Advanced Light Measurement.

Just wanted to back up some of the points begin made in the part of the course I'm presently at.





Different exposures can produce shots that all work in different ways.





1. 13secs exposure.

Taken to show the interior while making the outside to bright to distinguish anything








2. 25secs exposure.


Taken to show the interior in shadow while keeping the detail clear outside the door. Natural draws you to the outside world and the light.










3. 40secs exposure.

This is the best of both worlds shot, the shadows aren't too dark while it doesn't appear to light outside thous losing the detail.






In evenly lit scenes their is generally one 'correct' exposure meaning if you took a number of different exposures from light to dark most people would pick the same one as looking best.

1.




2.

3.

To me its clearly the bottom shot as the 1st is to light, 2nd to dark while the last is just right.

Its the bites like this that i sometimes find most interesting because you don't really think about these things and then when you look at it you think how could i not realise that.

Project 11- The Colour Of Daylight

Before even attempting this project there's a hell of a lot of information to take in first. Luckily for me a large part of it I've already covered in the previous course The Art of Photography so I'm already aware of how colour temperature applies to photography and the ways this can effect your work. I don't feel that it is maybe explained in this courses in a way that its straight forward to get your head around as it could have been maybe broken down into more manageable chunks.

What this project is basically explaining to you is that daylight changes colour during the day plus also as the weather conditions change, for example
On a cloudy day as above the light appears white and quiet soft, the light will also appear white around the middle of the day dew to the angle of the sun. The reason the cloud cover makes the light appear softer is because it acts as a natural diffuser much like the ones used in a studio set up that you place in front of the light source.

Next the light can appear blue when the sky is completely clear or between sunrise and midday and midday and sunset depending again on weather conditions.

Finally daylight can appear orange at sunrise and sunset, this is coursed by the angle of the light reflecting off the cloud cover or by the amount of dust present in the atmosphere. The colour can range from orange to red depending on the conditions again meaning that if you understand the weather conditions you can get yourself in the right position to take advantage and get the right results.

Another point to be aware of that isn't mentioned in the course material is that with modern photo software such as Photoshop you can easily add colour filters to your work meaning it isn't always necessary to buy expensive colour filters because its now possible to alter the colour cast in post production. I know alot of the older generation of photographers would argue that this isn't the best way to get the right results but when I've experimented with the two different processes (using a colour filter and adding one in photoshop) i personally can't see to much different. I supposes it just matter of preference on how you like to work.

Weather and the Properties of Light.

Thought i was doing the wrong course for a minute when i got to this section, what the hell has the weather got to do with photography? When i read on a bit i understood where he was coming from, you don't realise at first but when you look and experiment a bit the weather does change the nature of light lot. Cloud depending on its thickness can soften the light, complete cloud cover doesn't have to stop you you just need to know how to use it (on a really cloudy day it might be better to go shot in a heavily wooded area because the shadows wont be as strong). When it rains and the sun comes out it can feel much brighter because the wet surfaces naturally reflect the light which can course problems but again its how you use this to your advantage. As it says in the course

"Often the most important decision for a landscape photographer is choosing the
best moment at which to shoot."

Found this article online think it explains things better then i could.http://digital-photography-school.com/time-for-landscape-weather-and-landscape-photography

I was glad to have the properties of light explain to me little better today, this was an area that I'd covered in previous courses but not from the point of view of a landscape photographer. Clearly if you know in advance how the light is going to behave you have won half the battle for example first you need to know which direction the light is going to be falling on your chosen subject, this can be affect by the time of day, the time of year or even where in the world you are. Add to this the weather condition as I've already talk about and even what the landscape you are shooting is like because a snow covered scene will reflect a lot of light while in a mountainous area shadows might be cast as the sun moves during the day. These things normally you wouldn't probably think about but you have to be aware to get the results you want because you might travel miles to a particular place and then have your time wasted because its raining or there's heavy cloud.

"Light is the most fundamental thing a photographer can work with. A picture taken in the wrong light just will not work, no matter how dramatic the subject, whereas with the right light a lump of coal can look good. Getting yourself in the right place when the light is near perfect for a shot is an all-consuming activity. Its probably the biggest difference between making a great shot and a snapshot."

