Art Photography

Digital Photography Practice 1

2012-02-16T01:53:00.000-08:00

Well I've enrolled on my new course, DPP 1 and am looking forward to my course material being delivered. I've also put in a large order on amazon so I'll have lots of reading to do in my (non-existent) spare time. Exciting. I'm starting a new blog and it's located here. Please visit some time and see how I'm doing. I'll keep posting the odd interesting (or not?) thing on this blog too.

Deleting Photos

2012-02-08T03:01:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else feel a sense of guilt when deleting photos off the computer? I rarely do it, but as our computer has told me it has 1.5GB left of space on it, I have decided to have a cull... I often take a couple of shots when trying to get the right picture, but sometimes can't decide which I like best so just keep them all. I star the good ones and just filter to look at those, so never see the slightly blurry/out of focus/just not right photos. But really, it would be better to look at them all and get rid of the ones that are no good, but I find it hard. I'm rationalising it by saying, well I took it in the first place so I should be able to remove it, but I find it's particularly hard when it's of a loved one for example!

I think part of it is not having a good system for rating photos. I tend to 3 star anything I like and then occasionally give a 4 or 5 star to something really good, but I should use it more rigorously than that, and perhaps delete anything that doesn't get a star at all. I'd love to hear how other people get around the issue of taking thousands of photos and dealing with them afterwards without just buying more and more hard drive space!

However I must admit it feels a little cleansing to start with 150 photos in a folder and whittle it down to 50. It makes the browsing experience much more pleasant certainly! It's probably also good to realise that while it's great to make the most of digital and take lots of photos from different angles of the same scene, it's better to take time at the taking and get it right with one or two shots. Something I'm learning as I progress in my studies perhaps...

But there are some photos that are keepers no matter what technical quality they are... my son must be the most photographed little boy ever (or close to...)

Dress ups

Middleton

2012-02-04T02:37:00.000-08:00

I visited the seaside town of Middleton at Christmas, and I captured this image of the open sky and water. It's not much of a landscape as it has no foreground, but I feel like it captures the summer warmth I felt at the time.

Skater Girls

2012-02-04T02:26:00.000-08:00

We were at the park today and I had my camera with me with my 70-200mm telephoto fitted, which is quite unusual at the moment. There were some girls on skates who I thought looked very retro and cool skating on the netball courts, so I decided to try to capture them for a few minutes. I have not done much photography at all the last few months so it was a bit like getting back on my bike, and particularly using this lens which is quite different to my shorter (24-70mm) telephoto. Nonetheless, I got a couple of shots which I am pleased with and post below. The light was late afternoon and quite flattering, and formed some nice shadows for the background grass and trees which are nicely out of focus. It felt good to take some photos just for me without any specific purpose except to capture some images.

Beyond People & Place...

2012-01-31T01:41:00.000-08:00

I sent off my work for the March assessment yesterday. Pretty exciting to send off another finished subject, two years in the making. I feel like I've come a long way but also realise how far I've got to go...

I plan to enroll in Digital Photography1 next. I feel like I need to improve my post-processing skills andthis is the logical way to do so whilst continuing to study for mydegree. I'm also going to try to install lightroom and make this mymain platform for work.

Other projects I'd like to work on thisyear, time permitting.

Cropping & shapes – this is aproject I'd like to do – make more interesting photographs with avariety of crops, and use these in a project such as one for amagazine.

Macro photography – work on seeingthe detail again, a passion I used to have but have not practiced fora while.

Portrait photography – get the studioset up and start taking photos of friends and family (and children,since we'll have two by mid-year).

Off camera flash – I'm getting togrips with my flash more now after completing a short course here inBrisbane. Now I need to get out and start using it more!

Read some of the mass of photography books I have collected recently but not had adequate time to read!

I'm sure there are more, but thats a good start...

Assignment 3: Revisited

2012-01-21T21:35:00.000-08:00

I have made a number of changes to my Assignment 3 over the past few months as I have learnt more about post-processing in photoshop. I also needed to reshoot some images and have been unable to get out for the last few months and only got an opportunity recently. So I thought I would share the changes I made.

Correcting the skew on a couple of my bridge images. This was a definite improvement to these images, and quite simple to do once I learnt how.

Processing the Spicers Retreat images as colour instead of black and white, as they would be more effective in a publication or advertising as colour. I think my processing skills have improved since I first took these images and do think the colour ones work well now.

