Latest news about my interests
I recently undertook a studio photo session with a banker friend of mine who wanted some clean professional headshots of himself for social media. I really enjoyed shooting in the studio after some time, playing around with the lighting setups. The images where shot using a simple three light setup, 3×3 Profoto softbox on an infinity cove. They were shot with a Canon 5D Mark III and a super sharp 85mm f/1.4 lens.
Check out a couple of the best pics here: http://sorab.bhote.org/
Cheers!
So I am now well into term 1 and the end is in sight with less than a month till Christmas holidays. The studio set project was a big success and the designing, building, lighting, photographing and dismantling of the set was all done over just 3 days. Long hours in the studio, but was great fun. This is the final image we decided to go with and shows a puppet workshop, taken from one of my group member’s idea. All props were sourced locally and most of the stuff we managed to borrow. The final shot was taken on a 31 megapixel Hasselblad H3Dll.
My SDA project is also going very well, after many shoots at Chyan and many crits, I am starting to create a final series of images which are due in very soon. I have really enjoyed this project and have met some amazing people in an amazing surrounding. Over the period I have felt part of this enriching community spirit, the stories I’ve heard and the sights I’ve seen prove to show such a community who live so simply, yet enjoy life so greatly. For the final set, I plan on printing approximately 10 images in 8×10 size. This will suit the project. Here are just a few of my possible finals (all shot digitally):
At the moment I am working on two projects. One is another SDA, like the one I did last year, and the other is a studio set design project. This self devised assignment is working on communities in my local area of Cornwall. Going to community events, meeting new people and visiting their homes is what I am doing for the project. I have been working closely with a community farm in Penryn called Chyan where they hold various events, such as the recent Apple Day (all things apple) and also where many people live in their caravans, creating a community. It is a really interesting project entailing landscape with people.
The studio project is a group effort where we have to plan and design a set within the studio, taking our inspiration from books, movies, poems, etc. I built my idea using Photoshop and the various tools it has to offer to create a realistic model of my proposal. I decided to take inspiration from a scene I particularly like from The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1959. I really liked the lighting of the still and the acting of it. I originally had an old English theme in my head and researched many movies set in old England, until I found this.
Well, another week had begun after a great weekend. It was a busy weekend viewing a couple of properties in preparation for September when we have to move out of halls. I also had an external model come in for a three hour shoot. It was stressful but fun at the same time. I setup the the lighting, soft boxes, reflectors and even a wind machine! This was part of my studio project where we had to quite literally find someone off the street and photograph them in the studio environment. I am getting far more confident with setting up and using a studio space effectively on my own. I also had more practice doing a head-shoot for my cousin last week. As well as viewing houses and shooting in the studio, I had to get my three projects from Unit 1 ready to hand in for assessment week. This is the week we find out who has passed and who hasn’t. It is quite a nerve-racking process, but we will get some useful feedback about how we performed for the last three projects.
Attached to this post are a few images from my studio project. The black and white ones are scans of enlargements I took using a Bronica ETRSi Medium Format camera.
Well, I have already had a couple of studio sessions and a few inductions. It is taking time to get used to being a model and directing models, as the photographer. The studio can be a very ‘cold, sterile’ place to work, mostly dark with the odd flash! It is great having the Mac as a control centre of literally everything from controlling the Elinchrom and Bowens lighting systems to viewing your images as soon as they have been shot.
We have been inducted in using the medium format cameras, which are Bronica ETRS and ETRSi models. I still await to see the results when we have our film processing induction soon. They are quite heavy, cumbersome cameras, but as everyone says, the quality of the 120 film is far better than the smaller 35mm negatives.
We still have many studio sessions left, so I aim to conduct more research and experiment a lot with props, models, lighting and, of course, the cameras.
Happy New Year to all who read my blog!
Today was the start of term two at uni. After a great month of being back at home, I am ready to conquer some more projects. This month I will be spending most of my time in the studios where we will be inducted with all of the strobe and tungsten lighting as well as the Bronica cameras. It should be fun working in such an environment, and a good experience as I have never really done this before. The only studio experience I have had was when I was given a chance to try out the 31 megapixel, £10,000 Hasselblad H3D II at the London DPI show in Islington a few years ago. I have also shadowed a photographer who carried out a studio shoot at the BBC television centre for Children in Need a couple of years back.
Christmas photos are now on my Flickr page, take a look and enjoy.
Sorab Bhote 