My First Attempt at Product Photography

During my third year of university I was approached by my friend, Jai Mistry, a graphic design student who was working his final year project and was putting together a portfolio of work. He was working on the branding for two different products and wanted some pictures taken for his online portfolio.

Initially when he came to me we were thinking of photographing the objects in a classroom with lots of lights and a shallow depth of field, however this would have distracted the audiences attention away from the objects.

A few days went by and I saw that we had a table in the photography studio for shooting objects, I proposed this to Jai and we both agreed it was a better option.

Here are the final pictures I submitted to Jai.

I used a range of apertures varying from f9-16, 

as I wanted to retain as much detail as I could in the objects.

This shot of the cups is probably my favourite from the whole shoot, 

I love the strong shapes we displayed the cups in and also the way the gently fall out of focus.

I wish I could shoot this one again, I would give myself a little bit more room at the top of the frame and also I would adjust my shadows, having them fall to the left of the cups.

The second series of products are a set of greeting cards.

I really enjoyed this experience, I was able to experiment with new lighting set ups, I learnt a lot about working with a client and meeting their needs; I would love to photograph more products as it is different from photographing people or landscapes, it's enjoyable just to set up the products the way you want and work around them.

If you would like to see more of my work, head on over to my blog at

www.JamilTeja.blogspot.co.uk

You can also check out my Youtube Channel where I'm currently producing a series of informative videos about photography for beginners!

You can check this out at Here

Portrait Session with Emjay

I met Emjay during my first year of university, one evening a few of our friends were having a flat party, we were all in the car park for one reason or another, I went over to say hi to my friends and she must have seen me with my camera so she came over and asked me to take a picture of her and her friends. When I showed her the pictures she was ecstatic with them and asked for my business card!

She came back to me a few weeks later asking me if I was interested in photographing the De Montfort Pharmacy Ball, or course I was interested! We then negotiated times and prices. When it came to the event it was a complete success, and the students loved the pictures so much I was asked to return for the next year!

I worked with Emjay frequently during my time at university, she got me my first paid event, and I wanted to say thank you to her for all the help she had given me, so I asked her if she would like to come in for a portrait session in the studio, we had always said we should do a session together but we never had the time. During my third year we both found the time and we collaborated together.

Here are some of the results.

If you want to see more work, take a look at my blog at www.JamilTeja.blogspot.co.uk

and check out my youtube channel too!

How I capture long exposures

The difference between taking a picture during the day and taking a picture in the evening or at night is the amount of light that reaches the camera sensor, in the day time you can shoot at 1/250 at f9 because of the quantity of light. But as the quantity of fades due to the Sun setting, you need to keep your shutter open for longer to get an even exposure for your image.

How do we do this?

For long exposures you will need a sturdy tripod, (the weight of your camera and lens will define which tripod you should use), the tripod is there to remove any camera shake, hand holding an image can induce camera shake even if you have very sturdy hands, at 1-2 second exposures you will start to see camera shake in your images. Putting the camera on a tripod will remove this shake.

Secondly you will want to use a remote control (preferably wireless), the remote control is there so you do not have to touch the camera when taking the pictures, its best to set up the camera, and then open the shutter with the remote.

Lastly you will need a torch, this is mainly a personal choice for me as I want to make sure the image I am creating is in focus, so I hold the torch on the point where I want to focus and use the autofocus system in the camera.

So let me shine some light on the first two images, the first image (at the top) was taken in my first year of university, I had just bought my Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 lens and I was out in the evening just experimenting with it. The settings were 10mm at f20 at 30seconds at 100 ISO, I make it a point that whenever I can shoot at ISO 100 I do so, and as I had my tripod I had no excuse not to.

I really love the colour of the sky and the low angle of the image and the star bursts.

The second image was taken in a car, I set up my tripod in the back of a car and got my friends to drive me around for a bit, I used my friends and the windscreen to compose my shot, and underexposed slightly so they would be silhouetted against the street lights. I shot this at f22 at 30seconds at 10mm.

For this shot I set up my camera with my 10-20mm lens again, and then used a torch to "paint" the bench. I used a 30second exposure at f11. I love the separation between the sky and the trees and then the main focus of the bench. 

I shot this image a little differently than the rest, I shot this with my 24-70mm f2.8, I used f4.5 at 1/30 at ISO 200 (this was handheld) I was experimenting with some long exposure techniques. I pointed my camera up at the trees, and zoomed out when I took the picture. I am very happy with how this picture turned out, it feels like the sky is falling down.

Lastly this is a picture I captured in the Summer of 2012, this was taken just before Sunset, and I was getting shutter speeds of 1.60 and 1/50 but for the picture I wanted to create I needed a longer shutter speed. I ended up capturing this image at 1/4 of a second at f22 ISO 100, to achieve this I used a Neutral Density filter. ND filters reduce the amount of light entering your camera, they are mainly used for achieving longer exposures.

