Assignment 1

Self portrait through light. 

We were to create two images, both self portraits to demonstrate the two types of light. Secular, meaning hard light. And diffuse, meaning soft light. 

Here are my images:

This one was meant to be my diffuse light photograph. I used the large glass doors of my apartment for the light source, but closed the blinds to soften the light coming through. I used a slower shutter speed to play with the blending of motion blur with my image. I wanted it to represent how I was feeling. Which was overwhelmed. I am a single mom, to a four year old, a full time student, and I have to work full time to afford my place with my daughter and to keep our health insurance I can’t be part time. I have two declared majors, mechanical engineering, and fine arts with a focus on drawing and painting. But I also am pursuing a photography degree. You can definitely say that I am a busy little bee. 
This was supposed to be my secular light. To try to get this I opened the blinds on the window so it was straight light and I got as close to it as possible. I thought that the quick falloff of light inside the mask along with its harsh highlights along the bottom left would be enough. However my professor said that this light looked quite diffuse as well. 
My mistake was thinking that hard light was direct light in a bright atmosphere, when in reality it’s the harsh contrast of light in the image. I would have made a better secular light situation being in a dimly lit room with one close, bright light source. For example I could have moved to my bedroom where I have blackout curtains and only let a sliver of light in to create harsh shadow lines on my face. That would have been a better example of secular lighting. 

Another difficulty I had was getting the motion blur in the photo the way I wanted it. It was a lot of experimentation with shutter speeds and timing. I had a shutter release on a timer so that I had enough time to press the release, hide it, then move. 3 second delay was too quick, but the 10 second delay felt like forever, and was difficult to time. But I did end up with one photo I thought was good enough to use thankfully.