Final Musing

Well that's it I have come to the end of the Art of Photography the forms are printed and partially filled in all that remains is for me to complete them and get them send off then do the final tidy up of the blog and assemble everything ready to be posted in January.

I have learnt alot of the duration of this course I have never done a blog before and realise that I need to put a bit more information in particularly on the feedback but I think I have done better as the blog has gone along something I hope to build on on the next course.

The nerves are setting in already but I guess that is to be understood especially as I am not really sure what to expect and March will seem along way off when I first send it all off.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog.

Update:

I have posted the forms and received the confirmation back, that's it there is no changing my mind now I just have to believe in myself and post the work off.

Rain

Well this is the last exercise before the final assignment of the Art of Photography, the subject is rain, and I have to design the cover of a magazine about rain, so its thinking cap on and trying to come up with something different and eye catching without being too messy or complicated, a strong single image would be good.After trying various options I finally settled on two images one of an empty park and children's play area and the other of a dog sitting in the rain in the town.

 

My favourite one is the one of the dog i was sitting in a cafe when I looked up and saw this dog just sitting there in the rain waiting for his owner to return, I left my coffee (with a slightly amused friend) and went over to see if I would be able to photograph him or if he would move or bark, luckily he did neither I took this at f9 1/40s with a focal Length of 100.

 

On my way home I pass a park and the children play area is normally fairly busy but today as I drove past I noticed that it was empty  in fact the whole park was empty apart from one person walking past on their way some where.This was taken at F9 1/60s with a focal length of 135mm.

One final photograph underneath shows the rest of the children's play area, although it was empty and I would call it rain stops play I don't think you can see the rain enough.

I think the top photograph is the strongest to be used on a magazine, the dogs expression is like most humans I hate rain when can I get back home.

 

Having read the exercise again I see I was supposed to do a magazine cover so I have done that now too.

 

 

I still feel sorry for the dog!  

 

Please note that I had to scan this cover in so the colours unfortunately don't look as good as they should.

 

Juxtaposion

For this exercise I have decided to create the front cover of a book, the book I have chosen is called 'Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. Whilst most people will only think of the film the book was written in 1958 and the film was released in 1961, I do not have a blue Tiffanys' box (unfortunately) so I had to think what else would represent the film, I chose dark glasses, a strand of pearls and a small hair accessory,all these things you can see in the opening scenes of the film and in fact in the majority of photographs released from the film Audrey Hepburn is wearing a black dress, her hair up with the hair ornament in or sometimes a black hat and she has a pearl necklace on. On the subject of Audrey Hepburn she is the one person I would have really loved to have had the opportunity to photograph, although this could obviously never happen I do enjoy looking at her photographs taken by people like Cecil Beaton and also Norman Parkinson.

I used a tripod and also remote release system for this photograph the camera settings were: F11 @1/15s ISO 100 white balance setting on flash focal length was 100 mm.

Exercise Symbols

For this exercise I need to find symbols for a number of concepts

This was the list I was given and here are my ideas, I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong answer to this question as a lot depends on peoples on interpretation.

Growth: a seedling just breaking through its shell, or an acorn and an oak tree, (from little acorns etc)

Excess: this could be a very large pile of something like gold or money or it could be a very large person 'holding their spare tyre'.

Crime: police tape across a door or maybe a smashed window

Silence: A library always makes people think of silence or a closed mouth with a finger to it.

Poverty: cupped hands, or a small tatty child with a empty bowl,
 at the moment I have decided not to take any photographs for this exercise.

I found this exercise quite thought provoking and I found that I really had to think hard and research some of the list.

Evidence of Action

For this I need to take one photograph which shows something has happened, I have the usual things in mind at the moment of something broken maybe a glass jar or a plate, but I am trying to think of something else that is a bit different, whether or not any ideas I come up with will work remains to be seen.

I also need to think of 5 examples of concepts that are regularly used in advertising and publicity which can not be shown directly.

I can think of two hard hitting or actually three hard hitting situations where you could not show it one would be an accident the one that comes to mind here is a motorbike out of a side road and a car, they could not show the accident happening so show a car then a bike on its side, similar cases would show animal or child cruelty, a single photograph of an abused child or animal says more than a 1000 words could say. I will try and come back to some more ideas as I think of them, A toothbrush and tooth paste would convey cleaning your teeth.

I had a bit of a rethink on this exercise and came up with a few more ideas for example feathers to show how soft tissues are, flags in the shape of a globe for international calling cards, green cross for a first aid box and maybe one of the most easily recognised symbols of a red cross for aid.

