Here's how to make your own photography studio out of an extra bedroom. This room has more light than anywhere in the house, considering it has three windows and a back door with a window. My mom suggested I go buy black felt to cover the windows so I could control the light better for a still life. It beats only working at night, although I tend to do that anyway.
So here's the thing. I blew off photography early on because I couldn't control the light like I could in a real studio, so I decided to paint a few still lifes instead, thinking what I couldn't do in real life with light, I could do with paint. Well, maybe I could control the light in my paintings but I couldn't control the paint in my paintings. I was working too small and too fast to really do my best. So I gave up on painting and decided to play with pretty much every light I have in my house. I had already bought some colored light bulbs for my still lifes, so all I had to do was improvise some bounce cards and a barn door for the key light. The hardest part though was rim lighting. The white card you see at the top is actually a 16x20 canvas board improvised into a bounce card. It failed, but it made a nice snake light holder for a back light. The blank canvas on the easel came in really handy too--whenever I set the timer on the camera I grabbed that canvas and held it over the top of the setup. It provided just enough bounce light to put some volume into the shadows.
I've learned more about lighting in the last 6 hours than I think I've ever learned in my life. I'm saving the photos for the reel because they are just way too cool for the blog. And no, the car's not going in. I finally figured out how to manually set the exposure on my camera so I might just give that one another try. So stay tuned. It's going to get really interesting in the next few days. And Pixar still has that lighting job listed!
So here's the thing. I blew off photography early on because I couldn't control the light like I could in a real studio, so I decided to paint a few still lifes instead, thinking what I couldn't do in real life with light, I could do with paint. Well, maybe I could control the light in my paintings but I couldn't control the paint in my paintings. I was working too small and too fast to really do my best. So I gave up on painting and decided to play with pretty much every light I have in my house. I had already bought some colored light bulbs for my still lifes, so all I had to do was improvise some bounce cards and a barn door for the key light. The hardest part though was rim lighting. The white card you see at the top is actually a 16x20 canvas board improvised into a bounce card. It failed, but it made a nice snake light holder for a back light. The blank canvas on the easel came in really handy too--whenever I set the timer on the camera I grabbed that canvas and held it over the top of the setup. It provided just enough bounce light to put some volume into the shadows.I've learned more about lighting in the last 6 hours than I think I've ever learned in my life. I'm saving the photos for the reel because they are just way too cool for the blog. And no, the car's not going in. I finally figured out how to manually set the exposure on my camera so I might just give that one another try. So stay tuned. It's going to get really interesting in the next few days. And Pixar still has that lighting job listed!
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