David Norton.

ASSIGNMENT 1- THE SEASON

What I'm presenting here are the shots that i chose not to send to my tutor and the reasons behind these decisions.




The first photo above i nearly did use but in the end i decided not to because of the position of the building. I didn't like the solid brick wall facing the camera because i thought it over powered the whole shot drawing to much away from the flowers in the foreground. What I'm trying to show is the contrast between the boarded up house begin quiet dilapidated and the fresh new flowers growing around it in the over grown garden. Although i didn't manage to get this across here with photo 13 i did a much better job. Another problem i had with this one was that it felt a little to busy/to much going on in the frame, i much prefer to keep things more simple if i can.

Shot Settings-

• f/13
• 400 secs
• 400 ISO
• 18mm

The reason i didn't use this image was although it has good lighting its missing a focal point, what it needs is something on the left hand side which would have given more focus but also balance because it has far to much weight on the right with the tree and hedge line. Produced it from two shots using Photomerge.

My problem here is it lacks any sense of scale/depth and is a little to devoid of life to capture the idea of spring. It would work better with say some wildlife in the foreground and in the summer it'd have far more colour to it. In photo 5 i solved these problems by altering the position and using the trees to create diminished perspective plus also adding a natural track to draw you into the shot.

Shot Settings

• f/11
• 320 secs
• 400 ISO
• 22mm

Used a group of three shots to make up this images, it does feel springish (if that's a word) but it could have done with the figure from the shot below to make it work better. Just feels to empty, but a little warmer then some of the other shots because of the hint of yellow on the left hand side.

I didn't think this photo captured the idea of spring/new life at all, yes it is a good shot but it doesn't feel like spring because of how bare the landscape is. Its a shame because i like, its got nice balanced with good perspective plus the little colour that's present does stand out. Feels to cold because of the strong amounts of blue and green.

Shot Settings

• f/11
• 800 secs
• 800 ISO
• 75mm

Similar problems as with the 3rd shot in this section but this has no real standout quality's to it. Yes there's a hint of green returning to the trees which gives it the idea of spring but it needs more than this to make it a good piece of work.

Shot Settings

• f/11
• 800 secs
• 800 ISO
• 130mm

Similar problems as the 4th shot in this series, thought that by using photomerge could get across the grandeur of the landscape but just doesn't fit the idea of spring.

This was the second shot i experiment with by adding some colour back to it using layers in photoshop. It does have some points that make it kind of stand out as being spring (some trees with leaves on others without) but not enough that i felt it'd fit in with the rest of the work I'd chosen for this assignment. I defiantly keep it in mind for future use because i actually really like it a lot.

I could have either used this one or photo 17, why i left this out was even though it does show slightly more activity with all the boats queuing up i didn't feel the angle was right. By this i mean it would have looked better if their had been a way for me to get higher up a look straight down the canal.

Conclusions on Assignment 1.

I found this one of the hardest assignments I'd done so far, whether this is because i approached it the wrong way but more likely i feel its just hard to find different ways to show spring without continually using the same imagery eg. flowers and trees bursting into light, misty sunrises etc. What i have produced i am very pleased with because I'm happy that i know have a much better feel for adding good depth perception to my work plus i haven't rushed through this assignment but have taken enough time to be sure i got just the shots i wanted. If you want to see the work i sent away to my tutor I'm going to in time put it on my flickr page as soon as i have a chance.

Planning And Research For Assignment 1.

At last I've reached the point where i feel I'm ready to tackle the first assignment, what it asks you to produce is "Photograph subjects which capture the feeling of the current season" for me at this time it is spring.

To begin with i found it a little hard to find inspiration and to get a hold of what spring time actually meant to me personally, but after emailing my tutor he put me on the right track and gave me food for thought. What i did was to look more closely at how other people doing the same course had approached the different seasons and also how more established photographs approached the subject, plus i was also looking closely at the content of there work to see if this could help to develop my own approach. One of the points my tutor made to me was to understand how the light can be very important in the spring but he also said to try and avoid what he called "chocolate box" landscapes which I'd guess he means the classic lamb jumping around in daffodils.

