What a nice day to shot! I like the foggy weathers because the fog can diffuse the light that makes it look softer (the lights in the background are the traffic lights and the street light). Usually it should be really bright to give people cautious and brightness; however, in this case, both of the light source got soften.
I think the music video Transcendence by Lindsey Stirling is really awesome, although the storyline of this music video is a little bit weird. It is about Lindsey wearing a white dress, and a fashion designer changing clothes on his computer and the computer connects to a projector that is on Lindsey. But what makes it weird is that both of them are not in the same place, so they cannot see, touch, feel each other: they are disconnected. What is interesting is that the emotion of the two characters are somehow are connected, but in an opposite way. For instance, at one place when Lindsey is smiling after she noticed that the fashion designer no longer controls her; however, the fashion designer acted to be shocked and scared and went to check the computer immediately. There are also other scenes in the video that the two character’s expression is linked together that makes the whole video interesting.
In the beginning of this music video, the fashion designer is controlling the clothes that Lindsey is wearing. But as Lindsey picked up a violin on the ground, the whole situation changed. The clothes that are displayed on the dress changes when she is playing the violin (instead of when the fashion designer is clicking on different clothes that changes the display of the clothes). After knowing that her clothes will not change anymore, which is when other people’s clothes are flashing and the clothes on herself is not, Lindsey begin to play her violin which make her dominate the selection of clothes that eventually drives the fashion designer crazy. On the other hand, when the fashion designer is crazy pulling out cords of the computer, the video uses low angle to make the fashion designer to look bigger and fierce. At the time when the fashion designer is totally crazy, the camera moves while he is smashing the keyboard, and pulling out the mouse cable, which makes the whole scene wild. The scenes also have some crazy camera switches between what is happening to the designer and the spotlight, which eventually turn out to be a flash, and the whole scene comes back to Lindsey.
To emphasize both character’s expression, the video uses lots of middle close ups to close ups with zoom ins and zoom outs on the character. For Lindsey, it is mostly middle close ups because we want to see how joyful she is when she is playing the violin; but for the fashion designer, it is mostly close ups to express his frustration and craziness. In the video, Lindsey is also interacting with the people and object that are displayed on the background. She gets a beer when somebody is handing her one, copied the clothes that someone else is wearing when she is touching it, and she wonders around the crowd people are passing by her. It is also interesting that in the end, the whole scene changed all into white, except the violin that she has on her hand. I think the director did this purposely because the director wants to emphasize the violin as an important role of her to be free in the music video, which also the violin is the main melody in the whole music.
This photo was also took in the foggy day last week. I think this can represent shape because the light brighten the tree, so I can see the shape of it. But everything else is blurry and cloudy.
Morgan Norman is a professional photographer for fashion. What makes Morgan outstanding among other photographers is he choice of exposure, white balance , and selection of colors. It is said that the scenes that he works at actually inspire him the choices of exposure, white balance and colors that he choose, and I think this is why the color choices matches the background and clothing of the models perfectly.
For the choice of colors, the photos has a large color variety. I think this is very unique because usually when you take portraits of models, people usually choose warm tones. However, he uses different themes like black and white, cold tones and warm tones in his projects. With different type of color choices and white balance, he can match the models clothing naturally in the whole picture. For example, in black and white photo bellow, the suit that the male model wears fits perfectly in black and white theme than warm color tones or cold color tones, which contrasts the suit and the shirt.
In addition, Morgan’s pictures have a really nice exposure and light choice. When the photo is taken in the outdoor, the exposure of the background is bright enough but not overexposing the models face. While the scene is shot in the indoor, the light that Morgan lays on the background is dim, but the light on the model is good enough to see the model’s face and clothes clearly (this is because dark backgrounds can make people see the model more clear).
Beside Morgan’s light and color choice that make him a great photographer, the models in his projects also have extreme expressions that make his photos look impressive and sharp. For example, the smoldering expression of male makes them sexy looking, and the fierce expression of female, makes them seem powerful looking.
Overall, I really like the color and white balance choice that Morgan chooses, and the expression that he makes the models do. These are all powerful portraits not only for magazines but also for art.
All photos are originally from Morgan Norman: http://www.morgannorman.com/#.
I discovered this photo after I finished taking a bunch of photos of my roommate with a mask on. In this photo, my roommate was taking off the mask that I gave him while the light was hitting on the mask and his face. I think this is a great picture about contrast because the dark background contrasts the mask and the face of him, which strongly made my roommate look serious/creepy .
I took this photo because I want to shoot some really cool blurry pictures by lowering the shooting speed of my camera in a really dim situation (the only light source is the Macbook Pro). I took this photo by the help of my roommate in our dorm.
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