness in shade, is not always apparent.  Knowing what to expect in different situations then enables me to "see" these colours and make use of them compositionally.