Assignment One - Contrasts

Black and White

When I thought about black and white as a contrast in a single image, there is the obvious of making the image black and white. Taking a picture of something that is already black and white. I then thought of the statement..'it is there in black and white'.  The authority given to the written word as opposed to the spoken word.  I felt photographing a dictionary included all of these contrasts.

Moving / Still

I used my newly practised panning techniques from the early exercises to create the picture of the penny farthing. I was rather pleased with this shot.
By contrast I have also attempted to show that it is not the speed of the vehicle that determines movement and so chose a usually powerful vehicle stuck in snow. it's not moving anywhere.

Heavy / Light

Trying to show heavy visually took me awhile to achieve.  A picture of something heavy doesn't necessarily make you see heavy.  It took me a couple of weeks to come up with the idea for this photo. Sitting at the airport looking for my lost luggage and seeing people struggle with their bags especially over sized bags. Of course. We can all identify with a heavy suitcase. Hauling a bag up stairs will really emphasis how heavy it is.
By contrast I've used a photo I took at the Xmas markets of these very delicate glass baubles.  So light and delicate you are afraid of breaking them.

Liquid / Solid

Like a duck in water so the saying goes. The splashing of these ducks fighting had you ducking from the spray. When the water is frozen solid, these otherwise graceful swans were ungainly, sliding across the ice.

Many / Few

One day passing through Hyde Park I saw dozens of geese in the field. I'd never seen so many geese. For the contrast of few I decided to have one bird in focus and another faded out in the distance. Few is more than one but I wanted to give a sense of fading away from the many.

Hard / Soft

It was the fluffy tail of the squirrel that caught my eye this afternoon. It was bushier than usual and with the sunlight catching it, you just wanted to rub your face in it. Hard took some thinking. I wanted to portray this contrast with another animal.  Eventually I recalled pictures I had taken at the zoo of the tortoise enclosure. This one I think works.

Light / Dark

This contrast came almost by accident. I was photographing street scenes near Trafalgar Square when I saw how the sun had created a rainbow in the fountain water. The light was magic. I knew immediately this would be my light contrast photo. Thinking about dark in a way that would truly contrast this light initially seemed difficult as I had visions of dark as almost scary in my mind. That lead me to a picture I had taken on a ghost walk on Halloween. It was a wet evening. My intent was to take a picture that reflected something sinister about the street.

Straight / Curved

I've chosen two sculptures for this set of contrasts. For my choice of straight, I felt the environment of office blocks in the background emphasises the straightness. Choosing a body in water I feel accentuates the sense of curves.

Small / Big

Road work machinery gives a sense of big just by looking at it. I focused on the wheel to stress the size of the machine.  The contrast of a small trolley wheel in a bright red and upside down adds to the sense of smallness compared to the wheel below on the road work machine.

Exhibition - The Art Books of Henri Matisse

The Art Books of Henri Matisse at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Gallery.

Just discovered the gallery.  Struggled to understand the poems fully.  (literary French).

Love the simplicity of his drawings and use of colour.

This statement resonated with me: (particularly while working on my assignment on contrasts)

The eye must not be fatigued by contrast. These..should be imperceptible, following a melodious line.  It is a question of visiting the plates in the same range of colours in order to avoid surprises.

Exhibition - Shadow Catchers

Went with the girls to the V&A to see Shadow Catchers.

Really impressive exhibition.  Each of the 5 artists has used a different way of creating an image onto paper without a camera.  The video is fantastic. Listening to how they saw the images and then set about creating them. Was particulary impressed with the way Susan Derges used water and moonlight.  I was attrated to the simple images like the leaves on paper and the christening dress.
The drop of water light by a torchlight. Simple but very dramatic.

I've tried using liquid light.  Bought some sunography paper to play around with. (just need sun!)

Will go back to this exhibition after Xmas and absorb a bit more.  Seeing and understanding light is key to any image creation.  We all intend to look for workshops to learn a bit more.

