Barwick Photography

Cooking wine- a new constructed image

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 03:49:00 +0000

The woman's cooking is interrupted by a catastrophe in the other room interrupting her secret sip of wine.

Self Portrait from last year

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:51:00 +0000

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:33:00 +0000

More pictures roaming around Long Beach on my bike. This city inspires me. Hope you enjoy these as much as I did.

This one is my favorite of these images. The light is coming from two different directions, but together it looks like the light flows from one to the other.

If you look carefully there are little globe lights in this stair case. They caught my eye hidden in all the lines and angles.

This seagull was kind enough to pose for me for a little bit. I think he is adorable.

The light on the white building is a reflection from all the shiny buildings around its neat because the building looks very old but is surrounded by all these shiny new ones. I love so much about this image, the textures and almost monochromatic feeling to it make me keep coming back to it.

The angles and texture of the water steal the show from none other than the Queen Mary off in the distance.

Comments, critiques and suggestions warmly encouraged. Thanks for tagging along.

Studio Lighting Tutorial

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:21:00 +0000

I took this a few days ago in the studio and I absolutely love it. I thought everyone might be interested in how I constructed the shot so I put a little diagram together as well as this brief explanation.

The shot was taken with a straight on viewpoint. The bottle is resting on a large sheet of glass held up by saw horses. I positioned the light underneath and behind the bottle. The martini glass is lit by that light as well. The background light has a gridspot on it which is creating the honeycomb pattern you see on the backdrop. Creating that precise pattern on the backdrop was the most challenging part of producing this image. The light had to be inches from the backdrop or the honeycomb pattern would start to dissolve into one big spotlight. With the light so close to the backdrop it made it very difficult to manipulate the light into the desired shape. I must have moved that light to every possible position before I found the perfect angle. I am so pleased with the final product. I love the honeycomb spotlight, it makes the shot.

The Pike Long Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 04:02:00 +0000

The Pike

I took these pictures as the sun was setting over The Pike in downtown Long Beach.

Studio Lighting

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:25:00 +0000

To me this image is about peace and renewal. I really enjoyed creating this image.

I produced this new image in the studio using one soft light source, a reflector and two mirrors to bring out detail in the candle and candle holder on the left of the image. I used white props, table surface and background. This helped to focus the attention on the lighting as an element in the composition and to give a sense of peace and continuity to the shot. I am really proud of this image. I would love some feedback on what could have been improved.

Downtown Long Beach

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:36:00 +0000

Downtown Long Beach

Street photography in Downtown Long Beach. Below are some photographs I took at 1st and Pine. I caught these as the sun was going down. I shot from the street and the top level of a nearby parking garage. At first I was disappointed that I didn't have a chance to shoot a different location before the sun went down, but when I got home I realized that the extra time was worth it and I really love these shots.

Red Velvet

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:18:00 +0000

Red Velvet

I am excited to announce some new changes to my blog, my photography and my life. I have decided on a focus for my work. I want to go into commercial photography with an emphasis on food and product work. I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to photography. There is nothing more frustrating for me than when I cannot reproduce an idea in my head. The idea of working in a studio and controlling all of the elements in an image makes me really excited. When I think about centering my career around that it starts a whirl in my head of tiny worlds and almost infinite possibilities.

I am going to focus my blog on food and product photography as a first step. I will be posting a website and working toward booking new clients in the next few months. I invite you along for the journey as I work toward becoming a professional photographer this year.

I took some photographs of this great cake I was given as a gift to start things off. Below are some of the best images from the shoot. I encourage you to critique my work. I can use all the help I can get.

I used a very narrow depth of field to draw the eye to the texture of the crumbs on the smooth icing.

These were all shot using natural window light coming from two windows on either side of my apartment. The set is closer to the window on the Left side of the image.

I used a small mirror to add extra light to theright side of the piece of cake. Without it that side was way to dark. Using the mirror allowed me to showcase the beautiful color of this cake.

Thank you all so much for all of the support these last few months, it has meant the world to me.

Learning Log- Lighting Magic

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:16:00 +0000

Lighting Magic

I had the opportunity to use a portable lighting kit to do portraits of a friend. I learned a lot from the experience. Below are some of the photographs I was able to create with great lighting. The kit I used included two flash units, two umbrellas, a small soft box and light stands. I also used a flash unit that I made with a used disposable film camera and a remote flash sync. We started with pin-up themed pictures as Carolyn , the model, loves them and wanted some of her own. Traditionally the lighting is very soft for pin-ups so I used the soft box on the left side of the photo and an umbrella, placed slightly further away to create fill light just barely darker than the soft box. The result is soft, even lighting. I had placed the home made light behind her and facing the backdrop to help eliminate shadows. Unfortunately, the homemade light did not work with the other two when I placed it behind her so I had to fix the background on Photoshop. Besides the background shadows the shoot went extremely well with no major problems. As Carolyn changed her pose I had to adjust the lights but it was so diffused and even I only needed a slight adjustment to better highlight her face. I don’t have a seamless background so I used two white sheets one on the floor underneath her and the other pinned to the wall behind her. In Photoshop I created a plain white layer and turned the opacity down about half way to help reduce the distracting elements of the backdrop. I created a layer and used a mask to block out the background and put that above the white layer so that her image would not be affected by the white layer. I also used Photoshop to selectively dodge the shadows created by Carolyn out of the background.

The pin-up shoot went so well that I became a bit over confident moving into the next shoots. The image with Carolyn posed on the pole was taken in her living room. I didn’t think about how much more difficult a wall would be to light evenly compared to the white sheet. The wall was about 10 to 15 feet behind Carolyn whereas the sheet was only about 5 feet behind. This made it much more complicated to create an even look using the two main lights which were placed on each side of her and about 2-3 feet in front of her. I used the two flash units to light Carolyn and used my homemade flash unit to fill in the wall to the upper left of the photograph which was receiving very little light from the main units. It literally took hours to get the background lit evenly, which produced a bit of impatience on the part of my model. I was able to pull it together in the end. But I learned that with a larger space it is important to have more than two real flash units. My homemade flash unit works great but is nowhere near as bright as the professional ones.

For the last shot I used a combination of natural light and a single flash unit diffused with the soft box. I placed the bench and my model in the shade on a sunny day. I used a flash unit placed on the left side to create some soft shadows as the shade produced light that was very soft and even and didn’t produce much shadow. The shadows helped to create a more moody feeling. I love the light streaming in through the plants behind her although when I took the photos those spots were a bit blown out. A little bit of burning on Photoshop solved that and the light streaming on the wooden fence helps to draw the eye to the models face. After it had been burned to get rid of the blown out highlights it also helped to balance the photograph by mirroring the patterns on the bench.

I would love to have these photographs critiqued and would love to see pictures or hear stories about your adventures in lighting. Please place photos in the comment section with your stories and/or critique. And as always, follow me on twitter and facebook.

Learning Log-Rainy Day

noreply@blogger.com (Look through it) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 02:45:00 +0000

Rainy Day

Today, I let the rain be my inspiration. I love everything about the rain, especially what I can’t capture on film. Trapped indoors I tried to capture the feeling rain produces in my neighborhood, right outside my door. I also got a chance to work with my new lenses. To create these images I used both a uv and polarizing lens. I used both lenses together to capture these images. The uv filter is great on a rainy day because the clouds let through a lot of uv light which can distort the image (more info). Both lenses help to prevent blown out highlights in the image. The polarizing filter also minimizes glare (more info) a handy tool in the rain.