A few loose ends (ii)

This particular loose end refers to Exercise 18: How space changes with light.

I took the pair of shots below on our summer holiday – from the same seat at an outdoor restaurant table in Geneva. They are taken slightly over an hour apart – both on auto white balance, which may have some impact as the colour temperatures are a little difference – and clearly show the impact that changing light can have on the perception of a ‘scene’. In truth ‘scene’ is rather overstating the case for a concrete rendered wall with a hole in it, which to my mind makes it all the more notable that the first appears cold, soulless and drab, and the second, taken just an hour later, seems to speak of warm summer evenings and makes me want to know what’s happening inside.

 

There is no direct light in either picture so the difference is entirely down to the colour temperature of the light.

Change of heart - again

Ok – I’ve been wondering for sometime about the how to incorporate some of the stuff I do in parallel with the course into the course itself. I guess it wouldn’t matter except that I simply wouldn’t be shooting some of the stuff I’m currently doing if it hadn’t been for the course, and it seems a shame not to capture that in some way.

In particular the black and white night shots seem to be where my mind is at the moment, so why would I be thinking about something else for an assignment? The answer is that i don’t know. I’ve tried shooting for my original ideas about showing the two sides of Allonby – the tourism and the residents, but it simply isn’t coming together in my head – it feels like random shooting in the hope that I’ll be able to extract a theme, which is scarcely the point. On the other hand, I find myself leaving my photo-a-day project until the evening every day so that I’m ’forced’ to shoot in the dark if I want to do something interesting (or resort to indoor diary shooting)

With that in mind it seems wisest to shelve the Allonby plan for a while and concentrate on the night stuff – which actually interests me - while the evenings are still reasonably dark. Obviously it has to fit with the theme of shooting for an intelligent travel publication – whatever that may be.So I’m going to shoot a chapter on ‘Small Town Britain’ for an illustrated travel book called ‘Britain at Night’, and I’m going to concentrate on Maryport. This should put some of the ideas/techniques I’ve been working on to better use than my photo-a-day blog.

While I’m at it here are a few of the night shots In wont be able to use, because they aren’t Maryport – and there’s little point in cheating. Perhaps ironically they’re actually of Allonby.  First up a couple linked by the constellation Orion:

      

And as Orion was visiting Jacks Surf bar in the second – here a shot of the bar as well:

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And – finally – a shot of The Square. The rather grand building is the old Bath House, which seems oddly out of place in a small cobbled street full of tiny cottages.

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I may have to put up some daylight shots to show how different the atmosphere is

Exercise 18: How space changes with light – interior spaces

As my previous stab at this exercise was about exterior space I thought I have a look at interiors as well.

because of the orientation of our house we have two rooms that get bright sunlight at opposite ends of the day so I thought they’d make a useful case study. All the shots in this groups have been prepared by blending 5 shots in Picturenaut HDR software

First up then – one of the front room and the dining room at around the same time – 09:30 in the morning.

  

As we can see the front room gets oodles of direct sunlight – there are strong and dramatic shadows and there is the possibility that it may even be a little too well lit. The dining room on the other hand is receiving no direct light – although the garden outside the window is in bright sunshine – the overall effect is a little dark and unwelcoming at this time of the day.

At the other end of the day the situation is completely reversed as these two at 19:45-ish show.

  

The front room is still nicely lit – the benefit of a bay window – and seems somehow more relaxing than earlier in the day. The dining room now has dappled sunlight pouring through the patio window and is transformed into a location for a cheerful lunch ort family dinner. The warm colours in the room complement the warming colour of evening sunlight.

Unsurprisingly there are variations on this theme at other times during the day. This shot of the front room was taken around 11:30 in the morning The brightness of the sun is easing as it moves around to the right and the room is more relaxing than the first shot above.

As the evening progresses the dining room receives more direct light as the sun clears the trees which are providing the dappling to the shade and as the sun is correspondingly lower in the sky the shadows are longer and the room develops a real summer evening feel. (This shot at 20:40)

Just an hour later and the sun is almost set (it would have been completely gone if I’d waited 5 more minutes) and their is no direct sunlight in the room. The room is starting to revert to the flat lighting of the morning shot.

Conclusions

Choice of timing can make a significant difference to the feel of a room – probably more so than I observed in the exterior shots at the Tortworth Court. For example, if you were doing an interior shoot of the dining room, and were relying on a table setting as the centrepiece, you would probably choose afternoon/evening, or have to add artificial light to liven the room up

Exercise 18 – Changing composition to make better use of the lighting

This shot was taken in the same lighting as the last shot in my previous exercise 18 post – in fact just 10 minutes later.

I was after a shot which captured something of the spirit of the building in spite of the subdued lighting, and this ‘found’ arrangement on one of the patio tables seemed to do the trick. The subdued lighting means that the exposure for the white crocks is relatively easy, and there are no deep shadows to contend with on the building behind.
A couple of my shots in the previous exercise were taken with the light behind the building – this one in particular. By moving round to the same side of the building as the light, and taking a position where the effect of side-lighting down the building adds some interest makes this shot – again taken only 10 minutes later – a distinct improvement.

This next shot is a bit of a cheat as it was taken several months prior to the one above. However, the sun was in a very similar position relative to the building – although a little lower in the sky – so I think the comparison is justified. I have chosen a position away from the building so that it is seen in the context of its formal gardens. The side lighting this time adds interest to both the house and the topiary.

And finally for this building another shot from the archive which makes rather more dramatic use of the floodlighting – the time variation is to all intents and purposes irrelevant as the lighting is constant whenever the floods are on.

This is not quite as sharp as I would have liked, and the vertical converge a bit unhelpfully, but as it was hand-held with a standard zoom I am reasonably pleased with the outcome. A tripod and a wider angle lens cold perhaps have dome the scene a little more justice, but it serves to illustrate the point that there is more than one way to capture the drama of the building given any particular set of lighting conditions.
Conclusions

Exercise 18: How space changes with light

I find this a particularly interesting exercise with far more aspects than the text suggests so i think I may be coming back to it several times.

As a first pass I going to take the instructions at face value with a series of shots of one of the hotels I regularly visit on business, the Tortworth Court, near Wotton-under-Edge.

This is clearly a very imposing building, and is probably going to look so irrespective of the lighting. However, this first shot at 08:00 on an overcast summer morning does it’s best to make the building look dull. I tried lifting it with some fill light slider in Lightroom, but that simply reduced the contrast, and I also tried a couple of HDR–effect presets but they also offered little improvement. In as much as it has any effect the sun is behind me to the right.

In this next shot, taken about 12 hours later at 19:45 the same day, the sun has moved around behind the building, although the sky is still largely overcast. Rather than try for a silhouette I have chosen to lift the building and pull the sky back to give a semi-HDR effect. Although the light on the building is again very flat it is considerably more interesting than the first shot, with perhaps a sense of foreboding to it. In both these shots the colour temperature of the light does the stonework no justice at all.

The next shot shows how sunlight brings the scene to life – this one taken the next day at 07:30, and overexposed by 1 stop relative to the recommended exposure.

The low and bright sun has started to show some relief detail on the main building, the heavy shade cast by the trees to my right have dulled down the entrance gate so that it appears part of the main building, and the same shade sets off the small tree in the foreground quite dramatically. The morning light also compliments the colour of the stonework. This is my favourite shot from this series as captures the feel of the hotel very well. Just an hour and a half later later, at 09:10 the shot starts to have a different feel.

The shadows have shortened noticeably, and moved so that they no longer set off the small tree. The changed lighting angle has also reduced the apparent relief relief in the stonework. The gate is now more prominent, but perhaps rather dominant. Finally, the colours are also less saturated. All this adds up to a rather less engaging picture in spite of the continued drama of the hotel itself.

By way of complete contrast here is the same shot at night. Dracula anyone? The floodlighting nicely highlights the buildings texture and detail, the foreground is softened (slightly) by the street light falling on the tree and the colours are un-natural but warm. Without the tree this could have been taken in virtually any season of the year

 

Conclusions

I will have plenty more opportunities for shots of this location and as I have used a road marking to locate the camera position I would expect to be able to repeat the view so I will be revisiting this, and hopefully adding some shots from the middle of the day.

I will also be looking at the effect of light on a rather more modern building – although these are in somewhat short supply in rural Cumbria – and I have some thought about carrying out the exercise in a hopefully more creative way.

Exercise Update  - 02 July 2011

Overcast seems to be the order of the day this summer as this next shot taken at about 10:20 in the morning shows:

The loss of sunlight compared with the two shots above makes this a considerably less attractive photo, but it is a definite improvement over the first shot. This is in part because the clouds and sky are more interesting, and also perhaps because the sun is higher so more light is filtering through the clouds. For comparison, here is the same shot at 17:14:

Even in these relatively overcast conditions the deadening effect of the sun moving behind the building is clear.

Overall conclusions

In truth, in this series of shots it is not always easy to distinguish between the effect of different times of day and the effect of weather conditions. It is most marked in the two sunlit shots – and of course the night-time shot – although while the building is floodlit there will be little change with time.

Given an intermittently cloudy sky the shots look better with front lighting. Unfortunately I get few opportunities to photograph this building during the middle of the day, when the sun would be coming from the left of the shot. If the opportunity arises I’ll post it here.