Photo Odyssey

Blackshot 21

2012-02-12T19:33:00.001Z

These photographs were from a live rock band Blackshot 21 shoot. The main challenges in this was the light; or lack off I should say. It is also a great way to how high ISO sensitivity, combined with a very wide aperture was needed to capture the shots; and then combined with shutter speed changes to create the look (reduce or add motion blur) I wanted for the resulting images.

ISO 6400

70mm

f/2.8

1/250 sec

A very High ISO for this shot; however I was shooting at 1/250th to remove any motion blur; so there was still a lot of room in adjusting the shutter speed to brighten further. However the lighting works perfect to suit the scene and the band.

ISO 6400

32mm

f/2.8

1/60 sec

A much brighter image on this; note how the shutter speed was a lot slower, to help with capturing more light, you can see a slight motion blur to the fingers playing – again I think this adds to the story and drama of the music.

ISO 3200

70mm

f/2.8

1/90 sec

I less sensitive ISO (although still very high) The lights create a good separation of the subject against the dark background; I think the flare from the light adds to the atmosphere.

ISO 3200

63mm

f/2.8

1/500 sec

This was at quite a high shutter speed for the light, however the backlight created the green glow separating the background and leaving a semi-silhouette of the player. I also like the way that as we know where his eyes are you are drawn down the line to the hand on the guitar as well.

ISO 6400

24mm

f/2.8

1/45 sec

A dark shot even at a slower shutter speed, this may have worked better with a lower ISO and higher speed to get the same lighting but I like the slight motion on the strumming hand as it adds action to the image

ISO 6400

24mm

f/2.8

1/125 sec

I love this shot of the guitar player flinging his hair back; even at 1/125 there is still plenty of motion and action in the shot to create the drama

ISO 6400

70mm

f/2.8

1/250 sec

I really like the depth of view in this (created by wide aperture and longer focal length. The flare adds to the atmosphere to.

A really great experience to photograph a live band with unrestricted access and time to try out shots under difficult lighting conditions. No flash was used in any of the shots; although this would have brightened the shots I think a lot of the atmosphere would have been lost from the images by blowing out a lot of the colour. The higher ISO did add more noise to the images but this again suited the type of shot.

Overall very challenging light conditions to get things right; I think I pulled it off really well, I know the bad did!

Portrait Shoot

2012-02-09T00:37:00.001Z

I was commissioned to shoot a Singer and Songwriter; Mark AG Music for promotional materials. Here are just a few examples from the day’s shoot.

Another Lighting Workshop Part III

2012-02-07T00:19:00.001Z

This was just a 2 light setup. using just a narrow strip of light for the key and a light at the rear to create separation (camera right behind the model). All placed deliberately to create this low-key look.

Another Lighting Workshop Part II

2012-02-04T14:51:00.001Z

This was a 3 light setup. With 1 very large softbox to the front as my key light and 2 lights onto the background at 1 exposure value stop over the key light to create the bright white high key look.

Another Lighting Workshop Part I

2012-02-04T13:35:00.001Z

The following photographs are from a lighting workshop I attended in October 2011. I’ve broken it down into parts to illustrate different lighting setups. These few were taken with just 1 light from above using a beauty dish and a reflector from below to fill in the shadows. They were all taken at ISO 100, 60-70mm focal lengths, f/11 at 1/125 sec.

Portraits

2012-02-01T23:51:00.001Z

This is just one shot from a Family Portrait shoot back in September 2011, that I just wanted to share on my blog. This was a 2 light setup with the key light being a off camera flashgun with an umbrella and a second light bare flash bouncing off white card as fill light. you can see the position of the lights in the catch lights in the eyes.

More Weddings

2012-02-01T00:45:00.001Z

Just a few more wedding photographs from a wedding back in September 2011.

Photography Workshop

2012-01-17T00:27:00.001Z

The following shots were taken on a Lighting Workshop back in August 2011. For these 3 images were to illustrate a very simple setup of 2 lights and a reflector to create a high key photograph. The setup was as follows.

1 Beauty Dish (exposure at f/4) directly in front of the model with a reflector underneath to reduce contrast and shadow under the chin.

2 Behind the model out of sight from the camera another light pointing back at the white backdrop but at a higher power creating an exposure at f5.6 therefore a stop brighter than the subject, in order to create the bright white behind the subject.

A very simple setup; that created some stunning results. The camera settings were ISO 100 70mm focal length at f/4 and at 1/125/sec.

Another Wedding Photo Shoot

2012-01-09T02:30:00.001Z

Just a few examples from a wedding I shot back in July 2011

Below is a nice example of exposing for the background to emphasis the shape of something, in this case a rose.

The next 2 photographs were taken without flash using a high ISO. I didn't want to use flash; which would have blown the colours from the band/disco lights. The venue was very dark so it was difficult to achieve, however by setting the ISO quite high 3200 and the aperture as wide as I could at f/2.8 I was able to achieve correct exposure at a shutter speed of 1/125 sec which helped considerably to capture the moment with minimal shake from the camera and blur from the movement in the scene.

Wedding Workshop

2011-12-21T22:12:00.001Z

I attended a Photography workshop that was aimed at professional wedding photography. A lot of the information covered and discussed in the workshop related to the business of photography; getting clients, selling products and much more. This isn’t the place to `discuss these issues, however one area that was covered that is definitely worth mentioning was some of the practical sessions where we experimented with natural window light;

The idea was to use higher ISO’s (and not be afraid of a bit of noise generated by the sensor) indoors and just using a low amount of natural light on the subject.

ISO 400

70mm

f/2.8

1/350 sec

Although the highlights look quite bright in the final image the sky was actually very overcast. I used the camera to meter the subject using in camera ‘spot’ metering on the lightest part of the skin which was the shoulder. I actually over exposed this slightly by a stop manually to get the final result; at ISO 400 there is hardly no noise either. I also found that over exposing slightly reduced the amount of noise too (useful to remember)

The next shot is the same camera settings as before, but from a slightly different position, with the model ever so slightly turned towards the light; notice how the light appears to have wrapped more around the right side (image left) of the face just from this slight turn.

Here is another shot that shows a massive difference in ‘my position’ to taking the shot. In

This is actually the model in the same position as the first image! I’ve just come round to to the models right more, notice how the position has changed the whole mood of the image as the light now defines the shape almost rim like. I converted the final image to mono and removed the window by cropping in post production to add even more drama.

This final image is using flash on camera…

What you may notice is the absence of shadow behind the model… I didn’t lie the flash was still on camera, however I angled the flashgun so that it was bounced off the wall, to light her. A useful tip when shooting indoors and you want to avoid those horrible harsh shadows and flat lighting!!

Model Shoot

2011-12-15T00:03:00.001Z

These couple of photographs are from a model portfolio shoot for model Laura who was looking for some new photographs for her portfolio. There was a mixture of indoor shots in a studio setup and some outside; I’ve only posted a few from the outside session, but you can see more examples from the day on my website.

ISO 100

70mm

f/2.8

1/350 sec

For the first shot I used the maximum Focal length on the lens that I was using (24-70mm lens) and a very wide aperture to maximise the depth of view in the image, ISO set to it’s lowest to and the shutter speed was set to correct exposure (this was obtained via the camera’s TTL metering) in natural light. The light was overcast cloud which created a nice soft looking light from above.

Even though Laura’s eyes were closed I used her right eye as my focus point so that I would retain maximum detail of the eye lashes. If you look closely you can see a web design (Makeup and hair was done by Helen Hogg).

ISO 100

70mm

f/2.8

1/250 sec

Change of hair and make-up but in the same location; again natural light only and metered via Camera ETTL and manually adjusting the shutter speed to obtain correct exposure.

This shot has some significance as it was selected by a photography magazine PhotoPlus (Canon Edition)to be included on a cover disk that comes with the magazine each month. Not really my name in lights as such, but a nice feeling all the same! Especially as a lot of people will see the image who read the magazine.

Personally I don’t buy or read the photography magazines much these days, except maybe a flick through in the shop, or if I’m on a long train journey; but I find a lot of the articles just repeat themselves over time and apart from the reviews of equipment or interviews with other photographers to pass some time, I don’t get much from them. Strange that I should be saying this as my image is being used by one of them; it’s not that I don’t think there are a lot of people that get a LOT from the magazines because they do offer some great tutorials and inspiration, but I feel that I’ve outgrown many of the photography magazines these days and tend to get my inspiration from a variety of other sources.

With that in mind I was very happy for my photograph to be included. Below is a screenshot of cover disks gallery (January 2012 Issue 56 edition – out 14th December 2011) showing my photograph and below that, is the original image.

Finally a special thanks to the excellent model Laura and Stylist Helen for doing such a great job on the day!

Model: Laura Ford

Stylist/Make-up: Helen Hogg

Another Wedding Post

2011-12-11T22:28:00.001Z

Just a few shots of a wedding I took back in June 2011 – Enjoy!

Assignment 4: Light

2011-12-08T20:19:00.001Z

This assignment is about drawing together different lighting techniques from the course notes and apply them to one subject. The brief being to photograph one object and use lighting to bring out particular physical properties.

Notes:

Except where stated, the camera settings remained constant throughout the assignment. I kept the camera static on a tripod, as well as keeping the subject in the same position and angle also. The only thing I changed was the light direction, reflection, diffusion and power to cover the aspects of the assignment. I also chose only to use 1 light source to light the subject (that being photographic light - a canon 430EX II) for the main points of the assignment but also used a second flash unit for some fun extras; I also used a reflector / diffuser for some of the shots. The diffuser I own will also act as light reflector in the right circumstances as it has a diffused material that allows light through on one side but on the other side there are very fine lines of silver reflective material, making it a more efficient reflector than just bouncing light from the same white surface; essentially 2 jobs for the price of 1.

I used a handheld light meter to check my exposures throughout; and in most cases kept the exposures manually set in camera, I could of changed the settings in camera, to match the light conditions, however I wanted to ‘see’ how the light changes the subject and not see how to change camera settings to the conditions; I already know how my change my camera setting work! But also I wanted to push my skills using off-camera flash in a manual setting rather than an automatic.

General camera settings:

ISO 100 for maximum clarity in the images
70mm focal length; to compress the image as much as possible, and narrow the depth of view on the subject
The aperture was set to f/8 for sharpness and depth of focus of the subject

As I was just using a single flashgun to ‘light’ my scene and I didn’t want any ambient light to be picked up by the camera, I chose a speed that would effectively prevent ambient light from being picked up by the sensor, I tested this by taking a shot in manual focus and the image was completely black and found 1/125 sec at the above settings was more than enough to achieve this.

Shape

This has to do with the shape and outline of the object.

For the first part of the assignment I set the flashgun behind the object. The flash light provides a small light source which is good for creating the hard light needed for creating clean hard shadows and highlighting the outline of object. I first tried the flashgun directly behind the subject at about same distance as the camera was to the subject in the front. I test fired the flashgun with the flash meter held at the back of the object pointing back towards the light.

Regardless of the output or distance of the flash to get an f/8 EV; with the flash pointing direct towards the lens, just created too much flare to see the object properly in camera. Even with a lens hood and a very low power setting on the flash (1/16^th power), the flare was too distracting, making the image useless to achieve the aim of this section. To get round this I kept the flash in exactly the same position and distance, however this time I placed my diffuser in front of it. I again test fired the flash and noted that the output had decreased as I was now only getting around f/5.6. So I added more power to the flash with a setting of 1/8^th power and this gave me f/8 on the light meter.

To summarise this first shot

I’ve set my exposure on camera for 1/125 sec ISO 100 and at f/8 this was enough to kill any ambient light in the room

I checked exposure at the back of the object with the light meter pointing back to the light source and adjusted the power so the reading was f/8

There was not enough ambient light in the scene to light anything without the flash.

Now look take look at the first image;

As you can see from the photograph, the light has created a high contrast between the light background and the object; however I also noticed that I could still see detail in the front, and the light was looking brighter than I expected with a ‘glow around the edges

If the camera’s exposure was f/8 and the light was f/8 then I would have thought that the front would be totally black (there was no ambient). However my theory is that as I was using a diffuser the light was now being bounced in all different directions, including the walls and ceiling where I was taking the shot. The light was also hitting the paper; and although the paper is black, light was still being reflected from it. So with all that light bouncing around it occurred to me that the flash light was reflecting from different directions back onto the subject, and ‘filling’ some of the shadows thereby reducing the contrast.

I tested this with the following shots, decreasing the EV by one f-stop each time; you will notice that for each shot the contrast gets higher between the light and the object.

At f/11 the contrast is higher as the front of the object becomes more underexposed.

Finally at f/16 the contrast is much stronger between the light and dark and the ‘shape and outline of the subject is clearly defined with sharp edges against the light background with minimal detail.

Form

This section has to do with the volume of the object; how 3 dimensional it looks.

As before I kept the settings and position of the camera static and left the object in the same position. The settings were ISO 100 70mm f/8 1/125 sec. To create a more 3D effect from the light I set my flashgun at an approx. 45’ angle above the object. I checked the exposure with my light meter and adjusted the power output of the flash to 1/8 power which gave me my exposure of f/8.

In this first shot there was no diffusion it is bare flashbulb. The angle of the light is 45’ degrees above the object and about 30’ forward of the objects left side.

