© 2012 Heather Orlando

Dates:

Proposal: Wednesday, 10/29
Prelim: Wednesday, 11/5

Final: Wednesday, 11/12

Create a body of work that explores the human form in some way. These can be portraits, abstractions of the body, nudes, theatrical, conceptual, or other. Work toward a cohesive group of images that are aesthetically and conceptually related. Plan to submit between 5-7 final images, in print form as well as digital (jpegs 1200).

Create most appropriate studio lighting design to support your images, high key, low key, or otherwise. 

Proposal should consists of 1 paragraph describing your concept, subject(s) and approach, and 1 paragraph that mentions and describes the lighting approaches of at least two well-established artists who work with the human form in a compelling way...how will they inspire your project?

Work will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Original, inspiring, and creative idea/concept/approach
• Quality of lighting design
• Quality of photographic design
• Technical (camera, lighting, file management, etc.)
• Deliverables (prints, files, etc.)
• Growth of the project over the course of the assignment

Proposal, prelim and final critiques will be graded.

Further examples of student work:

High Key Portrait

In class shooting assignment, week of 10/27

Portrait, assignment 2

This assignment will explore the use of lighting ratios with a fill light, hair light and kickers. Take your time and fully explore each aspect. Scrutinize and form opinions about how these lighting variables affect the overall results.

Schedule a model. Suggest clothing and styling. Be adventurous. Creativity rewarded!

1. Set up Rembrandt lighting, or close variation
2. Add fill light. Explore a range of ratios of key light to fill light. 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 1:16, reflector as fill, no fill. 
3. Decide on optimum combination, based on your visual experience and opinions. 
4. Add a background light. Consider gobos/cookies/ or even gels for color
5. To this optimum combination, add a hair light, properly placed and exposed
6. To this, add one or two kickers (left and right) properly placed and exposed

Provide images for each of these. It will be best to keep the camera on a tripod and maintain the same pose, so that only the lighting varies. 

Due: Wed 10/29

Portrait Assignment 1

Due: 10/22

The first portrait project explores how size, quality and placement of the key light can affect the rendering of the face. This is one of the most important concepts of portrait lighting design. Please read pages 193-206 for further discussion and visual examples.

Take your time with it. Correct exposure, appropriate f-stop, focus are all important.

Create portfolio worthy portraits that explore the following:

• Fairly tight framing that features head and shoulders, without cutting them off.
• Black background. Hint: create adequate distance between subject and background material
• Thoughtful styling...put in some planning with outfits, hair, accessories and go for it. Move beyond silly mug shots. 
• Use of single light source, no fill light. Reflector encouraged.

For each of the following, create both high and low contrast examples, positioning the key light as necessary.

1. Explore 45/45 lighting, sometimes known as Rembrandt, achieving what is referred to in the book as the "key triangle."
2. Short Lighting
3. Broad Lighting
4. Front lighting
5. Side lighting

High Key Still Life

Due Monday 10/20

Create 2-3 portfolio worthy images of a high key still life. Typically, this means a light subject on a light background. You might consider working with reflective metal or glass objects, using the techniques covered recently in class.

The chapters on metal and glass in the book may be helpful, for additional ideas.