Practising Painting with Light

Yesterday I and two of my friends on my course decided to practice painting with light for our current project. This was to ensure we knew how to light both the product well and also how to effectively paint with the light in the rest of the photograph.

Armed with a torch, Quality Street wrappers, camera, tripod and various bottles, we started to work on how to light the product. In my case this was an aftershave bottle. However, I found it very difficult to light it by painting it in with a torch, and even flash lighting it was difficult as it was a see-through bottle. So I used my friends perfume bottle. I found this was really easy to light with a torch as it was mostly white on the top and only a little be see-through on the bottom creating a glowing orange effect.

I lit the bottle on a black shiny stand in order to see the reflection of the bottle in the Photograph as we need to ensure it looks like an advertisement. After lighting the bottle, I used an orange Quality Street wrapper over the torch and in the background drew a bow shape to represent Christmas presents. I thought at this time of year it would be a really good idea to create a Christmas advertisement. The bow looked more like a pretzel, but I am only practising so I have time to perfect it. I didn't want to do any post production as I am a huge fan of getting things right in camera, but I feel using multiple shots and masks will benefit my work greatly and make it look more professional.

Below are some images I captured of the perfume bottle and also a Vodka bottle I was attempting to draw a Christmas tree around. They are far from perfect and I have a lot of work to do, but thought I would just post some of my first attempts.

© Danny Rowland Photography

© Danny Rowland Photography

© Danny Rowland Photography

Brighton Road Studios

On the 12th of November, my class took a trip to visit the Brighton Road Studios in Gateshead to see Mark Taylor's studio. The studios are made up of fourteen smaller studios which creative individuals use for things such as Photography, painting and model making.

The studios are in an old church building in Gateshead that has been developed to strengthen a creative cluster in Gateshead. Being Photography students, we obviously were eager to see what a studio space was like for a professional Photographer.

My class sat down to hear Mark talk about what it was really like being a Photographer in the North East after leaving education. He also allowed us to view his current portfolio of work which he explains is used an awful lot to promote himself all over the country in the hope of finding work. We then were able to tour the rest of the building and see what life in Brighton Road Studios was like for other creative people. I managed to see a gentleman hard at work creating Star Wars masks which seemed rather difficult to even begin to put together, but the results were fantastic.

All in all it was a valuable experience to have visited the studios as not only did I have the chance to meet a well know North East Photographer, but I also was able to see what life would be life after I leave my studies, how I will cope, what I will have to do and whether or not I want to own or rent my own studio.

A Vist from Ian Hobson

Recently I had the change to share an afternoon with my university class having a workshop given by the amazing light Photographer Ian Hobson. I love painting with light (sadly I haven't had much practice with it) and I was really looking forward to having a session all about it. Little did I know how mad Ian was.

Obviously I mean this in a good way, he was so full of energy it's no wonder he produces such fantastic inspirational work. He showed us his home made gadgets as sadly most of the tools used in light painting Photography cannot be bought, therefore have to be created from other objects. I so far only have a torch shaped like a skeleton from the Halloween aisle of a Supermarket; so I think I have a while to go in order to even come close to producing work like Ian's. The workshop was a brilliant step in my studies and in my life generally as a Photographer. I was greatly inspired by Ian and his work; whilst also laughing until I almost cried at the manner in which he produces it. He is definitely worth a look to ANY Photographer, not just those interested in painting with light.

Below are two of my favourite images he has produced and a little glimpse of what he showed my class.

© Ian Hobson

© Ian Hobson

On location at St Mary's Asylum

My second brief this year at college was simply titled "Incident Room". This was totally open to our own interpretation, the only guide lines we had were it had to be on location within a room, and an incident had to be involved or hinted at. I started to think about locations with others in my group, and we all quickly realised we all wanted to use an abandoned hospital, or even better, an asylum. I decided that I was going to shoot a young lady as if she was a patient at the asylum when it was open. I chose the incident to be her trapped in a nightmare within her own reality.

We initially wanted to use St George's in Morpeth, but unfortunately upon arrival it was closed off due to asbestos, so we headed to our second choice; St Mary's in Stannington.

We used a Sat Nav to show us the way, and soon realised we'd be doing a good deal of walking when we reached our destination. We began walking up a very muddy pathway and ended up at a building site. Half of the asylum had been torn down, but there were two buildings left standing, one boarded up, and the other with no doors or windows. We crawled through trees, bushes and thorns around the building site and found that we could gain access without climbing a fence or breaking in, which was obviously a relief. We went back to gather out equipment, and started back along the path.

The inside of the building had been stripped to the bare walls, all that was left was a Butane canister in one room (which we decided would be our location) which was a little worrying. We set up our shoot and got to work. The final images we produced were fantastic, mine can be found at facebook.com/dannyrowlandphotography.

Below are some of the behind the scenes images I snapped on my mobile phone whilst I was exploring the building.

A visit from Anita Corbin

During the course of my studies, we have visiting professionals who come to talk to us about their work, our work and the industry. The Photographer Anita Corbin recently visited my class to talk to us about the Trailblazers exhibition she was involved with in the Discovery Museum.

The opportunity to speak with someone who is well respected within the Photography industry was an amazing experience. I was able to find out a little more about what she does both professionally and personally, learning what it is going to be like when I finish my studies and head out into the wider world of Photography. Anita set us a task of looking at the exhibition in the Discovery Museum and really getting into the detail of a portrait. I found this difficult at first, but once I realised what the image was about, why it was created and what I could get from it, the task was not too hard.

Image property of Anita Corbin