The small light source and angle has created some hard shadows (although there us still some detail in the blacks). The contrast between the shadows and highlights is quite strong, which adds to the sense of depth. The shadows direction and contrast on the object (as well as the angle of shadow behind and to the left of the object) gives our eyes clues that the object is not flat. Notice the the face;

The dark shadows under the eyebrows, the angle of the shadows under the nose and even the texture in the beard; with the graduation of light to dark from the right to left all provides clues that the light is directional and that the object is 3 dimensional.

This second shot is exactly the same but I’ve changed the side angle to approx. 45’.

Notice how the shadows are shorter where the contrast has reduced on the left side (as the light has been brought round more). However there is still plenty of shadow detail to maintain the 3D shape.

For the shot above I used a reflector to reduce the contrast even further in the left side. The reflector (in my opinion) has created a more pleasing look that the first 2. There are still defined shadows and clues for the eyes about direction of light and shape. The reflector though has lifted the shadows enough so that more detail is visible without being so ‘flat’ that we lose sense of depth.

for this final shot I used a diffuser as close to the object as possible (without it appearing in the shot) This is my favourite from this set. The diffused light has significantly reduced the contrast; the texture of the object also appears softer and the specula highlights are much softer; however there are still enough clues, (although much more subtle) for the eye to see we are looking at something with form and dimension.

Notice that the shadow behind the object has practically disappeared; but you can see a softer graduation of light from right to left (we still have direction) and it is almost as if the light is wrapping around the object.

Texture

This is about the quality of the surface detail.

From the last section I noticed that the direction and diffusion of the light affected the texture details; for example in the last shot where the light was diffused the texture appeared much softer in the image (very useful for portraiture photography), I also noticed that where the light hit the object flat on (in the highlight areas) this also reduces the amount of texture I could see. So to illustrate this further for this section I decided to crop the images to just a small section so that the changes in light direction would be seen more clearly. There is no diffusion on this set all images are bare flash.

The first image is with the light at 45’ above but the placement was direct to one side of the object.

The light is effectively hitting the object side on. There is texture that can been seen but where the light is direct onto the shoulder and chest area the bright and the highlights are very strong, there is almost no texture detail; there is detail there, the highlights are not blown out completely (almost but not quite) but the lack of texture is evident. Also look close at the ‘beard’ collar bone area on the right side and make a note of the detail for the next shot.

This time the light was approx. 30’ behind the object. now note the right side of the beard and collar bone area. The angle of light is now more narrow to the surface of the object, you can see definite horizontal lines appear in the texture, the contrast between the light and dark areas of the ‘beard’ are also more pronounced, by the small hard shadows.

Finally by taking the angle back even further to approx. 45’ I have narrowed the direction against the surface even further. You can now see the horizontal lines even stronger and the texture shows up even more detail of the than the previous image.

Just to make it even clearer check out the detail I’ve placed them next to each other

30 Degrees

45 Degrees

Colour

This is about showing the object’s colour as strongly as possible.

Now this was a tough one for my chosen object, as it effectively has no colour! With that in mind I decided to show how the light temperature can affect appearance of colour (or lack of) in the subject.

In terms of white balance for the assignment; normally where possible in a controlled environment, I manually set my white balance using a grey card for each lighting change. A more long winded approach, but I’ve found with experience that getting the colour balance correct in camera can be better than trying to sort it out post production, however in this case I just used one of the camera’s pre-set of ‘Flash’ and corrected post production using the Auto white balance setting for all the images so that they would remain constant.The only thing that was changing was light. So this was quite interesting in terms of colour balance. To show this I set the flash above my head and at approx. 45’ to the object so the light direction was flat to the object (well apart from the height) for no other reason than I hadn’t used this direction yet for the assignment, but also it meant that the light would be flatter against the front i.e. cleaner to spot any colour changes.

I then took this first shot – White balance was set to flash and has not been been adjusted.

Now the same show with colour balance adjusted to AWB in Lightroom

Not a great deal of difference but lets look at them next to each other

Shot as taken on flash setting (on camera)

Same shot as taken on flash setting then WB set to auto (in software)

The difference is subtle but you should be able to see a clear colour shift between the images. This was done with software but it can also be seen when the settings remain the same throughout but the light changes.

Shot as taken on flash setting (on camera)

Shot as taken on flash setting but with diffuser in front of light

Shadows, specular lights and contrast aside; look how just adding a diffuser changed the colour temperature! The power on the flash was increased to maintain the correct exposure but no other settings on the camera or in the software were changed.

I think this illustrates the point of white balance quite well, of course if I had more colourful object I would perhaps would have discussed how controlling exposure can effect colour saturation and brightness, (it would also appear that the colour temperature can effect the hue) however I think this was quite well explained in a project from last year, Controlling the strength of colour so I won’t cover this in any detail.

Extras

Although not included in the assignment sheet as such it did mention that we could photograph the subject in any other interesting lighting; as the area of colour was more challenging to express I thought I would have some fun with colour gels over the flashguns and on occasion use a second flash.

For the first couple shots I set up one flash (not diffused) at a 45’ angle (side and above) and metered it for f/8 (nothing else has changed on camera) I then had another flashgun (handheld with a remote radio trigger and set it (without gels) at the same power as my key flash. I then put a blue colour gel over the end with an elastic band and had some fun holding it in different positions and firing the shutter! A lot didn’t work out so well but these two I really liked the effects. (note: white balance was set to flash setting on camera – nothing was changed in Lightroom they are effectively out of the camera)

In this first shot I held the blue flashgun to the left, of the object at about the same level. It was a little bit further away than the key flash; and has just given the shadow areas a nice blue hue.

I really liked the shot above! For this one the key light remained in the same place but I held the blue flash above and slightly behind (with the flash pointing down). The key light has wiped out all but a few spots of the blue light on the objects front, however the blue flash has cast a rim of blue light across the shoulders and has made the surface blue too. A really cool effect, although you do get the the odd double shadow, one out to 45’ degrees to the rear and the other to the front. The use of a diffuser on the blue light could have resolved this though.

the final 3 shots were really good fun. I used the same setup as above with the 45’ degree key light, but I also added a diffused backlight to the mix! all I did was to have a blue gel on over the backlight flash and swapped different gel’s over the key light. The effects were really cool!

You may notice the horizontal lines in the background; these are the silver lines that are built into diffuser that makes it a more efficient reflector on one side.

Finally just to reiterate, there is No Adobe Photoshop work in ANY of these images all were taken in RAW and converted straight to JPEG in Adobe Lightroom. The only digital work was some cropping to show some of the details and only where mentioned the white balance setting.

Course Thoughts

After having an extensive break from the course I’ve kind of jumped ahead with this assignment. Although some of the reasons for not keeping up with the course material were beyond my control and personal, some of it was down to my photography being pulled in the direction of business. In terms of technical understanding of my camera and controlling light, is miles away from where I was almost 2 years ago when I started the course; I’ve looked back on some of my images from before the course and some from earlier assignments and cringe in the knowledge if I was in the same circumstances how much I would be able to improve the shot, be it in camera or post production.

An area that has been neglected though is exploring other photographers from history. I’ve tended (so easily so in photography) to slide towards looking at more contemporary work and the current population of successful photographers; and with that concentrate on what’s the money shot and what sells; however what I have noticed with the current crop of professionals is that the ones with the most success are those that understand many area from the course and apply them!

In terms of assignment I’ve really enjoyed this one. Firstly it’s been a fresh start to the course for me; and the ability to ‘see the light’ and see how it affects the elements of a photograph is by far one of the most interesting aspects of the course so far. Perhaps my chosen subject matter is a little boring but I thought that I would challenge myself more by changing the light to achieve the scene rather than changing the camera settings.

Feedback extracts

“Your assignment is well put together and your notes are comprehensive, giving a thorough technical account of the exercise. Perhaps in addition, or instead of, in future consider making a quick simple sketch of the lighting set up. I take it that this may not be necessary when only using one light source like a flashgun, but for things like your fashion shoot, a sketch can be useful for future reference, if you come across a look that you really like.”

“I think you have demonstrated a good understanding of the terminology (shape,, form, texture and colour) and you are certainly able to use your flashgun and some relatively simple equipment to enhance these characteristics.”

“I think your ‘Extras” are (for me at least) the most interesting parts of the submission. The two bluer images are strong, and demonstrate a balance of the background light and the main light. The blue lends itself well to the metallic property of the object, and has a sci-fi/cult feeling to it.”

Conclusion

I was really happy with this assignment and the feedback I got. I have not included all the feedback as (obviously) I don’t want to give away all my secrets; and of course it is aimed at my development (and not you who is reading the blog). One thing that did come up was that the submitted prints appeared a little dull and less sharp over how they looked on screen. I feel this is a case of using a ‘cheaper’ printing lab as I do actually calibrate the colours and luminosity of my screen; something to bear in mind when having them printed for the next assignment.

There are a few exercises that I’ve passed over; however the intention is to return to these going forward and complete before the final submissions.

Overall I think I covered the brief pretty well and still feel I’ve come a long way since my break and last assignment. There are other areas of photography I still want to explore; and I’m sure ‘light’ will come up time and time again, after all that’s what this art is all about!

Model shoot

2011-11-28T14:19:00.001Z

The following photographs were for a job for a local clothing boutique that needed some basic shots of their latest clothing range to be used on their website and promotional material. The shots were taken on location at the shop. I used a ‘pop-up’ background and a 2 lights (Flashguns using remote triggers on manual) for the majority of shots (except where detailed). One light was camera left with umbrella and the other camera right without diffusion. I wanted to create quite hard looking light to keep the clothing crisp and defined, while the diffused light was to create some fill to balance and light the subject full length.

In the next few shots I went down to just a one light setup to create some more dramatic effects and contrast on the model

This final shot was taken during a short break in the shoot and it was done with just natural light coming through the window. The blinds added a nice shadow effect on the wall behind.

Softening the light

2011-11-20T15:49:00.001Z

This exercise to compare the differences between photographs under naked light, (in my case a flashgun set to 1/2 power using a radio trigger to fire the flash remotely) and using the same light but being diffused. For the exercise I used a purpose built softbox; although the course notes didn’t require it I added a few extra shots where I ‘bounced’ the light from a wall and ceiling to soften the light also. I used the camera in manual mode (setting ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed manually) obtaining exposure values via a handheld light meter.

This first shot the flashgun was approx. 45’ degrees to the football (forgot to mention an officially signed 2010 squad Manchester United football!) on camera left and above and aimed directly at the ball.

ISO 100

70mm

f/16

1/125 sec

The small light source is hard and specular on the ball, you can see this on the ‘M’ on the ball has a hard bright highlight reflecting from the surface. The shadow also has a hard edge.

The second shot below has been taken with a softbox over the flash gun (in the same position) that has effectively diffused the light onto the ball. I kept the power of the flash the same and therefore you will notice that the aperture is wider by a couple of stops to maintain exposure (as measured by a handheld meter) on the football

ISO 100

70mm

f/8

1/125 sec

In this shot the shadows and blacks appear much softer. note that the shadow behind the ball appears much more fuzzy and the specular light on the ball, by the ‘M’ is not as bright or hard as the same shot without the diffused light (via the softbox); overall a more pleasing look. Although I think it looks better, that’s not to say the light is better; it would depend on the subject or effect you are looking for. For example a photograph of an older person may look ‘better’ in a softer light, softening the shadows (and potentially wrinkles!) than a ‘hard’ or naked light; but again it all depends on what the ‘aim’ of the image may be.

For the next shots I wanted to see how the light softened by bouncing it off another surface.

All that changed was the power of the flashgun to full power bounce then pointed the flashgun directly at the ceiling, effectively making the ceiling a huge light source! . As it happened the light meter also gave me an exposure as the same from the last shot at f/8.

ISO 100

70mm

f/8

1/125 sec

As you can see this is very similar to that of the shot with the softbox. The specular highlight is still soft but has moved to the yellow badge area. What is also noticeable in this shot is that there is no shadows behind the ball; as such I think the image is even further improved that the second softbox photograph. Also a useful thing to remember when shooting products and people where you don’t want those hard shadows and shapes projected on the background.

For the final shot I kept all settings the same on camera and power of the clash; the only thing different the light was pointed at the wall behind the football (this is just out of site at the top of the frame.

ISO 100

70mm

f/8

1/125 sec

The light appears very soft in this shot; and in hindsight I should have re metered; as it looks a little underexposed now. But it shows that it’s not just about putting a diffuser in front of a light source to create interesting light.

Wedding Shoot

2011-11-19T16:41:00.000Z

Just a few shots from a wedding in April. Lighting can be difficult at weddings, especially during the ceremony as they don’t allow flash to light the photographs, in this case I used higher ISO’s so that I could capture the moment at a shutter speed fast enough to avoid camera shake.

…and more Jewellery

2011-11-12T16:58:00.001Z

Tiara’s

2011-11-11T00:09:00.001Z

I know, I know more jewellery…

This is an an aspect of photography that I find quite rewarding and challenging to do well so this time last year I did quite a lot of jewellery photography jobs; as this section is about light, the jewellery photography is still worth mentioning for the learning blog.

For this shoot a tiara designer wanted a set of images to be used on a website and for promotional material. The job was a little different that 2 other previous jobs in that some of the tiaras would be modelled.

