Classmate Portrait

For the classmate portrait I was partnered with Wonsuk Choi. He was a very fun partner to work with and also helped me a lot with working in the studio. We were able to figure out a lot together when it came to experimenting with light sources.

Below is the photo that has a single light source, and it is my favorite photo that I shot for this assignment.

Wonsuk Choi poses to take a photo in the photojournalism studio in Lee Hills Hall on September 28, 2009.  Wonsuk is from South Korea and his passion for photojournalism has brought him to the University of Missouri to gain more experience.

This photo was taken with an ISO of 200, shutter speed at 1/125 and aperture at f/6.7 on the daylight setting. I used one light source on the left of Wonsuk as well as a reflector on the right side of him to reflect some of the light onto the other side of his body so that it would be more visible. The hard light and the shadows add more of a dramatic effect to the photo. I really like this photo because I feel like it captures Wonsuk's personality pretty well. He is a very determined person, especially when it comes to photojournalism. If I could change one thing about this photo to make it better, I would try to add more light on the camera so that it is easier to see the details on the camera. All in all I am pretty proud of this photo and think that it captures Wonsuk pretty well.

Below is the photo that I used two light sources on.

Wonsuk Choi poses in the photojournalism studio in Lee Hills Hall on September 24, 2009. 

 I took this photo with an ISO of 200 at a shutter speed of 1/180 and aperture at f/19 on the daylight setting. For this photo I used a backlight with a blue gel as well as a light source on the left of Wonsuk. I like the pose that Wonsuk is doing in the photo because it describes his positive attitude and friendly personality. He gave me many different and fun poses, which made it really easy to shoot. There was never a dull moment! I wish that I had taken more close up shots with this light setup, however I still like the shots that I got while using two light sources. This was also the first day that we shot, and the more time we spent on shooting, the more comfortable I felt and I tried to improve my photos as I went.

The next photo below was taken with two light sources. Wonsuk had remotes that attached to his camera as well as his flash, so we thought it would be cool to play around with it and see what we came up with.

Wonsuk Choi poses with his flash in the photojournalism studio in Lee Hills Hall on September 24, 2009. 

I shot this photo with an ISO of 200, a shutter speed of 1/125 at an aperture of f/16 on the daylight setting. I used a softbox on the left side of Wonsuk to make the flash that he was holding in his hand visible. It took us a couple of tries to get the hang of working with this flash, but it ended up creating a really neat effect. I really like this photo because it says a lot about him since he knows a lot about cameras and is passionate about photography. The lighting also falls on his face extremely well and I like how it seems to look like it is the only light source in a dark room. I still have a lot of trouble figuring out how to use the hand held flash, but Wonsuk helped me out a lot and I was able to see how it worked a little better.

All in all, I really liked this assignment and feel like I learned quite a bit from it. Wonsuk had a good feel of what to do in the studio, which really helped me figure things out since I am new to most of this. He was a great help and took the time to help me with any questions I had. I had a really good time being his partner and appreciate all of his hard work!