Shoot Ten - Work Diary

For my final shoot, I decided to make a final extension to my exploration of the topic of urban architecture, opting to shoot something which creates some contrast to my previous architecture shoots. I decided to shoot in similar locations to those used in my third shoot, with the variable being it would be dark when shooting this time around. I hoped to create a contrast between urban activity in the day and urban activity at night.


 

 This was taken using a shutter speed of 1/5 of a second, with an aperture of f5.6 and the ISO set to 320. I shot this with the camera mounted on the tripod, therefore I was able to increase the shutter speed in order to expose my image enough, rather than turning the ISO to a high number, and as a result the image is low in noise, creating a very smooth lighting effect throughout. The street lamps in the image give off light in a very muted shade of yellow, which creates a sense of unhappiness throughout the image, as yellow usually represents happiness therefore the fading of yellow could represent a fading of happiness. This sense of unhappiness carries in the architecture that can be seen throughout the majority of the image , which has clear Brutalist influences and creates a very cold and cynical atmosphere, suggesting that urban life itself if cynical in nature. 

 This was taken with a shutter speed of 1/3 of a second, with an aperture of f5.6 and an ISO of 320. Like the previous image, this also makes heavy use of street lights for lighting, creating another muted yellow tone that suggests that urban life can make you unhappy. This also has some presence of nature in the composition, with a tree being present underneath the lamp post. The tree is being cast underneath the lamp's yellow light, which creates a commentary on nature, despite having been in existence forever, now lives in the shadow of urban structures. This is further shown through framing; the image was taken from a high angle, meaning the building above is shown to appear as if it towers over both the viewer of the image and the tree, suggesting that people may feel as if large, dull urban structures are shadowing over human life as well as plant life.

Shoot Nine - Work Diary

For my ninth shoot, after capturing urban architecture, I wanted to expand on my previous work that involves people and how they interact in an urban environment, moving closer to my subjects and cutting out a lot of the wide angle landscapes I featured in my previous people based shoots. I went out into town without a tripod so that I could move more freely and tired to capture scenes that I thought would let the viewer of the image create their own narrative from; I shot from a documentary perspective.



I shot this using a shutterspeed of 1/250, with an aperture of f5.6 and an ISO of 200. I kept the shutterspeed relatively high as I was shooting freehand and as the subjects in this shoot are unknowing that they are being photographed, the lens was fully zoomed in so that I could remain unknown from a distance. I originally shot this in colour, but decided I wanted to make a large amount of the image black and white in editing after the shoot. I selected the image of the London Eye in the background using the quick selection tool, then inverted the selection and converted the image to black and white, with the selection meaning that area was excluded from the conversion. The use of the selective colourisation points out comparisons between poor and working class urban areas and affluent urban areas. The image of London being colourise creates the connotation that London is exciting and upbeat, and the sky blue colour that is featured heavily in the image creates the contrast between London and Harlow, which is represented as being dull through the use of the black and white.

 
 This image was taken with a shutter speed of 1/100, an aperture f7.1 and ISO 200. I set my shutter speed significantly slower than in the previously shown image, as the position I was in had the opportuntiy to capture people in motion, therefore I wanted a slower shutter speed to create some motion blur with the people in the foreground to link to the theme of the fast pace of urban life. I had my camera fully zoomed in so that I could capture my subjects closer. I focussed on the two women sitting down outside a coffee shop having a conversation, meaning the foreground is the part of the image that was out of focus. The presence of both people who are quickly walking through town and the two women sitting creates connotations of different paces of life that are present within urban environment, with some having no choice but to be constantly be busy to get by in life, while others have the freedom to participate in some leisure activities throughout the week.

Shoot Eight - Work Diary

For this shoot, I wanted to try and capture some abandoned areas, keeping to the theme of urban decay. I looked around Harlow for a location that had been left alone for a long while, as this would mean that nature has taken over what was once man made, linking to my theme. I found an abandon school ground that was open to the public, which is where I decided to complete my shoot

This is one of my straight images from my shoot. I shot this image with a shutterspeed of 1/100, with the aperture of f11. I shot on this shutter speed as I was shooting without a tripod and wanted to avoid camerashake; my aperture I set to F11 as I wanted a fairly wide depth of field, as the image is landscape style image. This image links well to my subject of urban decay as the image depicts a field on a schoolground, on which the grass has become unkempt and overgrown and has covered some of the school structures in the background. The image makes heavy use of shades of green throughout the foreground and midground, which I have emphasised by increasing the colour saturation as well as shifting the colour balance to reduce yellows and increase greens. As a result, you get both saturated and muted shades of green throughout the grass, which could be seen as a reflection of the negatives and positives of a place like this being reclaimed by nature. The bright green shades represent the positive in that the structure is unnatural and was put in place where there once was nature, therefore the process is in a way a "return to normality", whereas the muted shades could represent what is lost in the school being abandoned, as it was once a place of learning.