The first few shots were shot in a similar way to my previous jewellery work, using a light tent, (essentially a large box that diffuses the light) with 2 flashguns fired manually on each side of the tent for lighting. The available ambient light was effectively killed off with using a high shutter speed 1/250 sec and small aperture f/11 (ISO 100 85mm) on a I wanted the only light source to be the flash. White balance was set to flash then corrected post production using a grey card.

The next 2 I framed the tiaras off centre and at an angle that would show the curved line and shape of the tiara to help the eye travel around product.

I’ve converted the following images to mono, to emphasize the strong contrast, not the way they were intended to be seen as the client wanted the bright colours to be seen in the images. I just really liked the way the shadows add depth to the image giving it an ‘noir’ feel to them, that kind of reminded me of the 1920’s and 30’s.

The shots were taken with a single flashgun against a black material background, the light was to the models right at a rough 45’ degree angle, (both side and height). I used a shoot through umbrella in front of the flash to diffuse the light but had it as close to the models face as I could to retain the contrast. Although I’m still happy with the outcome, this method did lead to some extra post production on the background to darken it as with the umbrella light was thrown or ‘spilt’ on to the background also (which is what I didn’t want to happen). However I learnt a lesson and have since gone on to other shoots using more directed light using a soft box that gave more control over the direction of the light and thereby shielding to light from spilling behind.

Again sorry to use jewellery as another example shoot, however it is a great subject to test lighting skills on because of the reflections and shiny surfaces to contend with. It is very specialized form of photography and as such I’ve found shooting it under pressure for a client has really brought my photography to a different level in aspects of my photography… beside I really enjoy still-life!

More Jewellery Photography.

2011-11-08T16:57:00.001Z

I did some more jewellery shots for a different client back in November 2010 that I thought I would post also. These were were specific designs from a Jewellers in the Hatton Garden District of London (famous for jewellery). I used the same setup as I did in the previous blog entry on Jewellery shoot, so won’t go into details about how the shots were setup.

There is still an exercise in the course material that I want to try, especially as it deals with shiny surfaces.

A Wedding Shoot

2011-11-06T14:22:00.001Z

Here are just a few shots from a photography wedding job from November 2010 that I just thought I would share. More examples of weddings that I have done can be found on my website.

ISO 400

135mm

f/5.6

1/250 sec

ISO 400

135mm

f/5.6

1/250 sec

ISO 400

135mm

f/5.6

1/90 sec

Jewellery Shoot

2011-11-04T12:21:00.001Z

I had a commission in October last year to take promotional photographs for a Jewellery designer who wanted to use the images on a website.

From a lighting perspective this was quite a demanding job; firstly the designer wanted to have the jewellery placed on a black shiny surface on some and a white reflective surface for others, rather than having to decide which pieces would suit which surface I decided to shoot each piece on both and then the at least the designer could decide what suited each design best.

I was allowed to place the jewellery into shapes and use lines and placement within the ‘frame’ for composition, but the real challenge is the light reflections of of the different surfaces!

To reduce the amount of unwanted reflections in the images I used a diffusing Light tent. Essentially a collapsible box made of wire and covered in a thin material that is ideal for diffusing the light. I also use sheets of acrylic which is a perfect reflective surface for this type of work (although a nightmare to keep dust free and requires a little extra re-touching to remove it). My light source for the job were two off camera flashguns on wireless triggers that are fired when the camera fires. I used manual triggers so no flash TTL metering, so I also had to set the power manually on the flashguns; I do not have expensive TTL radio triggers so I have to meter the light manually and adjust the power of the flash to the settings I had decided on the camera. The flash guns were on either side of the light tent at around 30-45’ degrees. (Direction of light even on both sides at the same angle.

As I was using a small aperture to control the depth of view as much as I could (in relation to the focal length I was using); and at that small an aperture (f/16) I would have had to have very long shutter speeds to reach correct exposure, with the ambient light that was available (not much as I was in a basement!). To avoid long exposures I decided that everything was going to be lit by the flashguns. The the shutter speed was irrelevant in controlling the amount of light as there was no ambient light to control (The aperture controls the amount of flash exposure). With the aperture set at f/16 I set the camera speed to 1/250 sec (the maximum sync speed with my equipment) I then fired the flash guns so that I could take a TTL Meter reading, then adjusted the power of the flash guns rather than the camera settings to obtain correct exposure: Note - This shoot was back in early October 2010; over year ago from writing this entry, I now (in a controlled shoot with flash) also use a hand held light meter rather than always rely on the cameras TTL metering to determine my exposure.

The shoot was very successful and had some reasonable referral work from it.

To see more examples of the work from the shoot please click on any of the pictures.

Hyper Japan Event 2010

2011-11-02T21:22:00.001Z

Not really specific exercise related to this one, but it’s worth a mention I guess. I covered the Hyper Japan Event, which is a Japanese cultural event that is held in London; its all things Japan. The main interest from a photography perspective is the culture of ‘cosplay’ which is short for costume play where people of all ages and sexes dress up as characters from popular fiction,including TV, Film, Video games, comics etc. Anyway I used a canon 7D with no flash; it was in a large warehouse environment with Fluorescent lighting being the main source; there was no external / Natural light at the event, and without flash I ended up having to shoot at relatively high ISO settings to avoid camera shake (slower shutter speeds). I let the camera sort out the white balance on AWB, but did find the bright colours of costumes and coloured disco lights in some places kept me on my toes. That said the strange lighting conditions added to the atmosphere of the event and with a little creative digital processing I had a lot of fun with the results.

Available Light

2011-11-02T19:06:00.001Z

This is the artificial light that is around us, indoors and outdoors, and it all affects the ambient light in a scene.

Tungsten Light

Heated filament normally in a bulb e.g. traditional; incandescent domestic household light-bulb, which gives an orange/yellow colour cast (think back to the colour temperature and white balance sections).

Fluorescent Light

Electricity causes reaction to a gas, creating certain elements in the gas to glow. The majority of lighting in public places is with this type of lighting; gives a greenish colour cast to cameras. (Again think back to the colour temperature section.

Notes: a shot in normal daylight with the Fluorescent setting on the camera gave a violet/reddish cast to the photograph. This is, in its most basic explanation, the camera ‘adding’ the opposite light colour on the colour wheel to the image, to counter the ambient cast (in this case fluorescent casts a greenish colour... so you’ve probably worked it out now the opposite colour on the wheel is... red!) Think back to the colour theory section.

So going back to the Tungsten giving off a orange cast… yes you guessed it the camera adds a blue/green cast to ‘balance it… Wait a minute…Balance oh yeah ‘White Balance’! Ok this is a simplistic explanation but It works for me!

Vapour discharge lamps

Sodium lamps. The type used for street lighting give that very strong yellow light that you see at night along roads. There are other types of vapour lamps that require other filters/colour temperature adjustments to balance the colour casts.

In the case of street lighting I have found that AWB setting still struggles to correct the yellow cast. I’m not sure why but there is a note in the text to say that it can’t be corrected, however I have found that manually setting a white balance to temperature of around 2000-2500K you can reduce the yellow cast; although at this extreme end of the scale causes other colours casts to show through; take the example below of a night street setting. That I took a few years ago.

50mm

10 sec

f/11

ISO 400

This first shot shows the extreme yellow cast from the lights; the AWB setting gave this a temperature of 3500K

The exact same shot with a custom white balance of 2000K, Notice that their is still a yellow cast and with temperate so far up a lot of blue cast is left, so it’s still not a correct representation of the true colours. The central reservation still looks yellowish even though I know in daylight this to be grey.

In the last version I’ve resorted to removing the saturation of colours in Photoshop; I’ve removed all the yellow from the image and all the blue. In terms of colour this would be the most accurate to how you imaging this too look. The roads are grey, It’s night time so the sky is black/grey the trees are green and the break lights of vehicles are red with headlights of white! Interesting experiment in supplementing the white balance and and colour temperature sections.

MXMEXPO

2011-11-02T19:02:00.000Z

Just some shots from the 2011 MCMEXPO back in May

Artificial Light

2011-11-02T19:01:00.001Z

Available Artificial Light

This is the light used to illuminate buildings, streets and interiors that makes up the ambient light (the light we find) of where we are and what we are shooting.

Photographic Lighting

This is purpose build lighting for photography such as flashguns used to light the scene or for effect intentionally (deliberate lighting).

Party Shoot

2011-11-02T10:53:00.001Z

I had been given the opportunity to photograph an after party in London Fashion Week in September 2010. It was a really good opportunity to practice camera techniques in a live environment. There were plenty of skills developed for this shoot; however as this is still the light section of the coursework I will try to discuss the light and exposure aspects as much as possible. For most part I set the exposures manually in camera, using the camera’s (Canon 7D with a standard EF-S18-135mm Lens) inbuilt (TTL) light meter to check the exposure; as this was a very dark club I used an external flashgun (on camera) in TTL mode for the purpose of lighting the subject fully rather than as a fill light or lighting supplement – most of the work of lighting was artificially created by me rather than relying on the ambient light (hardly any) from the nightclub.

Flash TTL or Through the lens is an automated function that allows the flash gun to set it’s power based on the exposure through the lens in order to create correct exposure; it does this by by firing a pre-flash, measures the exposure then adjusts it’s power output needed to provide the ‘correct’ exposure or at least what the flashgun thinks is the correct exposure. By using this setup I reduced the amount of things I had to worry about in terms of getting the shots that I wanted other than composition and using the focal length and aperture settings only to create the effects that I wanted). For example for some shots where I wanted to fill the frame I used a longer focal length to compress and ‘close in’ on the subject and then adjusting the aperture to add more or less depth of field; then leaving the flash to do all the work for lighting the subject.

Although off-subject I had a lot of fun in post production techniques (using Photoshop) to create more dramatic effects; you can see these on my photography website blog. Below are a few shots without the processing. You can also see some shots that were used on another blog here.

More for composition, lines and shape rather than lighting the photograph below is one of my favourites from the event.

85mm

f/5.6

1/125 sec

ISO 400

Having the camera with the flash attached shows in the resulting photos, the lighting is quite direct in line with the camera lens; it helps that the flashgun is set higher on top (away from the lens) of the camera than you find in many compacts, as in some of the images you can identify some limited direction of light that has created depth and form; for example in the image below:

31mm

f/4

1/250 sec

ISO 400

Although flat lit in the sense that the direction of light is from the front the height of the flashgun lends itself to a slight downward light direction from above. that you can see in the shadow areas under the nose, chin and wrinkles; if you look closely you can also see shadows created by the hair. The other to note from this image and the thing about using a direct flash is that the light source is small relative to the subject making the light hard; but also the proximity to the subject being close creates a lot of contrast in the image. Note the dark shadows contrasted against the brightly lit face. I noticed that there is a whole exercise about this in the coursework so hopefully I will revisit the ‘Contrast’ concept again and in more details.

White Balance

2011-11-01T19:00:00.000Z

Just a little extra to add about the last two exercises in relation to white balance. The white balance setting is essentially what the camera dose to calibrate or neutralise the source colour temperature (Making whites look white!); so for example in the colour temperature exercises (remember these were done some time ago in relation to this update!) The settings on the camera (Auto Daylight etc.) are there to match the ‘general’ light conditions to the camera’s sensor thereby getting ‘correct’ colour for the scene. i.e. the daylight setting taken in the mid-day light tend to have more neutral tones (less colour cast).

Something I’ve learnt since this exercise last year is how important understanding this is. It could be argued that shooting in a RAW format it is very easy to correct colour casts in post production, and while I do use this technique and find it useful, I don’t believe it is as always simple as that all the time.

For example If you are shooting in an environment where there are different light sources and or changing light temperature i.e. natural light coming through a window with fluorescent light in the room also what’s is the camera going to do in Auto white balance? is it going to be accurate for every shot? probably not and it’s going to be more difficult to correct in post production.

Another area to consider is that of commercial product photography. This is VERY important to have the correct colour temperature for the light source to show the product’s correct colour. I have experience this myself during the colour Assignment from last year (note the changes were made post production on raw files straight from camera it was originally shot in AWB).

Here is the first is the original taken at Auto white balance setting as shot from camera the second is the same shot on a daylight setting

Here is they are again together.

5400K	5500K	5001K

Note the subtle difference between 1 and 2 basically automated settings from the camera; they have a slight ‘orange’ cast in the first one and more red in the second building. The third has been colour corrected using a point in the image that I know should be neutral (white sign for example) to balance from (something I’ve seen a lot of photographers do to get correct balance). So which one is correct?

At the time of submitting this for assessment I used what the camera thought it should be from the AWB (number 1) but to a commercial customer how do we know the correct one from the other… Well I expect the client will know and therefore we should make sure that whatever our balance setting is in camera or in post production is the one they expect… In hindsight I don’t remember the building have an orange cast, or red cast; so is it could be the corrected 3rd version (note the colour temperature is 5001K) being the most accurate to how my eyes saw it, but the only way I could confirm this is to return to the location under the exact same light conditions (British Weather), the same time of day and even the date (Anyone got a flux capacitor?) to be sure. Not very viable for a commercial photographer who’s livelihood depends on his work…

I guess to sum this up is really just to say that despite technology helping us ‘correct’ images it is still better to get the correct white balance at the time of taking the shoot to know that what we ‘see’ with our eyes matches what the camera ‘see’s as close as possible at the time!

