Faceless

was thinking about one of my previous shots on the conceptual photo essay and i came up with an idea for my retake for our photo exhibition in february.

the concept of the shoot would be "Faceless":

in a society where people are slaves to their job and stuck with mundane routines in life, some people lose themselves and their identity at that. these people try to stand out and get recognized in everyday life. they try to outdo themselves in order to obtain recognition. but will it work?

the idea is to use a white jabbawockeez mask to depict the loss of identity of the subjects in the series of photos picturing them in crowds and attempting to stand out.

i've got this idea of making the whole concept into an art installation but it's really just a crazy idea as of now. need to get the photos out first before i can do anything. time to start experimenting with using light reflectors outdoors to get better pictures.

Notes Taken From Flashing

no, im not talking about flashing people, but using an external flash on a DSLR, it IS a photoblog anyway.

anyway, i've been taking quite a bit of pictures using flash and being new to using a flash, i hit quite a few road blocks along the way. Examples like shooting at night in open air, trying to bounce off the flash off a very high ceiling, using flash when shooting in close proximity and flashing in odd lightings.

the first obstacles that i hit was when i was doing a photoshoot for my hall's paegant and i didn't really know what to expect from it. first shots were done in the communal hall which had like a inverted "V" ceiling which at the highest point was more than 3 metres high (think a pyramid and im shooting right in the middle).

i tried to bounce my flash off the ceiling but realised that it was too high and the shots came out really bad. tried to bounce it off the sides but the walls were too far away from me and tilting the flash 45 degrees would be a little too harsh on the face and out of desperation, i decided to use one of my cards with a white background as a bounce card and it actually worked. it wasn't the perfect shot, but it came out good enough for me to process it.

the little bounce card trick worked for me when i was shooting at a friend's bbq where it was outdoors. started out pointing the flash 45 degrees but realized that only half the body would catch the light but with the bounce card it pretty much lit up the whole frame.

i think it's rather important when using the flash to have the beam hit upwards to the ceiling and at the same time bounce off some of the light directly (correct me if im wrong) to the subject so that it has a soft feel to it.

now the problem with getting an actual bounce card or diffuser is that it's pretty expensive and when i saw the actual build and quality, i decided that it wasn't worth paying $50 - 60 for a bounce card or diffuser.

did a little search on the web and found a video that actually teach you how to make a bounce card from scratch. it's pretty interesting, im trying it out and i'll post it here if it's successful. estimated cost of the bounce card is like $3.

here's the video anyway: