Kris Bentham Photography

Seeing in Black and White at night

while in my flat i noticed the how the street lighting was creating different textures on the road so decided see what images I could get at night seeing in black and white.
unlike daylight, the artificial street lights give a constant feeling this gives makes the images more atmospheric as there more relatable

Seeing in Black and White

To get a understanding a the different aesthetics of black and white photography we where given the task to take a series of black and white images.

While doing this task I kept in mind some of Ansel Adams theories, exposing for the blacks where you metre of the darkest part in the image and the reduce the exposure by 2 stops. This gives detail in both the blacks and the highlights whist keeping a bold contrast. I tied to shot with my maximum aperture to aid this method in getting the maximum detail possible. Adams created the zone system, by splitting up all the tones in to 12 zones accounting for the shade and the amount of detail with in that tone. Adams believed that you had to have all the zones present to create a perfect image.

by removing the hue from the image it simplifies the images making the texture and tones stand out. understanding metering and tones is key to emphasising the feel of your images, as an experiment I took the same image using evaluative metering and spot metering with Adam's exposing for the blacks technique

The image above was expose using the evaluative metering of my d610 giving settings of 1/250s ƒ.14 ISO160. the metering has tried its best to create a average fray thoughtout the image, there is little contrast with in the tree branches

the image above was taken using spot metering aimed at the shadow of the tree, it gave settings of 1/160s ƒ14 and ISO160. the extra exposure time with in this image has aloud of the highlights to be more pronounced creating contrast in the branches.

by removing the hue from the image it simplifies the images making the texture and tones stand out. understanding metering and tones is key to emphasising the feel of your images,

Sam and Steve's Pre Wedding shoot

Steve and Sam are getting married in may, we arrange a pre wedding shoot to allow them to get used to being in front of the camera. we went to the wedding venue Consell hall as they have a huge garden with lots of different features to walk around.

The day went very well we had a chilled out walk around the grounds looking for interesting features and lighting, Steve and sam were naturally calm in front of the camera which helped to keep the shot candid and natural. one problem I found was the high sunlight at noon, I decided to make a feature of this and blow out the skies giving a dreamy feeling.

I will look to using a polarising filter for the wedding day to reduce the brightness of the light and fill flash when necessary.

Bansko

Bansko Bulgaria

On a recent trip to Bansko I noticed the erratic nature of the weather it was forever changing with vibrant sunrises and clouds roll around the hills. I decided to created a series of time-lapse clip catching this passing of the weather

I didn't create a time lapse of this as the alternation exposure of sun rises are tricky to set the exposure for, you can not used auto setting as you need to ensure there is no sudden jumps between the exposures. one technique that requires a external device bulb ramping, this lets you set a starting shutter speed and ending speed and duration. it will the change the shutter speed in increments.

This was the first time-lapse I made the dramatic clouds where perfect for the project

I was setting my camera up and leaving it taking pictures with the same exposure, this was one of the more challenging to get to work, the lighting conditions changed so much thought out i had to drop the exposure of the clouds where blowing out.

I ended up with a 3 second clip of this sun rise so i decided to use it for the title page to add some colour.

Birmingham airpot time-lapse

Birmingham airpot

I wanted to replicate the motorway time-lapse with aeroplanes I found this location around 10:30 at night just in time to see the last plane land as I was setting the camera up and the last departure of the day. on a clear night this could be an interesting location.

The blinking aperture ring has effected the quality with the video, there some nice detail when viewed full screen with the right editing software this could be brought out the make a interesting movie.

Time-lapse Malvern

Time-laspe

I recently went towards Malvern to create some time-lapse of stars. this was a test run to see how the D610 would work with the feature

My first stop was a view point of the Malvern with the hills in the backdrop, the view point was looking the river, it was hard to get the hight required to get the a good composition of both he town and the sky. Ideally i would want to remove the close bushes

Time-lapse straight form camera

As I started the time-lapse you could see through the clouds but the clouds quickly rolled in. you still get a nice effect wight he detail in the clouds but i decided to stop the recording as it was clear the stars weren't coming back. I used the D610s Time-laspe feature which automatically creates a movie, previously I have been using the D5100s built in interval timer. The movie has some flickering occurring on the sides of the image, I originally put this down to headlights from the near by road but i have since learnt its coming form the aperture rings movement between shots.

If i was to continue this feature i would need to invest in some movie editing software to be able to alter the white balance and do minor adjustments. using filters could also help to tone down the strong glow of the town

On the way back I stopped off at a motorway bridge to create a urban time-lapse, i noticed the cross in the lamps and bridge so used that as a focal point deciding the scene. i think although i got think in the centre i didn't have my camera square wight the bridge so the framing is slightly off.

This video have worked better than that of the Malvern, there is less no blinking and the white balance is better due to there being less of a mixture of lighting types.

Solihull College Cricket

I joined the Solihull College cricket team for an indoor tournament as the photographer, I tried to take images that not only tell a story by freeze the action. Within this shoot there were a few challegece to over come

Within this shoot there were a few challegece to overcome: The poor tungsten lighting and need for fast shutter speeds required me to use quite hight ISO with shutter speeds around 1/300th of a second.

The other challenge was to read the game, to get to know how the players react in order to be ready for the action, its such a fast paced game that you really need to be on the ball.

LONDON FASHION WEEKEND

I had the change to shoot at the LFWE in the Canon student photo Competition in February. This was my first time in a photography pit its quite exciting being in that environment, knowing that you are all set up with very similar perspective it pushes you to think creatively.

I was positioned at the back centre of the pit so i tried to frame my models with in the doorway to lead the eye to the model.

This outfit was in a set called precious metals I purposely under exposed this image to get more detail with in the highlights on the skirt helping the skirt stand out.

By including the second model in this image i created more depth and interest, the whites are slightly bright on the lace loosing the a little detail

Being positioned in the centre it was tricky getting a shot with a couple of the models in.

This shot required me to hold the camera as hight as i could, using live view to face and position the focal point, due to having over photographers in front on me in the pit. It worked in my favour giving me a clean and unique angle. having the raised angle gives me a more flattering angle.

once we finished the catwalk we had 45 minuets to upload the images, I resorted to a coffee shop and started editing as quick as possible. one issue I had was the lack of memory on my mac this slowed the upload process up. Selecting and editing images in such a fast pace environment is hard you have seconds per image in order to meet your deadline and it did lead to me rushing my final edits out. i think it was a good stipulation thought and prepares yourself for the real world.

Seeing in Black and White at night

Seeing in Black and White

Sam and Steve's Pre Wedding shoot

Bansko

Bansko Bulgaria

Birmingham airpot time-lapse

Birmingham airpot

Time-lapse Malvern

Time-laspe

Solihull College Cricket

Solihull College Cricket

LONDON FASHION WEEKEND

LONDON FASHION WEEKEND

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