Wherever possible I will use a grey card to set my camera’s balance from at the location, or where not possible I use a neutral point in the image (that I know should be so). This will save me a lot of time post production and the confidence that a client will get what they paid for.

Judging colour temperature Part II

2011-11-01T16:14:00.001Z

For this part of the exercise I have changed the white balance settings for each subject . All photographs were taken in aperture priority on a 50mm Prime lens at f1.8. There has been no adjustments they are straight copies from the RAW in camera files.

Midday sunshine

Auto 1/4000 sec Colour Temp 4850K	Daylight 1/3000 sec Colour Temp 5250K	Shade 1/3000 sec Colour Temp 7100K
Cloudy 1/3000 sec Colour Temp 6050K	Tungsten 1/3000 sec Colour Temp 3200K	Fluorescent 1/3000 sec Colour Temp 4000K

There was little difference between the auto mode may have given more neutral tones in this case however I preferred the Daylight setting colour temperature out of the first 3 as the shade setting; although warmer, which can be good for people it was just a little too warm for my taste.

Midday in the shade

Auto 1/750 sec Colour Temp 5050K	Daylight 1/750 sec Colour Temp 5250K	Shade 1/750 sec Colour Temp 7100K
Cloudy 1/750 sec Colour Temp 6050K	Tungsten 1/750 sec Colour Temp 3200K	Fluorescent 1/750 sec Colour Temp 4000K

Evening Sunset

Auto 1/500 sec Colour Temp 5050K	Flickr Tags: colour temperature Daylight 1/350 sec Colour Temp 5250K	Shade 1/500 sec Colour Temp 7100K
Cloudy 1/500 sec Colour Temp 6050K	Tungsten 1/500 sec Colour Temp 3200K	Fluorescent 1/750 sec Colour Temp 4000K

For me the daylight setting gave the best results (for my taste) and although the Auto mode gave more accurate tones it was inconsistent with the changing light; far better to manually set this for accuracy (maybe using a grey card) then adjusting according to taste and result you as the photographer are looking for. For example the fluorescent setting has quite dramatic change in colour in the daylight but this maybe an effect that is needed for what you are trying to create.

Judging colour temperature Part I

2011-11-01T15:28:00.001Z

Flickr Tags: colour temperature

This exercise is to use a subject that can moved around and shots taken throughout the day but using a white balance of daylight and not using an automatic setting in order to compare how light colour changes in different conditions

All photographs were taken using Aperture priority with the largest aperture f1.8 on a 50mm prime lens using centre weighted average metering for the exposure The white balance was set to daylight (colour temperature of 5250K). The photo’s were shot in raw but then converted directly into JPEG from the camera with no editing.

Midday Sunshine – Daylight Setting

50mm

f/1.8

1/3000 sec

ISO 100

With the sun high in the sky and the daylight setting produced a neutral light colour to the photograph. The light was also quite hard, and more contrast from the direct sunlight which impacted the highlights, with some completely blown. Also note the speed of the shutter had to be to compensate the strong light with the large aperture to get exposure (..and it’s still not exposed correctly)

Midday Shade – Daylight Setting

50mm

f/1.8

1/750 sec

ISO 100

This was taken within a few moments of the first shot, but taken in a shaded area. The light colour appears slightly warmer than the first, the shade has also diffused the light giving it a much softer feel suiting the subject better. I feel that the light makes the image a bit flat; although this is helped a bit by the depth of field

Evening Sunset – Daylight Setting

50mm

f/1.8

1/750 sec

ISO 100

The evening sunset produced the most dramatic change in colour, compared against the neutral midday, with the orange glow of the low sun adding a much stronger colour and warmth to the photograph.

Measuring Brightness…

2011-11-01T15:15:00.000Z

Although almost a year ago is when I completed the last entry on measuring brightness I thought I would slip this entry in. (this is done in hindsight of loading up the next few updates I’ve just manually changed the publish date so it will appear before the others!). Anyway I thought I would just add a few points relating to this section of the study notes.

I just wanted to add a few notes about my camera. Wherever possible I shoot in manual exposure modes and adjust the (ISO, shutter speed and aperture) based on the meter reading from either the cameras evaluative metering mode via TTL metering; and more recently using a handheld light meter (but more about that in a later instalment).

The way I have practised and use this method relates to what I am shooting, and what I want the result to look like.

Here is an example of how I might shoot an average (lit) scene in natural light using my camera

I may first select a safe shutter speed to shoot at to avoid blur/shake; for example 1/125 sec (regardless of the available light).

I would also tend to keep the ISO as low as possible to start with (to keep noise levels to a minimum). Now I may set the ISO higher if I was in a darker environment (poor ambient light) but for the purpose of explaining my understanding I will leave it at it’s lowest setting.

I may then select an aperture for the scene (or depth of view effect that I want) that I am shooting; this will of course be dependant on ‘what the subject is’

I take an exposure; or at least an exposure reading TTL. My camera has a simple scale inside the viewfinder covering –3 to +3 exposure values (or stops). To get correct exposure I will then adjust the aperture (as much as I can without losing the effect I’m after) and or the ISO until the reading is centre i.e. the exposure is ‘correct’ according to the camera settings and the evaluative metering of the camera.

Anyway this is just a simplistic view of how sometimes I will use the camera in relation to metering (and explain that I understand the principles of what this section is about). Of course this is not the be all of how I shoot, sometimes I will drop the exposure by a stop to enrich colours or create a style and other times I will do the opposite to wash out colours or to keep detail in the highlight end of the exposure and times the environment will dictate the exposure settings, for example in a church wedding that is dark and no flash allowed their maybe so little light that I have to use the widest aperture, much higher ISO and slowest shutter speed to capture the moment, regardless of the desired effect (other than keeping the bride happy!)

False Starts and the Course

2011-11-01T15:00:00.001Z

Flickr Tags: general update

Some of you may have noticed (or not) that there have been no updates for a very long time! Well I’ve had a break from the course before and had some ‘false starts’ also; however personal circumstances (full time work changes, a new baby on the scene and a post operation infection that I’m still recovering from…), plus starting to work semi-professionally as a photographer on paid assignments; all took it’s toll on the course and I never really got back into it.

However I have my final ultimatum start again!

Yes another restart.

Now from my previous history ‘restarting’ the course hasn’t always go down to well, so I make no promises and I’m under no illusion that it could all go wrong again. With that in mind this is my final chance of a restart; if I fail this, then I’m afraid the course will be over… Not to say it has been a waste of time, what I have gained has been invaluable this past year and I consider it to have been a great ‘baseline’ to where I am now with my photography.

Although I’ve not done the course work as such I have continued to push my knowledge in photography, by real photography assignments, professional workshops, joining a photographic society and being mentored by photographers with years of experience in the photographic industry.

With that in mind rather than trying to play catch up at this stage, I will attack the course from a different approach; A big proportion of new learning log posts will be retrospective ‘live work’ that I have completed over the past year (or at least since my last updates) and apply what I have learnt in line with the exercises as much as possible; I WILL make effort to complete them exactly but in terms of how much time I have left to complete the course (not much) I may not get them all done (even with an extension that I will be asking for); but at least I can show I understand the aspects of each exercise from my other experiences; however the assessed assignments will be done to the brief as in the course text.

Anyway the last stand starts again… Wish me luck!

Measuring Brightness

2011-05-04T22:27:00.001+01:00

Camera sensors are NOT as good as our eyes. There is a big difference in the range or more accurately described the Dynamic Range of light intensities. In essence it is the difference between the darkest to the brightest a camera sensor can capture.

As a the sensors in the cameras dynamic range is not as efficient as our eyes a well-exposed photography is often a compromise of what we see; with the ideal being that the highlights and shadows are not blown out and retain detail.

Most modern cameras have internal metering modes and depending on which metering patterns are used can effect the way an image will be exposed.

Centre-weighted – evaluates the entire view but gives more importance towards the centre of the frame
Evaluative – breaks the view into smaller zones and averages them across the frame
Partial – This takes the metering from a smaller area towards the centre (10-15%) of the frame
Spot – similar to partial but even smaller area of the centre 1-5%

There is a really nice explanation on this YouTube video

Metering Modes

With all of these metering modes the camera can set the exposure automatically or manually through the aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity to gain the ‘correct exposure’ (or as at least to the average tone for the camera and conditions). With each mode having more or less usefulness under different lighting conditions. However this raises the question. Do we want ‘correct exposure’ (average tone) for the scene? There maybe times where we want more or less detail dependant on the subject; do I want more detail in the shadows being less concerned with the highlights? or vice versa.

So while the in camera metering modes work we can still override using manual metering or using exposure compensation controls.

The intensity of light

2011-05-02T13:38:00.001+01:00

Some of this returns back to some of the basic concepts of exposure. To recap here are a few terms and links to fuller explanations

Shutter Speeds – The duration of light getting to the camera sensor

Aperture – The amount of light getting to the camera sensor

ISO – Measurement of light sensitivity

Histogram – A graphical representation of exposure and tone

Taking a break

2011-05-01T13:06:00.001+01:00

You may have noticed the extended break in blog updates since the last assignment; this was due to a conscious break from the course.

Well this is just a quick update to say that I’m back!

There have been 2 main reasons for the break, the first being on a personal level; my wife and I have just had a new baby which has been keeping everyone’s hands full. The second being business.

I wanted to concentrate a bit more time towards the business side of photography and while the intention was to run the course alongside my business, I was finding it difficult to keep up with the exercises and assignments over running a small business.

Anyway with all the above being considered and now having the business where I want it to be; with a steady and manageable flow of work I’m able to return to the coursework and continue my art and photographic journey.

For more information about my work please visit my new website and business blog

The raw material of photography

The next section to be covered is all about light; in much the same was as exploring other elements of design and learning to dissect them I will be doing the same with light and looking at it in isolation.

Assignment3 Result

2011-02-01T21:55:00.000Z

Take about four photographs each (16 altogether) that illustrate the following colour relationships:

4 Photos through Colour harmony through complementary colours - colours that face each other across the circle.

Red / Green

55mm

f/11

1/125 sec

ISO 100

Although static in nature from the central position of the flowers in the frame I still think there is some movement created by the implied curves, created by the shape the flowers make. The photograph is balanced in the horizontal, with the larger part being closer to the centre of the frame. I feel that the red and green are in their ideal proportions; The green background implying nature and growth with that dense red bursting out of it; and although they are complementary colours there is a nice contrast between them.

The photograph was framed in camera and I only used Photoshop to boost the contrast.

I was a little disappointed with the printed version. Despite using a calibrated monitor the red has ‘bled’ out some of the detail, especially in the left side of the flower cluster.

To keep costs down I’m using a general online printing service; however in view of the quality of the colour in this particular photograph I need to research a bit more about colour profiles to ensure that the consistency from camera to screen to printer remains accurate.

Orange / Blue

250mm

f/22

1/250 sec

ISO 250mm

The movement from this windsock comes from the diagonal lines created by the shape. I was initially going to crop out the pole that the windsock is attached to, however by leaving it, I think it creates some context to what it is and direction is created from ‘knowing’ the wind is blowing the windsock. Overall I think the image is balanced horizontally, with the raised thinner end balanced against a lower wider end.

The tension between the orange and blue are close to the ideal 1:2 ratio with the cool blue against the orange adding to the intensity, brightness and energy of the orange which I feel adds to the sense of movement. The photograph was framed in camera (but took quite a few attempts to get the shot I wanted) and I only used Photoshop to boost the contrast.

Yellow / Violet

55mm

f/5/6

1/125 sec

ISO 100

This photograph feels off balance to me. I enjoy the more abstract images and although I really like this photograph for me, it may be too abstract for some. The ideal ratio of yellow to violet is 1:3 but this is more 2:3 and I feel that the darker violet implies more weight against the ‘lighter’ yellow. I think the placement and shape of the windows (predominantly blue) in the frame also adds to the imbalance.

Despite all that I still like it! I can’t quite express it in words though, the tension between the energetic yellow left and heavy right creates some movement and it makes me think of those optical illusion games that psychologists use i.e. “which one of the windows takes up more space?” type of question.

The photograph was framed in camera, however I did some minor cropping in an attempt to get the ratio as close as possible to the ideal and remove some distractions.

Red / Green2

50mm

f/22

55mm

f/8

1/125 sec

ISO 100

Both these shots were taken at a local park and I couldn’t decide which of them to use as my submission and have included them both for consideration. The square cropped image is almost an accent with the majority of the frame filled with green. I felt that a triangle shape was formed with the open flowers and a tension is created between that shape and the small bud to the left. I think that where the light is reflecting off the green leaves creates a brighter feel to it, the idea of youth and spring comes through (as is the bright yellow bursting through the natural green).

100mm

f/11

1/125 sec

ISO 400

The second image I felt was more traditional flower shot, positioning the centre close to the rule of thirds and a more 1:1 ration between the yellow and green. For me, the movement comes as a circular in motion, sweeping around the flower with the petals making up a nice pattern and rhythm. I think the brightness of the yellow contrasted against the dark green gives attention to the subject and a feeling of freshness and harmony.