 

Here is another of my straight images from my shoot. Like the previous image, this was also taken at 1/100 with an aperture of f11 in order to keep the depth of field wide and avoid camerashake from handheld shooting. This photo as been editing far more than the other image, as I wanted to create a gritty and dark mood from the image. To create this mood, I converted the image to black and white, then went into photo filters and added noise to the image, creating an overall rough texture of the image. It depicts and bench that has had once of its seats broken off. The floor below it has gathered large amounts of moss, as the bench has been left untouched and the area has been rained on; this links very strongly to the themes of urban decay and urban structures being retaken by nature. The use of black and white and noise in the image creates a very sinister mood, as it creates a wide tonal range, with tonal contrast between the dark tones of the moss on the floor and the light tones on the wooden boards that cover the buildings. This contrast creates connotations of the strength of nature against urban structures that have been left unattended for a long period of time.

Shoot Seven - Work Diary

For my seventh shoot, I wanted to try the technique of tilt shift. The technique is usually accomplished through a tilt shift lens, though this costs a great deal of money. As a result, I researched and found out that I would be able to replicate the effect in Photoshop. I decided to go out with a tripod and get to a high point where I could take pictures of people to make them appear as miniatures, which is the effect created by tilt shift photos.



Here is one of my straight images for the shoot. To create the miniatures style tilt shift seen, I used photoshop's tilt shift filter. I went into filter-blur gallery-tilt shift, where it adds tilt shift guidelines. I dragged the guidelines so that the blur begins just out of range of where the people are framed. I set the gradient of blur to be quite short so that the blur is fairly harsh surrounding the people. The blur around the people is what creates the miniature effect; which is an effect I added to by greatly increasing the saturation of the colours of the image, as well as slightly increasing the contrast of the image. These together create a strong impression of the image appearing to be a miniature model set.

This was taken from the top of a multi-storey car park. I shot this image on f/8 as I wanted it to have a wide depth of field, as I felt a narrow one would have affected the tilt shift effect I intended to use later. I kept the shutter speed at 1/80 as wanted to avoid camera shake and any excessive motion blur that would ruin the illusion of miniatures that the photo creates. The presentation of people as miniatures could suggest that people who live in urban environments are metaphorically small compared to the architecture around them and the large presence of advertising and commercialism. The final edited image displays some very saturated shades of green, which represent nature. This creates a contrast to the grey shades throughout the rest of the image, and acts as a reminder that the urban environment was developed over what was once an untouched natural environment. The saturated colours are contrasted by some dark tones towards the left side of the image. They create some tonal contrast with the lighter tones shown to the right of the image, where the sun shines.



Here is another image that I also took from the top of a car park, only this focuses more on the main part of the town. I shot look down upon the bus shelter, where there were a large amount of people, which I felt would make for a good miniature model effect. I shot this on f/8 and 1/200 in order to achieve a wide depth of field and avoid motion blur or camera shake. This image has highly saturated colours, in shades of red, yellow and blue, which create connotations of happiness and urban bliss. This is contrasted by the architecture shown in the background, which is very brutalist and creates a sense of power over the viewer. The background also displays mainly shades of grey, which could represent the dull parts of the urban lifestyle such as having a daily routine job; this creates a contrast of moods between the mid ground and the background. In the centre of the foreground of the image is a man walking in the bus lane; he appears to be wearing a formal suit and be walking at a pace. From this, we can guess that he has an office job of some description. He makes a clear punctum of the image, as he is clearly walking where he isn't supposed to be. You could suggests that he is not following rules as his job is dull and revolves around rules and doing things 'by the book', therefore he is rebelling in a minor to create some excitement in his work day.

Shoot Six - Work Diary

For my Sixth Shoot, I wanted to capture some more open urban areas, therefore I decided to capture some Urban landscape images. I took a tripod out to the town and tried to find areas that were much more open than in my previous shoot.

