Assignment 4: Applying lighting techniques - Reflection

I have finally managed to sit down and take some action based on my tutors observations of assignment 4. There are a few bits of tidying up to do but one comment rings very true. Somewhere during this assignment I lost the 'Art' side of the project and ended up with a bland 'technical' exercise.

In this post I am going to address some of the shortcomings and try to do it in a more artistic way.

Form
The first issue is with Form 1. It was suggested that some vignetting would help to anchor the figure in the frame. I have added some vignetting to the bottom of the image by burning in Photoshop which does help. Note also how the black background appears to alter the texture of the statue when compared to other shots. This must be due to the black material not reflecting as much light back on to the statue. This in turn causes less light to hit the highlight areas and lowers the contrast between the background and the object. Here is the corrected image.

I have also re-shot the second 'Form' image to give a more abstract feel to the framing. Again the statue was lit with a torch. I had the camera on a tripod in my garage. After setting manual focus I fired the shutter with a thirty second exposure and painted the statue with light from the torch. I took quite a few shots as it was very trial and error.

Re-shot to show form in a more abstract manner.

Texture

Cropped to show texture.

The original image has been shot with strong side lighting which shows up the texture. In shooting I have slightly lit the background which has put some dark lines in the shot. To get rid of the distractions I could darken down the back a bit in Photoshop or crop the image.

In keeping with the lack of artistic framing I mentioned earlier, I am taking the second approach. I want to crop the image and as I am showing texture I can crop to just part of the image. I have chosen to get rid of everything except the chest area. The shape of the object really shows the texture off well here.

There was also a problem with my second texture picture. As the shot was framed in a landscape format, the image is left with two large black area's, one either side of the statue. Again I cropped to loose this dead space. I have re-framed and used the rule of thirds to provide a more pleasing composition.

Re-framed by cropping to eliminate the large black areas of the original shot. I have placed the child roughly on thirds and also allowed some 'looking space'.

Colour
The first colour picture has been replaced with another that was shot at the same time. This is to get rid of the wooden table top in the original photo. I have taken just a small section of the statue as this shows the colour well. Doing it this way adds more variety to the group of shots in the assignment. Unfortunately there is a little blur at the bottom of the shot.

Colour.

Finally, the second colour image was cropped to balance out the picture a bit better.

I have to say that I lost my way a bit with this exercise. With this redo I hope to have swung the balance back in favour of the 'Art' side of this course!

Preparation for assignment 5 - Applying the techniques of illustration and narrative.

Assignment five is the final assignment for this module. The task requires us to illustrate a story for a magazine. The story should provide images for six to twelve pages and I will also be required to provide a magazine cover. Words for the story are not required but captions for the pictures are.

I should be pulling together all the techniques and experience I have learnt so far. The final part of the brief states that any theme that has a narrative element could be suitable.

As this is the final piece I have decided to combine it closely with my interest in fashion style photography and a fairly large project that I have just started organising. It is clear from the assignments in part five that the planning and ability to get the shots required are important aspects. This post deals with some of the organisation required for this shoot.

The Concept
The concept is that of two women, friends, that are on a small road trip in their Volkswagen beetle. The style is 60's and the various scenarios depict incidents that happen on route. I will be using a make-up artist who specialises in vintage make-up. I will also be assisted by another photographer.

The Assets
OK, so we obviously need a car. It is no coincidence that we are using a Volkswagen Beetle as a friend of mine has a 1966 restored model. As previously mentioned the story revolves around two friends so I need two models. I also require a certain amount of props such as clothing and smaller items such as bags etc.

Planning Shots
Planning ahead I have several ideas for shots:

• Filling the car with petrol 
• Checking a map for directions. Maybe by a sign post?
• Photographing sites
• Trouble with the car - looking under the bonnet.
• The car has broken down. The girls are trying to push it.
• They give up and decide to Hitch hike.

Some of the items have been sourced already. There are also some images here for inspiration and ideas.

A date has been added to the diary (weather permitting) to carry out this shoot towards the end of November.

Check List of items already obtained
Dress 1
Dress 2
Car
Maps
Camera's (vintage for models)
Coca Cola in glass bottles
Accessories

This post is somewhat organic and may grow as the project unfolds!

