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.

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The hours between 8:30 and 11 a.m. constituted the single most productive Sunday morning I’ve had since last summer at Philmont. Laura and I were partnered up for the class Metal & Glass assignment, wherein

You are paired up so that one can grip for or assist the other and visa versa [sic]. One of you is to photograph glass or translucent objects and the other will photography [sic] metal objects. When you are not the shooter, you are to be the assistant, which means the second set of eyes and hands on the shoot. (Syllabus)

I shot glass; Laura shot metal. Check her blog later to see her shots of the coins we donated and the piggy bank we destroyed!

For my shot, I bought six vases at Michael’s and used paintbrushes and dipping pens that I already own. (I knew I didn’t bring them from Texas for nothing!) We put in a few drops of food coloring into the vases without brushes or pens, at the last minute so that you can still see the coloring mix into the water.

I ended up with a two-light setup. Even though I checked all the settings between the light meter and my camera and am pretty sure I metered correctly, all my shots were underexposed when I imported them to my computer. Lesson learned: I should have bracketed. Oh well.

Here’s my select image, untouched by Photoshop except to eliminate some spots on the sensor and to sharpen the image overall:

Pretty underexposed, yes? I will definitely be bracketing next time.

For kicks and giggles, I toned my select image and the runner-up to look the way they should have:

The toned select.

The toned runner-up.

(more…)

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