Project 21- Silhouettes and Reflections.

This project was quiet a straight forward one in that you where asked to shot images with water in them showing reflection while shooting into the sun to make the surrounding landscape appear in the form of a silhouette. You were then asked to bracket the exposures and examine how the shadows and detail in images change. One of the main problems i found when doing this is that its very hard working facing into the sun because if your not very careful you get end up blinding yourself (and i bet some have) so you have to work fast and hope you're getting the photos you need. Another problem i had was dew to the spot i pick, not thinking it was where a herd of cow come down to drink from the river in the evening i soon found myself surround by about 20 cows so it was a little bit of a rush to get out the way ( the things you do for work).


-2 STOPS- What you see above is that as well as the shot being completely silhouetted, the shadows are also so strong that you can't pick out any detail, the reflection seems very soft but it is clear. A good thing about this exposure is that the sun is clearly visible while in the later shots it'll just be a brighter and brighter spot instead of the ball above.

-1 STOP- In this exposure the detail is starting to become apparent while the trees and horizon are still silhouetted, also the reflection appears a little brighter.

0 STOPS- Virtually all the silhouetting is gone and now the shadows are beginning to be reduced slowly reveling more and more of the foreground detail.

+1 STOP- Shadows are very much reduced but the reflection doesn't appear to be getting any brighter. Now though the sky is becoming very bright and over exposed.

+2 STOPS- Finally the shadows are weaker , again there is no obvious change in the reflection and the sky is pretty much spoiled by the over exposed nature of the shot.

The photo that i think works best is the -1 stop image as it quiet a happy medium the sky isn't to over exposed so the sun still has a little shape, the background is still completely silhouetted while there is some detail present in the foreground and finally the reflection is clear if not to bright meaning the whole shot just feels right. A enjoyable project but i think I'll be seeing spots for the next week.

Been doing a little more reading on this subject because i didn't maybe grasp the reasons why its so hard to get a good expose when working with water. Never thought to think as the water as a reflect er of light meaning that when the camera reads the view its going to make the shot seem very bright. The best time to shot scenes involving water is obviously during the early morning or just before sunset when the light isn't as intense, meaning i could have improved my shots for this project by shooting maybe another half and hour later.

Project 19- Choosing the Moment.

When shooting early in the morning or late in the evening you have to be aware of how fast the light changes because in the blick of an eye a shadow that didn't effect the image one minute can now completely spoil the whole landscape. With the shots above you can see clearly how over the period of about 30 minutes the shadow of the hedgerow rapidly increases spreading further into the frame. Also you can see how the colour cast on to the corn changes because it starts off being very yellow at the beginning but by the end it has a very reddish cast to it. This wasn't something that I'd ever taken a lot of notice of before but having completed the last couple of project and having spent quiet a few evenings now standing around watching how the light changes the landscapes around me i now feel that i understand that in the hours before sunset and after sunrise then light tends to be best for certain images but you have to be on your toes because things can change fast.

Project 20- Sun Stars and Diffraction.

This was a very simple project in which i had to create images showing what they call a "sun star" effect. This is produced mainly by using a low iso and a small aperture while keeping the sun relatively small within the landscape.





1.

500secs at f22

2.

250secs at f22

3.

125secs at f22

What you can see from the above shots is that by altering the exposure you can effect the size and shape of the rays produced by the sun, i particularly like the rainbow halo that is produced around the sun. This is good effect to be aware of but I'm not sure its something that i would look to use very often as i don't like including the sun in my landscape work that much unless its at sunrise/sunset when you can make it a really eye catching part of the image.

I did produce this shot as part of assignment 2, it show what this project is trying to illustrate as well as anything I've produced so far.

Project 18- Sunrise and Sunset.

The aim of this project was to photograph a sunrise or sunset showing the way the light and colours change through the period as with my shots of the sun near to the horizon and then after it has moved to below the horizon. The first thing that is most noticeable is that as the light gets low and less the more the shots become silhouettes as the shadows increase across the landscape. Next i noticed that while the sun is above the cloud level there's some colour to the cloud and sky but it isn't very strong, but as soon as the sun travels under the cloud level it becomes far stronger and more intense. The reason for this is because of the light reflecting off the clouds which is then spread throughout the sky because of the very low angle of the light. I wonder if there had been a little more cloud cover whether the colour would have been even stronger because the clouds would have held the reds/oranges more then the blue sky? Again this project has taken a little time to complete as with project 16 because you can never rely on the British weather to do what you expect, if anything this has made me more aware of how important it is to take notice of what the weather forecast are telling you (even though half the time they don't get it right). It been good to study how the light can change over a very short period of time because what i discovered is that i may think I've reached the point where the colours may start to weaken but then to my surprise they would get stronger or just completely fade away in a few seconds.

Project 16- Dusk

This project has really tested me because the weather just never seemed right for about the last 4 weeks. Before hand we've had nice relatively clear warm nights that would have been just perfect to do this project but of course its sods law that as soon as i reached this section the weather changed meaning its been a long wait to get the right conditions once more.



What i found most spectacular while watching the sun go down was the incredible range of tones that are produced from purples right through to reds, and this then can alter the feel of anything you shot during this period. I never really understood how peaceful and relaxing it is to just sit and watch the sun go down.

By using a telescopic lens i was able to capture this beautiful sunset with the silhouetted trees and the sun rays coming out of the clouds as the sun passes through. I hadn't done much work this close to dusk before so this project gave me the chance to play with alot of different exposures and settings to discover which i felt worked best for me so moving forward through this next section I'll be much more proficient and hopefully be able to capture the perfect moment all the more better.

Assignment 2 One Acre.

Finished this assignment and am very pleased with the results, put all the shots I've produced on my flickr page so feel free to have a look. What i chose to do was to experiment more with HDR photography while using the one acre principle set out in the assignment brief. This gave me the chance to see what the limitations are with using this process while also completing the assignment to a good standard.



Just to explain some point my tutor raised in his report, he asked why i had chosen this particular area the reason being it was somewhere that i had spent alot of my childhood either sitting under the trees playing in the summer or sledging down the hill slop in the winter. Although it was obviously a fairly familiar place to me i hadn't visited it in a hell of a long time but i can understand his point that maybe i could of used a completely new area because with no images in your mind to begin with it could have been interesting to see what I'd have produced.

HDR.

Most people have probably heard of this way of processing multiple exposures years ago but I've only just become aware of it after reading about it in The Digital SLR Expert. Basically what you do is take as many exposures as you like keeping the framing the same, then using a piece of HDR software (I'm using Photomatix but there's many different ones out there) you can combine the shot to produce some really stunning work.


For example above is a very dull uninteresting shot of a falling down barn, yes its alright but it doesn't jump out and hit you.

While here after using the software and combining a couple of exposures the colours become so rich and the sky adds drama to the overall image (has that real wow factor or i think it does anyway).

Again here similar to the first example the colours feel dull and the sky seems a little over exposed.

Then again with a little time and processing look what can be achieved.

I know that some photographers don't like or don't feel you should alter your work in this way and that how it comes out the camera should be right first time meaning you shouldn't have to do this but personally i think that if the tools are available then why shouldn't you use them to improve your work. I like to think i have all the creative options open to me so i can produce the best work i can.