Ghatahora Photography: creative photography

Showing posts with label creative photography. Show all posts

Sunday, 5 July 2020

Light Painting with Mobile Phone

Mobile phones today have amazing in-built features that one can use to photograph creatively. I have a Huawei P30 Lite which has a triple camera with 48MP. I am really amazed with the quality of the photographs the phone produces.

I have never tried light painting with my Professional Digital camera before, however, I was ready to set my self a challenge to create light painting photographs with my Huawei Peacock Blue mobile phone. The mobile phone has standard features such as; AR Lens, Night, Portrait, Photo, Video and More. See the images below, please note that these images are screen shots of my phone.

Under the 'More' function, the phone has 11 extra settings (see image below of the functions on the mobile phone Please note that these images are screen shots of my phone).

I chose the 'Light Painting' function, which is further divided into 4 more functions, (see image below, these images are screen shots of my phone).

All of the below photographs are taken using the 'Light Painting' mode on the mobile phone.

For the shot below, I set mobile phone on 'Light Graffiti', the phone was mounted on a selfie stick which also can be converted into a mini tripod. The shot below was taken on my kitchen counter, no backdrop was used. The lights were switched off in the kitchen, prior to that the shot was focused and locked in on the face.

I used a battery operated candle to create light the image. The mobile phone on light painting mode has a ''live view' which means I could see the image being created and knew when to stop the exposure on my shot. I used the candle to light the front of the image, starting with the face, shoulders, then moving the candle around to light the whole image. While doing this, I had to keep a very close eye on the camera as it was creating the image and making sure that the light does not create any unwanted shapes or glares. The total exposure for this image was around 5 minutes.

For the shot below, the same technique as above was used. This image was lit from the back of the bottle, again keeping in mind to add no unwanted glares added to the image. I also added light to the front of the perfume bottle using a small LED torch. The torch was covered with a piece of white tissue to diffuse the light. The exposure for this shot was just over 4 minutes. I quite like the way the use of the torch has added a blue effect on the lid of the bottle. This is because the candle has a warm temperature at 1500 Kelvin and a LED torch on average is 4000/6000 Kelvin, a cooler light temperature.

This image is of a jelly candle and was lit using a battery operated candle from behind, moving the candle up and down slowly. Again, I kept an eye on the view finder to see that the image was not over exposed or casing any glares. The total exposure for this image was roughly 4 minutes.

This is an image of a house plant shot in 'Light Graffiti' mode, lit with a battery operated candle. Each part of the plant was lit in sections.

This image of the perfume bottle was shot using the 'Light Graffiti' mode and was lit using the LED torch and battery operated candle. The swirls were created using the candle.

The next two photographs were also taken using the mobile phone on 'Light Graffiti' mode. Both images below are of fairy lights. The phone was hand held and moved in various directions to create interesting patterns. I must have taken several photographs as I got carried away taking photographs around the house in the middle of the night. Again, keep an eye on the view finder as the image can easily be overexposed. The exposure time range from 10 seconds to a minute.

This image was taken in the garden of the stars. The phone was mounted on the mini tripod and pointed up towards the sky. The phone was set on 'Star Trails' mode. The phone was left in the garden for 45 minutes on the mini tripod. I took this shot in May around 9.15 pm. If you are taking photographs of the stars, it is best to set up when there is still some colour in the sky and on a clear night.

The last two photographs were taken through my bedroom window. It was dark outside - the light from the moon and the windows created an atmospheric scene. This was photographed on 'Night' mode on the phone.

This image is of the same scene, I just moved my phone up and down to capture the light in an abstract form.

I was truly amazed with the images the phone was capturing. When I started this project, I was not sure if it was going to be successful. It was a challenge that I am willing to explore again at another level.

Bhupinder Ghatahora ABIPP, ARPS, ASWPP

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Facebook

Friday, 29 May 2020

Water Droplets

It is always interesting to take photographs after it has rained, there is a lot of photographic opportunities.

This photograph of water bubbles was taken looking down into the fish tank. The image as been cropped to add emphasis on the larger bubble. This photograph was taken using available light on my mobile phone.