Cropping

Take a fresh look at photos previously taken and read through notes to date. Can I see a different picture within these images.  Use three different subjects.

This scene taken at sunset in Italy. Looking out over vast countryside with a stunning sunset.  I intended  the trees to be silhouetted. I think the narrow crop i have now chosen (below) improves the image by first removing some of the black at the bottom of the image which doesn't add anything. Similarly by taking out the top part of the sky which is not red the scene now focuses on the bright red and pink sky.  I think it also gives greater emphasis to the vast plain. For future reference i think this image would have benefited from being a narrow stitched photo.

 A street photo with a few faults. Firstly it is crooked. There is no major focus to the image.

 Cropping into a vertical frame concentrating on the second elderly woman and the flowers tells more of a story and now focuses the viewer to the woman.  The story becomes quite different.  Is she buying flowers for someone? Why? This change of story can also make the picture not truthful.  What do you want the image to say is the lesson here.

 The young girl is delighting in the snow. However placed in the centre of the frame it is not a strong image.

 A tight crop of the girl says more about the snow than the vast amount of it in the original. Now it is clear she is catching snow in her mouth. that the snow is falling all around her.  Her rosy cheeks emphasis the coldness.

Each of these pictures has been improved by cropping. If only I had seen the tighter image when taking it in the first place! Take more time to see the picture you want.

Galleries and More

I keep three journals.  This blog, a written version of it which acts as a kind of draft copy of the blog and a small notebook that I carry around with me.  The last one is mainly used for jotting down ideas as they occur to me.  maybe I see something out of the bus window, or something in a restaurant.  Sometimes just an idea that pops into my head.  It may be a scribbled diagram of how I visualise a picture.

Should I add those comments here?  It would be great if students commented on each others blogs. it doesn't seem to happen from what I've seen.  Yes there are the chat forums but it's not the same.

Then there are the exhibitions I go to.  Should I comment on what inspired me at the time?

I think I might try it for a few weeks and see if it adds to this blog journal.  I'll try and get feedback from somewhere.  Maybe that doesn't really matter either. It might just be very useful as a note to myself on what I felt at the time.

I'll start with lat Sunday, 12 December.

Saw the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Natural History Museum in London.

Incredible shots by very young photographers.  Loads of kids visiting obviously inspired by this.

I also noticed a recurring theme in the photographers comments about the amount of time spent on achieving their shot.  It sometimes was a place familiar to them that they studied for 2 or 3 years, sometimes a place they grew up in and knew so well. More often the picture was not spontaneous but the result of many hours , days weeks or years.

Photograph the familiar.

Vertical and Horizontal Frames

The brief for this exercise was to take 20 photographs as vertical, then to rephotograph the same place in a horizontal format.

To begin with I thought it would be easy if I just did one vertical one horizontal, but actually this didn't work.  My first couple of attempts made me realise I needed to think differently when shooting in this style.  I finally found that by taking an area an just walking around seeing the scene in the format I intended to shoot in gave much better result.  I didn't take the same picture in both formats as in my first attempts but viewed the area (a small park) looking for the pictures that would suit the format. 



For me this was very liberating and I started seeing more shapes and lines once I took this approach.

The first few vertical frames I looked for tall objects, the trees, the statues and buildings.  Then I saw lines and patterns, shapes that benefited from a vertical composition.

When I shot the horizontal images I was more aware of shapes, patterns and balance for this format as a result of concentrating solely on vertical images for the first part of this exercise.

This is a technique I will employ in the future when I'm looking to make my images more interesting.  It is a great way to see more than your initial view.  Different ways to balance an image and taking your time to see everything.

Positioning The Horizon

This image is my preferred choice out of the series taken for this exercise.  See my reasons below.

For this exercise our brief was to take a series of photos with the horizon in various positions within the frame. To consider the different elements in each arrangement.