I reshot this image of the indoor view of the Northey St Office building, this time using a tripod and cable release and used a smaller aperture. The result is a better framed and better lit image. I perhaps should have used some fill flash but have not done so in this photo.

Finally I went back to the Powerhouse museum and decided this time to shoot the rear of the building instead of the front, which has limited access due to it's location right on the river front. I have included a person for scale and have also adjusted the photo for skew in photoshop. I think this photo fits in well with my set.

The original photos are here. I am pleased that my tutor Norman has constructively given me lots of hints and tips on how to improve my images throughout my assignments.

Photobooks

2012-01-21T21:24:00.000-08:00

I have been reading more recently about photobooks. I like the idea of having the chance to get a message/theme across in a series of photos that flow from one to the next in photobook format. The concept is quite different from trying to produce photographs for an exhibition for example, or a single image for the 'art market', whatever that means these days. Photobooks have been made since the start of photography and cover such an amazingly wide range of topics and subjects.

A photobook I bought last year is Andre Kertesz 'On Reading', which is a delightful small hardback with all photos containing some reference to books/reading. The diversity of the images is inspirational and shows how incredibly observational Kertesz was. This particular book is a reprint and the preface is by Robert Gurbo, Curator Estate of Andre Kertesz. Curiously he proposes that printed books are in demise with the current digital age. I disagree with his statements and believe that since it is now easier than ever to print a book (without even going to a publisher) that more and more photobooks will be printed. For example, the Blurb website, which also hosts the photobooknow competition which continues to raise awareness of the medium makes it incredibly easy to print your own photobook. However, the topic that Kertesz covered in his book is for sure on the demise, as now people are seen 'reading' their phones, laptops or tablet computers instead of books, or not reading at all but listening to music through their chosen device. The world that is captured in this book is indeed going or already gone. Perhaps that is what Gurbo is actually commenting on...

Exercise 20: Busy traffic

2012-01-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

This is the final project that I had to finish for People & Place. I had taken some photos in the train/bus station a few months ago for this but was not happy with them. So today I went to the local farmers market which I know is a busy place, and set up my tripod, camera and variable neutral density filter.

I stayed pretty much in one place, the corner of the market, and changed my view from there. I have been before to the market so I knew that this was a good spot to catch the crowds and also people lining up to pay or peruse goods. I chose to use my variable neutral density filter to enable me to get multi-second exposures which I thought would show the movement of the people nicely. It was also important to have some people 'still' in the image otherwise it was all ghostly people moving past. I have put 6 shots below, 3 from each rough viewpoint which show the movement of the crowd around the market.

Photo 1: 1/8 sec

Photo 2: 2 sec

Photo 3: 6 sec

Photo 4: 4 sec

Photo 5: 2 sec

Photo 6: 3 sec

I think these photos show the movement and flow of people, and they are interesting and colourful at the same time. I think this technique (previously I've only used neutral density filters to slow shutter speeds in landscape work) is a good one for showing the flow of people in broad daylight. Obviously a tripod is essential, and a cable release helps to stop any camera shake also.

Colour Level 1: Weeks 7 and 8

2012-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

In week 7 we discussed more of the same topics.

Tonal value for exposure - run a bracket if you need to - he emphasised again how important 'getting it right in the camera' was. For a red car, you need to overexpose by 1 stop to get the exposure right. For bright yellows, it's +1.5, and for rich blacks, underexpose by 2 stops.

Some suggestions for macro - use a tripod, mirror lockup and a remote release, and the smallest aperture you can on your lens. Important to remember that DOF reduces with short lens-to-subject distance.

Environmental portraiture - your background should match yoru subject, eg the photo below by Arnold Newman shows a portrait of a pianist. Strong lines, the figure is barely there, but he is obviously a pianist! A google images search of his work comes up with many great environmental portraits.

He also suggested trying to use lighting to emphasise character of a person.

We went down to the studio to shoot some window light portraits. The three below show how important it is to meter (partial or spot) off the lit side of the face.
Photo 1: Metering off whole face

Photo 2: Partial metering off lit side of face

Photo 3: Partial metering off lit side of face, reflector held on other side to even lighting somewhat

They do look slightly underexposed to me, but the message is clear to be careful about how you meter - important to control the highlights on your subject (apart from catchlights etc which are only spot points). Obviously a dedicated light on the background would improve these images.

Week 8 is the final week and we reviewed some topics we had covered before.