Shot on 1/80, f18, ISO 800

I shot using a high f stop, as I wanted to capture a wide depth of field and make sure as much is in focus as possible. As a result, I had to shoot on a fairly slow shutter speed and move the ISO up to 800 in order to let enough light in for the picture to be exposed properly. This meant there was some noise present in my image where there wouldn't usually be. For the edit of this image, I drew inspirations from Bas Losekoot, particularly the use of colour. I raised the contrast of the images and increased the saturation of the colours, which I felt created a happy mood compared some of my previous images which have been desaturated or converted to black and white. The saturated colours in the background of the image create a contrast to the muted shade of red on the pavement in the foreground. Also, in the background is a brightly coloured fairground, which creates strong connotations of fun and joy, differing from the buildings surrounding it which bare very brutalist architecture and muted shades of blue and yellow; These create a sad and depressing mood.

I noticed the noise in the image after editing it, therefore I reopened the image in Photoshop and went to filters>noise>noise reduction. I set the noise reduction level to 7 and applied the filter. Above is the changed image, which has slightly less noise present.

Above is one of my original images. I shot using 1/80, with an aperture of f18 and an ISO of 800. The image has a wide depth of field as a result of the high f stop, meaning most of the image is sharply in focus. I thought this would be effective for a landscape image as you don't want any small details blurred out. However, I noticed that the image was fairly dark, which is likely due to the very small aperture, meaning a limited amount of light is let into the shutter.

The original image was taken with the lens in a wide angle setting, therefore there was some lens distortion. I fixed this in photoshop by going into filter>lens correction, then selecting custom and dragging the correction slider at the top to +10. This corrected the lens distortion that the wide angle had created. The original image felt like it had too much of a muted colour pallets, partly due to the whether and partly due the colours used in the buildings of the area. I slightly changed this but raising the saturation of the colours by 10, as well as increasing the contrast of the image, which widened the tonal range. As you can see, the final image is a little bit brighter and more saturated due to these changes, and creates slightly more positive connotations about urban lifestyle, portraying it as fun and exciting.  This contrasts to the logos of transnational corporations such as McDonalds and Primark which represent a very predatory sales practice based on reducing costs and maximising profits. A large part of the foreground in this image contains paving slabs in muted shades of red, and as red is associated with energy, the tiles could represent the fading of any energy and interest being invested into the area and into urban lifestyle.

Shoot Five - Work Diary

For my Fifth shoot, I decided I wanted to try another new technique. I wanted to attempt to create some High Dynamic Range images. After researching techniques to creating these images, I decided
to shoot using a Camera RAW format, which doesn't compress files and therefore allows for more detail to be captured in the image. The technique involves both photoshop editing as well as advanced camera settings, both of which I felt I needed to experiment more with.

I set my camera to auto bracketing mode, setting the bracketing to two stops so that it would take an image overexposed by two stops and underexposed by two stops as well as a correctly exposed one. My main exposure was set to 1/160 and I set my aperture to f8 for the majority of my shoot, meaning I had a fairly wide depth of field.

Here is the before image for a HDR process. The image was shot on a camera raw format to avoid the image compression that you get when shooting using a JPEG format. To create the final HDR image, you need to go into file>automate>merge for HDR Pro. It then merged the original three auto bracketed images into one HDR image, before giving me a HDR processing menu. I set the mode to 16 bit and local adaption, and checked to the remove ghosts setting, which makes sure there are no objects that only appeared in one shot being processed into the final image. 

However, this image was shot using an exposure of 1/50 and an aperture of f3.5 as the area in which I took this image in was fairly dark. However, I shot all my images using a tripod, therefore they did not suffer from camera shake. The use of HDR was effective in this image I felt, as the location I shot in had both light and dark parts to it, meaning there is a fairly wide tonal range to be used for the HDR process. There are some darker tones in the foreground, shown in the walls surrounding the stairs, as well as some lighter tones shown in the sky far into the background. The HDR processing that helped create this image has widened the tonal range further, making the darker tones darker and more rich as well as increasing the intensity of the light tones of the sky. This wide tonal range creates connotations of the rough and gritty sides of urban life existing alongside the positive sides such as work opportunities and the availability of consumer goods. As I shot this on f3.5, the image has a fairly narrow depth of field; the focus is on the stairs in the midground, therefore the wall in the foreground is out of focus. The camera being focussed on the stairs could link to urban areas being built with a focus on human movement and ease of access to all buildings in the area. Harlow was built during the 1960s, during which 'Brutalist' architecture was common in newly urbanised areas. This particular area in Harlow Town was definitely inspired by the brutalist movement, and the heavy use of grey concrete creates a menacing mood.



