Final Thoughts.

The end of another course and i find myself asking the questions what have i learned and has it improved my work? What I've learned is a simple one, to begin with i learned that with landscape photograph alot of it comes down to patents and planning. Sometime shots don't work out how you planned they would and its a matter of sitting down and deciding how they could be improved either say by changing the perspective, try returning at a different time of day when the light will be different or even goes as far as to return at a completely different season until you get the shot you want. I think looking at someone like Fay Godwin and how she work help to instill these facts more then anything and i now can look at many scenes and think to myself that there a photo in their somewhere i just have to take the time to find it.
Something else I've found myself doing in this course which i maybe in the past haven't spent as much time studying is other photographers work. I now see how this can help you creatively as many people tend to use different methods (none of which are wrong) to get across their views concerning different issues and beliefs.
When i look back at some of my work from the beginning of this course and compare it to my photos from the end i feel there has been an improvement in some areas. I think I've improved my subject chooses and have sorted out the problems i had when creating depth in a scene which was one of my major concerns in the beginning. Also i now feel more confident to shot with camera settings that I'd never before gone near for example alot of the time I'd leave the camera set to alter and let the camera set the exposure and f-stops and so on but know I'll always have a go at producing my own settings first and then if i can't get it right fall back then on the auto settings.
I feel I've made some clear strides in this course and now plan to move on and takes these further in the next few courses so as to develop my own stile of work.

Project 42- Man Made Landscapes.

For the final project in this course you're asked to look at man made landscapes which is something up to this point i hadn't studied much before with my main interest resting in the natural world.

For the main part you're asked to include images that have little or no people present in them which clear can be a little difficult when looking at a urban environment but i saw this view while shopping near Christmas and just felt there was something about the solemn statue and the empty market place that made it a good subject plus shooting it in black and white adds to this moodiness.

The next two shots are pretty similar in that they focus on the rhythm and flow that you can find in an urban enviroment, be it the line of parked cars or the row of roof tops in a street both make good shots but i like the intimate feel of the roof top shot.

I could have come up with a better range of subjects for this project but time and weather conditions have played there part in hindering me. Personally i would have like to have capture a more industrial view within a urban landscape to show how it differs from the more rural view I'm more accustomed to shooting but this is something i think I'll defiantly come back to in the future because of the interesting contrasts between the urban and the rural view but I'd like to find out if there maybe is more similarities than you first think.

Project 41- Grain.

I know it seems that I've missed out a few projects here but it isn't the case because the projects that are missing are all based around using a film camera and way of developing the film. Unfortunately this isn't something that is available to me so i haven't even attempted these, i did consider trying to produce the effects using photo software but didn't feel that this would do the projects much Justice.

This project does fall into the group I've missed out but unlike the others it does offer you the chance to create the effect on a digital camera or using photo software. Basically what I'm looking at is how changing the sensitivity can increase the amount of grain that appears within the shot. Grain is a by product of increasing the sensitivity of the camera by altering the ISO, what it appears to do is add texture throughout the frame which can add something to your shots but a lot of the time can appear to make the shot appear very noise and rough.

Original.

Above is a landscape shot taken at a ISO setting of 400. To add grain to this I'm going to use Photoshop and slowly increase the intensity so you can see how it effect the image.

Intensity 20.

Intensity 40.

These first two shots don't actually look that bad and i actually quiet like the added texture produced with the intensity of 40.

Intensity 60.

Intensity 80.

Intensity 100.

As you can see as the intensity is increased above 40 the shot becomes worse and worse until the noise is so strong that it completely ruins the original picture and makes it seem very rough looking.

This is another useful addition to my knowledge and something different to add a little more character to my work that i could use, I understand that their are still a lot of photographers out there who stick to using film cameras but I've been a little disappointed that so much of this final section in this course has focused on this field as i almost feel that I've missed out on something that might have been beneficial by the fact i couldn't attempt some of these projects.

Project 37- Ways of Dramatising A Landscape.

My tutor has said to me more then once that a lot of my work appears to have very dramatic skies in them and whether i like this effect? To be truthful i do quiet like the feel that a dramatic sky gives a landscape but i do also understand what he's trying to say in that you don't always need this within a landscape, they don't have to be dramatic to be effective but there are other ways of creating this kind of landscape.

INHERENTLY SPECTACULAR SUBJECTS- These can be such things as cliffs, mountains,deserts,oceans,moorlands things that are so large they dominate the view. A heavy sea with a boat begin tossed about in it.

AN EXTREME FOCAL LENGTH- This could be either with a very wide angle lens or a telephoto lens. Taking in a view from on top of a mountain with the landscape spread out below you.

RICH COLOURS- This can be accomplished with a little bit of timing for example at sunrise or sunset when the cloud cover is just right because the light from the sun will reflect off them to produce a whole range of colours, or even in some countries in the autumn time the landscapes can become so full of different colours from reds to gold.

BACKLIGHTING- This can be used to create silhouettes within a landscape but again its down to timing and getting the right strength of light, for example a row of wind turbines on top of a hill as the light drops behind them.

UNUSUAL COMPOSITION- Where the composition of the subject is so abstract that its almost unrecognisable. For example crop or wall lines.

Project 36- Defining A Style.

For this project I'll be looking at the style of work produced by three photographers, Eliot Porter, John Szarkowski and Edward Weston.








ELIOT PORTER.


