a) Time-limited shot
The day turned out to be bright and sunny so there was plenty of natural light. I did not use artificial lighting equipment and it only took a few minutes to get the set ready. I used a couple of white reflectors and a studio light tent. I chose to use white background to complement the subject.
I have in the past used a similar framework and have developed a level of familiarity with the process. This made it easy for me to follow the workflow instructions.
I usually compose my images manually, move around looking for different angles and meter exposure before setting my camera on a tripod. I find that this approach works really well for me.
All 54 images that my session generated are shown below. I think the collection demonstrates the benefits of having a structured approach such as a workflow. For example, the ‘Add FLASH, Review and Repeat’ was a very useful reminder as it helped me to achieve better diversity in my image collection. I experimented with a range of apertures (e.g. frames 7&8, 12&13, 21&23), distance to the subject (frames 12, 14 and 19 for example), and tried positioning the subject differently (frames 38 and 47).
A prompt to shoot horizontal and vertical formats was particularly valuable as I usually tend to have more horizontal images.
Overall, I felt very comfortable following the workflow and was impressed with my time management of the session - I started at 12:20 and finished shooting by 12:40 so the whole session lasted less then 25 minutes.
b) On-the-spot development and improvement of composition was very much a natural part of the process. I am used to checking histogram and highlights warning, it’s a part of my usual routine so I had no troubles with making these checks for the assignment.
I found it a bit hard to use the loupe tool because of the size of my LCD but I thought I made a reasonable effort.
I did not make many alterations to the process but I skipped some of the stages as I progressed through the assignment. For example, whilst some exposure adjustments were necessary at the beginning of the session (see frames 1 to 6), it was no longer relevant later on.
I don’t always check all images straight after each session so I was glad to be reminded about this step and found the process very satisfying. I will definitely include it in my future practice.
