Light and Texture of flowers

Compositions, Light and Texture

Awesome Food texture

Awesome Cabbage

Texture and light photography at home.

Robert Mapplethorpe-inspiration

Robert Mapplethorpe inspired flower photography

On Monday 10th December 2012 we shot flowers.

Different coloured gels were used to colour the background.

Mapplethorpe inspired

By Mapplethorpe

By Mapplethorpe

light set up 2

light set up 2

By Mapplethorpe 

Set up 1 with blue filter

By Mapplethorpe

By Mapplethorpe

By Mapplethorpe

Set up 1 with blue filter

Set up 1 with blue filter

Set up 3 with pink filter

Set up 1

Set up 2

Set up 3

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe (November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, known for his large-scale, highly stylized black and white portraits, photos of flowers and nude men. The frank homoeroticism of some of the work of his middle period triggered a more general controversy about the public funding of artworks.

Self portrait

Mapplethorpe was born and grew up as a Roman Catholic of English and Irish heritage in Queens, New York. His parents were Harry and Joan Mapplethorpe and he grew up with five brothers and sisters. He studied for a B.F.A. from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where he majored in graphic arts,  though he dropped out in 1969 before finishing his degree. Mapplethorpe lived with his partner Patti Smith from 1967–1974, and she supported him by working in bookstores. They created art together, and even after he realized he was gay, they maintained a close relationship.
Mapplethorpe took his first photographs soon thereafter using a Polaroid camera. In the mid-1970s, he acquired a Hasselblad medium-format camera and began taking photographs of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, including artists, composers, and socialites.

Deborah Harr

Andy Warhol

 In the 1980s he refined his aesthetic, photographing statuesque male and female nudes, delicate flower still lifes, and highly formal portraits of artists and celebrities.

Mapplethorpe died on the morning of March 9, 1989, 42 years old, in a Boston, Massachusetts, hospital from complications arising from AIDS. His body was cremated and the ashes buried in Queens, New York, in his mother's grave, marked "Maxey".
Nearly a year before his death, the ailing Mapplethorpe helped found the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc. His vision for the Foundation was that it would be "the appropriate vehicle to protect his work, to advance his creative vision, and to promote the causes he cared about". Since his death, the Foundation has not only functioned as his official estate and helped promote his work throughout the world, it has also raised and donated millions of dollars to fund medical research in the fight against AIDS and HIV infection.


Mapplethorpe worked primarily in his studio, particularly toward the end of his career. Common subjects include flowers, especially orchids and calla lilies, and celebrities, including Andy Warhol, Deborah Harry.
Other work includes homoerotic and BDSM acts (including coprophagia), and classical nudes.

Mapplethorpe's X Portfolio series sparked national attention in the early 1990s when it was included in The Perfect Moment, a traveling exhibition funded by National Endowment for the Arts. The portfolio includes some of Mapplethorpe's most explicit imagery, including a self-portrait with a bullwhip inserted in his anus. Though his work had been regularly displayed in publicly funded exhibitions, conservative and religious organizations, such as the American Family Association, seized on this exhibition to vocally oppose government support for what they called "nothing more than the sensational presentation of potentially obscene material."

His sexually charged photographs of black men have been criticized as exploitative.

Film Noir

Film Noir

Moody, dark and dramatic. The term film noir may instantly conjure cinematic scenarios in your mind of hard-boiled detectives and brassy dames that drag trouble behind them like tattered coats. But film noir is also a still photography style, largely informed by the movies of the same classification.

Film noir is a term introduced in the 1940s by French critics Nino Frank and Jean-Pierre Chartier. The French word "noir" translates to "black" or "dark," and film noir describes a style of filmmaking rather than an actual film genre. At the heart of film noir is a dramatic story, often filled with crime and sexual exploits. Film noir's defining characteristics, though, are its storytelling style and the cinematography used to capture it. 

Today, film noir is still a highly recognized and well-respected form of storytelling on film or as an image. For  photography, we created the lighting and camera effects that imitate the best of film noir.

Set up 1

F5.6, 1/2sec, ISO 100

F5.6, 1/2sec, ISO 100

Set up 1

 Set up 2

F8, 1/2sec, ISO 100

Set up 2

High Key/Low Key Photography

High Key and Low Key Photography

To create contrast in studio images photographers use - High Key and Low Key shooting.

Both High Key images and Low Key images make an intensive use of contrast, but in a very different way. When approaching a shoot of a dramatic portrait, the decision of making it a High Key, Low Key or "just" a regular image has great impact about the mood that this picture will convey. While High Key images are considered happy and will show your subject as a tooth-paste poster; Low Key portraits are dramatic and convey a lot of atmosphere and tension.

High Key

When looking at a High Key picture, you notice two things right away. (Other than the happy-happy-joy-joy mood of the picture) The first thing is that the picture is bright. To create a high key image you need to set your exposure levels to high values. Don't over expose.

F6.3 . 1/160 ISO 100

F8 . 1/160 ISO 100

Notice is the lack of shadows in the picture. The shadows cast by the model (or subject) are suppressed by lighting in the scene.

The other noticeable feature of High Key images is the lack of contrast. In addition for the tone being bright,  notice that it is almost even across the scene. This is achieved by carefully setting the lighting of the picture.


Picture of the set up below:-

Model stands in front of white background

 Low Key Images

 In Low Key images the tone is darker, and the controlling color is usually black. There will be lots of dark areas in the picture. It is very common for Low Key images to give special attention to contour lines, emphasizing them with highlights.

F5.6 ,1/8sec , ISO 100

Low Key images are also notable for a great deal of contrast that they display.  A light surrounding the subject illuminating only the contour of the shape. So the contrast is between dark shape and bright contour.

 Set Up

One Red head light with 2 Black poly boards in front. The boards pulled out to reveal a shaft of light. Model- just part of the face illuminated. A tripod needed, F8 (adjust if needed) Shutter speed 1/8sec.

High Key, Low Key and mood - usually, High Key images are considered happy. They convey positive emotions, while Low Key images are darker and present drama or tension.

Macro Photography

Macro Photography

Macro photography is extreme close-up photography, usually of very small subjects, in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size.
Mostly used for nature/wildlife,scientific studies, artistic/conceptual
A Macro lens required for this type of photography.

Task

Capture close up macro images that represent:

Factual

Texture

Abstract

Form

Metaphor (isolating certain parts, offers new perspective)

close up F5.6 Ex 1/10 ISO 3200

Macro lens. F4 Ex 1/100 ISO 200

Macro lens. F3.5 Ex 1/13 ISO 200