Found it hard to find any photographers who have tackled the subject of spring in their work so what i ended up doing was looking at landscapes in general for the photographers in the list to the right (this was more to understand what makes a good landscape) and then looking on stock image websites to get an idea of what other people consider to be spring images.

The conclusion I've come to is that spring really means the return of life to landscapes, whether this means in terms of wildlife or in actual human activity it gives me some scope for what i hope to produce. I could look at how we effect/interact with the landscape at this time of year, how colour slowly returns after the dull emptiness of the winter. What ever i do must bare in mind that i got to pick some of my work to include in my final portfolio so it has to be easily assessable throughout the year so i can return to the same scene and re-shot it.

Project 10- Soft Colours

For this project I'd be looking for landscapes with a soft colour range throughout, this isn't as straight forward as you'd first think because these ranges don't natural occur in a English landscape so I've had to spend so time to find the right range of colours.


This first shot is the best in this set because it captures the idea of this project perfectly. In the scene you have a nice collection of very soft blues and greys which work together well to give the scene a relaxed air. I know it seems a little dull and maybe a little cold also because of this combination of colours but with soft colours this is a problem which often occurs.

Here again you have the blues and greys but this time I've introduced a little yellow which helps fix the problem with the first image. Although the yellow doesn't fit in with the colour range produced by the blues and greys i don't feel it stops the shot from working as a soft colour image because for some reason it just works(not a very good explanation i know but its how i feel about the shot).

The final shot for this project I've gone for something a little different to try and show that soft colours don't just have to feel cold. Here although the range is a little harder then i would have liked you still can see that there is out there scenes where warmer colours can appear softer. If the fog had been greater it would have soften the light which in turn would have soften the colours also.

I found this a very interesting project if a little challenging (which isn't a bad thing) because as I've already said soft colours can some times be a little difficult to find occurring naturally as the British countryside is full of strong colours. I feel that the best chance to capture these colour ranges is probably say on a mist autumn morning because at this time of year you have a greater colour range and the mist would act as a natural softener.

Project 9- Colour Themes.

After doing the previous three courses i can whole heartily say i feel comfortable dealing with colours because it made up quiet a large part of at least two of them and alot of the work i produced involved landscapes in some way.(For this reason two of the following shots are taken from colour projects in the Art of Photography and An Intro. to Digital Photography.)

The aim of this project was to produce three images showing-

• the largest range of greens that you can find in one view

Like the range here from the very light greens of the grass through darker colours in the heath to the very dark greens in the trees. Felt it added interest to the photo by including the houses and then with the hillside in the distance seeming to loom over the whole scene it all comes together to make a very balance image. This kind of colour range does tend to be the norm in England at least in the summer months when this was taken, i do find it a bit repetitive and do tend to look for anything to break the colour up (suppose this is another reason for including the house), i just don't like shots with a solid mass of colour in.

• one isolated strong colour set against a contrasting background
  
  

This was from a previous project in The Art of Photography to do with contrasting colours so felt it fit in perfectly here to. The contrast clearly is with the yellow of the flowers and the green of the undergrowth, the only point that lets this photo down are the trees in the background apparently. A former tutor told me it look a little to busy and distract you away from the foreground which is the focus of the shot, i can see what he meant but i still feel its a good piece so that why i included it again.

• the largest range of colour contrast that you can find

I've taken this from the very first course i took An Intro. to Digital Photography, this for a long time was one of my most favorite shots and now i understand why. It has strong perspective with the path drawing you to the tree in the background, also the good contrast between the golden wheat, green of the tree and incredible blue of the sky make it standout. If i was able to retake this now i only change the time of day it was done, by shooting it in the late evening I'd have been able ton use the shadow to add even more perspective plus the lower light would have made the colours far more intense.

I know understanding colours in photography is just as important as understanding light but i do feel that this is just old ground being recovered again, I'm sure there are reasons for it but i just don't understand why?