Green / Violet

50mm

f/11

1.5 sec

ISO 100

This photograph represents much more subtle and cooler colours with the light green and violet mixed in together as a sort of alternate pattern. I’ve gone for the abstract approach and taken a close up of a head of broccoli. The narrow depth of view and side lighting has helped create dimension and texture with the 3 water droplets adding interest. The almost yellow/green signifies nature, growth and freshness with the violet adding richness and flavour.

As previously mentioned, I don’t own a dedicated macro lens to take really close up shots. Instead I used a 50mm prime lens and got hold of some cheap extension rings to enable me to focus at a much closer distance to the subject. I also used a tripod for the longer exposure

Tutor Comments:

“For me at least, the most interesting image by far is the Green/Violet Broccoli head. You have obviously noticed this striking colour relationship, but more importantly ended up with quite an exciting image. You have indeed lit it well to ensure the texture is revealed too. This isn’t an obvious choice of image for this particular colour relationship, but you have noticed it and produced a really good image. In the words of Robert Adams; “successful art rediscovers beauty for us” [within the familiar, I think]. The effect of the water droplets is interesting in itself, but I’m not convinced it adds much to the rest of the image. Make some more use of those extension rings!”

4 photos through colour contrast through contrasting colours - Colours spaced about a third of the way around the circle

Green / Orange

55mm

f/5.6

1/125 sec

ISO 100

I like the combination of the warm inviting orange with the cool green. You should notice that the oranges are in fact artificial and I liked the idea of a contrast between nature and artificial. I find the movement through the photograph downwards but also circular around the artificial oranges creating a nice pattern

The photograph is a closer crop of a much wider view, but to emphasise the pattern I preferred the square crop.

Tutor Comments:

“The hanging plastic oranges are also quite interesting. I like that you look twice at it before you realize they are fake. The vivid saturated colour suits this subject very well.”

Blue / Yellow

55mm

f/11

1/250 sec

ISO 100

This is as much about lines as it is colour. The leading diagonal lines from left to right draw you along and into the frame, creating depth and perspective. The pattern created by the bright yellow contrasted with the cool blue makes me think of British summer – The rain has stopped but the sun is poking through and you have that dampness in the air.

The intermittent space between the yellow doors and blue huts also create a comfortable pattern and rhythm for the eye to follow and this is strengthened by the zigzag movement of the roofs. It also makes me think of a concertina being played and stretched open!

Green / Violet

96mm

f/4.5

1/125 sec

ISO 200

Although the green and violet are positioned more from the cooler side of the colour wheel they still have contrast. Compared to the Broccoli photograph where the green and violet are mixed more subtly; the solid shape and colour of the hat contrast strongly against the light green making it much more dominant in the frame.

The dominance of the hat is strengthened by its position (close to the rule of thirds and use of space) and structure of the subtle triangles and movement.

Red / Blue

20mm

f/6.7

1/125 sec

ISO 100

The dark red really dominates this photograph, strengthened by the upward motion of the triangle leading the eyes towards the apex of the building corner. The combination of the colour red and the structure forming the triangle gives the impression that it’s almost popping out of the photograph (further enhanced by the barrel/bugle effect from the wider angle of view) with the cool blue receding into the space behind

I chose a square crop to emphasise the bulging effect and remove some distractions on the sides.

Red / Yellow / Blue

250mm

f/11

1/180 sec

ISO 200

I included this extra photograph of this plane; I just loved the combination of contrasting colours along the fuselage and set against the blue sky, which really adds to the intensity of the red, orange, yellow and dark blues. I felt that the arrow / triangle shape leaves little doubt in my mind as to the direction and movement of the image. The size and position in the frame could possibly have been considered as an accent.

A tough shot to take and getting the exposure correct, so it has had a boost of the contrast levels in Photoshop just to darken the mid and shadow tones.

4 photos through colour accent using any of the above - A fourth kind of relationship is when one small area of colour sits against a much larger background of another colour as a spot or accent

Green / Yellow

250mm

f/5.6

1/750 sec

ISO 100

The movement of this accent follows the theory of a single point dominating the composition. The bright yellow contrast breaks the continuity of muted green waves drawing immediate attention to it. I get a sense of calm from the green waters with the yellow buoy alerting me to underlying dangers.

I’ve framed the shot in camera close to the rule of thirds to avoid the subject being overly static; it has not been cropped.

Green / Orange

60mm

f/5.6

1/125 sec

ISO 100

The deep orange flowers contrast against the dark green pattern created by the leaves around it. I positioned the flowers higher up the frame to draw the eyes up, but at the same time the flowers tipped with a tiny amount of violet appear to point back down towards the frame

Orange is associated with warmth and the green growth and I find this combination creating the feeling of a late summer evening as the sun is disappearing and the light has faded.

Blue / Red

250mm

f/8

1/350 sec

ISO 200

Similar to the other buoy photograph but this time further apart on the colour wheel with the contrasting red and blue; despite the cool watery blue the red triangle shape of the buoy adds dominance and heat over the yellow buoy photograph.

Blue / Yellow

250mm

f/5.6

1/125 sec

ISO 100

The cool and darkening blue (caused by lens vignette) has this bright yellow aeroplane bursting through it. The lightness of the yellow and the way the vignette has been created gives the impression that it’s the plane that’s the source of light glowing brightly. The position and use of empty space (along with the brightness) draws you to it immediately and the shape and implied lines create movement and direction.

Course Thoughts

This has been the hardest assignment so far. Even though I took a break from the studying during the summer, if you took that out of the equation this assignment has taken me the longest to complete.

I have found it difficult to separate the colour as another element of design; I’ve been conscious of creating a cross section of photographs from controlled and uncontrolled situations to stretch my observation but I still feel that I may have over simplified my examples in terms of their combinations. In my mind though, I feel that I understand more how colour and tone can affect the emotion that comes from a photograph and how some colours can dominate over others especially when combined with other design elements or in different combinations of colour

I feel that the difficulty of keeping to the assignment brief has caused me to overlook the subject matter that I chose for submission. This was also picked up by my tutor; Although there are some images I really like, as a set for the assignment there is perhaps a lack of interest in the subjects I’ve used – Flower shots (not my favourite type of photo’s anyway but easy to find strong colours) and repetition of subject matter (the colourful buildings around Camden market, aeroplanes and buoys) also play through a bit too much throughout the set.

In summary; the exercises and assignment have made me more aware of colour interaction but importantly how it works combined with all the other elements of a photograph.

Although I think technically I’m still improving, I would say that this probably not my best work so far as a theme and I know I can do better; I’m already so much more confident than I was starting back in January, but I feel a little disappointed with my efforts in this assignment. That said I think the challenge has done me good and kept me mindful of why I’m doing this and my mind back on track to the art.

I’ve been to a few more exhibitions since the last assignment that I’ve written up in my learning log and will continue to attend others whenever I can. One exhibition that stuck in my mind at the Tate that showcased many photographers was called “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the camera”; I thoroughly enjoyed it; however the only problem, was the long list of photographers that I want to research further!

Alongside the coursework I’ve developed some personal projects; including taking photographs at a wedding, a private party and some other events with a few more projects in the pipeline - all to try out new techniques, develop experience and apply what I’m learning in this course. I will be writing these up as the course progresses in my learning log.

Assignment3 - Submission

2010-10-10T19:30:00.000+01:00

As usual I’ve opted to not upload my assignment notes to the blog at this time; I have sent printed versions and notes direct to my Tutor and await my feedback. I will continue with the next stages (Light) and will update the blog in due course (with any relevant assignment feedback).

Colours into tones in black-and-white

2010-10-07T17:27:00.001+01:00

This exercise is to see how colour effects tone in black & white images. The idea being to make a still-life arrangement that includes the colours red, blue, yellow & green; firstly taking one exposure in colour, then creating 5 black & white versions of the original. firstly a straight conversion, followed by 4 more, but for each one a different colour filter (the same colours as the still life) is applied, then to record the effect on the tonality of the result. (I used Photoshop colour filter presets).

I used Photoshop to apply the colour filters. (black & White film users would have had to use physical coloured filters over the camera lens to create the same effect)

Notes:

I raided my daughter’s Lego box for this one! I wanted to use really strong definite colours and the Lego was perfect for this. I placed my ‘Still-Life’ onto a large grey card (to observe that the tone of the grey remained constant through the exercise), the camera was setup on a tripod and I was using natural light through a large window. The sky low grey cloud and dull which kept the light constant. I used an auto white balance setting for the original colour image.

The camera was set up as:

39mm

f/16

0.5 sec

ISO 100

Colour Version

Black & White conversion - No Filter

The original coloured shot and the straight black and white conversion with no tone changes or filters applied. Apart from the bright yellow converting to a lighter tone, the rest of the colours have become very similar in tone which seems quite flat to me.

Green Filter

With the green filter the green base has become much lighter, the blue blocks have become darker in tone and the yellow blocks are also significantly brighter than the straight conversion. The red blocks where interesting though as their tone is almost exactly the same as the green base.

Blue Filter

The blue filter has made the blue blocks much lighter in tone, with the red and yellow blocks becoming much darker, especially the red blocks. The green base has become a little darker but only slightly. The most dramatic change is with the red and yellow blocks. It appears that those colours are being blocked by the filter.

Yellow Filter

The Yellow and red blocks have become lighter, especially the yellow; where detail has been lost in the highlights. In contrast he blue blocks have darkened and are so dark in tone, that some of the detail has been lost in shadow.

Red Filter

I feel that the red filter has made the most dramatic contrast to the image. The yellow and red blocks are very bright (very close to how the yellow filter worked), The blue blocks have turned to a very deep dark tone, with the green base also turning to very deep black tone.

A really fun exercise, showing how colour can be used to control the tones in black and white. I had experimented with this in the previous assignment elements of design, where I converted my submissions to black and white in a similar way to this, boosting the tones that would best compliment the subject.

Black and White

2010-10-05T13:49:00.001+01:00

There is more to black and white then just a de-saturated image. It takes the influence of colour from the scene concentrating you more towards the structure of the composition.

I experimented with this idea a little in the last section ‘elements of design’ using monochrome versions of quite colourful subjects to emphasise the form and structure of the photographs. This section explores the idea in more detail of how colour can affect the tones of a black & white photograph and the control we have over these tones.

Colour relationships - Exercise

2010-09-29T00:19:00.001+01:00

This exercise is in 2 parts in order to start exploring the relationships of colour in the frame. The first part is to produce a photograph for each of the primary and secondary colours in the correct proportions (or nearest to them). The second part is to produce 3 to 4 photographs in any colour combination that is appealing.

I struggled to find the colour combinations for the first part of this exercise; trying to get the exact proportions of primary to secondary colour, as well as finding the examples in the first place. However I gave it my best go anyway!

Red / Green 1:1

55mm

f/4

1/125 sec

ISO 100

Probably the easiest to find out of the Primary combinations; red and green I found a lot of this combination in nature as well as in the ‘manmade’ world, however to make myself work harder I tried to stick with nature or ‘found’ shots where I could.

The frame was composed in camera getting in close and using a 100mm focal length to maintain the 1 to 1 ratio as much as possible. The flower is fairly central and and relatively static however I felt that the contrast between the brighter red and darker green balances nicely.

Orange / Blue 1:2

44mm

f/4/5

1/60 sec

ISO 800

Not a very interesting photograph, subject wise however it posed an opportunity to get the colour combination for the exercise. Overall I don’t actually like the image, the ratio isn’t correct and it feels very off-balance. I considered cropping it further to correct the rations and although It is closer to the right ration it could be considered a bit too abstract.

Yellow / Violet 1:3

55mm

2010-09-22T18:38:00.001+01:00

Complementary colours - Colours that are opposite each other on the colour circle. The ideal proportions of colours in a frame for harmony are:

Red: Green 1:1
Orange: Blue 1:2
Yellow: Violet 1:3

Similar colours - Those colours that are near each other on the colour wheel, as in a cool or warm range of colours, for example:

Yellow: Orange
Blue: Violet

Contrasting colours - Colours combinations that are spaced about a third of the way around the circle, for example:

Orange: Green: Violet
Red: Blue: Yellow

Colour accents - Where a small area of colour sits against a much larger background of another colour, Could be any of the above, but may work better is some combinations than others

Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life 1834-1910

2010-09-20T23:01:00.001+01:00

I just happened to be in London the other week and walking past the National Portrait Gallery with some time to kill and I noticed an exhibition was currently showing for Camille Silvy. Not having heard of him until now, I decided to pop in for a viewing.

‘Camille Silvy was a pioneer of early photography and one of the greatest French photographers of the 19^th century’

‘Working under the patronage of Queen Victoria, Silvy photographed royalty, aristocrats and celebrities. He also portrayed uncelebrated people, the professional classes and country gentry, their wives, children and servants.’

Exhibition text – National Portrait Gallery

The exhibition was divided into various sections, detailing particular times/genres in his life.

Introducing Camille Silvy

As with all photographers I’ve seen he started off as an amateur while working as a French diplomat. The first section of the exhibition consisted of family and self portraits, and I was struck by his stature; he was a large powerful looking man and caused me to think of a cross between Brian Blessed (with the think bushy beard) and the fictional character of Harry Flashman; perhaps not the most complementary of images, but that’s what came into my head and this is my blog!

If you have ever read the Harry Flashman novels you will think of the dashing cavalry officers of the 19^th century (think charge of the light brigade) with those elegant and elaborate uniforms of the officer class.