Narrative by other photographers - Darcy Padilla

As part of the suggested reading, I have been looking at the work of some photographers who have produced some important narrative work. The first of these I have looked at is Darcy Padilla, who over the course of a number of years photographed and documented the life of a woman with aids. The project was called 'The Julie Project'. I have made some notes to refer back to for my final assignment which is also a photographic narrative.

1. Mood.
The project has been shot entirely in black and white. The first thing that strikes the viewer is the perception of time of the images. Darcy started his project in 1993, that's 18 years ago at the time of writing this post. The very first image gives the impression that the photographs were taken a lot longer ago than that, the black and white re-enforcing the 50's look of the old building. This combination has set the tone for the rest of the images that follow.

2. The journey
We are not distracted from the journey by the shape of the photo's either. All are presented in landscape format which here leads you from one image to the next without any 'awkward' jumps in the process.

3. Information
Each shot shows enough information to put it's subject in context. Interestingly, this mostly seems to have been achieved by focal length and by light on the subject. Depth of field is used to direct the viewers attention but nowhere near as much as other artists make use it. take for example the year 2008. The attention of each shot is grabbed by the lighter main subject with DOF playing much less of a role. Note also that as well as showing enough of the surrounding of the subject, the images have been carefully crafted so as to not show too much.

4. Narrative.
The occasional insertion of a newspaper article or some other document gives a break in the images.I do find the written notes a bit distracting though.

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.

A narrative picture essay

For my narrative picture essay I have decided to document our anniversary weekend break to Ghent in Belgium. Ghent is a beautiful city with much to see. Canals, Cathedrals and a very attractive medieval quarter provide for the cultural side of the visit whilst the many bars and restaurants provide entertainment.

Ghent is a university town and is becoming a very popular tourist attraction. We travelled there by car using the Channel Tunnel.

Before we went I made the made a note of shots which I took with me. They were as follows:

1. Setting of in the morning - show the car and either bags, the time or the sat nav with Ghent as the destination
2. The channel tunnel - to show the way we are crossing the channel.
3. driving through France to Belgium - maybe a shot of the border?
4. Arrival in Ghent - a landmark to show we have arrived.
5. The hotel.
6. Things we do in Ghent.
7. A flavour of the holiday atmosphere in the town centre.

I managed to capture most of the images I needed but did fail to get one or two important ones, such as a shot to specify that we were in Ghent.

Anyway, we set off with a shot of the Channel Tunnel. It is pretty difficult to take pictures in this area as you are confined to your car so this shot was taken through the car window with a compact camera. In my notes I had put a shot of bags or luggage as we set of in the morning, but this didn't add anything to the story that couldn't be deduced from the following shots.

Boarding the Channel Tunnel.

The next image is of the car on the train in the Channel Tunnel. This symbolises the short trip across to France.

Making the crossing.

Again in my notes I had the border crossing but as it turned out there was not anywhere to stop! Again we took shots through the car window with the compact camera. None were that good but I needed a shot and this was the best one. In my picture montage at the end of this piece, I have hidden the quality of this image but setting it as a background.

Entering Belgium.

We have now arrived at the hotel. Although there is no sign that actually says Hotel I believe this is clear from the location of this photograph in the sequence and from the interior of the building.

The hotel.

Now a bit of a jump. Here (or before the last image) I should have had a sign or something with the word 'Ghent'  to show the city we were in. With this missing we go straight to a shot of a typical building and crowds of people sitting on the waterfront.

Typical buildings and masses of tourists.

Now showing a more modern street view which also conveys the faster pace of this part of the area.

Busy town centre.

 Ghent has award winning illuminations which are shown here in the most popular part of the city to visit. This is also a glimpse of the many restaurants and bars.

Ghent in the evening.

The next three images are grouped to show some of the other types of attractions to visit. The tower houses a museum dedicated to bells and also allows visitors to see the clock mechanism.

The Belfort.

The clock mechanism.

One of the cast bells.

More bells in the bell museum.

Below I have tried to select images to tell the story over three pages. The three pages roughly outline different parts of the journey, namely travelling & accommodation in the first page, the tourist element in the second and finally the historic aspect.

Conclusion
This was good fun and highlighted some of the problems you may come across, even with a photo script. Some of the images were impossible to get, like the border shots. Others I think I may have been able to get in different circumstances. Another point that this exercise highlighted is that it is not always possible to go back if you don't get what you need to in the first instance.