Back to the single photograph showing something that has happened, I have decided to use a strand of broken beads all I need to do now is plan the photograph, should I take it outside as if it has fallen off when it broke or a still life set up, almost as if it is being readied to be repaired I think I might try both ideas and see which one I like best.

 

Well I tried both ideas but in the end I settled for the inside shots showing not only the broken strand and the beads but also the pliers to add to the overall image of something being broken, I used a tripod for this exercise the camera settings were: F10 @1/2 second flash white balance, the focal length was 100 mm and the iso was 100.

I was pleased with final photograph as it had caused me a few problems to begin with as the light kept reflecting off the beads too much, having found this old necklace I think I might have to repair it now.

A Narrative Picture Essay

Well I have finally arrived at part five  of the Art of Photograph, and this is the first exercise, I need to tell a story in pictures and I chose to do a bride getting ready on her wedding day, I knew that I would not have room for a tripod and at times I managed to squeeze myself into small gaps just to get not only these shots but plenty of others, I choice to use iso 200 for all the indoor shoots with flash and flash whitebalance, I debated whether to use my 50mm prime lens but in the end I settled on my 18 to 200 mm lense to give me a bit more flexibility, one thing that was challenging was the windows in the hotel were reflective and I had a few problems to begin with for example the flash was bouncing off the window, but I got round it by altering where I photographed everyone. (It was a bit disspointing as the indi car race was on and could be seen from the window I really wanted to take a photograph of the bride looking out at the race).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I have said in the story board this was my sister in laws wedding day, not only was I present and able to take photographs of her and the bridal party getting ready I was also very honoured to be asked to be the official photographer on the day. My brother in law who was the groom also have a love of photography so there was even more pressure on me to get it right I am very pleased  to report that they loved the photographs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shiny Surfaces

this is the last exercise in this section before I start the assignment and I need to photograph something that reflects brightly, I have several thoughts on this at the moment I have a small silver jug but I am not sure that will work as I need to be able to photograph it from above, so I am going on a trip around the house to see if i have anything else that may be suitable.
I finally settled on a silver compact I had forgotten I had and below are my photographs

Photograph One is light to front with a diffuser but no cone a very unsatisfactory photograph very dull but with some reflection.

Photograph two this time I used a cone and also move the light to the side still with the diffuser on.

Photograph three this one has the cone the light to the side but also over head spot lights, this is my favourite shot although you can still see reflections in it the same as you can for all the photographs.

Photograph four this final one I angled the compact slightly and took the photograph with no diffuser but the cone still on.

The setting i used for this set of photographs was F6.3 125/s flash white balance and iso 100, I enjoy working with lights and it was interesting to see if it was possible to take the shot without getting any reflection but as much as I tried I agree that the only way is probably to put something in front of it to mask it.

Well that's the last exercise finished now so its time to get to grips with assignment so head back down, books out and time to make notes.

concentrating light

This time I have to concentrate the light on just part of the scene, so using one studio light a black reflector and some pieces of amber jewellery I set to work to see what I could create, I laid the amber on a black cloth then set the light up minus any diffuser and then set the reflector so that it sat covering first about a quarter of the light then about half of it, I used a shutter speed of 125's (this is the fastest speed I can use to trigger my lights) and an f stop of f5.6 iso 100 flash white balance and set to work photographing.

I like the second of the shots best this was with half the light covered so the band and part of the large piece of amber (this bit isn't real unfortunately)! were in shadow and the light is concentrated on the centre part showing the small pieces up better.

Contrast and Shadow Fill

Contrast and shadow fill, the brief says that you will also need white card and tin foil, well the day I came to do this exercise I had the white card (in fact I use a white box canvas) but no tin foil ,but I do I have a silver reflector, so I have decided to adjust the exercise slightly and I am hopeful that this will be ok.

below are the photographs I took I metered them all to F11 125's iso 100 and the order they are here is undiffused, diffused, white card at 3 feet white card at 1 foot silver reflector at  3 feet, silver reflector at 1 foot and finally silver reflector up close and tilted.



The first photograph with no reflector and no diffuser  has very uneven light, there is a lot of shadow on the coffee cups, not a very good image at all, the best ones were the ones taken with the reflector with the ones with the silver reflector coming out the best in terms of shadows, they had the least, although it could be argued that it would depend on the image you are trying to achieve as to whether you require any shadow at all.

