Shooting a window-light still life

- Okay, now that we've talked about cameras and accessories, let's take some pictures. In fact chapter two here is all about hands on picture taking. And each learning experience in this chapter by the way neatly aligns with the on the job advice and the lessons in chapter three. So let's get it going. I think you'll enjoy the simplicity of this exercise and I think you'll be surprised at the quality of the photos that you're going to be able to capture using a really simple set up and using whatever camera you want, a cell phone camera, pocket camera or even a pro level camera. You choose. So here's your set up and here's what you'll need. You're going to need a window, preferably without direct sunlight coming in. And you'll need a chair. Grab a piece of cardboard cause this might be helpful to help you support your backdrop material. And you'll want a tripod and if you don't have one then just improvise something. Like maybe stack some books on top of a little table, something like that. For backdrop material I'm going to use a dark sheet of rice paper, it's kind of an onion skin quality to it. And you could use anything, you know grab a sheet, a blanket, paper, whatever. Next I'm going to grab an ordinary piece of white paper, fold it in half and I'm going to use this in a minute for reflecting some light into my scene. You're also going to need a camera. I'll be using my pocket camera for this one and that's just because I'm going to be using a pro level camera for most everything else in this course. And then our subject. I'm going to suggest that you get something from the produce department. I've chosen a red onion. And you can get whatever you'd like fruit or a vegetable, maybe grab a few options, after all you can eat what you don't use. Okay let's go. Set your subject in place. And probably put it toward the front of your chair and that'll make it easier later on to blur the background, if you decide to do that. And no need to arrange your subject in any particular way right now. Just set it on the stage. Okay next, get your camera in hand, put it in close up mode and being looking for just the perfect point of view for your subject. And get close enough that your backdrop pretty much fills the scene. And if the edges of your backdrop do show a little bit don't worry about it. You can crop that out later on. Now once you've decided where you want to shot from put your tripod exactly where it needs to go in order to hold your camera in that place. And then turn off any lights that are in the room, close the curtains or the blinds and now you're really ready to start taking some pictures. So before you do that. Just take a deep breath. I mean put yourself into pure art mode here. I want you to figure out exactly how you want to present your subject to your camera. Try out all kinds of different views. Find your subject's very best angles and also feel free to adjust your camera's angles and your camera's position at the same time. And do be snapping pictures while you work. Anytime you like what you see take a picture. And by the way, remember that folded pice of white paper that you saw earlier? Well I've been using that to reflect light into the shots here and there. And take a look at this, here's this same shot without any reflected light. And here I've got the white piece of paper back in position. Now mostly I'm placing the white paper on the side of the onion that's away form the window. And sometimes I hold it by hand, this piece of white paper. And sometimes I set it on the table, on the chair with my subject. Really work with this reflected light aspect of what you're doing. I mean I really want you to get a strong sense for the impact that reflected light can have on a shot like this. Take a look at both when and how it can be used and also when you might leave it out. Now how about slicing or dicing your subject, why not? I did it here. And while you're at it think about how you want to position your subject within the frame. You want to do it in an off center position or how about closer to dead center. How about filling the frame. What about pulling back with your camera, shooting from further away. That's all up to you. But do try out all kinds of different things here. And most importantly take your time. All the exploring, the experimenting and the looking at options that you do in between pictures that is really where your photos happen. Not when you press the shutter button. I mean that part's just the icing on the cake. And going back to an earlier shot, here's one of my favorite so far. There's nothing fancy about it. It's just a straight up view of a red onion with the hint of artistry to it, okay. But notice what's going on here. You got the spaces above, below and to either side of my subject. They're each a little different. Now this is known as dynamic spacing and it tends to add a subtle sense of energy to a composition. And that can be good as can a more static presentation. Just try both, see what you like better. Now that you've seen quite a few of my photos let me back track to what my camera settings have been while I've taken these shots. Importantly I've got it set in aperture priority mode which is the AV setting on this Canon here. This let's me decide how the focus is presented in my shots. In shot like this I've gone with a look, you know the onion slice up front is in sharp focus and where things get blurred as they move away from the lens This is due to the wide open aperture of F2. Here's the same shot with a different look. What I did here was close the aperture down to F11 and this made the back most slices of the onion just come across asa being less blurred. Also with all these shots I've dialed down my iSO to 200 and that's 'cause I want these pictures to be as clean and noise free as possible. Given the combo here of iSO 200 and aperture that I've got set now at 3.5, the camera is computing that it's going to need a shutter speed of 13th of a second. And that's why I'm using a tripod. 'Cause speeds like that are way too slow for handheld shots. And when you're doing this project and even though you'll be using a tripod or improvised tripod, I'd recommend putting your camera in delayed shooting mode, like a two second delay. This will take away the risk of shaking your camera when you snap your shots. And this is getting ahead of the process here but after you've taken a whole bunch of photos and after you've really worked over a good range of possibilities with your subject and your lighting bring some favorites over into a program like Lightroom or Photoshot and try out some enhancements. I mean photos are almost never ready to show straight form the camera but you know that right. Now I've used Lightroom to create all the different outcomes that you see here. And we will be taking a closer look at Lightroom and treatments like these in the second video of chapter four. So I ended up with a pretty good collection of photos here, if I may say so. I mean these pictures would look right at home framed and hung around my kitchen or maybe I could hang them as a gallery show in a local cafe. I don't know. Or maybe could post them as an online gallery of my own. Who knows. The point here is that, hey who knew that you could take shots like this in a corner of your living room using window light, a chair, something for a backdrop a piece of cardboard and a little piece of white paper. No studio required in other words. And no expensive or tricky lighting systems either. So give this a try. I think you're going to really enjoy this project and I think you're going to learn a ton from it.