Eliot Porter was at the head of the revolution of Colour Photography in the late 1930's, while other photographs stayed faithful to black and white imagery he wanted to explore new ways of showing the natural world to the public. By mastering Dye Transfer Printing he was able to produce brilliant full colour prints in a darkroom, he would use this technique to produce better shots of birds then anyone else was capable of at the time and then move on to show landscapes all over the world in their full glory. His strong interests in science and the environment naturally lead to much of his work begin used to argue the case of nature conservation while also his work has been described as "bridging the gap between nature photography and fine art.







JOHN SZARKOWSKI.



Szarkowski's was a great documentary photographer who worked mainly in the medium of black and white focusing on the changing face of parts of America. His two best known books The Idea Of Louis Sullivan (where he looked at the people and changing landscape of Chicago and the American Midwest) and The Face of Minnesota (this time just focusing on the state and it's inhabitant's) show his skill best as capturing the mood and stile of the time. He also liked to capture the changing of the seasons within the landscape but most of all he liked to highlight the way that in America they were losing the traditional ways of farming and rural life.




EDWARD WESTON.

Regarded as one of the true masters of the 20th century Weston used large format cameras and only the available light to create images that can be best described as breath taking. What he liked to show was the forms and patterns that naturally accrued within a landscape be it in the clouds in the sky or in the rocks on the ground. One thing he has in common with Porter and Szarkowski is that they were all experts when it came to printing there work in the darkroom (a skill you could say we are slowly losing today)

Project 35- Using A Polarising Filter.

This project is pretty similar to the last but this time you're looking at how to use a Polarising Filter, this time i hadn't got alot of previous experience although i already owned one it wasn't something that i had ever had time to use and experiment with.

For the first set of photos you had to shot a seen at the lightest and darkest possible setting by rotating the filter. The first thing i noticed was that in the darkest setting you also increase the saturation of the colours producing very strong blues and greens. Another obvious factor was that like the Grad filter you can use it to sort out exposure issues that you can have with the sky, although you have to take into account how this will effect the colours in your shot.

Next you were asked to take a photo using your wide angle lens and to rotate your filter until you felt it was as dark as possible. What you notice here is how the darkening of the sky isn't even, where the light is at its strongest it remains pretty much white but the further away you move from this point the darker the sky becomes. Also by using this kind of filter i felt it also darken the shadows giving an added dimension to the shot.

The final part of this project was to show you how you can use the filter to make reflection strong or to pretty much remove them from images involving water. When turn to their lightest setting the reflections seem stronger while the alternative makes them seem less obvious. What i also discovered that i don't think it actually mentions in the course is that you can also use this kind of filter to remove glare coursed by the sunlight hitting a reflective surface such as water.

As this was a filter i hadn't used before i found this project again add knowledge and skills that can only add to what i already know, some of my photos aren't the best but they show you what the course is trying to teach you.

Project 34- Using A Graduated Filter.

In this project i was studying how a Graduated Filter can be used in different conditions and the effects that it can produce, previously I'd used a grad. filter in Assignment 3 so i was able to gain a longer exposure for my Waterfall shot so i had some experience already which i feel helps a little with this project.

UNFILTERED.

FILTERED

The first conditions i had to look at was a landscape with a overcast sky which appears featureless, now this is of course one of them grey days we sometimes get a lot of during this time of year. When i compare the two images i have to say i much prefer the unfiltered shot because in the filtered shot the sky feels very oppressive like it is baring down on you which in turn makes the whole shot feel much darker. In other circumstances this could be used to your advantage say like in my shots of Magpie Mine but in this example it just does nothing but darken the sky. Again i understand this can be a good thing because what you usually find shooting in these conditions is that the sky when exposed is just bright white because of the way the light is held in the clouds, this effect of course ruins perfectly good landscape shots but by adding the filter you can correctly expose the landscape while darkening the sky enough so that it doesn't spoil the shot.

UNFILTERED.

FILTERED.

The next set of shot that i was after was of a overcast sky with visible tonal differences, now the example I'm using doesn't maybe have the tonal range I'd have liked but you'll get the idea as i explain. In the unfiltered shot you have exposed for the foreground but by doing so you end up with the sky seeming a little bright and you've lost some of the different tones produced by the clouds, this is easily fixed by adding the grad. filter. In the second image with the filter added you see that the tonal differences are more clearer than before although because in this shot they weren't that great to begin with it doesn't standout as well. This would be more obvious in one of the skies you tend to get before or after a heavy storm in the summer months when you get the really good cloud formations that tend to range from very black though greys to white as the sun hits them. In this case the filtered shot is the one i most prefer because i like to make the skies feel a little more dramatic and by adding the filter you can achieve this.

UNFILTERED.

FILTERED.

The final set of images needed for this project was of a sunrise or sunset looking into the sun, in this instance the filter helps to pick out the different colours that are produced when the light effects off the clouds, while also if you can get the exposure right you can create a star effect of the sun when the filter is fitted. Again as before the better shot is with the filter because of the reasons I've already stated.

This project a found very informative because its show me there are more uses for a grad. filter than just to create movement within a shot which is all I've really used mine for before this point. Don't know whether its a good thing or not but I'm beginning to see that to create a good landscape shot it isn't as easy as just picking a scene and taking the shot you need to take your time and consider quiet a lot of options that are available to you that can vastly improve the overall results.