More macro and landscape suggestions by way of a short video (Tony Sweet). Warm and cool tonalities look good together. Line up to be parallel with subject (for DOF), and look for patterns. For sunrise landscapes (shooting into the sun for example), use a polariser. Important to bracket with landscapes.

We also discussed our final assignment, which was 'movement'. I include my photos below. It was interesting to see the variety of shooting styles and experience of the group, which was quite varied.

Photo 1: Girl at Roma St Bus Station.

Photo 2: Small child learns to fly. Rear curtain flash.

Photo 3: Shower showing movement of water frozen.

Photo 4: The steering wheel goes round and round.

Photo 5: Zooming during the photo to give a sense of movement

Photo 6: Moving the camera whilst photographing the Christmas lights on a neighbours house

I have enjoyed this course and got lots of good tips and tricks and definitely feel more confident with my flash, which was one of the main reasons I did the course in the first place. I'm not sure if I'll do another course, I was a bit disappointed that there was not much chat amongst the group, perhaps that is unusual. I also wanted to meet some other keen photographers here in Brisbane. Nonetheless, it was a fun and worthwhile experience to do this short course.

Assignment 4: A Sense of Place

2012-01-21T11:49:00.000-08:00

North StradbrokeIsland, QLD

I have chosen to photograph anisland which is very close to Brisbane. This assignment is tophotograph for an intelligent, thoughtful travel publication, so Idid some research looking at magazines such as those in the nationalnewspaper, The Australian, and also the Qantas in-flight magazine.The images in those travel sections were bright, complementarycolours and carefully chosen depending on the story at hand. Thus formy assignment I had to think carefully about what story I was try toshow in my photographs, and not just shoot randomly. This made theproject quite challenging and meant a number of ideas had to bediscarded due to a lack of a cohesive story. I have chosen todocument a relaxed weekend at Stradbroke, consisting of time on thebeach and also time walking in the beautiful national park areas.This is the sort of holiday we enjoy, and I also decided to capturesome slightly personal images of my family as I thought the articlewhich might go with my photo essay would emphasise activities for ayoung family at North Stradbroke Island for a weekend.

Photo 1. Brown Lake

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 24mm, 1/90sec, ISO 200, natural light, dodge at lowopacity over people.

Photo 2. Main Beach

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/16, 46mm, 1/250sec, ISO 200, natural light, minor contrastenhancement via curves tool.

Photo 3. Blue Cat Red Cat

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/16, 24mm, 1/90sec, ISO 200, natural light minor contrastenhancement via curves tool.

Photo 4. Domain Resort

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/6.7, 24mm, 1/250sec, ISO 200, natural light, minor contrastenhancement via curves tool.

Photo 5. Spiderweb on bark

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 34mm, 1/60sec, ISO 400, natural light, minor contrastenhancement via curves tool.

Photo 6. Abstract waterdroplets

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/2.8, 70mm, 1/350sec, ISO 400, natural light.

Photo 7. Beach reflections

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 48mm, 1/1000sec, ISO 200, natural light, minor contrastenhancement via curves tool.

Photo 8. Beach abstract

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 17mm, 1/90sec, ISO 400, graduated neutral density filter,natural light, very minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 9. Greenery near BlueLake

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 30mm, 1/60sec, ISO 400, natural light, very minor contrastenhancement via curves tool.

Photo 10. Kite Flying

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 24mm, 1/750sec, ISO 200, natural light, free transformrotate and crop.

Photo 11. Surf Patrol

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/16, 24mm, 1/250sec, ISO 100, natural light.

Photo 12. Ice Cream and Gelati

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/4, 24mm, 1/350sec, ISO 100, natural light.

It's a relief to finally finish this last assignment and to be happy with the results. I am now in the process of preparing for assessment, finishing off my logbook and one final project before I have completed this subject. It's been challenging and rewarding, particularly given how busy I've been personally over the last two years as well!

Colour Level 1: Week 6

2011-11-25T02:29:00.001-08:00

Week 6 saw the review of Assignment 2, Shadows and Shapes. The main brief was to capture interesting shadows and the key point here was to 'control the highlights'. I didn't feel particularly inspired about this exercise, it seemed lacking in reason, though perhaps it was a good exercise. I thought it was going to be about how we could use objects to manipulate light possibly for transfer of skills into the studio setting, but it was more about exposure. Nonetheless, it's always good to practice skills of looking and then taking the photos.

