Assignment 3 : Rejects.

Below I have some of the images that I chose not to submit with the assignment either because I feel that the composition was not right, or the exposure, or that they were not strong enough images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Assignment 3: Monochrome.

The Brief.

For this assignment, choose a theme or subject that you will conceive, shoot and process in black and white, attempting to bring out the monochrome image qualities of form, tonal contrast and texture, perhaps also experimenting with key. To accompany the final images (between 5-10) write an account of why you chose this particular theme or subject, what you set out to achieve from the point of view of black and white imagery, and to what extent you feel you have succeeded.

I had already looked ahead so I knew what to expect with this assignment and could take my time in planning it. I started off thinking about what I could shoot subject wise. My main choices were either a war reenactment or steam trains/railway. I also looked at what other students had chosen as subjects, and how they had interpreted the assignment. There was a wide variety of work featuring landscapes and still lifes. I have to say that I had not considered still life as an option before so I added that in to my possibilities. I noticed that another student had already used a war reenactment as their subject so that ruled it out for me as I wanted to do something different, plus I could not find an event locally. I was very keen on my steam train idea. Maybe this is because my dad loves trains and as a little girl we were taken to railways for days out in the school holidays. I also felt that I was important to photograph something that would of been shown in black and white in its day. With my decision made I set about looking up railway and train photographers.

Research.

I was first drawn to the work of Richard Steinheimer who was an American railroad photographer. He was often called the “Ansel Adams of railroad photography”. Steinheimer documented the railroads heyday and the transition from steam into diesel motive power. A lot of his images depict trains in the larger geography and culture of the time. He was known for producing photographs at night, in bad weather and with a disregard for danger as he would perch on top of moving trains.

 

You can see that this image has been taken at night. I love the rich quality of the image, how the angle of the train draws your eye to the light and how the steam moves directly up the frame.

 

This photo has to be my favouite of all the work I have seen from Steinheimer. I think that the use of lighting really makes the image. I like how the train has been illuminated but also areas in the frame have been backlit.

 

I really like the misty quality of this image. To me it looks as though it was taken early morning or late evening, as it looks like the sun in the distance either rising or setting. This photo does not seem to have the deep tones that the other images do but I still like the hazy, dreamlike quality that it does have.

I also looked at the work of Ogle Winston Link, another American photographer. He was best known for his black and white photography and sound recordings of the last days of steam locomotive railroading on the Norfolk and Western in the U.S in the late 1950s. Link helped to establish rail photography as a hobby. He also spearheaded night photography producing images such as a steam train passing a drive-in movie theatre.

 

I wonder with this shot whether Link happened to be at the drive-in with his camera or whether he was there purposely to capture this shot. I personally think that the only thing that would of made the image better would be if the screen had also show a train rather than a plane.

 

 

 

Much more variation in tones with this image and I think that is what I particularly like. The building has a similar brightness level to that of the steam which makes for a move balance shot.

 

This photograph seems to be shot in a slightly different style, other examples of Link’s work that I have come across all seem to have much more brightness about them. This image appears generally quite dark apart from the face of the building being illuminated and a bit of light coming through the steam.

 

Planning the shoot.

The shoot took quite a bit of planning as the station was only really operating during the schools Easter break. I could not get any time off work so was literally left with one Saturday as an option for photographing. This meant that I was unable to go and view the location beforehand so I was left with the only option of researching the station online in an attempt to pre-plan some of the shots.

I was hoping for a relatively bright day, but not too bright that everything appeared washed out. The weather this year has still very much been hit and miss, so it would be nice to have a bit of warmth.

I then moved on to equipment. I selected my 18-105mm lens as from what I could see online, the station and surroundings were quite compact so I felt a longer lens would not be necessary. I packed the tripod in the car in case it was required.

