Examples of lighting types: Butterfly

 Here we can see an example of butterfly lighting. Butterfly lighting is also known as Paramount lighting, as it was mainly used for traditional Hollywood glamour photography. On my beautiful model, I placed the light slightly above his head, looking down on him to brighten his face and cast shadows amongst his cheekbones. The most noteable shadow cast is the one below the nose of which is the shape of a butterfly, thus the name.
Butterfly lighting is achieved by simply placing the light directly in front and slightly above the subject, as displayed in the diagram below:

Evidence and Understanding of Pull Focus

A pull focus is when the camera's focus changes from one subject to another during one shot. Within this particular shot, the camera is initially focussing on the greenery in the background, to then focussing on the person standing by the camera, sharpening the subject. This is done by adjusting the focus ring until the first subject becomes out of focus, proceeding to blur out the entire shot, then finally focussing on a second subject. 

A technical challenge I faced with this particular task is that I have no knowledge of photography so it was all completely new to me. Though it was explained and demonstrated to me multiple times, it was still difficult for me to grasp onto it. The motion of the subjects in this footage was difficult to focus on but still (I think) produced a pull focus. Perhaps not as good as others. 

The exposure triangle

The exposure triangle is a term for three conventions of taking a photograph that affect the quality of an image.
The 3 factors that contribute to the exposure triangle are:
- Aperture
- Shutter speed
- ISO
Getting these three things at the right level will produce a better quality photograph.

Aperture is a measure of how open or closed a lens is. If a lens is opened wider, then more light will flow in. In simple terms, the wider you open your eye, the more light you can see. A narrower aperture (or higher f-number) will allow less light to reach the sensor. Aperture allows a sense of depth of field. Narrower apertures give a greater depth of field, where as wider apertures give a lesser depth of field. A narrower depth of field can isolate a single subject; an example of this is within portrait photography.

Shutter Speed is simply a measure of how fast the shutter remains open and how long the sensor is exposed to light. If a shutter speed is faster, it allows less time for light to reach the sensor. The type of image this would produce would be lower exposure, whereas slower shutter speeds allow more time for light to reach the sensor thus creating an image creating a higher exposure. Higher shutter speeds during stop motion can allow the images to maintain sharpness.

ISO is the measurement of sensitivity of the image sensor. The lower the number is on the ISO, the less sensitive the camera is to light. In simpler terms, the lower the ISO is, the darker your photograph is, but the higher the ISO, the brighter. It should be noted that high ISOs can create a lot of noise in the photographs, therefore a high ISO ideally should be avoided for a better quality image. ISO should only really be increased when there is not enough light to capture a bright photo in any other way. Another reason to take photos with high ISO is to avoid motion blur or when capturing ultra fast motion.

Evidence and demonstration of understanding of ISO

ISO is one of the 3 factors of exposure along with aperture and shutter speed. ISO refers to light sensitivity of either the film or imaging sensor. Adjusting ISO changes picture quality:
Higher ISO: more light exposure, however more noise in photos creating a grainy image.
Lower ISO: less light exposure, however better quality and clearer image.
In my filmed example above, the ISO is placed at 100. This is the lowest setting my camera would produce therefore the quality is high.
This video is effective in displaying ISO because it is natural light.

Easy Rider Acid Trip: Textual Analysis

The scene begins with a long shot showing four young characters sat all beside each other on the floor, dressed in muted colours. Perhaps this is to represent the attempted muting of youth culture at the time of filming. Acid was actively used during this decade due to inspiration from musicians like the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin encouraging lots of different drug-consuming subcultures, particularly hippies. In the beginning, the man and the woman to the right of the frame are consuming alcohol and cigarettes. This was far more commonplace in the 60s than it is now. The woman towards the left of the frame kisses the man beside her on the cheek and strokes his face repeatedly, as peace and love was also a huge part of youth subculture. In the background, a train (?) can be heard. This may be foreshadowing the fact that the acid is going to take these people on a trip far away from where they (mentally) are now. The diegetic sound of the train also makes it difficult to hear the characters converse aside from when the men tell one of the women to 'shut up and take it' in reference to the acid. This may have been done to represent the power and importance of men in comparison to women at the time, or it could have just been due to the poor quality of filming technology of the time.
The lighting at the beginning of the scene is fully natural. There is no specific unnatural lighting to alter the feel of the scene. It is quite muted and dark. However, as the scene progresses, the lighting intensifies. It is still natural lighting, though. A bright lens flare can be seen as the acid trip begins, representing the intense high that these characters are going through. The audio as the acid trip begins becomes a mess of the sound from the train and people talking. The lighting is incredibly intense and pretty much blinds the camera. The editing from here on is very fast and jump cuts are used. This has been done to represent the intensity and speed the characters are feeling from their high. There is a lot of religious iconography in this scene, ranging from a young girl reading out a bible verse to a man weeping by a statue, to the scene literally being in a cemetery. There is also multiple shots of a woman getting undressed and being naked; this may have been done to add controversy to the scene as this sort if visuals were not common in mainstream cinema at the time. It may have also been done to symbolise sinning, as the religious iconography in this scene is very strong and it is blasphemous that such an act is taking place in a religious place.