Project 8- Using Perspective To Help Composition.

The aim of this project was to produce landscapes that make use of a perspective to draw the eye into the frame, this being one of the main things that i know i need to improve in my own work I've maybe taken a little more time and given more thought to then i would normal with project work.

First a little more understanding is needed on what Perspective is and the way i can use it, Perspective is defined as "the appearance of the objects in space and their relationship to each other and to the viewer. In photography it is used to describe the intensity of the impression of depth." There are then a few ways in which you can create perspective and they are as follows-

• Linear Perspective- using parallel lines that are converging and then vanishing for example a road.
• Diagonal Perspective- similar to linear but you have to make the line cut the frame in a diagonal for example the shadow produced by a tree towards sunset/sunrise.
• Focal Length- by using a wide angle lens you can show more of the scene so if you were using either of the methods above the more of the lines you can show the more perspective is created.
• Diminished Perspective- this is when you use say a fence line with posts placed evenly along it, even though you know there all the same size as they move away from the camera they seem to get smaller and smaller.
• Aerial Perspective- this is when atmospheric conditions play a part, if there is fog/haze you know the further something is from you the less of it you can see so you can use this to your advantage to create depth.
• Tonal Perspective- this is very basic in that the darker something is the further away you assume it is while the lighter it is the closer we think it is.
• Colour Perspective- similar to tonal in that the warmer a colour feels the closer you consider it to be.
• Sharpness- you can make a false sense of depth by making something seem sharper compared to a blurred background.

Surprisingly some of these methods I've used before without realising it but when you consider it alot of it is common sense stuff because if you look at landscape paintings or even watching programs on TV these same methods as used to create perspective so we're all pretty well versed in it without knowing.

This first shot i used the most straight forward and probably most commonly used method with the two linear lines produced by the road sides converging towards the middle of the frame producing a very strong idea of depth. What surprised me was how difficult it is to find a nice quiet clear straight piece of road, the obvious thing to have used would have been a motorway but i didn't want the effect distracted by a whole load of cars being in the way.

My second shot is similar but i think it woks more under the diminishing idea because you can see with the added height that the railway line is getting smaller and smaller as it moves away from the camera. Also i suppose the two figures add perspective as well because you understand there size in comparison to the landscape thus making it feel that much larger. Almost forgot to say that i also used a wide angle lens to increase the perspective even more.

Really happy with my work on this project because i now feel i have a much better handle on how to add depth to my work (this being previously one of the areas i felt i was lacking). What i found works best is to use a combination of the methods I've listed because obviously if you can add as much depth as possible the more involved/drawn in you can make anyone looking at your work feel.

Project 7- Figures In A Landscape.

"Figures in a landscape should be obvious enough to be seen, but not so much that they take over the image."
I don't necessarily agree with that because if a figure is large in the frame sorely this can help to give scale to the view or in the case of say a person walking away from the camera down a path this adds direction and draws you into the shot. For arguments sake and because the author of the course has far more experience then me I'll go with him but with plans to experiment more in the future.


This first photo follows the idea of keeping the figure small but obvious within the landscape (this was taken at the top of Mount Snowdon). I like the way the person was silhouetted against the sky just standing right on the edge, i tried to keep as much detail as i felt was needed but thought it works much better with very little because i like the minimalists feel. Some might argue that the figure is the focus of the shot but i don't agree because i think its actually the building in the left corner that you're first drawn to then you notice the person.

The figure in my second shot really helps to tell the story behind it. What you need to know is that the wall in front of her contains the names of every person in the Armed Forces to die since the Second World War, I felt doing it in black and white add to the very sobering mood that I'm aiming to create. If i was to change anything i would have been a little earlier shooting to avoid the shadow splitting the frame as it does but the problem is being respectful to the people morning there relatives so i had to take my chance when it came and hope for the best. I know i could have setup this shot easily but i would have known it was real and that would have lessened it somehow in my eyes.

Project 6- Framing The View Differently.

