Portrait Project Part 6

Finally, I have managed to do my ‘Portrait’ shoot after being delayed by the original sitter. Adele, our librarian, kindly stepped in for me at the last moment which enables me finally to start.

The following is a list of equipment that I used for my shoot:

4 poly boards

Bronica medium format camera

135 lens

2 large soft boxes

2 shallow disks

2 light packs

Shooting at F8

Black and white film

ISO 160

Sync cord/light meter

1 library book/iphone

White background

4 lights

First I set up four poly boards which I arranged into two corners using shallow discs on two lights which faced the poly boards. After pulling the background down, I decided that I wanted to achieve the effect of a soft lit atmosphere as I felt that would create an impression which would reflect the friendly, approachable and helpful image we have of someone who works in the community library. Therefore, I positioned two lights facing into the corners of the poly board.. I also positioned two soft boxes in front of Adele so that they were facing her. This cancelled out any shadows and made her more illuminated. Before Adele went into position, I used the light meter to make the exposure correct.

For this shoot, I was using a medium format Bronica camera on aperture F8. My film was a Black and White  ISO160. I used the 80 lens first of all, but that kept showing the edges of the back drop so Colin suggested I use a 120 or 135 for a longer lens. I chose the 135 and this worked for me.

As my theme was ‘the library in the age of technology’ I took some shots of Adele holding a library book and some with her holding her iPhone. I then took some of her holding both together to represent people choosing the internet over the library.

On the whole, I am very happy with my images and I particularly like the way lighting worked. Also, the idea of a book in one hand and the iPhone in the other worked really well within the title of the project.

However, I feel that I could have improved my images if I had not been so anxious because my original model had not shown up. I would have been more relaxed about the shoot.

I now intend to contact my sitter at Rochester library to ask if we can arrange a mutual time so that I can go in and take some shots of her in her working environment.