Desperate

[londonamani]

I'm new...but I have a photography class at my high school...We have to do a photo this weekend, for my class. We have to get 3 objects that go together, from our home, and take pictures. I was thinking about using my grandparents wedding rings and their wedding photo to emphasize and show unity. Or using an african statue and 2 earth tone vases to symbolize the natural earth. We also have to have dramatic lighting....any more ideas? And it has to kind of like tell a story, or just be easily relatable. And how can I achieve dramatic lighting using a flashlight? Could I do it during the day time? Thanks in advance.

 

[mishele]

Welcome to the forum!! Your assignment sounds interesting and you seem to have some good ideas. If you set your shot up near a window it will help you achieve some dramatic lighting. =)
Just an idea...think kitchen and cooking. Some easy stories to be told there.

 

[cynicaster]

If you're talking about lighting with a flashlight, then I assume you don't have much gear on hand. That's fine, there are plenty of ways to skin a cat.

Remember: when you speak of "dramatic lighting", the effect has just as much to do with the shadows as it does the light. It's the intermingling of shadows and light that makes it look interesting or "dramatic".

If you are shooting still objects, then you probably don't want to light them from the front, because that will result in a "flat" appearance. Try to make the main light source come in from the side or some kind of angle. As mishele said above, a window is a great source of light.

You can even use a lamp, or really, any light in your house. The catch is, you will need to do a long exposure for it to work, meaning you will need some means of keeping the camera really steady, such as a tripod, or a sturdy surface upon which you can rest your camera. If you set your shutter release to 2-second delay, that helps avoid accidentally inducing motion blur to the image when you press the shutter button.

If you want to try the flashlight, you can set your camera to a long exposure of a few seconds and "paint" the objects with light while the shutter is open. This can result in some really interesting effects.

Lastly, you probably want to avoid mixing "types" of light. If you use a lamp, use only the lamp, or multiple similar lamps. Reason being, different light sources are different colors (usually called "light temperature"), and mixing them often looks cruddy.