This is another one of my HDR processed images. I used the same process for creating this image, processing it in 16 bit and selecting remove ghosts. Because there was more natural light in this location than in the previous image, therefore I was able to shoot using 1/200. I still shot on f3.5, meaning the image has a narrow depth of field. I focussed on the middle of the stairs, meaning that the mid ground is the section in focus. I feel that I could have used a higher f stop in order to create a wider depth of field and have the foreground and background in focus too, which would create more sharp detail that could be processed into a HDR image. The final HDR image, shown above, has a wide tonal range. There are some dark tones shown in along the roof of the concrete stairs in the background, as well as some very light tones shown in the foreground along the stairs. The railings to the stairs act as leading lines, leading the viewer towards the square exit to the stairs, through which light can be seen through. This small square patch of light could be seen as a symbol of hope; a light at the end of a tunnel, almost literally, as the stairs begin to close into a tunnel towards the top. On the concrete stairs are some very rough and bumpy textures, which create connotations of urban decay and the rough and gritty side of urban life. This creates a clear contrast to the square of light shown in the background, which creates connotations of hope. This image also shows clear influences from the Brutalist movement, and therefore creates a gritty and menacing atmosphere. The one problem with this image is that despite shooting using a tripod, the image wasn't entirely straight. This is something I later fixed in Photoshop.

Here is the straightened image. To straighten the image, I used the crop tool in photoshop. However, instead of using it to crop the image, I selected "Straighten" on the options bar above the image.



With this selected, I drew a line from the bottom left corner along at the angle I wanted the image to move by, which was 0.8° in my case. This straightened the image so that the stairs lined up with the frame of the image. I also noticed a slight lens distortion, as I shot with my lens on a very wide angle. I fixed this by going into filters and using the lens correction filter.

I selected custom rather than autocorrection, as this meant I could manually adjust the distortion level myself. I set the remove distortion slider to -8, which corrected my lens distortion.

Shoot Four - Work Diary

For my Fourth Shoot, I decided that I wanted to expand my range of photographic techniques by trying something very different to my previous shoots. As I wanted to capture the busyness of an urban environment, I decided that a good way to do this would be to shoot using a long exposure and capture the motion blur created by crowds moving. Additionally, I realised that I have no animation sequences in an urban environment for my final project, therefore I decided to shoot the crowds using continual shoots to create into an animation as well as the motion blur images.



1/125, F5.6, ISO 100

This is the animation I created from my shoot. I shot using 1/125 and used a tripod to avoid camera shake and I needed the camera to move as little as possible between each shot. I used continual shoot mode so that there would be as little space between each shot as possible, meaning the resultant animation is smooth. The images that make up this animation are very dark in tone, creating connotations of the dark side of urban life. There are also several adverts visible throughout the animation, which represent the consumer nature of urban lifestyle and the constant need for advertising products and brands. I created this animation using Premier Pro; I dragged the images onto the video timeline, selected them all then right clicked and selected speed/ duration. In this menu, I dragged the duration of each image to be as short as possible, which was one frame. From here, I rendered it as a 24fps .mov file. This animation was successful, as it shows the movements of people in an urban environment. The fact there are some images which have larger space between them means the people are shown speeding up and slowing down at various points, which I feel shows the rapid changing of pace of people in an urban environment, being slow in quiet periods and fast in busy periods such as rush hour and the Christmas season.


0.6 Second, f22, ISO 100

This is one of my straight images from my shoot. I shot using 0.6 of a second, as I wanted some motion blur yet a longer exposure longer than 0.6 of a second would have created too much motion blur, possibly to the point of the subject disappearing from the frame. Also, due to the reasonably bright outdoors conditions, having a longer exposure would have likely over exposed the image. I shot using an aperture of f22 to counter this, and as a result, the image has a very wide depth of field in which everything is in focus. I shot this image on a tripod as I wanted to avoid camera shake, which would have been clearly picked up while shooting handheld due to the long exposure. I edited this photo in Photoshop as I felt the image appeared flat. I increased the contrast to +20, as well as increasing the saturation of the colours to around +15, as this makes the colours appear more saturated and vibrant. I also lowered the brightness of the image by around -15 and adjusted the curves of the image, as the original image was slightly overexposed.

I feel that this image can create many connotations about urban life. The use of heavy motion blur, in which the subject is distorted and is only barely recognisable as a person. I feel that this blur creates connotations of Urban life being fast paced and busy. The subject being highly distorted can be linked to the anonymity of walking through an urban environment; you will likely only see a person once due to the volume of people in the area, and you will forget their face in seconds after you've seen it.
The image has very saturated colours, which links to the presence of the Starbucks Coffee sign. The colours being bright and saturated represent the consumer nature of urban environments, as bright colours are used in advertising to entice the viewer. The Starbucks sign definitely represents the prevalence of consumerism in urban environments also.

