exercise: creating depth with lighting

Create a series of images with varying depth.
• Move objects around in the room, experimenting with perspective and lighting. Consider how you can use the lighting to create layers.
• Try adjusting the zoom on your lens. Place some items close to the lens and some further away. Start with a wide lens (zoomed all the way out) and then zoom-in in steps. 

For the next two pictures I placed the foot lamp in two different locations. When the lighting sources overlap, even when they apart, they don't seem to create depth (photo 1). 

1

2                                                                                               .  

The zoom creates the sensation that objects are closer between each other, an idea of flatness, as we could test in the previous exercise.  The sets of images below (3&4 and 5&6) show this, but the light spots help to create depth, focusing your attention on objects that, due to its size, are obviously closer than others (image 7 and the plant, compared with the person behind).

You would also think that the room used in 4 is smaller than the room used in image 3, though the space and camera position is the same. 

3

4

5

6

Finally, images 7 and 8 would seem to be done in a more cluttered space, but this would only be because we can see more of the objects in the image. 

7

8

All of the images would give a feeling of secrecy, mysteriousness, except probably image 8. This is because the light used is hard, i.e. creates sharp shadows in objects and people. 

exercise: depth

In this exercise we are asked to experiment with the depth of field in the camera, zooming in and out the same framing, where two objects are separated at different distances from the lens.
With the zoom out, or open, this is a short focal distance (18mm in the image below), the depth of field is big. The distant object can then be within the focus zone - although this didn't happen in my examples below - and the distance between the two objects seems larger. The best way of seeing this in the examples below is noticing the difference between the far side of the box in the 18mm and the 58mm images:

When you zoom in, increasing focal distance (and move away from the objects to have a similar frame) the objects seem closer between each other, and the distant object is blurrier as the depth decreases. Images are flatter with larger focal distances. 

The image below shows graphically how the focal distance affects the depth of field:

In the examples below the distance object seems always out of focus. This is because the distance to the objects also affects the depth of field, and I was taking the images close to the lenses. 

 
All graphics from http://www.blogdivvy.com/photog/depth-of-field.htm

exercise: spaces

Capture four shots that have the following feel about them:

• An oppressive, cluttered space
• An open, honest, simple space containing one intriguing item
• A stark, empty hostile space
• A warm, friendly, cosy space

how they feel? what meanings  are implied?

An oppressive, cluttered space

For an oppressive cluttered space I've taken this picture of my utilities cupboard. It is an small, poorly lighted and full of stuff place, so I thought it could do the job quite nicely. The photo does not feel very oppressive though, possibly because, although I took it in a low angle, trying to get as many things "falling" over the lenses, the door was open, and the things somehow organised.
Probably a space with more things, like an old library bookcase, or this similar photo but from the inside of the wardrobe, would have worked better.
I also think that the viewer does not get the idea of a small space, as they can only see one corner, it could give the wrong impression of a more open and bigger room.

An open, honest, simple space containing one intriguing item

Since the moment I read the task I thought about an empty room, with one chair, and a bra on it. Don't ask me why because I don't know, I think the idea must come from some advert or movie... anyway, I thought that the photo could be nice with a well lit room and the result shown below is not too bad. 

On the one side, the room is nice and the tones of green of walls and chair make a nice effect. As the bra is the only black element in the room it could be thought that it would draw the attention, but on the other side, the picture has too many aliments, the windows are nice and the bright floor starves the attention from the chair and the allegedly intriguing element. I think the exercise would have worked better in a more simpler, emptier space.
The image, to me, feels more cosy and inviting than intriguing and interesting.

As the photo is taken in a room, what would there be of intriguing about a bra on a chair? what if I had took the chair to the outside... that would have been better, definitely. Then both the chair and the bra would have been quite out of place. 

A stark, empty hostile space

The picture below is a construction site being prepared. Because the light is rather nice, just before dusk, the place doesn't look too hostile, but the idea of leaving the background unfocused with the focused fence in the foreground gives a hint of hostility, prohibition and inaccessibility. The puddles from the recent storm also invoque starkness. 
I think that the desired feelings would have been better achieved if no signs of humanity, other than the fence, where shown, and if the day was less clear and no plants have been included.  

