Part 1: Abstract Photography for Students, All of my Mentees from Westlake High School
- At April 02, 2020
- By Johnny Stevens
- In Aerial photography, architecutral, austin architectural photographer, Austin photographer, camera control, commercial photography, dichotomy, Drone photography, editing, Fine Art, lifestyle photography, light painting, lighting, Photography education, Photography Mentor, portrait, portrait photography, professional, real estate, real estate photography, shutter speed, speedlights, spot lighting, student housing, student lifestyle, Tilt shift, tilt-shift lens, video, videography
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Part 1: Abstract Photography for Students
All of my Mentees from Westlake High School.
Abstract Photography for Students is a challenge. I thought it was time to assemble all of the educational photographic projects I have done with my senior students of the Independent Study Program at Westlake High School over the last 8 years. I was surprised when I went back into my photography archives to see some of the projects that I have forgotten about. I am doing this in 5 Posts so the reader does not get overwhelmed. This first post is about our Abstract Photography exercises. So here we go.
When I agree to teach a student, I tell them that my approach to teaching is to expose them to as many different genres of photography as possible, so they can learn how to leverage the settings on their cameras, read natural light, learn how to control flash and strobe light, how to work with humans who hate to have their photos taken, and evaluate the environment for challenges.
The photography genres I like to introduce them to are:
- Abstract Photography
- Portrait Photography
- Still Life and Landscape Photography
- Architectural Photography
ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY:
My first student 8 years ago was Elena. With her I learned how difficult shooting rising smoke is. We learned that having a flash at 90 degrees to a smoking piece of incense was better than having two flashes, one in each side. The contrast within the smoke was better and made it easier to identify an interesting moment within the otherwise chaotic billowing smoke. Then we edit the image mostly by eliminating surrounding smoke that did not lend itself to the formation we identified. More often that not (and this goes for painting too) we tend to identify with abstract formations that remind of some variation of human forms. Here are Elena’s images:
I had forgotten about this image, and today it is one of my favorite. It is whimsical and requires some time to process its intricacies.
Elena’s Abstract Smoke by Austin fine art photographer Johnny Stevens
This one I called Wisp of Elena. It clearly has some alien life forms that attract the eye….
Elena’s Abstract Smoke #2 Alien formation by Austin abstract photographer Johnny Stevens
My mentee Nolan shot this smoke image. Very often the way smoke rises and curls, it tends to show formations of vertebrae and human bones.
Nolan smoke abstract photography austin
And this one from my mentee Morgan;
Morgan abstract smoke photography by Austin photographer Johnny Stevens
For Jake’s Abstract Smoke Photography exercise, he created 2 edited versions from this first raw file.
Jake’s original raw file of smoke rising
Final edit of abstract smoke rising photograph
Final edit 2 of abstract smoke rising photograph
My mentee Krishan and I tested our reflexes at shooting water drops in a glass.
Krishan’s composition of 4 drops of water
After an hour of gruelling timing to pull the trigger at the right time we learned that we could not get the effect we were looking for which is achieved by buying a Pluto Valve Drop Regulator. It releases drops timed exactly with the shutter of the camera, but more importantly it releases 2 consecutive drops so that the upward splash of the first drop smashes into the one coming down and creates a beautiful mushroom effect. As seen in these two examples:
water drop 1 by fstoppers
waterdrop 2 by 500 px blog
To introduce my students to compositing in Photoshop, I will often give them the task of taking a series of images and composite parts of them into a master image. In this case I gave Nolan these images from my Mannequin folder of images to create a composite:
Mannequin for abstract photoshop compositing lesson Johnny Stevens Austin Photographer
Final composite by Nolan
Professional photographers have to be able to shoot any genre
As an Austin based architectural photographer, I often find I get complacent with that craft and don’t challenge myself with other styles of shooting. I suppose professional photographers have to be able to shoot any genre, even weddings which to me require a completely different type of shooting discipline. Photographers who shoot weddings generally only shoot weddings and those who do not, are happy not shooting weddings. Weddings are their own beast, and require lots of practice, trial and error, honing of the settings on your camera.