The water droplets are created using sodium bicarbonate ear drops on the surface of a CD. I found that the ear drops were a lot easier to use for creating the droplets, as they created a rounder, 3D water bubble. I tried using water on a glass chopping board, with my tablet placed at the bottom to light it up. This set-up was very awkward, as the water droplets did not have the defined shape and roundness that I was trying to achieve, therefore making it harder to focus. This is the image that I attempted.

This image was photographed at the beginning of the month, and these water/oil droplets have stayed in tact as we speak. This shot was lit with a table lamp placed above the droplets and a blue fibre optic light to add the sparkle in the bubbles.
This photograph was taken using a Nikon macro lens attached to the Sony a600.

The photograph of the tulip was taken using my mobile phone early in the morning after the rain had stopped. The final image was edited in Snapseed, which is a mobile editing software. I increased the contrast of the final image.

The photographs below have been taken using the Sony a6000 early in the morning with available light. All these images have been slighting cropped to tidy around the edges.

The image below was taken with my mobile phone on the same day as the tulip. The colours of the final image have been increased. I used a shallow depth of field and focused on the dew drop.

The image of dew drops on the washing line (below) was also taken with my mobile phone. I set the mobile phone on 'Pro' setting, under exposed the shot by 1 stop and changed the aperture to f11 to get all the dew drops in focus. I was very close to the dew drops, this blurred the background. The dew drops were hanging from the bottom of the washing line, I rotated the final image to have the dew drops sitting on the washing line.

The photograph below is of water droplets pouring out from a bursting balloon, just before the water from the balloon landed on the ground. I have heavily cropped this image to focus on the dancing water droplets.

The photograph below was taken with my mobile phone, focusing on the dew drop, I switched on the built in light bulb on the camera to add light onto the dew drop. I did not use flash as it over powered the final image. This image was not edited.

Bhupinder Ghatahora ABIPP, ARPS, ASWPP

Ghatahora Photography

info@ghatahora.co.uk

Facebook

Friday, 15 May 2020

How to photograph Abstracts

In this article, I will be briefly looking at how to photograph Abstracts.

What is Abstract Photography?

Abstract photography is a style of photography that allows the photographer to express ideas, emotions, shapes and colour impact with the final image, instead of creating the realistic representation of the subject. This allows the photographer to go beyond the visual representation to focus on the interesting elements of the subject as well as focusing on their creativity.

Here are few tips on how to take abstract photographs:

1) Keep the subject simple, concentrate on shapes, textures or colour of the subject
2) Interesting composition will add impact to the final image
3) Keep an eye on lighting as this will add interesting elements to the image
4) Explore different view points, this can take creativity to a different level
5) Look out for colours and textures
6) Use an editing software to explore your creativity

Below are a few examples of Abstract photographs,

This image (Number 1) was taken on a rainy day through the window to show splashes of colour.

Lights

This photograph (Number 2) was take at 'Crocodiles Of The World', Brize Norton (Oxford). The baby crocodile was under water with its head out of the water. I placed the camera very close to the glass and photographed his body under the water and the head above the water. This image has been cropped to create an abstract image. The original image was not photographed in this format. (See the original image at the bottom of the page).

Scales

This image (Number 3) was taken on my daily walks near where I live. It had rained the day before and there were lots of puddles, I found the reflections of the trees and the textures of the road very interesting. To emphasise the images, it was converted into black white in post production. (See the original image at the bottom of the page).

Reflections

This is an image (Number 4) of my Oscar fish, I photographed this with my mobile phone placed on the glass tank. I focused on the colours and patterns of the scales of the fish.

Fish Scales

This image (Number 5) is of a very large leaf photographed from the bottom looking up. In post production, the image has been super imposed with the photograph above of the reflections in the puddle. The reason I decided to combine two images was because it added interesting textures to the top left on the image. The saturation of the final image was decreased. (See the original images at the bottom of the page.)

Leaf

This image (Number 6) of red leaves has also been super imposed in post production with an image of wood grain. The saturation was also decreased in this image. (See the original images at the bottom of the page.)

Red leaf

The two images of the crocodile; before and after on the right (Number 1)

The two images leaf and reflections in a puddle used to create the final image on the right.
The image in the middle (puddle and reflections) is the original of the Photograph number 3.