Beauty and the Brand: Photography

Today we had our first photography lesson of second year. For our lesson, we had the lovely Simon to teach us and help us along. The last time we had a proper photography lesson was back in September to October last year, so we needed a bit of a refresher course. This meant that we went back to the basics.

We were reintroduced to some of the more basic terms within photography or on the camera;

The aperture. This is the size of the hole that controls how much light is allowed through the camera lens. The hole itself called the 'F number'. With this, it's always helpful to remember "The smaller the number, the bigger the hole." Obviously this is relating to the smaller the F number, the bigger the aperture hole size.

Light attachments;

Soft Box. The soft box is an attachment that you place onto the light fixture and clip into place. This is a square/rectangular box that produces a soft lighting, like the name suggests. This is used to make the models skin appear softer and smoother.

Beauty Dish. The beauty dish is a circular light fixture that, again, clips into the light fixture. This is usually used for closer up looks and it really illuminates more of the detail on the model.I really like using this as its a slightly harder light, compared to the soft box. Also, when you look into the models eyes in the final outcome picture, you can see a ring around the eyes, which is actually the beauty dish.

Light Meter. The light meter measures the light when it flashes, it measures the brightness in the aperture. This is usually placed next to where the model in sat, by the models face. You have to make sure that the sync lead is placed into the light metre, You then clip the button on the side and it will tell you what number you need the F number on the camera to be on. This makes the process of getting the right light, a lot quicker. Without this, you need to do test shoots to see if it's too bright or too dark.