Help With A Project

[snow_man]

At university we have to do a secondary module to the actual degree that we have chosen to do. They call it an ADD-Vantage module, this can be something to enhance your degree or it can be something completly to it. (Don't ask me why as I have no idea, but it's probally becuase the unversity gets paid to make people do this...).

As I really enjoy photography I thought great I'll do that and I'm really enjoying the course so far even though some of the lectures are going over things that I already know, but it's great to get a little refresher. As part of the assessment for this module we have to submit as series of at least 10 images based on either the topics of "The Body", "State Of The Nation" or "My Life".

For my work I decided that I'm going to do "The Body", but focus entirely on a single part of the body and I've decided that it is going to be Hands as I believe that they can tell you alot about the person that you are photographing.

...What I would like to know is if you have any ideas/tips for getting pictures of hand. Whether it be specific types of lighting or specific types of composition of poses... Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

[BigFuzzy]

I would definitely use a lot of side lighting which will help pull out the details and depth:

have you considered "reconstructing" a hand by montaging many different images from different angles of the hand?
Something like this but of the hand: Face recognition | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Only thing else I can add is the thought process i usually go through when trying to be creative.. discard the first handful of easy ideas that pop into your head because it's likely 100,000,000 others have already done it.

[LeeR]

I think your idea is likely to be a winner. While I agree that side lighting may help, I wouldn't worry to much about it. I think I would concentrate on "hands at work", that is , hands doing different jobs. The work we do has a tendency to effect the way our hands look. Imagine the hands of a nurse, a carpenter, a mechanic, and a gardener, in context, doing what they do. I think the potential for layers of meaning is quite profound.

[snow_man]

Thanks for the tips. Here is one that I really like and although it's had more post-processing work done to it than I usually do I think it has turned out pretty well...



I'm still working on/taking the rest of them.

[klr]

Hands are really hard to work with because they can be EASILY complicated or look awkward.

Make-sure the model you're using has nice nails, try and get rid of any scars, pieces of skin hanging.

And if they're going to have nailpolish on.... make sure the nail polish is clean and recently done and the colour of it matches the tone you're trying to promote.

(Ex: If you're doing a bright photo, light colouring try to stray away from dark black nail polish, etc...)

Good luck!

[Indigo November]

Originally Posted by klr

Hands are really hard to work with because they can be EASILY complicated or look awkward.

Make-sure the model you're using has nice nails, try and get rid of any scars, pieces of skin hanging.

And if they're going to have nailpolish on.... make sure the nail polish is clean and recently done and the colour of it matches the tone you're trying to promote.

(Ex: If you're doing a bright photo, light colouring try to stray away from dark black nail polish, etc...)

Good luck!

Nothing against you at all, but I have to disagree with just about all of this. Please don't take it personally.

I think hands are easy for that very reason.
They can be so interesting. It would be hard to get a boring shot of hands.

I would not worry about how "nice" the nails and hands look. I would go for character.
If the model has nice nails, capture that. That is her character.
If the hands are callused, scarred and dirty, capture that.
Hands can tell a lot about a person, let them tell as much as they can!

Good luck, and I hope you find stories to tell in the hands you photograph!

[klr]

Originally Posted by Indigo November

Nothing against you at all, but I have to disagree with just about all of this. Please don't take it personally.

I think hands are easy for that very reason.
They can be so interesting. It would be hard to get a boring shot of hands.

I would not worry about how "nice" the nails and hands look. I would go for character.
If the model has nice nails, capture that. That is her character.
If the hands are callused, scarred and dirty, capture that.
Hands can tell a lot about a person, let them tell as much as they can!

Good luck, and I hope you find stories to tell in the hands you photograph!

It all depends on what you're looking for. He didn't say he was looking for character, didn't say he was looking for a commercial shot. I'm a photo student and it's all about commercial photography so I've learned to look at details like these, and during critiques it's always what people usually have a problem with.

If you are looking for character however, I definitely agree with what Indigo is saying!

[klr]

Oh and for lighting... try and match your lighting to the types of hands you're using.

Rough / Calloused = I think of contrast and harsh lighting.

Woman's beautiful hands = soft window lighting or something.