Night Song
May, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken under a tree at my home in rural South Canterbury, Christchurch - New Zealand.Time
It was actually around midnight when this photo was taken. I wanted the mood of the photo to be a bit darker and mysterious so the night-time was crucial really.Lighting
As you can see, the lighting is very minimal, it is an old lamp that normally lives in my bedroom. There was no other lights around on the night, no moon or stars, so the only light hitting the subject is from the lamp which (for the photo) I put a super low wattage bulb in, this helped to create the atmosphere I was wanting.Equipment
Shot was taken with my Canon 5D MkIII, 35mm Sigma Art lens - f/1.4, and Beike tripod.Inspiration
I had been waiting for a night to record a song that I had been writing at the time. My plan was to record the song with a full mic set-up and also record it on my camera as well, with the intention to sync the audio and video together later. However, on the night the weather didn't want to play ball and it got very windy, far too windy for the microphones to handle and it would have ruined any audio recording. Instead of feeling defeated, I thought to myself that I had some good ingredients for a nice photo so I set the 10 second timer, grabbed my guitar and started playing my song. This photo is the result.Editing
Firstly I reduced the saturation 100% to create a black and white image, I then reduced my contrast to give a little more detail and increased my blacks to create more darkness in the photo. I brought the exposure down a touch as it was too bright. I then added some vignetting to darken the edges and give some extra mood to the shot .. that was all the processing I felt it needed to create the atmosphere I had imagined prior to snapping the shutter.In my camera bag
My favourite photo subjects are portraiture and astrophotography. Although these subjects are incredibly different, both of them seem to benefit from similar lenses, particularly my favourite lens - Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4. Obviously this is a great focal length for portraiture but also, if used creatively and stitched together to create panoramas, it can be a fantastic (and sharp) astrophotography lens. So generally my kit is the following: Canon 5D MkIII, Sigma Art 35mm f/1.4, Canon 85mm L Series f/1.8, Canon 24-70mm L Series f/2.8 ii, Canon EX580 ii Flash, spare batteries, filters and memory cards. I also carry with me a Zoom H5 audio recorder with a hotshoe attachment that I can clip into my DSLR and have directional audio recording for those times I want to do video recording.Feedback
This shot is essentially the result of a failure in another project, which created a spontaneous moment for a cool photo to take place. That says a lot about the magic found in the spontaneous moment. Also, I have always found that some of the less posed portraits I have done are the best, the ones where are true human emotion is exemplified in the moment captured, without the falsity of an orchestrated pose.I always try to look for that moment and I think it is something that a lot of my favourite photography embodies.