The other thing that struck me about these early portraits where his use of props; the elaborate uniforms and costumes, but also chairs tables, ornaments and especially books; either a bookshelf in the background or holding a book, quite different from more contemporary photographs. Although a different age and style I though back to an Irving Penn exhibition with minimal props so that your attention is directed to focus the inner ‘character’

Silvy also used a technique where he produced a photograph of the same image 4 times – Think of a 19^th Century Andy Warhol!

Early Photographs: Algeria and Rural France

There were 2 photographs from his early years Algeria; ‘the courtyard of the library’, which had really nice use of light and shadow that created perspective and depth to the photograph.

The other image photograph ‘Hashish smoker on balcony’ also used light and shadow to create depth, but also the use of diagonal lines drawing the eye to the centre. I did find the position of the ‘smoker’ a little eccentric as they were very close to the left edge of the frame, but somehow the use of directional light (coming into the balcony) and leading lines still makes the photograph ‘work’

Although not a particularly remarkable photograph, the old building in his ‘Cider Press’ photograph 1858 (France), did attract my attention to its texture details of the roof tiles, a great use of light to create dimension.

River Scene, France

One of Silvy's more famous photographs from France was ‘La Vallée de l'Huisne', (River Scene) 1958. This was really fascinating, not only for the composition and lines creating movement in the frame but also the technique Silvy employed to produce the image.

The photograph was actually a composite of more than one shot and a combination of filters; 2 photographs one for the sky and one for the landscape detail. By joining the negatives together he created a more evenly exposed ‘photograph’. The exhibition text explained that Silvy used other techniques to further improve the overall photograph by ‘cropping’ the frame appropriately and using a technique called burning to darken other parts of the photograph.

These techniques made me think about how photographs are produced in our time, compared to those in Silvy’s and how those techniques remain remarkably unchanged albeit using different mediums. The idea of combining shots at different exposures to produce a final result and the use of ‘burning’ and creative cropping are still employed to day on both film and digital formats. It turns out photography hasn’t really changed as much as we think! Thought provoking...

'The Emperor's Order of the Day'

Techniques aside (will return to this idea later) the historical value of seeing older works is fascinating. Another famous image from his collection ‘The Emperor’s order of the day’ and history was that of a group of men reading a poster in the streets of Paris; A message from the Emperor Napoleon III while campaigning in Italy to drive out the Austrians. The photograph has a subtle triangle that leads up to the poster, a great image. I later found out that the photograph was actually staged and the people in the shot where instructed to stand in their positions by Silvy! To have taken the shot candidly would have taken a long exposure and if it were not staged then the photograph would not have worked.

London

In 1859 Silvy moved to London and started his own photography studio. A lot of the photographs depicted his love for horsemanship, men in elegant riding clothes and elaborate military uniforms (think Harry Flashman books again!). What struck me most about his studio photographs though was the use of props.

There appeared to be a lot of props in his photographs; the use of furniture, leaning onto desks and book cases, standing behind chairs. The male subjects were often holding a book or Hat and standing very formally, similarly the female subjects were often seen to be holding a fan or hankie and generally more feminine objects than the men. Some of the studio work had picture backdrops or elaborate curtains too

I kept thinking about the difference between more contemporary studios with clean and bare environments, they also made me think of the Irving Penn exhibition I saw a while ago where his use of minimal ‘clutter’ made you concentrate of the character of the subject.

One really good photograph that caught my eye was that of ‘The Missus Booth’ 1861 a picture of two sisters with one faces the camera and the other facing away; however her face is reflected in a mirror that is behind them. In terms of composition there are a lot of triangles, both pointing up and inverted that leads you to the centre. I also see a heart shape between the sister’s arms signifying their love: I really liked this portrait.

Another photograph that stood out was a still life of ‘game’ (Rabbits, hairs etc) however he played with the idea over more traditional still life paintings by Jan Weenix 1642-1719 by introducing modern objects such as cutlery and even a newspaper with the date, showing as a sort of Juxtaposition between the modern (for the 19^th century!) and traditional times.

As well as having clients including members of the Royal family (Queen Victoria never had per picture taken by him though) he took a lot of photos of actors and actresses. To improve his reputation and portfolio he would take the pictures for free so that he gained experience and his name spread but then his customers could then sell prints or use them as a sort of business car (I think they were called Carte de visite) to their fans as well as their own portfolios. Again I see this idea being still used to day; often models will need photos for their portfolio and emerging / amateur photographers need the same – cooperative arrangement!

Sun; Twilight; Fog – Studies on Light 1859

This section of the exhibition had to be the most fascinating part for me. There were 3 photographs each depicting an area of lighting; Sun, Fog and Twilight; with each one showing a different use of light. In the sun photograph of an Indian street sweeper you have strong direct light on the subject creating a hard shadow. However the next 2 images were even more interesting.

Silvy was able to create a finished ‘photograph’ that would not be possible by just taking a single shot of a scene. He used various techniques to create the final print. In the ‘Fog’ image (with the 2 musicians) some of the tree has actually been hand drawn in to add more details.

In ‘twilight’ one of his best known images is actually made of a number of images joined together, (one for the background, one for the street lamp, one for the wall and one for the 2 figures under the lamppost) much the same in the ‘river scene’ I also ready somewhere (can’t find the reference though now so don’t shoot me!) that some of the lamppost was also drawn in by hand to bring in some more details. I also believe it is one of the earliest intended images depicting motion blur.

What I like about this set and especially with ‘Fog’ and ‘Twilight’; it’s the way that Silvy adapted what equipment and processing techniques he had to create the photograph he wanted, very much knowing exactly what he wanted in the frame for the final image. I really like this idea as it is very similar to how I like to work. Controlling the scene and subject to create what I want.

Later Life

Later on in life Silvy moved back to France due to ill health and he also came up with a new technique to photograph battlefields and one of the final images in the exhibition was of a 360 degree panoramic photograph taken from the centre of the Champs Elysées. Another example of manipulation of the equipment and post processes.

I really enjoyed the exhibition – not bad considering I went by chance, with of the most interesting things I took away was the idea that photo manipulation has been around since photography itself!

Of course let’s not get carried away with this after all there is more to photography than manipulation and processing; it’s about light, composition, design etc and the idea of getting the photograph ‘right’ in camera first time, but you will still hear arguments like “but with Photoshop you can just crop that, burn this, merge those together, stitch them together and so on..”

But taking the composition (and medium) aside, when it comes to making an image as best it can be through post processing, how different is it from what Silvy was doing 150 years ago?

Alan Hunter - Photographer

2010-08-28T23:03:00.001+01:00

Sorry it has been a while since my last blog update but I took a bit of a break and have been enjoying some holiday time. I thought it best to catch up and get things going with the blog. I will start off with a some notes on presentation I attended A little while ago…

I attended a presentation by Alan Hunter professional photographer. He started photography in the 1970’s as a keen amateur and through his job at the time, a research scientist, he spent a lot of time around fishing boats and the fishing industry along the north west coast of England, particularly Tyneside and Newcastle.

By taking images of the fishermen at their work on the trawlers and around the docks, and at play, in the local pubs around the dockyards, developing a style of photography documenting the people and places of the time (70’s & 80’s)

He continued to develop this documentary approach, involving people in their environment, documenting the decline in the industry and the effect of this on the people and area. He shot exclusively on black and white film (and still does), developing the photographs himself in a studio darkroom.

He had some great images of this time; old weathered local men in cloth-caps sitting in their local pub and staring into a pint of brown ale, they looked like they could have been from the 1930’s and not the 80’s when some of the shots were taken. the high contrast and dark shadows gave general sad feeling to the collection, emphasising the story of the decline of the fishing industry

Alan talked about the ‘Zone system’ for exposure as developed by Ansel Adams. He explained that he would mainly shoot in Zone 2, which he said is lowest exposure before losing detail in the shadow tones.I had never heard of this zone system before so I looked this up finding a number of references to it below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_System

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/zone_system.shtml

http://knol.google.com/k/photography-the-zone-system#

I’m not going to explore the ‘zone system’ or Ansel Adams in this entry, but a note to self that it would be worthwhile doing a bit more reading (and logging) around this subject.

Throughout the presentation Alan discussed the importance of composition in this documentary style creating a context to the location and activity and the use of juxtaposition to enhance the the qualities of the story telling.

I found this very interesting as it touched on areas that I looked at in the previous section around design elements, including the use of light to enhance textures and bring dimension to the photograph

In 1992 Alan moved to the South coast as well as turning professional, and as such necessitated the need to expand his documentary style into other areas to sustain a business, such as portraiture, advertising and commercial commissions. However I got the impression that his heart was very much in documentary/reportage style, and this was also reflected in the images that he presented.

He went on to explain that he did a study in fine art nude photography, picking up the Ilford-sponsored Black and White Master Photographer Of The Year Award in 1999. He showed a selection of this work and I was very impressed by the use of light and the textures and shapes he had created (all still black and white). Some were very abstract so you would only see part of the body with the rest fading into black (a very low key style) creating almost landscape shapes as if you were looking at sand dunes or rolling hills.

He explained that he remains an advocate of black and white film only; and was somewhat non-complimentary towards digital image making. I got the impression that he felt that digital could not replicate the quality of film and was still a long way off from doing so. I didn’t actually agree with totally what he was saying about this, but I could see from his perspective that the digital world has reduced the ‘tangibility’ of the photograph; whereas he would have spent hours on a physical thing (paper, chemicals) in a darkroom and physically touching and developing negatives and transparencies, then viewing these on a mounted frame on display or in a book and developing an almost physical relationship with them. This being very different from the majority of photographic processing of today, spending hours on a computer adjusting the pixels then presenting it on a website or blog and many never actually leaving the digital world, with no physical relationship.

I do agree that there is a physical aspect that is often overlooked these days, and since doing this course, I have felt that there is something so much more satisfying when I get my photographs back from the printers, but in terms of processing I think its the same.

Hours in a darkroom or hours in a virtual darkroom? Subjective it is!

Anyway a very interesting and thought provoking presentation, it made a change from the business aspects of photography that can often be the focus in these presentations.

There are a few examples of his work on his website

http://www.alanhunter.co.uk

Secondary colours

2010-07-19T18:24:00.001+01:00

This is part two of this exercise to produce images dominated by one of the primary and secondary colours.

Notes:

All of this set was taken on different locations and under various light conditions. I have noted the shot details for each of the colours.

Green

85mm

f/11

1/6 sec

ISO 100

The green set was taken at some nearby woods, on a bright sunny day with no clouds and using the camera set on a tripod to maintain a consistent viewpoint . I maintained a focal length, aperture and ISO any changing the shutter speed to adjust the exposure. I was going to try to find a more ‘pure green but as suggested in the course text; I tried to find more natural occurrences. When you look at the trees generally our brains see the green whereas in reality trees are made up of many shades of green and many other hues.

85mm

f/11

1/8 sec

ISO 100

This second image was the ‘average’ exposure for the scene

85mm

f/11

1/10 sec

ISO 100

This is the darkest of the 3 images (half-stop exposure difference of shutter speed) being the fastest shutter speed. The differences in the 3 exposures appear to be very subtle compared to other similar shots I’ve taken. Although the differences can be more clearly seen in the image below.

Violet

55mm

f/5/6

0.3 sec

ISO 100

Out of all the sets in this exercise I like the violet ones the best. The image is of a towel taken indoors with light coming through a window from the right side of the scene; I used a tripod to maintain the same viewpoint and as I like to shoot in the lowest ISO using the tripod reduced the chance of camera shake at such slow speeds. I just really like the abstract feel to it and the way the textures and depth of view make it more interesting for the eye.

55mm

f/5/6

1/4 sec

ISO 100

55mm

f/5/6

1/6 sec

ISO 100

Again the differences were quite subtle for the half-stop differences although clearer than the tree shots. I’ve created another version below so that they can be compared next to each other and you can see the differences more clearly

Orange

84mm

f/11

1/125 sec

ISO 100

This shot is my least interesting to be honest. It is the seat of my daughter’s swing in the back garden, however it serves the purpose of the exercise in filling the frame as much as possible with orange. The image was taken on a bright sunny day with no clouds and I used the camera on a tripod and framed it in camera (although the swing did move slightly in the wind for each shot). I found that the differences in the exposures clearer show the levels of saturation much clearer in this set, compared to the average exposed shot (below) this first shot has a faded weak colour.

84mm

f/11

1/180 sec

ISO 100

This was the averaged exposed image

84mm

f/11

1/250 sec

ISO 100

The fastest shutter has created the image with the most depth of saturation and the least brightness of the orange hue

As with the previous posts I’m still struggling to stay as focussed on the colour section. I’m not saying I’m not making progress with it, but just that progress is slow in relation to to. It’s been a busy time recently with my daughters birthday and starting a new job as well as some personal photography projects (still to be written up for blog!)that I’ve been exploring. While I don’t mean this to be an excuse for not being ‘on the ball’ with this section I “am” taking longer than I have during other exercises, so it’s a case of being patient with me for a while longer…

Primary colours

2010-07-07T17:04:00.001+01:00

The idea behind this exercise is to produce some images that are dominated by one of the primary and secondary colours. To make the exercise more interesting it was suggested to take different exposures of the same subject and identifying one of these as matching its corresponding colour on a standard colour wheel.

