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Heating steel ready for working
Heating steel ready for working
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Apr, 2015Views
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alexandraconsolado
August 20, 2015
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at the smithy that is attached to the gasworks museum in Dunedin. They run classes there with the aim of teaching people the original smithying skills. I had wondered about the possibility of getting some good shots from here for some time but wasn't sure how the people involved would feel about being photographed. As it was, they were more than happy although there were strict rules about how close I could go - but only so I didn't breach any fire precautions!!Time
We visited about 2pm on a mid-autumn day. I had not really given any thought to the time of day because I knew I would be taking images inside. However, I had not taken on board the fact that the room was only lit by the flames and whatever light came in through the door and the couple of rather grubby windows. As a result it was a good job it was actually quite a sunny day.Lighting
As previously alluded to, the lighting proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated. It was obviousl when you thought about it, but my brain hadn't applied itself to the problem particulary well. The room was dark with the only light coming from the flames together with whatever daylight could fight its way in through the rather grimy windows and the half open door. The walls and ceiling had been darkened from many years of soot from the fire. Having said that though, it was the fact that the only real light was from the flames that added to the atmosphere of the photo.Equipment
I made this image with a Panasonic DMC-GH4 camera with a Leica DG Macro-Elmarit lens. Focal length was 45mm and exposure was 1/320sec at f/3.2 (I always shoot using manual settings). All the photos I took in this session were hand-held because there was no room for a tripod (and it would have been too restrictive anyway), so of necessity I had to increase the ISO to 1600. I did try flash on a couple of images but decided I preferred the ambience that was created without the flash.Inspiration
I tend to shy away from taking photos of people. Whether this is because I spend my working life dealing closely with people or whether I don't want to put people on the spot by asking if I can take their photo I'm not sure. However, the idea of taking action shots of people engrossed in what they do and lit principally by the light from flames was the catalyst to making me go and ask the wonderful people who worked in the smithy if they minded me taking pictures of them at work. They were tremendous subjectsEditing
I always shoot in RAW but these actually took minimal processing. I put them through Dfine 2 before I did anything else though to try to reduce some of the noise because I'd had the ISO at 1600. I then just tweaked the exposure slightly in Fusion Express 2 and made small changes to the contrast in Color Efex Pro 4 before adding a bit of additonal warmth and vibrance in Lightroom 4In my camera bag
My camera bag is ever evolving...and shared with my husband so there are the occasional squabbles over lenses!! I now use a Panasonic DMC-GH4 camera which I absolutely love (I had a brief dalliance after the G3 with my husband's cast-off Olympus E-M5 which I didn't get on with at all - hence moving to the GH4). My must-have lenses now are the Lumix G Vario 100-300 telephoto lens which is my latest addition and which is a fabulous lens; an Olympus M.12 - stunning for imaging the Milky Way which is another passion of mine and a Leica DG Macro-Elmarit 45 which is another stunning lens and just possibly my favourite. Apart from that I have the usual cable release and various elements of the Cokin filter systemFeedback
I suppose the best advice I could offer (although still being relatively new to the photography game I would not pretend to be any sort of expert!) would be to look for something that inspires you and then have a go. If you dont' have a go you will never find out what does and doesn't work. The environment that I was shooting in for this picture seemed a really unlikely one - especially as it was so dark and I had no choice but to hand hold the shots. And wait for people to get used to the fact that you're there and start to ignore you. THat way you get the real them.