Shoot Three - Work Diary

For my third shoot, I decided it was time to move away from the subject of stop motion animation in favour of a shoot of still images that will have a contact sheet and straight images as a result. I also moved from a rural location to shoot in a very urban location, as this is what I want my project to focus on. I tried to focus my shoot on Capturing urban architecture and urban decay.

Here is one of my favourite images from my shoot. This image is one of my final straight images, therefore it has been edited. I decided that my straight images should have the effect of looking like an old film photograph. To create this effect, first of all, I converted them to black and white. Then, I added a brightness/contrast layer, in which I moved the contrast to around -20, giving the image a washed out appearance. The final stage in editing the photo into look like a black and white film photograph was to add noise to the image. I did this by going to the filter drop menu, and selecting "add noise", in which i set the noise percentage to around 30%. This finalised the editing on the photos, which meant I could flatten the image and save it as a JPEG.

This image has a wide tonal range; half of the image displays dark tones, as this was taken in a multi-storey car park, in which there was little lighting. However, the lights on the ceiling and the small opening to the sky to the right create some lighter tones, particularly on the pillars to the right. Since the image is in black and white, the colours in the image are varying muted shades of black or white, giving the photo a very dark mood and creating connotations of evil. The shapes formed in this image are mainly made of sharp corners, with there being very little curves in the architecture, which is very urban and reminiscent to the Brutalist architecture of the 1950s-1970s. Due to the editing I have done to the final version of this photo, the image appears to have a slightly bumpy texture, which was created from the noise I added to the photo. Before the edit, the majority of the image was smooth textures, and I feel that the noise I added means the image contains darker connotations now, with the bumpy textures creating connotations of the busyness of living in an urban environment. This, however, is contrasted by the fact the image portrays an almost empty car park. 

Above is another of my favourite edited images. This has been edited in the same way as the previous image, being desaturated, converted to black and white then noise being added. This image is much tonally lighter than the previous image, meaning when the use of undersaturation and black and white makes the image look particularly washed out. The sky in the background looks like it's more cloudy than it is, and in areas it looks like there is a smog in the sky, which creates a sense of urban environments being very pollutive. The use of noise in this image creates a rough texture, particularly on the building in the foreground, which creates connotations of the rough side of urban life, which links well with the architecture in the image; it is that that is typically seen a poorer urban area as opposed to a rich one such as central London. I have composed this image using the rule of thirds composition rule; the point of interest is the building in the foreground, which I have positioned on along the left horizontal line of the rule of thirds grid, which means your eyes are immediately drawn to it. The building in the background has also been positioned on the grid, meaning it is also is positioned in a point where your eyes are drawn to it. However, this photo was taken freehand therefore it's slightly at an angle; I could improve this by either correcting in Photoshop or by re-shooting the image.

This is the image I have straightened in Photoshop. I did this by using the crop tool and selecting "straighten" on the toolbar along the top. it then prompts you to draw a line at what angle you want it to skew the image. I adjusted mine by about 2° downwards from the left to the right. As you can see, the resultant image is stabilised and appears as if it had been taken with a tripod.

Personal Project - Shoot Two - Work Diary

For my second shoot, I wanted to create another stop motion animation for use in my final project. I stuck with the method of keeping the camera stationary while i move around my environment, however, I decided I wanted a slightly different rural environment, therefore I decided to shoot while passing through the seaside town of Dartmouth on a boat.
 The images that make up this stop motion animation were shot using an aperture of f8 and a shutter speed of 1/125. I shot at a faster shutter speed and a higher f stop than in the previous shoot, which is clear from the animation, as there is less motion blur and a wider depth of field.

I created this stop motion animation using premier pro CC.
To create it, I first put the series of images into the media bin, meaning I can then work with them. Once I had done this, I then dragged them onto the timeline. However, this plays them for five seconds by default, and I wanted them to play for just one frame. To change this, I simply selected them all as one on the timeline, right clicked and went into "speed/duration". Once in this menu, I simply clicked and dragged on the duration until it was the smallest duration possible, which is one frame. Your animation should be complete; I rendered mine in 24fps as a 1080i .mov file.

