Concept Photography

The final project for my photo class was to come up with a concept photo project and photograph it utilizing electronic flash.
They came up with a great idea.
Clean water.
It’s a topic that is very current and visual, too.
We decided to take clean water, make it dirty, similar to what millions in the world have to drink every day.
The team came up with the something that would be abhorrent to most who would see the image.
We put dirt in bottles of water, they couldn’t bring themselves to act like they were drinking it, but the message came across.
Here’s the evolution of the project:

This is the first image.
The ambient exposure was calculated and the electronic flash was adjusted to output about 1 and 1/2 stops over the ambient.
A snoot was then utilized to strike only the face and the water bottle and fall off quickly as you can see on the subject’s arm and below her neck.
The next image showed a more interesting background:

We were able to find a wall with interesting shadows to add into the background and covered half the models face with the water for more impact.
Again the same ratio from the ambient light was used with the single electronic flash and snoot.
It was close, but not quite as effective as we thought we could get.
Finally, we moved the subject into a profile type pose with the water in an area of convergence.

The last(and first image) we felt truly showed the dirty water and the model in the best possible light.
The snoot sculpts the light from the electronic flash to create interesting modeling on the model and lights up the water beautifully.
Great concept.
Effective lighting.
Be inspired!

i365project.com is written daily by Michael Kitada. Michael has been a photojournalist and teacher of photography for more than 20 years. He has taught photography as an adjunct instructor at UCLA and currently teaches at Cal Baptist University in Southern California. Want to learn more photography tips? Take Better Photos Now! Is available for purchase at http://takebetterphotosnow.com