Before setting out I reset my camera settings from my last trip, making sure that I was shooting in RAW as well as JPEG so that I had a reference point and could see how an image appeared at the time of shooting. I also set the camera to photograph in monochrome. Obviously the black and white image only shows up on the LCD screen and not when you are looking through the viewfinder. I would need to get into the habit of checking both. I calculated the amount of space I had left on the memory card and worked out that I would have enough. I also made a mental note to order a new card as I would like to keep the images on the card even though they are also on the computer. I also made sure that the camera lens was clean, as well as the LCD screen as for some reason there is often dust behind the screen protecter. I made sure to check the memory space on the laptop to make sure I would have room to transfer the images over and charged the cameras battery as well as bringing along another fully charged spare battery.

The Shoot.

The shoot went better than planned considering I was unsure of options for shooting until I arrived at the venue. I walked around the site first to get some ideas and would check potential shots through the viewfinder and on the LCD screen to anticipate how they would turn out. I arrived not long after the station opened at half 10 and there were already people milling around. Some people were actually having a lesson driving the steam train so it kept going up and down the tracks allowing for some shooting. As usual I always like to treat the assignments as an extension of the projects and just further learning as opposed to putting pressure on myself to produce an amazing finished piece, however great that would be. In some ways creating the images was both easier and harder than expected. I found that I enjoyed the whole shooting process and was particularly interested in shooting areas of the trains/ station as opposed to the whole thing. As the shoot went on I did relax and gain in confidence as I started to realise the kinds of images I wanted to produce which in turn allowed the assignment to flow much better.

Downloading the images.

I downloaded all of the images onto my laptop in the pictures folder and then viewed them all using Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. I have been trying to also use Lightroom 4 but I have not been getting on well with it. It either will not allow me to open images as they are “not compatable” or I cannot save them to the laptop. I am still happy with my labelling system and can quite easily find any images I require.

 Pictures> Digital Photographic Practice> DPP Assignment3

Editing.

I took a total of 71 images and chose to submit six images purely because they are the shots I felt most strongly about, I did not want to have a predetermined number as I did not want to feel restricted in any way. I knew that I would be able to produce between 5-10 images that I would be happy with so chose to wait until post production to decide. I had left it a couple of days before reviewing the images and was able to reduce the number to 24 quite quickly. I then waited several days before reducing the number once again and was then happy with my final six.

Images.

 

1/500 f5.6 ISO 250 34mm

This first image of a train waiting to be restored caught my eye because of the contrast in tones from the white of the wheel rims to the dark shadows. I was also drawn to the texture which really stands out on the image, I almost feel like the photo will have the same feel to it. I have increased the contrast slightly as I really wanted to keep and highlight the chink of light coming through the cabin. There is some shadow clipping present but I do not feel that it is significant enough problem. I think that this image works well in black and white as the texture is much more prominent and it is the first thing you notice on the monochrome example.

 

 

1/500 f5.6 ISO 250 75mm

Monochrome has once again allowed the focus of the image to be the steam. I found that with the colour shot you eye was immediately taken to the colour of the train. The black and white also allows for a hazier feel to the photo. Post processing I experimented with the exposure slightly. I felt the image I shot at the time was a little too over exposed and so the steam was not as obvious. Any more under exposed and you start to lose detail of the wheels and the tracks.

 

 

 

1/500 f5.6 ISO 2500 26mm

Inside an old Royal Mail train the sorting area had been restored. I wanted to try and use monochrome to highlight pattern and repetition. Each section on the shelf has a place name underneath and while the train was moving sorters would have to put each letter in the relevant section. I had a go at doing this and it did not go well, I would of been particularly slow. I tried to shoot this image so that you got a sense of movement and repetition that would reflect what would have happened at the time the train was used. I think that black and white has emphasised this point.