My series is of Loch Fyne. Both the sky and the loch are interesting so choosing the sky over the loch is really a matter of taste as both have drama and focusing on either produces a good picture. The sky has dramatic clouds. The loch has beautiful reflections. 
I then considered the foreground. Lots of foreground with very little sky as in the 3rd image on the right. This is a dramatic image with lots of texture. The horizon is very high in the frame.
On the other hand placing the horizon in the lower part of the frame, as in the images 2nd on the left and bottom on the right, show the drama of the sky.  The clouds and the hills become the dominate factors. 

In the end I decided the image I would work on was the 3rd on the left.

Why?  I like this image placing the horizon in the top third of the frame and incorporating the sky in the reflection. I have moved slightly so that there is strong foreground interest.  I felt that the seaweed in the bottom left hand corner balanced against the hill on the top right hand side.

The exercise is about where to place the horizon but I think that you also have to think why you are placing it in one position over another. 

Balance

This exercise is looking at the visual balance of the frame.  Taking 6 previously shot photos and deciding how the balance works in each one.

                                                                  The small object is placed near the centre of the frame with the larger object on the right of the frame. The boy on the right is offset by the woman's hand in the centre of the frame.

                                                                  The balance in this image is very similar to the one above of a small object offset by a large object. However in this one the small object is nearer to the left while the large object is closer to the centre. The relationship here is between the man and the bunch of grapes n the bottom of the frame.

This time we have three equal parts placed in the centre of the frame giving symmetry to the image. The wind kite with the man in the middle of the kite gives a centre balanced image.

                                                                   A large and small object offset in this image. Here we are also adding vertical and horizontal lines to the balance. The woman descending the stairs on the very left balanced against the stairs filling the right of the frame.

                                                                  A large and small object in the centre offset by a large object on the right. The large statue with the woman appearing small besdie it are offset by each other and the windows on the right.

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The image below was interesting, as after looking at the balance in this one I decided to crop out a lot of path in the bottom of the image as I felt it added nothing and really upset the balance.  Looking at it now I think it is better balance between the woman with the umbrella and the dark trees in the background.

Initially it was not obvious where the balance in the pictures was. The more I looked at them the more obvious it became.  I could also see how a slightly different composition would have improved some of  The last one especially. I cropped it to make some improvement but there is still too much empty space on the right hand side. Had I been further to the left with the woman walking into the picture rather than in the middle of it, it would be a better picture.

Focal Lengths and Different View Points

 Following on from the previous exercise, this time I have taken an image using a wide-angled lens at 20mm and another with a zoom at 105mm. 
 In each image I have attempted to fill as much of the frame as possible with the statue. Using the wide angled lens I am almost standing on top of the statue. (image left). This image gives a sense of depth to the image.  The foreground appears very close yet the background far away. The strong diagonals created by the fences and tree give a stronger sense of environment and pull you into the picture.
The image on the right taken at 105mm was taken from a distance from the statue. This reduces the depth of the image Giving the feeling that the bacground is very close. You now are forced to study the detail of the statue on its own.
Portrait work would benefit from the zoom lens but the curved edges of the wide angle are not necessarily going to be very flattering if glamour is what you are after.  However a sense of environment may give a stronger image.

Overall from this exercise I can see that thinking about what you want the image to say will determine what lens and focal length you should choose.

Focal Length

The brief for this exercise was to see the effect of changing from one focal length to another.  Either by using different points on a zoom lens or by changing lens.
I used a 24-105 lens and have taken 3 images, 105mm 67mm 24mm. The camera was set on a tripod and each shot taken from the same position.
The result shows that although the statue in the three images appears closer in the image at 105mm and far away when taken at 24mm, the relationship between the saute and the surrounding environment is exactly the same.  If you zoom in on the 24mm shot it looks the same as the image shot at 105mm. 

Changing focal length while remaining in the same position is about magnification.  How much of the scene and how close I want it to appear.