A warm, friendly, cosy space

Ah, as the name of this (b)log invokes, warmer than here...
This photo in a mediterranean beach, with the people doted in the horizon, evokes the feeling of feet buried in the very hot sand, the refreshing feeling of the water coming to you in tiny waves, and the warmth of the sun in the skin.
This is in my opinion the image that better achieves the objective of the exercise, but that is probably perhaps because I'm longing too much...

movies in colour

Checking out my course mate Helen Rosemier blog I have found a reference she makes to this web page. I love the extract of the colours and the very nice palettes that you obtain with some of the chosen scenes:

http://moviesincolor.com/tagged/john-hughes

exercise: mise-en-scéne - viewing

Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix) is falling asleep while he observes the master (Philip Seymour Hoffman) singing and dancing, surrounded by his family and friends. They are allocated in a way that they create an scenario, open to Phoenix, who is the spectator and Hoffman, the actor. This is created by the mise-en-scène of all the elements. As Phoenix falls asleep he "sees" (or more accurately he imagines) all the women in the scene naked. The spectator knows this is in the imagination of Joaquin Phoenix thanks to the lighting, and the sequence, as we've seen everybody dressed, we've seen Freddie accommodated in the shadows, falling asleep, and then the imagined scene with nude people, which looks clearly unreal. 

The lighting in the scene of Freddie in the shadows also depicts him in a different, obscurer world, closer to insanity.

All the elements of the mise-en-scène - i.e. settings, costumes and make up, lighting and staging - help creating this scene. 

The Third Man makes a extensive use of shadows (and dutch angles, but that would be part of the framing side studied in the previous part of the course) to evoque suspense and anguish. 

Scene 1 above shows a little child who is the greatest menace to the main character at this point of the film, as the boy accuses him of killing his father and a bunch of people is following him, after the kid, through the streets of Vienna. To show this perilous situation we can see the kid, but also the light has been positioned so he has a big, dark and defined shadow, which is definitely more threatening that the actual boy. 

Scene 2 not only uses the shadow on the building, but also the neat reflection on the wet floor, therefore the menacing shadow seems twice as big in this scene. We can also see in the foreground two statues, depicting two men probably fighting, that adds tension to the scene and have intentionally been incorporated in the mise-en-scène.

Scene 3 makes use of a dark corner (all we can see in the first instance) to hide the police men, who we only see when they step forward. 

Scene 4 shows a dutch angle of a room, which is initially in darkness. When the protagonist, who is being chased, turns the light, the image depicted above is what he can see. It is at the some time awkward and disturbing, and this has been created not only by the unbalanced camera angle, but also by the elements shown - a parrot, which is shrieking, the curtains, a kind or gown on a hanger... 

Finally, the last shot in the film, when all has been solved and cleared, depicts a wide path, well lighted, in a very symmetrical image (scene 5 above).  

It has been more easy to identify the lighting of the scenes in the two films above, the use of shadows and clear areas or darker and clearer scenes, than the position of elements to generate moods or feelings. Some of the images above from The Third Man convey a feeling just with the mise-en-scène, and it would not be needed to follow the plot to know that what is going on is rather unquieting. 

The exercise asks now to go back to Project 2 and analyse if the mise-en-scène had an (involuntary) impact on creating a mood. Definitely the third part of the exercise includes elements that create a kind of tension that would be needed for understanding the scene, mainly the black cat and the broken vase. I did not draw using shadows and lights, but I should definitely try to do that for the next sketch.   

Mise-en-Scene

Definition

"...the term (is used) to signify the director's control over what appears in  the film frame. As you would expect, mise-en-scene includes those aspects  of film that overlap  with the art  of the theatre: setting,  lighting, costume, and the behaviour  of the figures.  In controlling the mise-en-scene, the director stages the event  for the camera."

Bordwell, D. , Thompson, K. (2008), Film Art: An Introduction. 8th ed.McGraw-Hill

The mise-en-scene-en-scene does not always need to be planned, the authors clarify. Unpredicted events or actors improvisations have their own impact on the shot (natural light may be used and is unpredictable, an ocasional storm that could be used for the scene, etc.). 

The first director to use mise-en-scene-en-scene was George Méliès, who created fantasy worlds, customs, sketched every detail of the shot and edited his films in the very early 1900's. The video above is for his Le Voyage dans la Lune (The Trip to the Moon), 1902.
Within mise-en-scene we can control

• setting
• costumes and make-up
• lighting
• staging

nude portraits - Polly Penrose

Polly Penrose - photo part of 'a body of work'

So very interesting reading the article about Polly Penrose in the British Photo Journal. How she repeats the photo once and again until she's happy with every detail, tweaking her position, getting the shape she's looking for. Also how she's been looking back at the pictures and realising how they show the feelings she was going through at every different moment. 

Beautiful project. I hope we can see how it keeps on evolving and growing.