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)