Relationship - Fire - Final 3

Below are the final 3 images from the second shoot that I am far more pleased with than the shots from the first shoot.

What I really like about this first image is the closeness of the two friends, Sarah and Emily. They have had a close relationship as friends for a long time and are clearly very comfortable around each other. This is emphasized by the blanket covering them both to keep warm on a cold winters evening.

I composed this image to have the fire in the foreground because I loved the way the light lit my subjects and gradually faded as it got further up their bodies. It shows how small this pocket of light on a vast beach was and emphasizes even more the closeness of the relationship/friendship.

I had to use a graduated filter in post production in order to ensure the fire wasn’t too over exposed and that my subjects weren’t too under exposed. This was not possible to do in the camera without the use of a flash lighting up the two girls because the only light source was the fire which was in the frame.

I chose this photo for one of my final 3 because I love the backdrop. In the other two images you can see small bits of light from houses behind, whereas in this image it is completely blacked out. This means there is no distraction away from the subject and does not give any unimportant information. Also, this image shows all 3 friends comfortably sat together to show their relationship. They do not appear to notice that the photograph is being taken which means they are not posing and the image is very natural.

As before, the fire (my only light source for the shoot) is in the foreground of the image lighting up my subjects aesthetically with a yellow glow. Although the light is fairly dim on the subjects faces, it shows enough of their expressions to determine who they are. I tried to lighten them further in post production but this also increased the noise levels in the image and I decided that having a very clear shot of their faces was not the most important part of the image.



One of the main aspects of the photo I really liked is how I used the sand dune in the right of the shot to frame my image. Also, the light coming through the grass in this area adds an aesthetic feel to the photo along with the light coming off the fire.

Similar to the last shot, the friends appear to be acting very naturally as if the photograph wasn't being taken making it more realistic and informative.

I struggled with noise in the top half of the image where it is very dark. I had a play with some tools such as contrast and clarity to try and mask this a little. I did this because I didn't want to clone any of the image as that would change the information within in it, so I just tried to hide it slightly but overwhelming the small white dots with black with manipulation tools.