Practice

 Having already done a shoot for the Liverpool Biennial that I was happy with, I checked with the tutor what constituted a ‘lighting kit’ (one of three pieces of equipment listed as a condition of the brief) and discovered that a flash gun and reflector did not count. I had originally thought of using film and a scanner but after doing the shoot realised that the photographs would work better in colour. So I decided on a further shoot for the project based on my original ideas. I didn’t object as knew it would be good practice.

I borrowed a lighting kit for the weekend in order to gain more experience of controlling the lighting in my photography. God knows I need the practice! I was a little dubious about being responsible for £2,000 worth of lighting equipment but know I had to just get on with it. I took out one of the lamps on the Friday night and put it together quite easily. Gaining confidence I proceeded to put the other one together. I then downloaded the manuals off the internet and printed them out. I checked that the power supply was suitable for the lights and plugged them in and hey presto… they didn’t work! Bugger… Ten minutes later, I had sussed it out and both lights were working. Once I knew how they worked, I put them away having decided that I would practice the next day so that I would be confident for the PH2000 project that I intended to shoot on Sunday.

The project I was doing involved the subjects wearing masks whilst doing everyday family activities in different locations. The Sunday proved to be a bright sunny day, which in October would normally be a welcome change but proved to be a challenge when arranging the room as sunlight was pouring in through the windows. Once I had rearranged the furniture I decided that the easiest solution would be to draw the curtains and let the lighting kit be the main light source.

I used two lights, one just to the right of the window and one behind the subjects. I had positioned the sofa in front of the television so that I would be able to photograph the side profile of the subjects, with their masks visible and the also show the TV screen. This proved to be more difficult than I had expected as the size of the room did not allow me to manoeuvre the furniture as much as was needed in order to show all the important elements and make it seen realistic. Perhaps in retrospect I could have moved the sofa a little forward on one side so that the subjects were more face on, though this would have detracted from the intended realism of the scene. I discovered too that TV screens do not react to fast shutter speeds due to the monitor refresh rate. I had to use a slow shutter speed (1/20) and mount the camera on a tripod to overcome this problem. I also had a problem with the shadows but funnily enough, later in the week, attended a workshop that showed us how to eliminate shadows from the background. I will have to practice this in later shoots.

The shoot was relatively successful and I was glad that I had access to the kit. I do intend to borrow it again but will make sure I have an idea of what I intend to shoot first. Perhaps I might team up with another student so that we can bounce ideas off each other. At least I might be a little more confident by then. 

© Andrea Percival