places

Exploring Locations

Learning out comes assessed in this assignment

1. Perform and implement experiments with camera's light metering methods, exposure techniques and ISO selection relating to landscape photography.
2. Discuss the implications of weather, time of day, time of year and qualities of light (shadow, colour, contrast and intensity) in places photography. 
3. Select and justify appropriate equipment in relation to scheduled photographic excursions.
4. Demonstrate appropriate image production and post production techniques for landscape photography.

There are four study areas within this unit. Each of these will represent an assignment title in it self and is intended to provide the breadth of study discussed in the unit background. These are

1. A familiar place that is significant or important to me
2. The city or rban sprawl
3. Wilderness or countryside
4. The alien or foreign enviroment

Portfolio Guidelines

A broad range of location enviroments are to be explored. For assessent, you are required to submit a portfolio of 8 images that represent a range of all four study areas pluscapture and enviroment experimentation. Optional: for one of the four study areas youcan submit a coherent set of images presented as a series / book of images.

You must include evidence of DSLR use; create and print a range of digital index sheets ( that reflect the photographs you have made throughout the assignment). Also provide evidence of image editing processes such as choice selection, refinement of the final edit and tutor involvement. Apply basic image adjustments  to the final photographs presented in your portfolio to improve there final quality - adjustments such as contrast, tonality and colour are acceptable atthis stage of the course.

Capture information must be given for all portfolio images, please provide the following; Exposure settings, focal length, ISO/filmspeed, location, date and time of capture. Place this information within the assignment portfolio, making sure the assessor can easily recognise which information belongs to each photograph in the portfolio.

Optional: include evidence of medium format use; present at least 1 roll of hand processed 120-format film in the form of a set of black and white negatives and accompanying contact sheet. Provide a small number of silver based work prints that have been produced from the aforementioned negatives - one or more of these prints can be included in your final portfolio submission. Students will be expected to work independently in the dark room but support willl be available at the usual times.

Reseach Advice

It is necessary for students to recognise the importance of research skills and research evaluationsfor each and every practical assignment in the FD programme - it should form the foundation of the entire project work produced. Consult your reading list for a starting point but also listen carefully during lectures and tutorials for other areas of research that will help increase your knowledge of the subject area. Research for this assignment can be broken down roughly in to three sections:

Tecnical - such as camera, lens and media types

Contextual - photographers, artists, contemporary/historical themes

Assignment - accessible locations, genre studies, unit requirements etc...

Added to this arethe notes you will make as a natural response to project work (lists, plans, intentions, evaluations etc..) - these can often play an invaluable role in describing your efforts to the assessor of the unit.

In addition you could research the work of some of the following photographers:-

 Ansel Adams, John Blakemore, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Rene Burri, Fay Godwin, John Davies, Kevin Cummins, Sebastiao Salgado, Charlie Waite, Ian Beesley, Mark Power, Simon Norfolk, Robert Frank, Susan Lipper, Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Ian Mcdonald, Willie Doherty, Martin Parr, Paul Graham, Dan Holdsworth and Micheal Kenna.

Assessment Criteria

Range of idea's, experimentation and development of such idea's documented by use of a blog, sketchbook and or supporting file.

Consideration and use of different systems and processes for image production.

Creative concept and its relationship to research.

Quality of finished prints (adherence to technical requirements).

Detail and accuracy of process descriptions and articulation in written form of rationales behind the concept of your images.

Items for assessment

1. 8 image portfolio of landscape or 'places' photography (print based) or 6 images plus book/set of images.
2. Research and tear sheet file or sketch book. Include all research undertaken for the the assignment,adhereing to the advice and requirements listed in the brief.
3. Course file section or unit file containing all supportive material ( only if it contains further study relevant to your project submission)

Winter Weather Winter light

For this picture project my task was to go out with  my camera and present an image of the present lighting conditions begore the weather broke back in to rain. I had to consider place, time of day,  angle of the sun, contra jour, telephoto effect, over expose in +2 stops, frost, snow and light characteristics.
So first i decided to do some more research into what other images were out there of contre jour photography and what contre jour actually is.
Contre-jour is a french term which means shooting into the sun against daylight.

 Here are some brilliant examples of images i have found were the photgrapher has shot in to light creating the contre jour effect.

Sourced google images by valerie Duncan.



Here are some Contre jour images i created

For the shot above i set my camera to f.22 my shutter to 1/200 and my ISO at 100 using a 24-105mm lens at 24mm, Then converted to black and white in photo shop. My reasons for choosing this fence as my subject was due to how the fence stood out loads in the white field of snow and with the sun shining into the lens the fence was really black, siloetted the fence looks like a better subject to photograph than when not shooting into the sun

 

Camera settings for this image was f.14 at 1/100 of a second and my ISO at 125. Then in post production i made the dark areas darker then used a warming filter and increased the density a fraction and slightly cropped the image. I personally love this photograph it gives a warm feeling even though on that day it was very cold, and i love how you can see the texture of the river and i love how shooting  into the sun has given the obelisk type towers are siloetted if this was an image that i had took that wasnt shooting into the sun then i dont think the image would have been as interesting.

Formby

For these images we all went as a group to Formby, here are some of my results.

For this image above i had my aperture set to f.11 my shutter speed 1/100 and my ISO set 200, my reasoning for having these settings was because i wanted the statue to have a similar to look to the contra jour that i had tried above. In photoshop i adjusted the contrast slightly then colour picked the blues out and increased the blue colour 

 

My aperture for this image above is set to f.8 my shutter speed at 1/80 of a second and my ISO at 200 as it was an over cast dull day, my focal length is at 32 mm on a standard 18-55 mm lens,with my white balance set to cloudy day. In post production i increased the clairty to increase the detail, increased the highlights in the clouds and cropped the bottom of the image. For me the composition is what catches my eye in this image, my eyes tend to follow it down to the point of infinity, also another attractive point of the image is how the background appears layered with different tones of blue and it gives more definition to the sky.