A couple of the photos were taken in very familiar environments (home/commute), and though I had admired the patterns before I hadn't captured them, so it was nice to do so. It was good to see other students efforts, one girl had done a lot of 'posed' situations, some of which were quite dramatic.

Photo 1: View into our neighbours yard.

Photo 2: Front door patterns.

Photo 3: State Library lit by late afternoon sunlight.

Photo 4: Tree on a sidewalk making a nice pattern on the ground.

Photo 5: Walk through Mt Coot-tha Gardens.

Photo 6: Bike shadow, taken on my ride to work.

The rest of class this week was spent discussing flash a bit more (answering questions, and having some more practice, with Manual settings, in the studio downstairs), and some advice on metering, and use of filters such as polariser and graduated neutral density filters.

Exercise 22: Adjusting the balance between person and space

2011-11-21T01:53:00.001-08:00

This exercise called for varying the balance between one person and the space they are in, keeping the general viewpoint and composition the same. This seemed to me to be a challenge, because surely, if we keep the viewpoint and composition the same, then the image will be the same! So I had to have a think. I have chosen to photograph my husband as we relaxed by the river on a rare child-free evening last week. The time of day was great for photography - early evening just before sunset, so the light was warm and soft and low angle. I set my WB on manual too, using a slightly warmed Kelvin to keep the nice warm light present in my image.

I chose a moderately low angle first, kneeling on the ground, and using a large aperture to have blurry grass in the foreground:

Next I got down even lower and got some building in the background, dark and providing a nice upper frame to the image, balancing the bright green grass in the foreground:

Then I changed my angle slightly to include more of the wall and less of the grass:

Finally I stood up and shot down on him, giving a totally different perspective:

The result is four quite different images! I think the second image is my favourite out of the set. The view is complimentary, the DOF suitably shallow and the background and foreground are nicely balanced. Another excellent exercise in forcing me to look for many images in one setting.

Colour Level 1: Week 5

2011-11-17T01:27:00.001-08:00

This week we started by reviewing the first assignment (the views over the city with ambient and artificial light). Everyone's projects were similar, the changes in colour of the sky through the series was interesting to see repeated in everyone's images. One enthusiastic student had photographed 4 separate views (on 4 nights) which was an impressive effort. I thought Steve did a good job of praising everyone's photographs, and giving suggestions to how we could all improve.

We next started with the hands on use of our speedlight flashes. We again discussed the formula used to select the correct distance your flash needs to be from your subject assuming it is either off the camera or in Manual mode.

D = GN/F

The importance of knowing your _real_ guide number of your flash is important here. I have a 580EX so have attemped a guide number test but came out with something around 44 or so, but did find the whole exercise pretty subjective, so am looking online. Supposedly Canon say the guide no. is 58 but this is unlikely to be true. From this site, it seems like the guide no. at ISO 100, 50mm is 43, which is very close to the 44 that my guide no. test came out with. We are discussing this more next week at class.

We then discussed what white balance to use when using flash. When sources of light are mixed, we need to use the 'dominant' light source. In a room of fluro lights, it seemed that we should use fluro as our setting, but this gives a very strong blue cast to the photos, so we need to use flash (or manual K=6000) as our white balance to give a more accurate colour. We could even use K=6200 to slightly warm the image.

We tried taking some photos, and found that with ETTL in the small room the flash was too strong. We needed to go down to -2 or -3 stops Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) in order to produce a photo which didn't look obviously 'flashed'.

Then we briefly went downstairs to the studio to take some more photos, some of which I include below as test shots. The first is using the flash pointing straight at the subject, with FEC = 0. A reasonable image, but flash is obviously used.

The second is with the flash still pointing at the subject, with FEC = -1. Here the flash is less obvious, and it is a better photograph.

The third image I'm showing here is a pseudo window lit portrait, created by flashing the subject via the wall - with the flash head pointing at an angle to the wall to throw the light on the subject on the side. This adds some nice shadows on his face, and though is a little obvious in this image, is an improved and more interesting photo than the previous ones.

It was great to get into the flash and immediately I feel more confident about using flash more in my photography.

Colour Level 1: Weeks 3 and 4

2011-11-10T02:27:00.000-08:00

Week 3 mostly covered 'What is light?'

We discussed colour temperature for the whole evening, and it was good to chat more about something which I had a basic understanding of before, but had always struggled a little with. I used to shoot using daylight WB (White Balance) and hope that the photo worked out OK! Lately I have been using RAW conversion (I have taken RAW files for years but not used them much) and have found a better workflow which involves me doing some simple post processing in the RAW converter to get a better image and also to fix up the WB which can make a surprisingly big difference to an image!