 

 

1/640 f5.6 ISO 2500 66mm

I have really tried to experiment with different ideas with this assignment, more so than in the past. I am always worried about doing the “wrong” thing. I need to accept that everyone will have a personal preference when it comes to having an opinion on how an image is presented. With this shot I have gone for a more high key/ over exposed look. This is because the train was very weathered and looked bleached out .  I wanted to highlight that with this photo. When I tried to do the same with the colour version of the image it did not have such a strong look about it and the resulting image did not come out as well as I had hoped. I think that with the monochrome I have achieved the look I was going for and it creates a stronger representation of the train.

 

 

 

1/640 f5.6 ISO 200 105mm

I have tried to show shape and form a bit more here. I think that it also shows texture too. I purposely took a photo of this at an angle as I didn’t like the look straight on and square in the frame made it appear too static for my liking and I am trying to have a running theme of movement through the images. I wanted the viewer to be able to look at it and feel the smoothness of the wood and metal and feel the texture of the chain. To me there seems to be so many shapes just in this one shot; squares, circles and the three circles also make an implied triangle.  I actually found the colour version of this photo very distracting, the whole image appeared too busy and as the viewer, I did not know where to look first. To me having the image as monochrome forced a sense of order upon the shot.

 

 

1/640 f5.6 ISO 200 26mm

Trying to show texture again here. I came across this shot by chance, while trying to photograph the steam train I noticed the reflection in the corner of my frame. I decided that this was a more interesting photo than the one I was trying to take so I experimented with composition until I got the image I wanted. I like the contrast between the glass which does not appear to of aged at all, and the wooden sides of the carriage that seem to be peeling away. I had originally felt that the colour version and the black and white version appeared to look equally as good, but after increasing the amount of contrast between the shadows and highlights I now much prefer the monochrome.

 

Conclusion.

Again I feel that it works well treating the assignment as an extension on the projects rather than a standalone exercise. I worked hard on the projects leading up to the exercise and think that my technical ability as well as my ability to anticipate how and image will turn out, has improved. I really made a effort to thoroughly understand the concepts around each project which I think has given me more confidence. I have carried on trying to link previous assignments with this assignment for continuity throughout the course and I also hope it will help me to keep improving. I think that I have experimented much more with this assignment compared to the previous one and I think that this is down to an increase in confidence. I have also made more of an effort to research other photographer’s work which relates to my assignment, which I had not done so much in the past. I have carried on with looking at other students work throughout the projects and the assignment as I find it interesting to see how others have approached exercises. Once I start shooting I have realised that I know exactly the kind of shots I am going for and have an image in my head of what I am trying to achieve. I feel that I have achieved what I set out to do and think that I have successfully carried out the assignment brief. I have realised that there is more of a place for black and white photography than I have previously thought. To me it is important that you can justify why am image is in monochrome rather than just because it looks more “arty”. A lot of black and white images are also down to personal preference, which is really the case with all the photography. What looks good to one person may not look good to another. I think that I have explained myself well in justifying why I have made various decisions. A standard conversion from colour into black and white can look very flat but if you can anticipate how an image will look and set your camera accordingly it is possible to create a much more interesting black and white image with more depth than the same scene in colour.

Reflection

I re-read the assignment criteria and have tried to assess how well I have done.

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills – I feel that I have made some improvement in this area as I am more confident in making technical decisions if I feel I can justify them. I still think I am continuously learning new skills and do try to apply them when it is appropriate. I think that I have good observational skills but I still have more to learn.

Quality of Outcome - I have I always trie to present my work neatly with well written accompanying notes. Sometimes I get caught up with one idea and forget to write about other concepts. I need to try and be more detailed at times when explaining my technical decisions. I always try and relate the knowledge I have gained when relevant.

Demonstration of Creativity – I have been much more experimental with composition with this assignment and need to carry on with this.

Context – I think that I am good at reflecting on my work and can see areas I need to improve on. I carry out my own research, visit galleries, work on my own projects and undertake further reading. I have also tried to view other students work more to see how others approach the same projects.

