I wanted to take my pictures either under sunlight or studio light as the lighting in my home is not very clear, so I planned to wake up early in the morning (5:30) to take pictures in the sunlight.

But Beijing’s 5:30 apparently is full darkness so I had to take these practice shots inside our home.

In this practice shoot, I experimented with centered pupils, motion photography, and depth of field.

These are some of the practice shots:

 

(These were not taken horizontally, the import is broken :()

I did not have my camera for these practice shots because it was out of battery at the time so I just experimented with what I could work with in terms of poses and background.

What worked well:

• Brother’s expressions are very expressive, he’s a pretty goofy lad and is a great model for this project.
• The wide-angle shots work pretty well with the square ceiling. It empowers the model and creates space.
• Having a light source behind the head of the model created a glowing effect as if his head was glowing. Focuses the audience on the model’s head.

What did not work well:

• Messy lighting: indoors, coming from all angles
• A messy background directs attention away from the focus and clutters the image
• Jumping motions are too straight, could improve on directing action
• Framing of jumping motions: Lost subjects sometimes
• The pupils I tried my best to center in all of these images, but Bobby’s eyes close when he’s smiling so you can’t really see the

Major Takeaways:

• SIMPLE BACKGROUND – The messy background clutters the image and directs the audience’s attention away from the focus.
• CLEAR AND SIMPLE LIGHT SOURCE – Messy lighting makes the image look very flat and bland.
• BROTHER WEAR THE SUIT – The suit covering the squiggly bus patterns on his shirt underneath helps reveals Bobby’s character: he is very silly inside.