I’ve broken this exercise into 2 parts. The reason being how long I’ve spent on this! since the last assignment other distractions have taken priority and I have been unable to concentrate as much time to the course. Added to which the line ‘take your time and don’t rush’ from the course text played on my mind and made it an excuse for not putting as much time in..

Anyway enough of the excuses; I’ve added the ‘Primary’ colours in this update and will add the ‘Secondary colours’ when I finish it!

Notes:

All the colour sets are taken on different days and locations. I have used the same ISO and lens (although different focal lengths) throughout in order to keep some consistency; For the Red and Yellow photo sets I took the shots handheld and the blue set I used a tripod.

Red

250mm

f/5.6

1/125 sec

ISO 400

This is the second shot I took in the ‘red’ set. I’ve placed the images in order of exposure though (this is the same through this exercise). Keeping the shutter speed constant this image is with the widest aperture. You can see the edges of the petals are paler than the other 2 images

250mm

f/6.7

1/125 sec

ISO 400

This image was the first shot and I took the exposure level from the camera (exposing the aperture from a manual setting of 1/125) you can see that it is less pale that the image with wider aperture

250mm

f/8

1/125 sec

ISO 400

This last image is with the smallest aperture of the set and the petal leaves have a much greater saturation and depth of the red. To me this is the more ‘satisfying’ red of the 3 images

Yellow

225mm

f/13

1/125 sec

ISO 400

For this set rather than change the exposure setting for the aperture, I kept this constant and changed the speed, just to show a different approach to the exposure settings. In this first image (second one taken in the set) the yellow is bright and especially around the edges has started to lose detail in the highlights.

225mm

f/13

1/180 sec

ISO 400

As the shutter speed has increased, the yellow has become more satisfying colour with a better balance of detail in the highlights

225mm

f/13

1/250 sec

ISO 400

The third version where the shutter speed has increased further the yellow has become flat and lacks contrast; although the image is still apparent as yellow it lacks the vibrancy of the middle image.

Blue

55mm

f/6.7

1/60 sec

ISO 400

The image is of some curtains at home. This time I went back to changing the aperture and keeping the speed constant. This shot was with the largest aperture. I liked the use of the curtains as the folds and patterns created different ‘blues’ to be compared for the different exposures. The wider aperture produced the lighter of all the images

55mm

f/8

1/60 sec

ISO 400

With the smaller aperture the lightness was subdued however the detail is still clear in the pattern and stitching of the blue material

55mm

f/9.5

1/60 sec

ISO 400

For the final image with the smaller aperture the centre of the image is close to losing shadow detail, any further and the shadow could turn black.

As noted above I’ve struggle to concentrate on this exercise, leaving too much time between taking shots and I’ve still got to do the second half of this for the secondary colours! I’m wandering if I’m trying too hard at the moment, but having said that it has still been interesting.

Building a library of colours

2010-07-07T16:56:00.001+01:00

The next section is about assembling a colour collection of photographs that are dominated by a single or distinct colour. The idea being to ‘train’ myself in recognising colours and becoming more sensitive to it in photography

Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the camera

2010-06-21T18:21:00.001+01:00

Having a few hours to kill and not being too far away, I went to the Tate Modern on London’s Southbank the other week, I had seen that there was a photography exhibition on called Exposed that looked really interesting. I wasn’t disappointed; it was excellent; added to which this was my first ever visit to Tate and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when I got there I was amazed what a great building and so much to see.

Exposed:

“Since its invention, the camera has been used to make images surreptitiously and satisfy the desire to see what is hidden. Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the camera examines photography’s role in voyeuristic looking from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day. It includes pictures taken by professional photographers and artists, but also images made without our knowledge on a daily basis through the proliferation of CCTV”

Exhibition Guide Tate Modern

The exhibition was divided up into themed sections and I’ve noted my thoughts on the sections as I went through the exhibition.

The unseen photographer
Celebrity & the public gaze
Voyeurism & Desire
Witnessing Violence
Surveillance

The Unseen Photographer

The first area was about revealing an unaware world where the photographer took images without people knowing or consenting to. Not only were there photographs on display but there were also examples of how 19^th century technologies were used to hide the camera equipment, so that they could be used without the subjects knowledge, this included camera hidden in walking sticks, jacket breast pockets and even a shoe!

Walker Evans 1903-1975

‘Subway passengers’ - taken in the 1930’s on the New York subway system. It was the interest in the people’s expressions that grabbed me, the un-posed faces and what were they thinking about? Where were they going? Evans used hidden cameras to capture his subjects unawares.

Philip-Lorca Dicorcia 1951

‘Heads’ – There were some large format/printed images; In 2006 Dicorcia placed hidden automatic flashes in some scaffolding and with a long lens that was also automatically triggered, took photographs of people as they were going about their business.

Paul Martin - 1864-1942

‘Tit bits was her greatest sale’ – 1892 Ludgate Circus.This was a photograph of a woman selling magazines in the street. What grabbed me about this one is that it reminded me of an old lady who used to sell newspapers close to a railway station when I was growing up. I think her name was Audrey!? Strange that I remembered this when I saw the photograph, but it’s the power of photography triggering memories of times past. Martin used a camera hidden inside a box that he carried under his arm to capture his unsuspecting subjects.

Morris Engle 1918-2005

Cop standing over a shoeshine stand - 1947 – It was the expressions on the faces that grabbed me; what were they talking about? The image was ‘busy’ with lots of things going on with people in the foreground, but the clever thing is that the part of the image that draws you in is actually a reflection. It took me a few minutes to realize! Its very clever.

Ben Shahn 1898-1969

Shahn to photographs of groups of unsuspecting people, documenting the diversity of New York during the great depression and the 1930’s - He also used a right-angled viewfinder so that it would look like he was taking pictures in another direction. In the photograph of display, taken in 1937 outside of a US post office in Tennessee, you can actually see his reflection in the window, whereas he looks like he is taking a picture up the street and not the post office!

Helen Levitt 1913-2009

There were some photographs that Levitt took in the early 1940’s of children playing in the streets of New York, depicting life in those times. I wandered if taking pictures of children playing to record history and life would be as acceptable in this society? Probably not – A whole ethical topic in its own right and out of the scope of this update!

Henri Cartier Bresson 1908-2004

Hyères, France 1932 – This really caught my eye in relation to the design elements that were apparent. With the elegant curves of an outside staircase that take you down towards a road creating an implied line towards a cyclist. The motion blur of the cyclist adds further animation and implied movement around the curve of a road that it is travelling. A great example of leading the eye to create movement and animation.

Celebrity & the Public Gaze

This section was about the relationship between photographer and celebrity and how the changes of attitude towards self publicity, from the celebrity point of view to the relentless intrusiveness of paparazzi and catching celebrities during private moments

WeeGee (Arthur H Fellig) 1899-1968

There was a very iconic photograph of Marilyn Monroe taken during the filming of the ‘Seven year itch’ where her dress is blown up from an air vent. I thought I would mention as the scene is so well known! (Although I later researched that this was not used in the film and was recreated in a studio).

Marcello Geppetti 1933-1998

There was a 4 shot narrative of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on a boat, that builds up to them kissing (as i understand this was to prove an affair between the two) I’ve been a fan of Richard Burton’s films so that’s why it stuck in my mind. I later looked up Geppetti, to find he was famed for his “relentless pursuit of film stars and celebrities”, a true ‘paparazzi’ by all accounts.

Tazio Secchiaroli 1925-1998

Anita Ekberg & Anthony Steel - This was a classic paparazzi set of a photographer chasing celebrities. It consisted of a 7 shot montage of Steel chasing photographers away!

Particularly for the last two photographers, I looked up the word ‘papparazzi’ which I found derives from ‘Paparazzo’ which was a fictional character in the film La Dolce Vita.

Leonard Mccombe 1923

There was this excellent photograph where the background consisted of a row of men inside a train diner car all looking towards the actress Kim Novak in the foreground. What was clever about this was that the focus was on the background and Kim was out of focus in the foreground, but still recognizable; then you have the eye lines of all the men looking toward her creating this dynamic movement in the frame. Attention is drawn to the focused men but their eye-lines draw you to Kim in the foreground. The expressions on the men are also priceless – I love this photograph.

Voyeurism & Desire

This section was about the fine lines between art and eroticism. Raising questions as who should be looking at these images and why would they would be looking? Especially the images that were taken, where the subjects were unaware of the presence of the photographer

Merry Alpern 1955

Dirty Windows – 1994 - this was a really powerful set. It consisted of 12 large prints covering a whole wall. The set was taken from an apartment across the street into an upstairs window of sex club in New York. The set depicted the men that used the club and the women that ‘serviced’ them, including the exchange of money and drug taking. Each photograph was naturally framed through the window frame of the shop, and not all details could be seen; only glimpses of what was going on leaving the viewer to imagine the story behind them. All were in a black and white, grainy style that really suited the sordid feel. A really thought provoking set of images.

WeeGee (Arthur H Fellig) 1899-1968

There was another image by WeeGee that I liked; it was of a couple kissing in the cinema. Although the cinema had lots of people in the photograph, the space around the couple and the line of seats caused me to be drawn along the rows and to the attention of the couple.

Kohei Yoshiyuki 1946

‘The Park’ - This was another strong set of images. In the 1970’s Yoshiyuki, using an infrared flash bulbs, took photographs of the sexual activities of young men and women in a park in Tokyo along with the Voyeurs and peeping toms who observed them and in some cases touched and joined in (Not Yoshiyuki to be clear!). A sort of voyeur or voyeurs is some respect! The images were displayed in a long line in a darkened section of the exhibition, adding to the feeling of being part of this night-time act. In the display information it went on to say that the first time these photos were exhibited they were blown up to life size and displayed in a dark gallery with the visitors being given torches to go through the gallery!

“To photograph the voyeurs, I needed to be considered one of them… I behaved like I had the same interest as the voyeurs, but I was equipped with a small camera. My intention was to capture what happened in the parks, so I was not a real ‘voyeur’ like them. But I think in a way, the act of taking photographs itself is voyeuristic somehow. So I may be a voyeur, because I am a photographer”

Kohei Yoshiyuki

Witnessing Violence

This section was on the opposing responses from seeing violent images. Does it provoke people to act violently? Does it show people the need for change? Or does it numb us to horror?

WeeGee (Arthur H Fellig) 1899-1968

There appeared to be a lot of work in the exhibition from WeeGee so I’ve made a not to self that at some point to return and do a more specific study on his photography. He had taken pictures of bystanders showing the morbid fascination with death. Some of the faces depicted the emotion of fun!

Brassai Gyula Haiasz 1899 1984

Here was a photographic narrative of a man who dies in the street (1932). The narrative was very interesting, with the body seen lying in the street alone. Then the ‘story’ unfolds in each photograph as a crowd begins to grow around the body, with each photo the crowd gets larger and larger, until eventually a vehicle (assume ambulance) appears in one photo with the next being the empty street again, as if nothing had ever happened; just a normal street. Although the powerful subject was what held my attention I noticed the elements of lines of the road and points and shape of the crowd.

Enrique Metinidos 1934

Here was a set making up a narrative of the rescue of a person attempting to commit suicide by jumping from a high point. The high point was Toreo stadium 1971. I found this really interesting due to the diagonal lines of the structure and points of the people attempting to rescue the person.

Nick Ut 1951

The famous print of the Vietnam War image of a group of children running from a village after a napalm attack was part of the exhibition. A powerful image when taken in 1972 as it is today.

Surveillance

This section was about the power of surveillance. From military reconnaissance (including the cold war) to the idea of ‘Big Brother’ and that no matter where you go innocent people are recorded or viewed in some way during their daily life. Also the close link between the increase in surveillance and the development of photographic technologies.

Simon Norfolk 1963

He had taken a photograph of this huge Radar system built on the ascension islands with the purpose of capturing mobile telephone conversations. Its thin wire structure of horizontal and vertical lines reminded me of a giant mechanical spider’s web! Scary that these things have existed, the radar not mechanical spiders…that would be silly!

Sophie Calle 1953

There was a huge display from the work of Calle. Where she had spent time as a chambermaid in a hotel and she would be able to enter the rooms of people staying at the hotel and ‘spy’ on their lives, taking pictures of their personal belongings. She would also follow them and record their actions. I found this work unnerving in the lengths she would go to record private lives, fascinating though.

Conclusion

The photographers and images that I have mentioned are just a small part of the exhibition. To do it justice I could have gone of for much longer and more in depth, however the scope of it is just too big for this one entry. As noted I plan to re-visit some of the works/photographers and look at them in more depth as I think that many would be very useful later on in the course, covering narrative and documentary aspects of photography.

What a day! I could have spent a lot longer at the exhibition and I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in photography to visit. I highly recommend this interesting and thought provoking work.

Fathers Day

2010-06-20T21:09:00.001+01:00

Just a quick one!

I had a fantastic present on Fathers day today; Wildlife Photographer of the year book. It is a lovely book with some fantastic photographs and contains the camera settings and details of how many of the shots were taken, very interesting and highly recommend. I reviewed some of the photographs before when I visited the live exhibition back in March so I won’t cover them again.