The animation features a wide range of colours throughout. There are some saturated shades of green shown in the grassy hills in the background of many of the images; this could represent the natural growth of a rural environment. However, there are some very muted shades of blue and green shown in the water the boat is in, which can represent the loneliness of living in a rural environment with few people around. The images have a wide depth of field as they were shot using an aperture of f8, which I felt was effective because there is a lot happening in each frame of animation, with there being something to look at in the foreground, midground and background, and use of a narrow depth of field would mean some of this is not clear to see. Because it was shot on a boat, there is a range of textures shown, specifically on the water. The images towards the beginning of the animation have some smooth textures on the water in the distance. This contrasts to the later images, which displayu some rough tones through the wake the boat is making in the water.

Personal Project - Shoot One - Work Diary

For my first shoot, I wanted to create a stop motion animation which will be used in my final project creating a short film consisting of stop motion animations of documentary images of both urbanized environments and rural environments. I chose to move myself in shooting to create motion rather than having moving subjects and mount the camera on a tripod.


Here is my stop motion animation. I shot my images using an aperture of f 3.5 as this creates a narrow depth of field that I felt works well with the motion blur of the images. The images were shot using a shutter speed of 1/80.

I created this stop motion animation using premier pro CC.
To create it, I first put the series of images into the media bin, meaning I can then work with them. Once I had done this, I then dragged them onto the timeline. However, this plays them for five seconds by default, and I wanted them to play for just one frame. To change this, I simply selected them all as one on the timeline, right clicked and went into "speed/duration". Once in this menu, I simply clicked and dragged on the duration until it was the smallest duration possible, which is one frame. Your animation should be complete; I rendered mine in 24fps as a 1080i .mov file.

The photos that make up the image were mostly successful. The animation displays a wide range of tones, as the images where taken at around sunset. There are some lighter tones shown on the vast amounts of grass and greenery in the foreground and midground, as well as some darker tones shown in the stormy sky in the background. The image mainly consists of saturated greens, which can represent growth and harmony in a rural environment. However, there are some muted greens in the shadows of the image. The images mostly have used a narrow depth of field, focusing on the foreground and leaving the background out of focus. I feel this was effective as it adds to the blur effect created, which creates a sense of fast motion. Each image was frame similarly, creating a sense of depth; there is a foreground in the bottom of the frame, and the midground being above it and the background above that. This, I feel, makes the animation look more linear and smooth.

Multiple Flash - Work Diary

For my Multiple Flash shoot, I decided to use the studio instead of on location, due to being able to control my light settings more and not having flash equipment that I can bring to a shoot on location. I used spotlights as my flash, which had to be triggered manually, meaning I had to borrow somebody else to trigger it.

This is my favourite photo from my multiple flash shoot. This was taken with an exposure of 6" and an aperture of f16. One of the thing I like about this photo is how it's framed; there's not a full face shown in the frame, which I feel goes with there being several faces in the image in creating a very surreal atmosphere. I also like the use of colour and tone; there are not bright colours in the image, with almost the entire image consisting of black and white, barring the pale muted shades of the faces. The small range of colours creates connotations of fear and sadness. There has also been effective use of tone in this photo as there some very pale and light tones shown in my subject's face, as well as very dark tones shown in his shirt and the background. This creates a wide tonal range.

This is an image from my shoot that I feel didn't go well. This was also taken on 6" and f16. One of the main thing I feel went wrong with this photo is the framing; some of the wall is visible next to background, which ruins the effect of complete darkness shown in the other photo, meaning there is less of an atmosphere of sadness made. I also feel I used too long an exposure for the movements I directed my subject to do in this shot. I shot on a 6 second exposure, and my subject had extreme movements, therefore the resulting image couldn't quite capture strong snapshots of stages in his movement. The fact he moved so much meant there were not any points where you could clearly see him in shot, which I feel takes away from the effect the photo should have had.

I am unlikely to use this technique in my project, because although it interests me, I don't own equipment that will make this possible on location, and getting access to it may be expensive. However, if I am able to access this equipment, I may be able to incorporate this into some of my shoots in Urban areas.

Slow Sync - Work Diary

For my slow sync photoshoot, I shot in the studio, as I had access to the softlights and a remote flash firer, which would create a stronger flash than my on-camera flash. I decided to use two subjects for my shoot, and directed them to move in large movements, as I thought this would create a large amount of motion blur, which is what I wanted to achieve for this shoot.





Here is my favourite photo from the my slow sync shoot. I feel that this was successful as a slow sync photo as you can see where the flash is fired on my subject in the foreground, lighting up her face. That part of the photo also shows her face before she started moving fast and blurring, which I liked because it creates two different effects in the same picture. I also like that this her face face, when visible in the foreground, is strongly in focus, and that the blurring of her movement has created a light trail that almost completely conceals the person she is running around. I shot this image with a shutter speed of 1" and an aperture of f9, meaning just enough blur was created that you can still see some elements of human form through the heavily blurred movement.  The use of flash and movement together means the resulting image has a large tonal range, with some dark tones shown on clothing, and very light ones on the blurred hair.