References.

http://www.nineelmsphotography.com/blog/?p=912

http://jxlocadpp.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/assignment-3-monochrome/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Steinheimer

http://www.robertmann.com/artists/steinheimer/about.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._Winston_Link

http://www.linkmuseum.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



This week.

This past week or so I have been keeping myself rather busy. Mum has been really ill which hasn't been easy , so obviously a lot of my time has been taken up caring for her.

I have managed to find time to do a few things however. I came across an article online "The New Color: The Return of Black and White" by Charlotte Cotton. To be honest I found it quite hard to follow, I'm not sure whether that was because of the writing style or whether my concentration was the issue. I did find some parts of the article quite interesting where Cotton talks about areas she feels there is a place for black and white photography such as when she says "black and white photography is still a key access route into seeing and thinking photographically". I think this is a too a certain extent true but from my experience colour photography came first, and following on from gaining an understanding of colour you then should move on to black and white and anticipating how scenes will appear.

This led me on nicely to shooting the assignment. I chose to photograph at Colne Valley Railway and so I have been trying to find the time to write up the assignment. I hope to have it with my tutor within the week and then crack on with the next set of projects.

Tomorrow night I am off to Fashion Fusion which is a fashion show. I am writing an article for a local magazine and hope to provide the images for it myself. I shall be posting any photos I take as I think that it all adds to gaining further experience. A couple of days after this I shall be in London at a press preview for High Street Fashion Week as I am an official blogger for them and will try and make the most of the opportunity in London to do a bit of photography. The same goes for in a weeks time when HSFW is actually on.

Exercise: Colours into tones 2.

The aim in this exercise is to make practical use of channel adjustment to achieve a specific effect. We are to choose one of the following targets:

• A landscape in which you emphasise the depth (aerial perspective) by strengthening the visual effect of haze.
• A portrait in which you lighten the complexion without significantly altering the tones of the rest of the image.
• A picture of a garden in which the green vegetation appears light in tone.

Also prepare a black and white conversion.

 

 

Original image.

 

 

 

Black and white conversion.

 

 

 

Here I have really tried to just lighten the complexion without altering the tones of the overall image too much. I hope I have succeeded here, I think that the vest top is a bit lighter than I would of liked but apart from that I am happy with the result. There is slightly more contrast at the top left of the frame on this photo compared with the black and white conversion offered by Photoshop, but I don't find it very distracting at all.

 

 

 



Exercise: Colours into tones 1.

Take or choose an image which contains at least two strong contrasting colours. I have chosen red and green. I found a photo I had previously taken for one of the assignments on TAOP course. I was doing a slightly fashion inspired assignment at the time and had convinced my sister to help me.

(I have had to screen shot the images as for some reason I can't save my work from Lightroom)
 

In one image we are to lighten the grayscale tone of one of the colours and darken the tone of the other colour. In the second version do the opposite.

 

To start with I made and saved a black and white version to keep for reference. I then dragged the colour slider to lighten or darken the grey tone of the particular colour.

This image is quite bland, there is nothing interesting about I at all.

 For this shot I drastically increased the red and decreased the green sliders. Raising the red causes the red of the sheet to become a very pale grey, where as the green as darkened slightly.

For this example I have done the opposite and darkened the red and lightened the green. I think that I actually prefer this black and white version to any of the others as it seems more natural for the red to be portrayed in darker tones than the green. You are also able to make out more of the details in the grass.

In the past when I have converted to black and white I have never thought/not been aware of the ability to alter the tones of the image. I think that this can make an photo much more interesting and come alive more than a straight conversion.




 

 



Progress update.

I thought that I would write an update about what I have been up to. So really I feel that I should of been further along with the projects as well as keeping up regularly with posting on my blog but I have really been working on my career.

