Rain

1 Photo that would work for a magazine cover on the subject of rain. I carried out a quick brainstorm and wrote down all the ideas that came to mind on the subject of rain. Here are some of them:

running down window, puddles, windscreen wipers, wet cat, dog shaking, umbrellas, raincoats, drips, splash, huddled under newspaper etc.

As you can see, even with brainstorming a lot of clichéd ideas still pop up.

I then set out trying to capture the above when the weather was right. I ended up with a few possibles but chose the following. I thought it worked best as a magazine cover because it had space for the writing, the orientation was correct and there is something that for me really works with the colours. Most of the colours are quite subdued except for the umbrellas. Because of this the umbrellas catch the eye and of course, they immediately say 'rain'!

Evidence of action

The brief for 'Evidence of action' calls for one photograph in which it can be seen that something has happened. I attended a local ploughing match with the initial thought of shooting for my final assignment. It was unfortunately not a very good day and I had to leave soaking wet before the time of the prize giving!

I did however take a number of shots and one of those is my representation of 'Evidence of action'.



The 'Evidence' is obviously the ploughed strip and kinda like that it is actually not the most dominant part of the image. Attention is drawn to the strip by the judges who are looking at it. The other end of the strip is blocked off by the horses, which stop the eye from following the furrow and then leaving the frame.

As a little self critique, I do wish I had angled the camera to allow just a little more of the ploughed area. Perhaps if I had moved a couple more feet to the left so that the furrow was angled like in the picture below?

Juxtaposition

Juxtaposition in illustration is described in the learning text as the putting together of two objects so as to suggest a relationship. The exercise gives the option of creating a still life to act as the cover for a book or to photograph a person with a possession or the result of their hobby or work. I have a friend called David who has a model railway layout so I chose the latter of the two exercise options.

Below we see my image of David with one of his model trains.I have asked David to hold the train the way he is holding it, to really emphasize that this picture is about him and the locomotive, his possession. In the bottom left had of the shot I have also included part of the layout. I took about two dozen pictures in this session and have photographs both with and without. It was a difficult decision whether to include it or not but in the end I chose to as I felt it added a little context to the image without distracting too much from the main subject.

Technically the shot was very straight forward. I set up a flash light on a stand to camera right and a little higher than David. This light was diffused by shooting through a white umbrella and the flash was fired by a remote radio trigger. Other things I tried in the same session were a bare flash which was too harsh, A snoot which was harsh but did work and finally a grid. I should explain that there are some shelves behind David that I did not wish to include, hence the exercises to limit the amount of light falling on the background.

In the end I preferred the light from the shoot through umbrella so solved the problem by hanging some black material over the shelves and carefully positioning the light so that as little as possible spilt on to the background. Finally I did a little post processing in Photoshop by using the burn tool around the edges of the photograph to concentrate the viewers attention on David.

Symbols

This little project is about symbols. Below are a number of concepts for which I need to find suitable symbols and give a brief description of how I would use these in a photograph.

Symbols are important in photography as they help us get a message across with limited imagery. This can be very useful for advertising or illustration for example.

For a symbol to be effective, its meaning has to be easily recognisable. The problem with this of course, is that it is easy to fall into common cliché's. Symbols may also have different cultural meanings and can change meaning over time.

Growth
Could be represented by a seedling. The image could be a macro shot. Growth could also be represented by a shot of a line chart hanging on a wall with the graph always increasing and eventually leaving the chart and continuing on the wall.

Other ideas: young animal with mother, baby

Excess
Imagine a cocktail glass filled with diamonds. The image could be shot with the diamonds actually spilling out of the glass. Secondly a shot of a dozen credit cards held in fan fashion. Maybe a city gent with money notes spilling from every pocket and under the brim of his bowler hat etc.

Crime
First symbol that springs to mind is a CCTV camera. Could be used in a photograph as a close up against groups of people. Handcuffs & justice scales could be used as stand-alone imagery.

Silence
A finger held to pursed lips is pretty much a universal sign of silence or 'quiet'. Would work best if fairly large in the image. Also an exam hall or a very tranquil pond or lake scene.

Poverty
To represent poverty we could have a close up of hands holding a begging bowl. Another symbol for poverty is related to the home, such as an empty fridge or a dirty and unkempt house.