I shot a wedding last weekend in Houston and it almost dropped me to my knees, and reminded me why I don’t shoot weddings. I got some great tips from my buddy Dustin Finkelstein who shoots weddings regularly, so of course that put me a ease – for a while. So what I was fretting about all the week before is mostly how to NOT miss any shots of the bride walking down the aisle or the bride and groom on their exit. I scouted the location the day before and almost started crying with the challenges that revealed themselves. The wedding was to be held on a covered porch at Magnolia Ballroom which is a really majestic setting. The porch is cute but the backdrop behind the bride and groom is a blaring sunny f16. F22 is probably more accurate for this bright day.
Porch for wedding back lit by 6 stops
The porch shade interior was about f2.8. That is a 6 stop difference between the Bride’s spot and the background, and I cannot add light!!!. Just great! My only choice was to bump my ISO to 1000 in order to get and shutter speed that I can hand hold and keep the bride, groom and wedding party exposed and just let the background blow out. Way out. So way out that the bride had a halo around her. I suppose it made her look somewhat angelic. I practiced shooting against the bright background and remembered my camera settings on my Canon 5d Mark 3. Then I practiced shooting with Al focus turned on and set my focus trigger to one of the buttons on the back of camera. This way I could just hold down that button as the bride moved along and I would be assured she would always be in focus. Shoot back at the bride for the entrance was easy since all that ambient light was pouring in from her front.
Diana walking down the wedding aisle
This is what I was dealing with if I opened up the f stop to f2.8 and the iso to 1000. It was my only option.
Porch with iso up to 1000 and f 2.8
Bride and groom with back light
Though flashes and speed lights are not kosher during the wedding ceremony, I knew that once the bride and groom kissed, speed lights were open game. So I strapped two 600 ex rt speed lights up on either eve of the porch ceiling, and pointed them at the center of the group and another at the back of the porch pointing straight down the aisle. I set them to manual and had my ST E3 RT trigger on my camera ready to flip it on once the kiss happened. Here is a shot with the speed lights working just after the kiss – much better exposures.
Diana and Alex after kiss with speedlights on
We took a moment just before the ceremony to shoot a first look photo. The ICON Hotel has a spectacular Victorian smoking lounge that is very sultry and moody. I just asked Diana to creep in and touch Alex on the shoulder as I snapped away with 2 speed lights firing at about 45 and 90 degrees.
First look with bride and groom
Just after the ceremony we took a minute to take one bride groom shot in the stairwell to try to capture the majesty of the domed ceiling at the Magnolia Ballroom.
For the dancing, I hung 2 speed lights at 45 and 90 degrees and set them to manual half power output. I had another 600 rt on my camera acting as the master communicating with the 2 off camera 600s.
About halfway in the dancing I decided to try slowing down the shutter speed to accentuate the inebriation that was clearly taking over. It had a nice effect I think adding some light trails to anything in motion.
Diana dancing with slow shutter speed
We took a few minutes to pick up this shot while we were in the smoking room at the hotel
Bride and Groom in the smoking room. One main light, one kicker light and a hefty amount of vignetting in photoshop.
For the bridal party shots I found a room upstairs with huge windows that were a perfect start for large group photos. Lucky for me the light from the window was so dominate that when one of my speed lights decided to blitz on me, I could do just fine by filling from the right with just one flash.
Diana and bridal party
Playing with Shutter Speeds
If you have time to kill, finding a subject like this spinning light (it a motorized led light that turns on a turntable) offers wonderful opportunities to create abstract photographs by altering the shutter speed. I shot these with my Sony RX 100 camera because I was traveling lightly. But the Sony has totally manual control and shoots Raw format, which gives me lots of room to edit in photoshop later on. The slow motion effect can be quite mesmerizing.
First image is shot at f4 and 1/100 second shutter speed.
Spinning lights f4 at 1/100 second
This shot is at f4 and 2 seconds shutter speed
Spinning lights at f4 and 2 seconds shutter speed
And finally this one at f4 and 5 seconds
Spinny lights at 5 seconds shutter speed