Finally a note to add to the bottom of this exercise from the notes in the given folder and the portraits by Stieglitz and Weston, If the shadows were lightened the overall effect of these photographs would change dramatically, particually the one of Dorothy Norman by Alfred Stieglitz where the intensity of her look would have been lost, as it stands its a very compelling photograph where you almost feel as if the subject is looking at you.

the lighting angle

I am looking forward to this exercise again I have decided to make use of my studio lights all I need to do now is decide whether to use a face (might need to bribe someone) or whether I have a statue that could be used so I can do it in my own time rather than waiting for a model to be available. Well once again my long suffering husband has been bribed (chocolate works wonders)! so that I can borrow his face, and I set to work taking the photographs below, I metered them at F13 125's iso 100 and flash white balance.

Light to the front next to the camera, quite a nice even look no real dark shadows or bright spots, features are clear.

light to one side there is shadow to the left hand side and bright spots to the right.

back to one side there is a lot of shadow on this photograph with a bright spot to the right hand side in fact you can see the diffuser on it.

Light to the rear, creating almost a silhouette I did notice how the gold of his wedding ring was clearly visible in the darkness.

The last photograph showed the shape even though it was darker and the features were not as clear on say the light in the front photograph.

the next set are with the diffuser set at 45o camera settings as before.

Light to the front at 45o angle nice light to this one  slight shadow to the left side which was possible my fault that the light might not have been in the exact place.

light to the side with the diffuser at 45o bright spots to right hand side.

light to the rear at 45o the model stands out in this one more, the lines are more noticable (not that I would tell him this as I may need him again at some point)!, but the eyes are in shadow.

The final three photographs are taken on the same camera settings but this time the light is directly above the model.

The first one the light is behind and directly above, the middle one is slightly in front and the last one is slightly to the side but behind.
The light from behind seems to show the shape the best but not necessarily the detail which is lost ion the dark areas for example around the eyes , I prefer the light to the front.

Well at last thats another exercise completed this section seems to have taken me a long time mainly due to weather conditions but also because of life getting in the way, although I have photographed a wedding recently and have found the knowledge I have gained in this section to be very useful.

outdoors at night

Photographing outdoors at night in a city centre was the next exercise or at least that was a suggested place, I liked the idea for some of the photographs but I also wanted to take some photographs of people dancing at a live gig with the idea that I could include some of the band and I would have a different set of challenges ( I didn't want to think of them as problems) concerning the lights.

all of the above photographs were taken with shutter speeds of between 1/5 second and 1/30's second they were all hand held with an iso of 1250, the lights weren't quite as bad as I expected them to be and I found it easier to photograph with these lights than with fluorescent lights, there is blur to most of the photographs due to the low shutter speed.
The next set of photographs were taken in Canterbury City Centre I got there about nine when the light was just fading and I was surprised by how quickly it faded almost within about 15 minutes.

All the above photographs were taken with the camera on a tripod using a remote trigger with an iso 0f 200 and a shutter speed of between five and ten seconds. The first two were taken when I first got there and I would possibly have liked it to have been a bit darker but I thought it was worth including them and not just putting the ones that met the brief completely.

The next ones were taken about fifteen minutes later after I had been for a walk around looking down the side streets as I wanted to try and capture the beautiful old buildings, as I looked around they lit the cathedral up and I was able to capture not just the beautiful colour in the sky but also a lit shop window but also the cathedral in the background. I decided to walk a bit further down the side street to get a few more shots showing more of the cathedral. F stops varied from f8 to f25 for the shot with the lorry lights in, when I was taking the photographs there was quite a few people around which i didn't really want in the photographs so by keeping to the low shutter speeds I was able to blur most of them out.
The final stop of the night was a view over looking the city centre so that I could photograph the cathedral with its flood lights, by now it was a bit darker than I may have original liked but I was still pleased with the shots.
I had very limited experience of photographing at night and I must admit I did enjoy it more than i thought I would.
All I have to do for this exercise now is the tail lights and head lights which will be one night this week.

Well I finally managed to get some photographs by standing on a bridge overlooking the M20 on a Friday night, I took lots of shots and finally decided to add these four to this section,
I took them at f11 200 iso with a shutter speed of 5 seconds, apart from the one with the blue lights which I took at 2 seconds, although i have done this kind of shot on one or two occasions i was surprised by how effective the light trails could be and I started trying to look for lorries with unusual lights on their cabs to see how it would change the style of the photograph, I noticed that the blue lights were very intense in colour against the black. The bottom two photographs have had some work done on them in photoshop, purely as an exercise to see what would happen particularly with the photograph that also contains the moon. I don't like the first photograph I have worked on as I think it looks too unnatural and very bright, much brighter than when I actually took the shot, but I do like the other one.
Thats the end of another exercise and I have also done more reading this time I have been reading Existing light techniques for wedding and portrait  photography, please see notes on reading lists for more details, although it was not a book i used for this particual exercise it thought it was worth mentioning.