An active portrait

26/4/14

This exercise looked at an activity that the subject was interested in and capturing facial expressions displayed by them doing their activity.

I decided to use my husband for this subject because he is a very keen mountain biker and there is always activity happening in the garage with him cleaning and maintaining his bike. The garage makes a good background because it has organised kit over most walls. 

My subject was willing, and we planned the exercise for a day when he should have been home early enough from work to use a mix of daylight from the garage door and fluorescent overhead lights. He was delayed and time of day meant he had to work in the garage with the door closed. 

My main challenge was space and lighting. Using a camera mounted on a tripod, I knew by how much I could increase the ISO without getting too much noise. However, with the limited space I could only use the available lighting which either cast an overexposed spot and burnout over parts of the image and could not get the shutter speed fast enough to avoid motion blur because his hands were working fast. 

I cropped the image into a square which removed some of the burnout from the light, but it is still present on the white items and the side of my subjects face. I liked the position. I felt that by getting down to his level of kneeling I was still on a level with my subject and able to take an interest rather than standing over him. The bike wheel occupying a third of the frame gives the viewer an idea of what is happening. I concentrated on his face rather than his hands and felt that his eyeline allowed the viewer to follow his gaze to his hands.

1.5secs F8 ISO400 EFL64mm

I decided to try again, this time with my daughter doing her Food Technology  homework. 

1/10 F4 ISO400 EFL75mm

Once again, space was an issue due to kitchen cupboards. The additional challenge was uneven lighting. The weather was a mix of sunshine and cloud so the light was on and off. The light from the window overexposed the kitchen tiles at the back of the image.  

I was pleased with this image. It told me enough of what was happening by showing the look of concentration on her face.

I tried to use a reflector to reflect the light back into Alex's face which was in shadow but did not have enough hands. A flash may have worked.