The idea of the project was to find a distant view with a large enough surrounding area so that you could walk around it and find a combination of different foreground interests to add to it. I tried to find a landscape that i felt would offer this but found it hard to find enough variety (kept ending up with trees and wall lines not anything truly original), in the end what i chose to use Hardwich Hall in Derbyshire because the surrounding gardens offered what i was looking for. Unfortunately the light on the day wasn't the best so the crappy grey skies do spoil the shots a bit, but not enough that they don't show what i aim to get across.



This first image i really like a lot because of the contrast between the straight lines of the building and the distorted reflection in the pool. It creates a very original view of something that's probabley been shot hundreds of times, and i know it could have been even better had the light played fair. I have had to use photoshop a little to get the final images to look right (only little tweaks) mainly just to make the hall appear more upright as it does to the naked eye instead of seeming to be falling away into the background as building normally do when photographed.

The second shot i took through the ruins of the old hall using them to frame the new hall. Again its the contrast between the two that make this work but this time the heavy sky does actually add something to the whole (a kind of heaviness/foreboding maybe?). Again this could have worked better if I'd been able to get a little further to the left so the ruins weren't overlapping the new hall but this wasn't possible dew to the condition of the ruins.

The third image and again its the contrast between the straight lines of the hall and the curves of the modern sundial that make this shot. Its a very simple but effective setup with maybe the trees spoiling the shot a little but not that much (maybe I'm just very picky but then again that a good thing as you should want things to be as near to perfect as possible). I know that I've used contrasts in these 3 shots but its one of the main things that always stands out to me when a look at any scene for the first time so i tend to be drawn to shot like this, not really shore if that's a bad thing or not or whether its just my natural stile.

For the final image i wanted to add a little life so the obvious thing to do is add people, no to many mind you as I'd didn't want to over crowd the frame and make it seem to busy. As by using the hedge line you're naturally drawn towards the hall with the flow of the people. Possibly not my favorite photo but it does the job.

Overall what i found this project teaches is as I've said before patience is important, you should always study the whole surroundings because even a simple landscape can be altered by changing little things plus don't be afraid to take lots of photos with digital cameras we have far more freedom then we ever had with film so it doesn't matter if you have to delete later just take the shot and be sore you get the best shots you can.

Project 5- Interacting Subjects.

For this project what you asked to look at is how by altering the view point you can effect the way the subject seems to interact with its surroundings.


From a higher view point you can make the surrounding landscape dominate the shot instead of the building.

By getting in close you can highlight details within the building for example here the dark doorway and the art work on the walls become the focus.

Here i was looking to use the vegetation to create symmetry with in the frame to give it a far more balanced feel then any of the previous shots in this project.

By getting in closer and adding more of the surrounding landscape at this level you can increase the depth of field and have far more detail within the view.

Change the focus from the building to the sheep around it, makes it a little different but maybe more interesting.

A good project, really makes you explore the possibilities within the landscape and what you can create relationship wise within the frame of view. Not maybe some of my best work but theres always room for improvement in what ever you do.

Project 4- Collage

A more interesting way of producing a panorama is to add together a series of individual photos using the Photomerge software found in all versions of Photoshop or photo editing software available today. This is a process that i have ever used extensively so I'm very interested in what i can produce with it.


With my first attempt i wasn't overly pleased with the results as when the images were put together by the software i have, it didn't produce a long panoramic view i expected but a kind of staggered step of images that clearly had been put together. On reflection i realised that when I'd taken the three images I'd stood still and just moved the camera from left to right as instructed meaning that I'd lost parts of the ground and sky meaning it was always going to turn out like this.( I've since discovered that the new version of Photoshop can fix's this problem simple by selecting the area and pressing delete, shame i haven't got a spare couple of 100.)

With my next attempt i remembered to move myself instead of just the camera and got the results i was looking for. Love the way in this shot your eye is drawn through the gate towards the village in the valley below. It was one of them days when the light was perfect and everything i shot seemed to come out right (could do with everyday being like that but it never happens like that).