 

After interning at Cambridge Style Week as a photographer it really made me realise how much I love that genre of photography. This led on to me contacting other fashions weeks to see if they too offer internships. I am hoping to keep in contact with Cheltenham Fashion Week as their organiser has expressed interest. I have also applied for work experience with The Clothes Show. Whilst on my search for experience a fashion magazine asked if I did any fashion writing. I sent them my article on Camb Style Week and they then asked if I would like to be a fashion contributor for them on their online magazine! This has now become a regular thing and I shall be attending High Street Fashion Week as Press on behalf of the magazine. I hope to get plenty of photographs and really take advantage of the opportunity. Before the event I have been interviewing as many of the designers as possible and featuring an article on each one. The same magazine also produces an international publication which is available in 22 countries. They have now asked me to interview a designer in America and write an article on him. I can't wait but I have to say I am feeling a little under pressure!

 

I have also been undertaking PR work experience at my place of work so instead of being in the animal hospital I have been over in the PR Department. I loved my time over there and am now considering applying for their next media internship.

 

I am also hoping to get work experience with a local magazine and am in the process of organising dates. I have contacted several local magazines and should be producing a fashion article for them also....hopefully using my own photos again where possible. I have also just created my own fashion blog so that it is possible to view all my articles in one place like a portfolio.

 

It has been such a busy few weeks and I know the next month or so will be the same with article deadlines etc. I am intending to have all of the projects completed by next weekend as this is when I hope to shoot my next assignment. I have still been keeping up with going to galleries and viewing others work as well as reading photography articles and my Mastering Digital Photography textbook.

 

 



Taryn Simon - The Innocents.

I came across Taryn Simon and her series The Innocents through the OCA Facebook page. I was particularly interested as she makes you question how accurately photography represents the truth.

All of the people in the pictures had been sentenced to prison for crimes that they had not committed. Simon has photographed them at the scenes of the alleged crimes, where they were identified, arrested or at the scene of the alibi.

Photography has been used as evidence to convict someone of committing a crime throughout history and here this has been challenged. Just because there is a photo of someone at the scene of a crime does not mean that they committed it! By photographing the accused at the scenes of the crimes Simon "confronts photography's ability to blur truth and fiction - an ambiguity that can have severe, even lethal consequences.

Looking at these images, without knowing the story behind them, I rather like the simplicity of the look of some of the photos as well as the composition. The concept of the whole shoot really interests me and makes me wonder how someone could come up with such an idea. I also wonder whether it was had to get the subjects of the shoots to participate? How high profile were their cases? Where the general public very aware of who they were? If so, did they take this opportunity to prove a point of their innocence?


Info from:
OCA Facebook page
 http://tarynsimon.com/works_innocents.php

 

Exercise: Strength of interpretation.

Take or choose from images you already have, two photographs that you think would best suit:

• A strong increase in contrast that will include clipping in at least the shadow areas. A pronounced S-curve is the standard method.
• Low key or high key treatment, in which the entire brightness range is shifted down or up the scale. Curves or levels are equally useful in creating this effect.

 

Create these effects, one for each image, but in two versions-in colour and in black and white.

 

 

 

Original image.

 

I then created an s- curve which did take a bit of trial and error. As you can see there is a loss of detail in the shadow areas.

 

 

 

I then converted to black and white.

 

 

I then experimented and slid the slider dramatically to shift the entire brightness range. This has resulted in the sky becoming very washed out, as has the white lighthouse. It has given the impression of a very bright sunny day.

 

 

I then also converted this version to black and white.

 

 

The black and white version appears quite hazy looking and almost mystical. It definitely does not have the strength of the other black and white version. This exercise has highlighted how much black and white images are dominated by tone, line and shape which can really make a statement. Before converting to black and white I really tried to anticipate how the various colours would appear.

 

This is the first time I have really used Lightroom 4 (student edition) and I have struggled a bit. I have been reading up on various tips on how to use it but for some reason I have been unable to save my images. Also when I have gone to retrieve photos I have found my folders empty. I need to try and find out why this is happening.