Our first pre-launch public event was held at the Royal College Skill Centre Auditorium 309 on the 12th of Saturday. After the initial introduction, we started the product photography session. The subject was a bottle of body wash. Rasika Surasena was on the Camera, Prasanna Mudunkotuwa was on the computer, Jeewaranga Gunasekera, Sanjaya Vithana and Dinil Abeygunawardane were assisting and explaining the process.
Our intention of doing this demonstration was to take participants through the steps of building up an image to suit a high quality print publication by using the equipment affordable to most Sri Lankan photographers. While the equipment is important, all the best cameras, lenses and lights in the world do not make up for lack of knowledge and skill, so we decided to show the participants how the shot gets built up from scratch and we explained why we took each of the actions we took.
Product Session
We started by just shooting the bottle with ambient light,
We had a sketch, we had to show the nature and shape of the bottle, nature of the liquid soap, the lid and the label. It had to be on a purple ‘spot’ background.
Starting from the above image we built up the shot, first the background was added by placing a transparent paper and then lighting up a spot on it via a snoot.
We then adjusted the spot and added the purple gel to create background.
Now we had to show the form of the bottle for this we added a side light, the harsh specular highlight that was created by the light source was controlled by reducing it with a polarizing filter
The side light started to show the shape of the bottle and added a highlight that accentuated it’s shape, however it started to bleed backwards contaminating our spot and reduced its contrast. We showed how that can be controlled by placing a ‘flag’ between the lights.
Next we needed to show the nature of the liquid soap, the translucent nature and the colour of the liquid. To achieve this we used a mask cut to the shape of the bottle and placed it behind to push more light through to reveal the translucent nature of the liquid.
To counter the shadow created by the mask and to balance the highlight on the right we added another highlight or a vertical direct reflection to the left side of the bottle by placing a reflector on the left.
Now the shot was almost ready, we used a targeted light in front to light up the label. Here is the result.
Portrait Session
This session was conducted by Dinil Abeygunawardane and Jeewaranga Gunasekera assisted. The idea of the demonstration was to discuss some of the very basic concepts of Portrait Photography, Portrait Lighting and the reasons behind them. At the beginning the concept of Hard & Soft light, which seems to be a matter of confusion has been addressed and defined.
The concept of a portrait of briefly addressed and a demonstration of basic portrait lighting techniques was done. A single light was used to demonstrate the core ideology behind each and every technique or style and the reasons for choosing each of the styles was discussed during the demonstration
Paramount/Butterfly lighting was discussed and was followed by loop lighting, Rembrandt lighting, Split lighting and Profile lighting. The idea examining a face to decide on features to highlight or hide was discussed and a demonstration on some of the techniques was done with the help of Hemantha Arunasiri and Mr Uditha Jayasinghe who was a participant in the audience.
Butterfly/Paramount Lighting (Hemantha Arunasiri)
Rembrandt Lighting (Uditha Jayasinghe)
Split Lighting (Uditha Jayasinghe)Team IME Wishes to thank everyone, who participated and we invite you for our next two sessions on 19th & 20th of December
Team IME From Left to RightBack Row: Prasanna Mudunkotuwa, Mendis Wickramasinghe, Hemantha Arunasiri, Dinil Abeygunawardane, Samudu Abeygunawardane, Lakshitha Somarathna, Henry Rajakaruna, G Hettiarachchi
Front Row: Rasika Surasena, Sanjaya Vithana, Jeewaranga Gunasekera, Ayasmantha Peiris