For my final try i decided to produce a college using a higher number of images to see how this worked. I used about 5 or 6 frames to produce the shot above but what i found is i didn't like the results as much as say my second attempt. I taken the images landscape (on reflection if i use this many frames again shooting portrait would probably have been a better because it would create a more natural sized landscape image) and when they'd been stitched together i ended up with a very long thin image, yes it included all the view but an area around the church hadn't gone together very well while the entrance to the harbour is distorted by the software to make it match up correctly. Don't really know if this happened because I've tried to fit to much into one image or whether i just didn't take the shots with enough overlap for them to go together well.

Found this process very interesting and feel that i could use some more practice (planning to climb Mount Snowdon this year so should get plenty of chance then) also maybe a little more reading on the subject wouldn't hurt.

Saw a very interesting documentary about David Hockney the other day about how he used collages to produce some incredible work. What he did was to using a Polaroid camera and take large numbers of individual shots of small parts of a scene ( sometime completely out of proportion with each other) then by putting them back to together he'd end up with very abstract work that actual didn't look that strange to the eye. (maybe i didn't explain what he did that clearly but if you google him you'll get the idea) Would love to have ago at something similar one day.

Project 3- Panorama

Panoramic images tend to be long horizontal view with the appeal of them being when used correctly they can give the impression of grandeur and expansiveness. This isn't a new concept to me but at this point after having finish three previous course should there really be that many things that i haven't had my creativeness opened up to. For the work in this project i used a wide angle 15- 30mm lens as this i found produced better results then my standard 18-55mm lens.


The first shot above i knew a panoramic view would work well because i wanted to show the landscape around the house and by shooting this way could really get across the vastness of the isolation. If I'd taken it normally it may have work by using the house as a contrast against the green hillside but you wouldn't have got the impression that the above photo gives.

My next photo doesn't maybe work as well mainly because the idea of getting across the grandeur of the scene isn't achieved. What i should have done was moved myself a little further back so that i could have included more of the rough sea giving it an even more stormy feel. In my defence when i took this the weather was that bad it was hard to just stand still long enough to take the shot without being blow in land about 20 mile!

I used a panoramic shot for this final image because basically it was the only way to fit in the whole scene without using a series of shot merged together in photoshop (I'll come to this in the next project). The only slight problem i have with this photo is again my usual one I'm again lacking something in the frame to give someone looking at in any sense of scale, yes i know that its a bloody big valley spreading out for miles but someone else looking at in wouldn't get this.

(really must resolve this problem and look more closely at how to fix it!)

I think all panoramic photos are best view in large print form or format to get the full impact of the shot. This kind of photography suits me quiet well as i love the great outdoors and feel that this is the best way to convey to someone else the feel or beauty of countryside. Like alot Tom Mackie's work in panoramas, feel he uses it to its full advantages especially with his glacier images.

Project 2- Horizontal vs Vertical.

The idea of this project was to encourage me to look at the shots that I'm taking and try to compose them in both a landscape format and portrait to see that i shouldn't constrain myself to one particular stile but to use both.

The above shots both work alright but I'd lean towards the landscape one because it feels more natural with the road leading you towards the house and the two figures give you good perspective. The portrait one just feels i don't know a little cropped if you get my meaning in that its maybe framed a little wrong on the right hand side and there's to much sky.

The next two I'm happy with both because the shot seems to me to work either as a landscape or portrait because again the roads lead your eye nicely through the foreground into the background.

Maybe got the composition wrong with these two as i should have included more of the field in the foreground and less of the sky. This is mainly because it would have worked better with a more stormy sky to dominate the shot but without this both feel a little lacking as there's no real depth or perspective (something that I've said before i do have problems with achieving now and again).

Final two are my favorite in this project as to me it show clearly that a scene can be made to work as either a horizontal shot or vertical if i take my time and compose them right. Again if I'm being overly critical the sky could be more interesting or better lighting conditions could have been used but that's all part of the learning process.

What i feel I've learnt from this process is that you should always when you have the time us it to try different framing techniques to see how it effects the scene, I'll more then likely say this many times but patients is something my photography is lacking at times, I'm always afraid i might be missing a better shot just round the corner and by rushing on don't always make the most of the scene before me.