The discussions in class focussed on the idea of 'get it right in camera' and thus suggest using the K setting (for Kelvin) on the WB selection to tweak the WB in the jpg out of the camera and thus decrease the need for fiddling with raw files. It also improves your knowledge and understanding of how to better use Kelvin (ie to warm up an image or cool it down).

Likewise, the tutor Steve suggests we use total Manual on our SLRs. I generally shoot in either Av or Tv so it is a change to shoot in M. You have to think a bit more but the idea is that we will become better photographers in the process. I do like this thinking and it does require more time & effort which would probably also be good for me...

The diagram below shows the Colour temperature scale, with low numbers representing warm colours (candle etc) and high numbers representing cool colours (eg the deep shade of a building).

Taken from this site.

This week (4) we discussed Flash.

Next week will be practical use of flash, so there was a lot of talking tonight, but I found it very useful. We discussed which mode to use (camera and flash) when using an external flash:

Av + TTL: Not a good idea as the shutter speed might go above the sync speed.
Tv + TTL: Better, however this method will mean no choice of DOF and thus less creative control
M + TTL: This is the gold standard. Total control - you set the shutter speed (usually around the sync speed of the camera, mine is 1/250), and then choose the aperture for the DOF you wish to have for your subject. The TTL will fill in the rest.

We discussed using Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) which usually requires the flash to be turned down 1 to 2 stops if it is being used as fill flash. Another way is to use a diffuser, either the built in one on the flash head, or a Stofen, or a Gary Fong like I have (though have found to be a big bulky some of the time). We also discussed using other methods such as pointing the flash at a ceiling or wall (if it is white and close by) and this will also both diffuse the light and decrease the power.

Then we got into the formulas and discussed guide numbers and how to calculate it for your flash (which I will get onto soon). And then just using the simple formula:

GN = F/D
ie. Guide No. = Fstop/Distance

So decide what your choice is - either you have a specific fstop in mind or you are limited by distance, and then just use the formula to work out what the other variable should be. Don't forget if you shoot off a ceiling or wall these also are included in the distance (ie it's total distance from your Flash to your Subject). That also means that you can set your flash up and then know you can move around your subject as necessary (assuming flash in one place). This was super useful for me so I'm hoping to get some time on the weekend to play with my flash a bit more.

We finished up the evening talking about studio lights and what sort of different things you can stick on the end (soft boxes, spill dishes, snoots etc). A very informative evening all up!

A quick example below of my first experiments using second curtain flash and slow sync.
f/5.6, 1/4s, on camera flash, ISO 100

Learning to fly

Colour Level 1, Assignment 1

2011-11-01T02:45:00.000-07:00

Assignment 1 for Colour Level 1 looks at the relationship between ambient light and artificial light, ideally in the situation of sunset with the sun behind the camera. I had to make two attempts at this because the first attempt turned out to be an unsuitable sunset (totally cloudy) so I left half way through sunset. We were advised to start shooting 20 minutes before sunset, and photograph roughly every 2 minutes, and finish shooting 20 minutes after sunset. We were to keep aperture constant (f/11) and use ISO 100 setting, obviously using a tripod and preferably a cable release. I enjoyed this exercise. I don't get a whole lot of time for photography, most of it is slipped in between toddler naps and outings etc. So this was an hour to myself to go and take a set of photographs which I am fairly happy with.

I thought carefully about the scene, and chose to photograph a pedestrian bridge over the Brisbane river with the city in the background and the nice curving bridge leading the eye through the image. To get this I positioned myself on the William Jolly Bridge which is a lovely viewpoint over the city of Brisbane. The progression of light changes over a 40 minute period is fascinating. I managed to just capture the last light on the buildings, then just prior to sunset there is a certain grey feeling (fortunately a few boats went past at this time to maintain interest). Then as sunset arrives there is little change apart from shutter speeds getting longer and lights starting to come on first on the bridge, and then illuminated signs on the buildings start turning on. As the time after sunset increases the sky turns a beautiful deep blue and the ambient light becomes more obvious and fills parts of the frame with a lovely warmth.

Below are a dozen photographs of my chosen scene.