Control the strength of a colour

2010-06-14T19:47:00.001+01:00

The exercise showed that as the exposure changed so did the colour; but when I say colour, I actually mean the Saturation and the Brightness of the colour and not the Hue (the photographs are predominately red which doesn’t change). With the overexposed images being more bright with a weaker saturation and the underexposed images being darker with more intense saturation.

To strengthen the point I loaded the files into Photoshop where I changed the preferences to display colour information in the HSB(Hue Saturation Brightness) mode and then selecting the same area in each of the frames, I ran the pointer over the most overexposed image (image1) and compared the results with the most underexposed image (image5).

In the overexposed image (image1) as I ran the pointer over a small area, the Hue varied around 0-10 Degrees, the Saturation varied between 30-80% and the brightness was consistently around the 90-100%

In the underexposed image (image5) as I ran the pointer over the same small area, the hue again remained about the same displaying figures around 0-10 degrees, however the saturation was more consistently displaying much higher figures of 80-90% and the brightness was consistently a lower percentage of around 60-90%

Although I can’t exactly quantify the figures, it certainly backs up the theory and the findings from my visual assessment in that the underexposure produced the greater depth and darkness to the colour, whilst the Hue remained unchanged.

Despite my reservations with the colour section I really enjoyed this investigation.

What makes a colour

2010-06-12T20:03:00.001+01:00

I had a read through the notes on colour theory on the OCA website and through some of The Photographer’s eye to check my understanding of this. Here is just a few notes that I made for the log as a reference.

Primary reflected colours

Red – Strong and dense, energetic, warm, hot, passion, aggression, danger
Yellow – Bright, vigorous, sharp, cheerful, the sun, radiates light
Blue – recedes visually, quiet, darker, coolness, wetness, air

Secondary reflected colours

Green – Nature, hope, progress, growth, sickness
Violet – Elusive to find & capture, confused with purple, mystery, immensity
Orange – Warm, strong, brilliant, powerful, fire, celebration, sunrise, sunset

The 3 qualities that define colour

Hue

This is how the colour is defined, it’s what gives the colour its uniqueness - It’s how we name a colour. This can be affected by filters, white balance and software manipulation

Saturation

This is the purity of the colour (hue). From strong intense colours at one end of the scale to less colourful and grey at the other end and can be affected by exposure.

Brilliance/Brightness

This is the lightness and darkness of the colour (hue) and can be controlled by exposure and it should be noted that it can differ between hues.

Part Three: Colour

2010-06-11T23:15:00.001+01:00

For some reason I didn’t feel quite as motivated for this section. Not quite sure why, maybe I needed a break from what I have done so far. However I thought it best to keep the roll going and crack on with this section, especially as I completed most of ‘Elements of Design’ as black & white monochrome images it means a different approach to the images I take.

Something else that I feel different, is in the previous sections I’ve looked closely at pre-course images and identified photographs that suited the exercises. Although I’ve only had a quick scan through my ‘library’ there wasn’t a great deal that stood out in line with what the next few exercises are asking for. I guess this adds to the challenge!

A bit of colour theory

The use of colour is also a design element that affects the way we see the image, however it also has specific qualities that affects us physiologically and psychologically; this makes it suitable as a separate section in its own right.

Primary Colours and Secondary Colours

There are essentially 2 types that we need to consider

Technical - This is the process of colour in relation to the recording and transmission of (light) colour

Primary: Red - Blue – Green
Secondary: Cyan - Magenta - Yellow

Perceptual - This is the way we see and feel about (reflected) colour

Primary: Red - Yellow – Blue
Secondary: Green - Violet - Orange

Although it is important to be aware of the properties and differences, it is suggested not to become ‘bogged down’ by the specifics at this stage. I’m aware that computer screens, image manipulation and digital cameras are associated to technical (transmitted RGB) colours; but for the purpose of the exercises, my focus will be towards the perceptual primary & secondary colours. I will however make reference to the transmitted colours if and when appropriate.

Assignment2 – Feedback & Thoughts

2010-06-08T20:40:00.001+01:00

As before my feedback came back from my tutor very quickly. I was very pleased with the feedback with plenty of constructive points and I think I’m still going in the right direction at least.

I felt that I was taking a bit of a risk with the set, by presenting them all as grey scale photographs, however I think overall it worked, despite some of the colourful subjects that I used. That said I’ve presented them with frames and as colour versions of the assignment below.

Where appropriate I’ve also include a few adjustments in response to some of the tutor feedback, and hopefully shown what I learnt from the feedback.

Olive

I like the Olive shot in both colour and mono version and I’m glad that I left the cocktail stick in with it’s implied line through the image

Egg

It was suggested that the eggs were switched position in the frame; In hindsight I can sort of see that the egg currently in the foreground is perhaps too dominant.

“The light is very nice on the foreground egg though.”

To present my assignment I had mounted the photographs on black paper, however my tutor reminded me to be careful when doing this for dark images, with a danger of it being lost into the background. It was suggested that a white border to make the image stand out more could have been better in this particular shot. While I have added borders on the blog version I did not on the printed versions; so it has certainly made me think more about the presentation, and I will consider this before submitting future assignments.

Potato

My tutor liked the idea of the scattered potatoes, but felt the paper bag in the submitted photograph was too ambiguous. As well as that there are some tiles in the upper right section of the image that were a little distracting (I actually left them there to give a context to where the shot was taken, but in the end it was too abstract and too much of a distraction to add value).

In response to these points, I cropped the photograph to a square format to remove the bag and then tested my editing skills to remove the tiles. I think this now works much better now and the crop also emphasises the curved shape more too.

Asparagus

“The rigid arrangement of the asparagus looks great.”

The black and white version gave them a metallic look, and although I live the colour version too, I think the mono assignment version worked better.

Bread

“It works well though as a diagonal composition. I think the lighting is a little bit too dramatic in this image though”

I restored the colour to the image but emphasised the warmer colours (reds) and I used Photoshop Elements to soften (blur) the hands slightly, to give it the appearance of softer light.

Ice Cream

“The ice cream and bowls is a beautiful image. I really like the contrast in the image and the simple shapes/composition. This is a really successful and original take on contemporary food photography”

Not a lot to say for this other than I was very happy with this image and the feedback in both colour and mono.

Banana

“..something between an Olympic torch and something more phallic!”

I had a good laugh at the feedback for this one! My tutor suggested that a squarer crop would emphasise the ‘S’ shape more, so I have adjusted and presented above in colour.

Green Apple

It was suggested that this would work better in colour as the reflections get lost in the submitted version – I agree and also think the green enhances the textures.

Red Apple

“As with your first set of apples, you have captured the texture very nicely... The white background is nice too, and the negative space to the right of the frame works well.”

Another image that I like in both colour and mono. The mono version gave the apples a really strong metallic look that I think worked well.

Pineapple 1&2

I tend to agree with the feedback on the pineapple photographs, in that the foliage image makes for a better rhythm than the pineapple skin, although the skin does make a nice pattern also. I also think they both work well in the colour format.

Strawberry

I think this image works better in colour than the submitted mono/grey scale version; with the mono version lacking in a certain ‘lushness’. A bit more playing around with the light direction and angle could have further improved also.

There has been some really useful feedback in relation to the assignment and on my log and it would appear that I’m on track with things so far at least.

I’m glad I suck to submitting the assignment as grey scale versions even though I felt that some of them did actually work better in colour; added to that I think that If I had submitted them in colour I wouldn’t have learnt a much from the assignment as I did.

I actually felt that some of the exercise images were ‘stronger’ examples than some of the assignment, in particular rhythm and patterns exercise, however I wanted to maintain the theme of food and therefore they were not suitable for the submission.

My conclusions going forward were the same as last time. To make more effort to look at other photographers work. Although I’ve be fortunate to have been to some photography workshops and seen presentations from Keith Thompson and Robin Preston and I plan to see more, but as suggested I should look at more non-commercial photographers too and get out to some more exhibitions.

Assignment2

2010-06-06T16:44:00.001+01:00

The idea behind this assignment is to incorporate what has been learnt so far into a set of photographs directed towards one type of subject showing a number of design element effects; The subject I chose was food.

Single Point dominating the composition

Olive

49mm

23mm

f/22

1/125 sec

ISO 100

Implied triangle(s) created using this still life of 3 apples on a reflective surface with the point towards the bottom of the frame. This started off as a little experiment with perspective, but I noticed the reflections and decided to incorporate them into the triangle. The perspective added ‘weight’ to the bottom apple making this the more dominant point and having this towards the bottom of the vertical orientation of the frame further emphasised the point of the triangle that I wanted the eye to be directed to.

Implied Triangle – 2

Red Apple

35mm

f/16

1/125 sec

ISO 100

For the implied triangles I have opted to include an additional photograph where the emphasis was towards the top of the frame.

The 3 balanced apples create the 3 points of the triangle. I feel that the vertical orientation of the frame draws the eye upwards from the bottom 2 apples, making the centre framed apple the dominant point of the triangle; this is further strengthened by the 3 stems of the apple, creating mini vertical lines. The highlights, created by the flash, also created 3 points of a triangle within the darker apple skin.

Rhythm - 1

Pineapple

55mm

The course text also suggested considering converting the photographs into Mono/grey scale for this part of the course; the idea being that without a colour distraction, the photograph would focus attention on the ‘design element’ and with that in mind I decided that I would complete the whole section this way, both the exercises and the assignment. Along with making all the assignment photographs mono and keeping a theme of food, I took this a step further and decided to make all the photographs as still life and use a flash to light the scene in each case.

In the first assignment I was worried that my tendency towards staged/still life would somehow restrict my development but along with a few comments from my tutor in the previous assignment, along with my own thoughts, I realised that at the end of the day, one of the reasons I started this course is because I ‘enjoy’ taking photographs and creating something that can be shared. Now why would I restrict myself from an area of photography that I really enjoy? Well I wouldn’t. Even so, a lot of the exercise photographs were ‘found’ and besides there is a long way to go on the course and plenty of time to explore many other areas. Therefore I made a decision (right or wrong) and stuck with a still-life set through the assignment. I hope that it paid off. And if not, well then I’ve leant even more!

I did enjoy the ‘elements of design’ section, maybe not as much as the first stages, but I think that perhaps this was because looking at ‘design’ principles is a new one to me and my photography. I started to notice similarities between different elements too, for example, where there are diagonals there is often triangles and where there are circles there are curves and so on. However this also reminded me to keep a sense of proportion about this section; it’s about learning and improving technique and being aware of how these elements can enhance the composition and importantly, the subject of the photograph.

That said I feel I’ve learnt a lot of new concepts and hopefully with a better equipped knowledge of this area.

From the first assignment I set down a few themes to consider going forward and I hope to continue with them as I continue to practise what I have learnt so far and hope to learn further.

An area that I had hoped to have explored more was that of other photographers and different styles of photography and although I was lucky enough to attend some presentations by some modern professional photographers, I still feel I should give a bit more attention to this area going forward.

Feedback coming soon….

Assignment2 Submission

2010-05-28T23:44:00.001+01:00

As with the first assignment I’ve opted to not upload my assignment notes to the blog at this time; I have sent printed versions and notes direct to my Tutor and await my feedback. I will continue with the next stages (Colour) and will update the blog in due course (with assignment feedback).

Rhythms and patterns

2010-05-28T20:52:00.001+01:00

For this exercise the idea is to produce 2 images, one to convey rhythm and the other pattern.

Notes:

This section/exercise is where greater amounts of design elements are massed together into an order of repetition, resulting in rhythms and patterns.

Rhythm – movement of the eye in the picture with a visual beat (dynamic)
Pattern – static and area (spatial)

Rhythm1

250mm

f/5.6

1/125 sec

ISO 100

This was taken of some buildings close to Charing Cross train station in London. I used a short angle of view (250mm focal length) on these rows of windows. This compressed perspective to create a ‘beat diagonally across the frame.

Rhythm2

135mm

f/4.5

1/60 sec

ISO 100

I took another version of the same building but with a slightly shorter focal length and in a horizontal frame. Although the angle of compression is less (remember back to the diagonals exercises about the compression of the perspective), I feel that the Rhythm is still strong none the less.

Pattern

28mm

f/16

1/125 sec

ISO 100

A fairly regular pattern of some beer bottle tops. I wanted to keep as many of the tops in the frame but at the same time have them go beyond the frame too, so that it appears to fill the space and beyond with a continuing pattern. Although generally static The different designs of the tops add some interest. Also I had a lot of fun getting the props for this…

Here are some other shots that I took when I was trying to find suitable candidates for this exercise.



Just playing with Photoshop	Just playing with Photoshop

5 minutes of fame

2010-05-28T18:20:00.001+01:00

Greenwich Park

It's hardly a front page photograph, but I was still quite pleased when I submitted this photograph for inclusion to Schmap Guides and received the mail below. There was not ‘profit’ involved it was just for fun, but it was still a nice feeling that it was used!

Schmap London Eleventh Edition: Photo Inclusion

Hi Graham,
I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released eleventh edition of our Schmap London Guide:

Greenwich Park
www.schmap.com/london/sights_panorama/p=1187/ i=1187_139.jpg
If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link will take you directly to your photo in the iPhone version of our guide. On a desktop computer, you can still see exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the iPhone version of our guide at:

Greenwich Park
www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=london&sid=s ights_panora...
Thanks so much for letting us include your photo - please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Editor, Schmap Guides