This is an image from my shoot that I feel didn't go very well. I shot this image on 1" and f9. While this image effectively displays the slow sync technique, as the blurred subjects have clearly been lit from a flash, I was unhappy with the way this image was composed. The subject on the right doesn't quite fit into the frame, therefore some of the blur effects from her movement are not captured in the photo. I also feel there was too much distortion from the blur effect with the subject on the right; unlike the picture above, in which you could see a clear image of the subject's face as well as a light trail of their movement. However, there is a small example of this from the subject on the right, as you can see a light up version of her face on the right, as well as the blurred light trail of her movement.

This technique might be something I will use in my personal project, as I feel that slow sync flash would work well incorporated into the street photography elements of my project. However, it may be harder to achieve without studio flashlights and on location; you will need to be taking photos of people, and you will need to be very close to your subject, especially if you would be using an on camera flash like I would be, as the flash won't reach far.

Blur - Work Diary

For my Blur photoshoot, I decided that I wanted to shoot on location, because I wanted to find some candid opportunities to capture motion blur. First, I went to a busy road near me to try and capture some cars in motion. My second location was just outside my town's bus station, on top of a multi story car park, as I wanted some bird's eye view blur shots of buses coming past.

Taken on f14, 1/10 exposure

This is my favourite image from my blur photoshoot. I shot this on a very busy road near the town, just after the traffic lights had turned green. I liked this photo because of the way it's framed; the two cars are both fully in frame and the image was shot when they were almost in the same position, meaning there is a large amount of motion blur captured. Also, I liked the use of a wide depth of field, as it meant both cars were in focus. Additionally, it was exposed well; the basic features of the cars are visible, whereas if it had been overexposed, it would have been unclear what the blurring in the photo was. As well as being a successful blur image, I think this image successfully incorporated the formal element. For example, The photo features some leading lines, shown through the curbs at the side of the road and the white lines on the road, both of which lead you to the cars. It also features a wide range of colours; there are some muted shades of red on the buildings in the background, as well as the shades of black on the cars. There are also some saturated shades of green shown on the trees in the background.

 
Here's an image that I feel was less successful. Although there's lots of motion blur shown in this image, I was less  happy with how this image was framed than the previous image. While the previous image kept the motion blur framed in shot, this had lots of the motion blur out of the frame, which I feel was less effective. I also feel that this image had too much in the foreground; this was due to the time i took the picture, when there was lots of cars driving across the road at once. The large amount of foreground in this photo means that there is much less of the background visible, which reduces the depth shown in the photo. However, due to there being more cars in the photo, this image can be used as an example of the formal element of form. Each car would be considered a form, as would the building in the background.

This is a technique I will almost definitely use during my project. The majority of my project involves capturing burst shots while moving in a car and putting together in animation, therefore motion blur can be something I can explore within this.

Location Portraiture - Work Diary

For my location portraiture shoot, I decided I wanted to go to the edge of my town, as this area had some trees as well as some more urban views. I went out with a tripod, which I picked up as I wanted to make sure that there was minimal camera shake, especially if I decided to go lower than the 1/125 exposure that I had started the shoot on.

 

 This is an image from my shoot that I feel went well. I decide to frame this shot from the knees up, as I wanted to display plenty of the background behind him, particularly the tree he's standing in front of. With this photo, I told my subject to stand in front of the tree but I didn't direct him of what to do, therefore what I capture was just his reactions to the environment. I specifically liked this photo because he wasn't looking at the camera, instead looking at something in the distance. This could suggest that he's not interested in the photoshoot, and that perhaps there is something happening in the distance that is interesting. I like the use of colour in this image too, as there is a large range displayed; there are some very vibrant and saturated shades of green on the leaves, as well as the muted shade of blue on his shirt, and the muted browns of the autumn leaves.

This image is my least favourite of my location portraiture straight images. Unlike the previous image, I decided to frame this one as a full body shot. What I disliked about this image is that the tripod was not levelled out, meaning the image is slightly canted to the right. While canted shots can be effective, I felt that for the style of image I was trying to achieve, it wasn't. I also noticed after taking this shot that it was overexposed, most likely due to me shooting on a shutter speed of 1/30 in fairly bright conditions. I tried to fix this in photoshop after the shoot, and managed to reduce some of the exposure, however it is still clear that the original image was over exposed when shot, as the sky is still white, whereas it should have been blue. The other problem I had with this image is that my intention with the bus in the background was to take the photo using a slow shutter speed in order to blur the bus, yet the camera was on a tripod so that my subject wouldn't be blurred. However, my shutter speed was not slow enough, as the bus appears to not be in motion.