  

Here are my contacts above from that point in the day.

Bootle Dock

On the same trip to Formby we all stopped of at Bootle Dock and captured some shots of the area.

For this image above i had my tripod set out as i wanted a slower shutter at 1/40 of a second and with my shaky hands i certainly wouldn't of been able to keep it stable at 1/40 of a second. I had my aperture set to f.5.6 on a standard 18-55 mm lens and my ISO to 200 as it was still over cast at this point. In post production i increased the clarity and contrast then placed a cooling filter over it to give the water and sky a tinge of blue which i think give the image a better look. What i like about this image from an aesthetic point of       

view is the reflections i think they look great, but if i was to go back and do a reshoot i would change my composition slightly and have the full building in the frame on the left.

I also thought id try with my camera held in portrait but this definatley wasn't as good composition as the first  

image above this one everything on this image is the same camera settings as the one above this apart from in post production i didn't put a cooling filter on this one.

  

     

Rainy Day Weekly Picture Project 2

Rainy day'

Please use your camera to photograph rain.

You can photograph rain through a window or car window, using depth of field,

and blurring. By photographing rain into sun light, rain becomes visible.

Consider: Place, mood, contra jour, back lit subjects, reflection.

Does rain dictate mood? Can rain look uplifting? Martin Parr's 'Bad Weather' series.

For this picture project i wanted to stage something to get point across about it being a rainy day, I tried shooting in puddles and capturing shots of rain drops but none of that was working for me. So i decided that i was going to set a scene up, by just simply placing something of the right context into the image the picture begins to explain its self, here is my result.

On creating this image i set my aperture to f.1.8 on an 85 mm fixed prime lens with my shutter speed at 1/100 of a second and my ISO is et to 100. I created this image in this way as i knew everybody else's images were going to be what you would normally expect so i wanted to try something that was set up. In photo shop i converted the image to black and white increased the highlights so the rain stood out then placed a vignette around the image to give the feeling of dull rainy day.

  

Concrete Paradise

For this weekly picture project we had a choice of two themes that we could photograph, which were a place to sleep and concrete paradise i chose concrete paradise.

For this i had the perfect idea for me, i knew of a place which i know was quite beautiful, you could get to via Trowden village on the other side of Colne just past the end of the M65 at Wycoller park. I didnt want to photograph it during the day as then it would be just like the thousands of shots id seen of it already, so i thought about doing it at night just as the sun had gone down with a couple of torch's lighting up the inside of the atom playing around with long exposures.

For this shot set my aperture to f.3.5 on my standard 18-55 mm lens with my focal length at 18 mm, i had my shutter speed very slow as it was quite dark by this point at about 20.0 and i had put my ISO at around 800, my reasoning for doing it this was because i didn't want to much grain in the image so i slowed my shutter speed down and turned my ISO  to 800. I quite like the aesthetics of the image due to the long exposure i have managed to capture a pinkish sky to due to lights from the town in the distance which i do actually quite like . I also like how i composed the image you can see through windows in the atom that there is hills all around it which i thought was a little bit of paradise in its self.  

  

Here are is a shot i had taken before sun went down completely.

Liverpool

For this trip i took a day out to Liverpool for the Exploring Locations and for Research Methods and was happy with a few of the results i got. I took the opportunity to walk down parts of the docks and in to the town.

On this particular day it was over cast again so my sky wasn't looking that great so i set my aperture to f.10 my shutter to 1/125 of a second and my ISO at 100, i took this image is was attracted to the mist in the background, all i would do if i was to re-shoot is recompose it so the bar in the left corner wasn't in the frame.

For this image my camera was set to f.10 my shutter to 1/160 of a second and my ISO to 100, There is two things i like about this image are the reflections of the clouds and the composition.

For this shot i had my camera settings as the same as the above image, but in post production i converted to Black and white and placed a red filter on the image to emphasise the detail in the wood which i think looks great.

For this image i had my aperture set to f.11 my shutter speed to 1/100 of a second and my ISO set to 125, my focal length was 28 mm on a 24-105 mm lens. For me this is an atmospheric image with the moodiness of the clouds with the light breaking through highlighting the water around this beautiful boat, also adding to the atmosphere is the big chimney in the background hothering over everything.

 

Troph of Bowland

For this trip a few of us got in the mini bus and took a trip to the Troph of Bowland.

My aperture was set to f.14 my shutter to 1/100 of a second and my ISO to 100 and my focal length is 23 mm on a standard 18-55 mm lens 

This was a long exposure so that i could get that milky effect in the water so i set my aperture to f.22 at 1/8 of a second at ISO 100 with a focal length of 18 on a standard 18-55 mm lens.

 for this shot i set my aperture to f.13 and my shutter speed to 1/100 of a second and my ISO to 100 my reasoning for this is because it was a bright day with bits of cloud here and there so i didn't really need to to anything except adjust my aperture to f.13. I quite like the look of the trees they were very photogenic to me i couldn't stop photographing them although in post production i had to edit 4 people out the image with the clone stamp and adjusted the contrast a tad.

For this image i set my aperture to f.14 my shutter to 1/100 of s second and my ISO at 100 with a focal length of 55 mm on a standard 18-55 mm lens. When i spotted this tree i again seemed attracted to it for its aesthetic qualitys. my reasoning for composing the image like this was i wanted the tree to frame the image, which i think it dos quite well.