5:54pm

6:00pm

6:05pm

6:12pm

6:24pm

6:25pm

6:28pm

6:30pm

6:31pm (note f/19)

6:33pm

6:37 (note f/22)

6:39pm

I like the effect enforced by the smallest aperture images - due to the longer shutter speeds the water has a smoother quality than the other photographs. However the building signs are somewhat burnt and blurred in these longer shutter speed images. The progression of light is lovely and I think well captured in this set of photos. Sunset was at 6:04pm and I note that only two of the twelve best photos were taken before this time - so waiting for the golden hour after sunset definitely appears true in this situation.

Colour level 1

2011-10-27T03:20:00.000-07:00

I have enrolled in a short photography course based at the Brisbane College of Photography, entitled Colour Level 1. I wanted to get to grips with my flash mostly, having had some challenges using it in anything other than automatic, and thought that this course, conveniently located a 10min cycle from home, would assist me. If I enjoy it I may go back for more advanced modules.

The second class (the first I could attend) was interesting. I obviously have picked up quite a bit of photographic knowledge in the last few years as I was one of the more knowledgeable (or at least more vocal!) in the class, able to answer many questions. It consolidated a few points for me though, and I thought I would use this blog to continue my photographic learning documentation, and I'll post my assignment work here too.

We covered many points without going into too much detail:

Slow sync + rear curtain flash - suggested for use with children (I will try this out with my little one)
BULB - when to use and how to calculate exposures (its all mathematics, you just need a known quantity and you can determine your shutter open time from there)
Partial metering might be a better option than centre weighted or spot
Talked about the dynamic range that a camera can cope with (5 to 6 stops), and what we can do to limit the dynamic range in a photograph (use fill flash, use a graduated neutral density filter or use a reflector to light dark areas).
Controlling the highlights is the most important thing (not possible to get back later)

We chatted about lots of other things too. I'm looking forward to next weeks class, and have an assignment to complete in the mean time. As much as I enjoy studying with the OCA I like the idea of attending a class and talking photography with other students face to face (particularly since I'm on the other side of the world to most OCA students!)

Exercise 23: Selective processing and prominence

2011-10-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

The aim of this exercise is to use simple post-production techniques to either emphasise a figure or make it less prominent in a setting. I have chosen two photos taken recently at North Stradbroke Island. I was hoping to use this location for Assignment 4 but I don't have a sufficient number of high quality images so won't be using it for my subject unless I can get back in the next month or two. It is a beautiful location - these two photos were taken at the Gorge Walk, in Point Lookout. North Stradbroke Island is very easy to get to from Brisbane and is a popular location for all sorts of beach related activities and also for wildlife spotting.

Photo 1. First the image as it came out of the raw process. I have increased saturation and the photo shows a nice view through trees to water in the distance with a photographer friend posing for me on a wooden walkway structure. I have only adjusted exposure etc for the whole image in this photograph.

Photo 2. This shows the image as before but this time I have gently dodged over my friends face and upper body using the soft light technique in photoshop. She now stands out better from the trees and is thus more prominent in the photograph.

Photo 3. This image has a very prominent woman in the foreground, in her brightly coloured dress, again taken directly from the raw process, only with exposure/saturation edits to the whole image.

Photo 4. I have used the same technique as before, gently burning in the woman and her bright dress to slightly darken her. She is now less prominent than Photo 3, and in fact I think the photograph as a whole is more successful. She actually looks more tanned in this image too which often would be appreciated in a portrait. The effect is quite subtle on the small images actually...

I have not done this sort of processing before (in fact I just learnt today how to do it for this exercise!) I think it will be very useful to know how to do this kind of minor dodge/burn which is subtle and yet quite effective. I actually think the two edited photographs are improved from the selective processing that I have applied.

Other options for selective processing would be to blur either the fore or background to emphasise the person, but that was not suitable in these cases and in fact I don't yet know how to do it. I'll investigate further and perhaps add another image to this exercise later on.

Assignment 5: People and Place, on Assignment

2011-10-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

Brisbane OrganicGrowers Inc Annual Fair, Sunday 2^ndOctober, 2011

I have chosen to photograph a localfair run by the Brisbane Organic Growers Inc (BOGI). I chose theorganising committee as my notional client and my brief was tophotograph the fair in all it's parts. This would include setupbefore the actual fair, the stalls, cafe, vegetable growingcompetition and auction at the end of the day. This was to beprepared in a short photo essay which would be included in theNovember newsletter and thus had a deadline of two weeks after thefair.

Having not attended a BOGI fairbefore, I did some research as to what might happen on the day. Imade a list of possible targets for photographing.

