Words and Light

I love color. I really do. To attempt to explain why color is such a dynamic force in visual sensory input and photography is absolutely pointless, so I won’t try.

But I hate white balance. Especially when your photo has multiple light sources whose color temperatures are vastly different. For example, this photo taken in December, of my soon-to-be sister-in-law Emily, who’s listening to my older brother’s instructions on how to give him a haircut:

See how BRIGHT BLUE that area over Emily’s shoulder is? That’s my brothers’ room. (This photo was taken in the upstairs bathroom.) And that’s how different the color temperatures are between the light in my brothers’ room and the bathroom. Absolutely hideous.

For this assignment in Advanced Techniques in Photojournalism, we were to take photos in two kinds of light: fluorescent and tungsten. For each environment, we were to:

1. take a few JPG shots, with the camera set on daylight white balance and without using a flash;
2. keep the daylight white balance BUT use a flash;
3. change the camera’s white balance setting and add a gel to the flash (correspond the color of the gel and the white balance setting to the kind of light in that environment); AND
4. switch the format to RAW and repeat steps 2 and 3.

This week has been absolutely crazy for me, so of course I shot everything kind of at the last minute.

For my tungsten take (which I did tonight — er, yesterday, since it’s now 1:30 a.m. on Thursday), I photographed Comedy Wars at Memorial Union. Comedy Wars is kind of a “gimme” for photojournalism students here at MU: it’s a regular weekly event, it has honest emotion (laughter, shock, etc.) and it’s just fun. I hated to have to use it, since it’s such a staple/crutch and has been shot for every single photojournalism course in the history of this school, but hey — I got my take. And Comedy Wars wasn’t my first choice, either. As several of my friends can attest, I attempted two other shoots, both of which were canceled.

Fortunately, we have to turn in only one select image, and fortunately, my photos from my fluorescent light take turned out much better than my tungsten photos.

For my fluorescent take, I went to the Columbia School Board candidate forum on March 16. It was jam-packed; there was actually an overflow room wherein attendees could watch the forum of eight candidates (one candidate didn’t show up) via a livecast on the TV set.

Brief aside: LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt is one of my favorite photographers. He’s best known for his iconic sailor-kissing-the-girl-in-the-parade photo, but this is my favorite photo of his:

This photo was taken in 1963 in Paris, at a puppet show. I’d grown up poring over those coffeetable books of famous LIFE (and other) photos, so I’ve always been familiar with the photos whose impact earned them a place in visual storytelling history. But it wasn’t until fairly recently that I saw the above photo. As I’d just switched majors from print/digital reporting to photojournalism at the time, I instantly recognized and appreciated Eisenstaedt’s capturing the true image from that puppet show: not the puppets themselves, but the children whose imagination and attention were so caught up in the show.

Which is why, at the school board candidate forum, I opted to turn the camera onto the audience after I snapped a few shots of the candidates themselves. My images aren’t nearly as compelling or exciting as Eisenstaedt’s, but hey — these images of the audience tell a greater visual story than the candidates do.

Here is the original copy of my select image:

And here is the toned copy:

Eight-year-old Isaac Bledsoe tries to pay attention during the Columbia School Board candidate forum at the District Administration Building on March 16. Bledsoe - with his mother Ann and his 10-year-old sister Cayley - attended to support his father Marc Bledsoe, who is one of nine candidates running for a spot on the school board.

And here’s another shot from the same forum, of the overflow room I mentioned earlier:

Judy Brivitt (foreground) watches a livecast of the Columbia School Board candidate forum in another room of the District Administration Building on March 16. The room in which the forum was held was standing room only, forcing other attendees to watch the livecast nextdoor.

A gelled flash was used to make both images (as well as many others). The color temperature in both the forum room and the overflow room wasn’t as awful as it could have been, but nevertheless was not quite ideal. I think my photos from this take turned out relatively well. My Comedy Wars photos, on the other hand — well, let’s say that shooting in tungsten is something I should probably practice on.