Design Your Mind

I can’t believe how much better my lighting class has made me understand light. There are a lot of principals and theories that I did not know about which I wouldn’t have been able to understand unless dealing with it on a personal level. Understanding the ‘family of angles’, how shadows cast and the inverse square law do not just absorb into your brain without hands on practice. All college text books are filled to the brim with knowledge that can teach you anything but you can’t demonstrate an understanding of something just be reading it and taking a test. That is why I enjoy my lighting class. We will read from the book a few fundamental lighting principals and then practice them all day in class. It can’t get any better then that.

My latest assignment I have been working on for class is glass. For some, this is the most difficult type of photography, which I totally agree with and can sympathize. My teacher keeps telling us, “If you understand how to light glass you can light anything.” It is so true! There is nothing that glass won’t throw at you; shadows, glare, reflection, the whole gamut and the kitchen sink.

These few pictures are my attempt at lighting glass and demonstrating the light techniques I have learned. Enjoy.

The water bottles are not glass but they use the same principals. Its fun to make things that are so boring into things that are extraordinary.

Cheers,
Aaron

Recently for class I had been asked to take a local business and create a completely different identity. Because I am new to the Portland area I don’t really have any connection that would allow me to do such a project but conveniently my sister has a small jewelry line that she runs out of her house. She was a perfect candidate for this project. For the project I must create a series of postcards, a brochure, a two color newsletter and a catalogue. Everlasting, my sisters jewelry line, couldn’t have been a better choice for this collection of collateral.

One major obstacle for this project is getting some convincing photos of my sisters jewelry. I knew I had to take the matter into my own hands and learn the proper way to photograph small objects. So I took to the Internet and found some great tutorials on YouTube.com. There I found a series of videos that guided my shoot. I feel that the solution that arouse was a perfect fit and complimented the jewelry line.

Below is the lighting configuration I decided to use. There are two AB800s shooting 1/2. One above the light table and the other below the light table. I would have rather used a soft box instead of my umbrella but I did not have that luxury at this shoot. On the light tables top I have two reflectors folded in such a way that it bounces the light directly back at the jewelry. Then I cut a hole in a piece of Bristol and shot the photographs through that hole. That shoot through piece of Bristol added a very nice highlight to the front of the jewelry pieces.

In the examples notice all the beautiful highlights that are created with this configuration. I was ecstatic when I saw the results on my tiny camera screen. I found myself bracketing a stop down and a stop up for good measure.

I hope my sister likes the pictures along with the final output of the project. This should hopefully get her little business off the ground and running. Feel free to check out her site Everlasting if you like what you see.

I’ll see you around,
Aaron James Trigg