This is something I am unlikely to incorporate into my project, as I am unlikely to be taking photos of people, with my topic being urbanisation. Although I may use a small amount of human subjects for my photos, I will be using techniques such as slow sync and multiple flash to capture them.

Work Diary - Macro

For my Macro photoshoot, I decided I wanted to make use of the studio rather than shoot on location. I decided this as I felt using the studio setup would allow me to light my subjects well in order to capture the extreme detail you expect from a macro image. Once I had gone into the studio, I used another student as my subject, deciding to use his face to photograph, as I could get close ups of lots of different features in close up. I used the soft lights on flash to brighten my image and shot my photos between f3.5 and f5.6.

This is an image that I feel went well from my shoot. This image was shot on f5.6. This image shows a very high level of detail on my subjects tongue, and was successful as a macro photo as it makes the tongue look larger than life. One reason for it being a success was the lighting. The softlights made the image bright and vivid, making the close up detail on the tongue very clear and bright. It also helped that I used manual focus when taking this photo, as I was able to ensure the image was sharply focused on the tongue rather than anywhere else on the image, meaning that is where your attention is drawn. Because I had shot the image using a low f stop value, a narrow depth of field has been created, which draws more attention to the tongue, which is the focal point of the picture. This image has also been a success on its use of formal elements. It features lots of muted shades of pink on the tongue and on the lips. Pink usually represents love and romance, therefore a muted shade of red could represent the end of a love or romance. It also shows a range of textures; there are some smooth and soft texture around the mouth and on the lips, but there are rough and bumpy textures visible on the tongue.

 This is an image that I feel was not successful in terms of being a macro image. A macro image is defined as being an image that makes something look larger than life, and I feel this image didn't replicate that effect well. Unlike the image above, which featured some depth which allows me to create a narrow depth of field, the subject of this image was flatter, meaning there is a less prominent narrow focal zone and out of focus background; the narrow depth of field was less prominent. Also, I feel photographing an ear didn't work as well as a tongue, as there is less detail which can revealed from a close up perspective; most of the image is skin, which has the same smooth texture. However, there are some rougher textures shown on the shaved hair around the ear.

This is a technique that I will almost definitely not be using during my project, as it is a technique designed for small subjects close up, and the majority of my project revolves around buildings and landscapes.

Wide Angle Closeup - Work Diary

For my Wide angle closeup shoot, I went out around the college campus to capture my photos. I decided to try and look for small objects, mainly natural things, to photograph, as I felt they would create a much narrower depth of field and emphasize the wide angle of the lens.

Here is a photo I feel was successful from my shoot.

I feel this was a successful photo on many levels. As a demonstration of the wide angle closeup technique, I feel this works as it has been taken from around 25cm from the subject, and the zoom lens was fully zoomed out to 18mm. I have pre-visualised the composition of this image before taking it, using the rule of thirds composition rule. The flower that I focused on was positioned on the top left focus point, meaning your eye is immediately drawn to it. I shot this photo using an aperture of f3.5, meaning the depth of field is very narrow. A small part of the flower is in focus sharply, and the background is is out of focus. In addition to composition, I think that this image was successful in its use of formal elements. There are lots of saturated colours shown in the image, including the yellow of the flower and the green of the stems of the flowers. There are also muted shades of red shown on the bricks, which create contrast to the bright saturated yellows of the flowers. However, one thing that I would criticise about this image is that it appears to be slightly overexposed, as shown on the flowers.
This is an image from my shoot that I feel didn't go well. Although I successfully shot the image using a focal length of 18mm and remained close to my subject, this image is slightly over exposed, which is especially clear on the white petals. This means a lot of the details from the flower are not visible. This image also could have been composed better; I should have positioned the flower more to the right, which would have used the rule of thirds composition rule, placing it on the far right lines of the grid, meaning more attention would be drawn to it. This could also have more saturated colours; there are some saturated colours shown on the yellows in the flower and the greens on the leaves, however, I think it could have been saturated more through Photoshop, making the image much more vibrant and eye catching.

This is a technique I am unlikely to use during my project, as my project is going to be based around architecture and landscape, whereas I feel wide angle closeup works best with smaller subjects. There are very little opportunities to capture small objects in my project.