Bonus Tip!!

Set your camera to Mirror Lock Up, this will reduce any 

shakiness inside your camera.

Check Out more of my work at www.facebook.com/JamilTeja

and if there's anything you want to to write/talk about you can tweet me @JamilTeja

Stay Tuned for more updates!!

Skateboarding with Phil

I met Phil in my second year of university, he had transferred to Photography and Video after previously studying graphics; I remember we were all astonished to see his work (it's amazing.) Nearing the end of term I was getting a bit bored of all the book work we had to do, Phil had said he would be out skating for the day, so I decided to join him. 

I wouldn't say I'm an expert at sports photography, I'm far from it, but I will try anything and Hd been inspired by his passion for skateboarding to try out some new things! I also wanted to try some off camera flash, I used a 1-2 flash set up for these pictures, 2 Canon 430ExII (off camera) and my Canon 70-200mm lens.

See More at My Facebook Page

Free Range: 1 Year On

A Year Since Free Range

I can't believe it's been A YEAR since I displayed my work at the Free Range exhibition in London, ONE WHOLE YEAR!! Where has the time gone? It feels like it was just last week I was in the basement in Portland Building deciding what size to print my final images. (I decided to go for A1 Prints.)

The 12 of us with Neil and Nick on the Opening Night of Free Range 2013.

I bet some of you are wondering, what is Free Range? 

Basically Free Range is an annual Exhibition held in London where Third Year University Students studying The Arts, they exhibit their third year work to the general public in the hope their work will catch the eye of prospective clients/companies interested in hiring them. 

I remember we had to raise around £6000 to rent the space, (the smallest space, the bigger spaces were more expensive,) and an additional £2000 for producing our advertising material. 

In Hindsight I would say if I were asked to do it again, I would not due to the energy that goes into fundraising the £6000 - (We held many bake sales, an auction, a couple of movie nights and a 10K Run, to raise they money,) although these were all fun to partake in they distracted me from my work. Instead, I would have focused on my work and taken that £500 I had to raise and invest it in a new lens or camera.

Me with My Work

However I am grateful for having experienced the trials and struggles that we faced when Fundraising and also the satisfaction of seeing my work being exhibited in a big exhibition. 

Portrait Session with Balquis

Portrait Session with Balquis

In my final year of university I started offering portrait sessions for my friends as a way of building up my portfolio; my girlfriend's friend had said she was interested in getting some pictures of her done professionally and when she heard I was offering portrait sessions she jumped at the opportunity. 

When we were putting the shoot together we decided to go for two juxtaposed looks, as you can see from the pictures Balquis in Muslim and she was at a stage in her life where she wanted to strengthen her Faith by wearing the headscarf; she also wanted to a few pictures which showed off her good fashion sense. 

It was Christmas time so I was wearing my Christmas Jumper!

BTS PIcture by Sonia Patel

Lighting: I gave Balquis the choice of shooting outside or in the studio, of course she said studio so I set up the studio with a 4 light set up. 2 softboxes from the front and 2 flash heads with grids attached to them in order to give a nice highlight and separation against the background.

Overall I'm very happy with how these pictures came out, and Balquis was extremely happy with them!

For More check out My Website

Portrait Session with Jakia

Portrait Session with Jakia

I met Jakia at the same time as I met Tanveer, she was the model we used for Tanveer's make up session. I found Jakia very easy to work with and we decided after out first session that we should follow up with a second. We experimented with different ideas and just had fun with the session.

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Portrait Session with Tanveer

I met Tanveer through my friend Amnah, Tanveer who just graduated the previous Summer and was interested in producing a Make Up portfolio. We collaborated on a few portait sessions together including the sessions with Jakia, Siobhan, Armina and Kiran. After a few portrait shoots with different subjects, she wanted a portrait session for herself.

Tanveer wanted the session to be outside, given it was Autumn she wanted to try some Autumn-y colours with her make up, so to compliment this I chose a nice location with lots of greenery and trees.

Camera Settings and Lighting: I utilised off camera flash and used a speedlite with a shoot through umbrella on a lighting stand to add some light to the subject to bring out her feature and used my 24-70mm f2.8 and f2.8 to get some nice separation between the model and the background, another technique I used was to shoot from above, asking my subject to sit for parts of the shoot to experiment with perspective to create some visually pleasing images.

Portrait Session with Ahmad and Shahid

When I moved to Leicester for University Ahmad and Shahid became part of my regular uni group, as Ahmad had graduated the Summer before I started at DMU and Shahid was still in college. As soon as they found out I was a photographer they begged me for a photoshoot, I said yeah definitely, but my first 2 years of flew by and we never got round to it; but as my third year was coming to a close I thought I had to get these guys into the studio as a way of thanking them for everything they'd done for me over the past years.