Preparation (both the day before and also the morning of the fair)
Cafe ( serving freshly prepared food and home made cakes)
Vegetable growing competition and judging (display?)
Stalls (selling produce, giving advice, demonstrations etc)
Auction of competition items
Tidying up at the end of a long day.

Photo 1. Preparation. Setuparea for stalls

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/6.7, 17mm, 1/90sec, ISO 640, natural light.

Photo 2. Preparation. Menu

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon 30D,f/4.5, 50mm, 1/90sec, ISO 640, bounce flash.

Photo 3. Preparation. Red checktablecloth

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/4.5, 17mm, 1/45sec, ISO 640, bounce flash.

Photo 4. Cafe. Preparingcupcakes in the kitchen

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/2.8, 19mm, 1/60sec, ISO 1000, diffuser on flash.

Photo 5. Cafe. The firstpunters arrive

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/4.5, 17mm, 1/45sec, ISO 1000, diffuser on flash.

Photo 6. Cafe. Choosing andPaying

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/6.7, 17mm, 1/45sec, ISO 1000, diffuser on flash.

Photo 7. Stalls. ForbiddenFruits Nursery

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/11, 17mm, 1/180sec, ISO 640, natural light.

Photo 8. Stalls. TropicalFruits trio

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/5.6, 17mm, 1/90sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 9. Stalls. Tea for sale

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon 30D,f/5.6, 50mm, 1/250sec, ISO 500, natural light.

Photo 10. Competition. Viewingthe entries

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon30D, f/2.8, 50mm, 1/90sec, ISO 500, natural light.

Photo 11. Competition. A youngprizewinner

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon30D, f/5.6, 50mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 12. Auction. Graeme andCharlie call the auction

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon30D, f/3.5, 50mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 13. Auction. Bidding

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon30D, f/5.6, 70mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 14. Auction. A youngbidder

70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/6.7, 120mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 15. End of the day

70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Canon30D, f/6.7, 125mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, natural light.

From Penny, BOGI vicepresident:'Yourphoto story depicts from setup to cleanup and so much of the colourin-between, really wonderful.' It's a pleasure being able to providea great set of photos to a client.

Assignment 5: People and Place, on Assignment

2011-10-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

I have taken photos for Assignment 5. A good opportunity came up in the form of the annual BOGI Fair (Brisbane Organic Growers Association). Being interested in organic gardening, I joined the club recently and heard about the fair. I decided to set myself the task of photographing it and making a short photo essay, perhaps for the clubs monthly magazine. The fair was held last weekend, and I went along on Saturday afternoon to meet the organising committee and take some photos of them setting up for the fair. I then went back on Sunday to photograph the stalls being set up, the punters arriving, the busy cafe, the vegetable growing competition and resulting auction, and the tidy up at the end of the day. It was a busy and tiring day for me and quite challenging photographically. I was the official 'BOGI' photographer for the day which helped when people were asking what I was doing and I found it often broke the ice when chatting to people, then stepping back to take their photo and then thank them afterwards. The light conditions were very challenging and definately made me realise the limitations of my (now getting a bit old!) Canon 30D in terms of low light / high ISO and resultant noise.

My brief that I set myself was to prepare a short photo essay (perhaps 12 to 15 photos) for the December BOGI magazine. In addition I was asked to take one photo that says BOGI Fair... not sure it that is actually achievable but I will take a look through the photos! And they would also like a slideshow of photos for the December meeting. This means a large number of photos that I am happy to show which is not what I initially had in mind. So my first aim will be the photo essay and then I will try to process enough images to have a short (probably 100 photo) slideshow. It's been a great experience taking the photos and now I just need to spend the time working on them and trying to get rid of some noise in the worst images.

Here is one example of the fair, taken on Sunday morning.

f/4, 1/90, ISO 640, 35mm, flash with diffuser

Online Art

2011-09-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

I discovered last year that the Tate Britain has its entire collection online! That's amazing. (link here).
There is just so much art online now, it means that even people in remote parts of the world (I don't actually think Australia is remote, even though it does feel that way occasionally) can view excellent art. Virtual tours such as the fantastic google art project make art really accessible - and as 3D imagery (ie 3D screens etc) improves this will mean we can almost 'walk' around art galleries from anywhere in the world (and the quality of the reproductions are really excellent).

This, combined with the growing number of blogs means that we can access a world of inspiring photography and art from anywhere. Now the problem is finding the time for this and balancing it with spending time working on my own art. I attempt to do this by alternating reading of blogs/books one evening and working on my own photography the next (although sometimes the balance changes if I have a particular project I'm working on). If my own work is getting a bit staid, then I do more reading of blogs or books.

