Varying the pose

I had a session with my friend Nathan that was specifically dedicated to different postures. I used a black background in my home studio and we tried a number of sitting and standing positions. I also took some close up photos with various hand positions. I am including a selection of images here that I thought were interesting to share. 

 I thought this was a very natural gesture and I was pleased to capture it though it probably has a very limited use in studio photography.

 This posture looks a little tense.

Using Scrapbook and the beauty of Creative review

I have been enjoying my new scrapbook as part of my work on the assignments for my OCA course. I've been lucky also to get hold of a big pile of Creative Review back copies through the local freecycle network. What a joy it has been to leaf through the old magazines and pick up ideas and inspiration!

I usually spend an evening before completing each course exercise looking through the magazines. I cut some photos for the scrapbook to remind me of those images that triggered some interesting ideas and made me think - anything that I'd like to follow up or develop as a project. This is now one of the favourite parts of my project work flow.

I will scan the pages of my scrapbook and post them on my blog for my own reference and to bookmark my work in progress later this month.

Focal length

I took these images at a local community event using two different zoom lenses. It was always not possible for me to get close enough to my subject so I relied on my telephoto zoom to get some close up shots of people.

This photo was taken with a 90 mm lens. 

Experimenting with light

My friend Nathan agreed to be my sitter for this exercise and I spent over an hour experimenting with various light settings at my home studio.

1. A spot light is placed to the right of the camera. The sitter is positioned 45 degrees to the camera and is facing the key light. This set up gives strong deep shadows on the left side. It could be quite dramatic.