Exercise 16: Exploring function... revisted

2011-09-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

When I first did this exercise (see post here), I commented that I would like to revisit it using another space. Since I took myself off to the hairdresser last week to take photos specifically exploring function, I thought it would be good to post here under a revision of Exercise 16. I've already posted about the hair salon so I won't go into too much more detail about the process, but will make some comments as to how it relates to Exercise 16.

Firstly, the intention of use is clear - it is a place for getting your hair cut... also, vitally important is that the client must feel good about themselves, preferably beautiful and pampered. It also has to be practical, well lit, easy to move around and spacious. In this case all boxes are ticked.

Who uses it? The hairdresser and clients. I only considered the front area, but it is very pleasant to be in, with large windows and lots of lighting and mirrors which emphasizes the space. Most of the walls are white except for the back 'feature wall' which is black.

What is it used for? Discussed already - cutting hair/ pamper.

Now for my ...carefully considered photograph... well I have already posted the best 5 taken on the day, but in terms of function, I think an overview photograph is the best for showing how the space is used as I have discussed above.

Hair Salon

2011-09-21T03:46:00.000-07:00

I decided to challenge myself by asking to take some photos at the local hair salon. I had planned initially to use this for one of the projects but decided to just go and take the best set of photos I could to capture the feeling of the salon. I like it because the area is bright and fresh feeling, and the chairs and decor is clean and modern. I had some ideas about what I would shoot (I was not going to include customers as the owner didn't want that), mostly thinking about what the features of the salon were, and perhaps what would be required if I was asked to capture the feeling of the space for a client for example.

I went before work one morning, and had about half an hour to photograph, which was ample time as I was only using one camera and lens, my normal 24-70mm f2.8 which covers most situations, and was not going to use any artificial lighting. I started by taking some photos of product with the salon out of focus in the background, but felt these didn't work that well - perhaps I should have decreased my aperture? I forgot how much less light there is in artificially lit buildings than outside! Most of my work lately has been outside with only the odd shoot inside. Anyway, I set my ISO to 400 and used relatively large apertures which worked well with some images more so than others. I like using a smallish depth of field to focus on areas of interest and I quite like the blurring effect that this gives.

I tried getting down low and found this to be quite effective in changing how things looked. I also shot along the chairs which worked well, and tried shooting almost straight down on the scene, though I'm not very tall this also changed how things looked. I liked the idea of shooting into the mirrors reflecting other mirrors creating the 'endless' kind of view. An interesting idea photographically which I have used before (for example in Assignment 1: Photo 4).

I also photographed the owner as he spoke on the phone at the front desk - he is quite blurred in the background, and the bright lights behind him are blown out but the focus is still on the chairs in front. I also needed a couple of overview shots - I thought it was important to get the name of the salon included in a photo, and also have a more zoomed out view of the whole area.

The shoot itself went well - I didn't take too long and didn't get in the way of the owner and workers setting up, which was important to me as it was a favour of sorts (which might have been hard to refuse given I am a client!). I managed to get a good variety of photographs which I am pleased with. I remembered to shoot key photos both horizontally and vertically to give me good choice in the post-processing to see what works best.

Post-processing was somewhat of a challenge. I shot all the photos with sunlight white balance, thinking that I could easily correct in post. However my skills are not great with correcting white balance - a couple of shots were great but others were harder to correct. This is an area I need to improve on, and I suspect my next course will be the Digital photography 1 course so I can force myself to learn some more skills.

Anyway, here are the photos, I am pleased to have a set of 5 photos to show for my efforts and will be providing these to the owner for use under Creative Commons licensing.

Exercise 21: Making figures anomyous

2011-09-20T21:27:00.000-07:00

The aim of this exercise was to understand and utilize ways of including people/person in a photograph of a place while deliberately making them unrecognizable. In some of the following photographs I have succeeded in this, but in others I have zoomed in too much on the person so the photograph is more about them than the place. I have included them anyway as it is all part of the learning process.

Photo 1. Reflection in a painting at GOMA. Perhaps too much about the fun nature of the image rather than a space per se.

Photo 2. Small and many (not that many...) Good balance between the children and tables.

Photo 3. Partially obscured. An effective and interesting photograph, but not really about a space, more focussed on the woman - I should have stepped back and included her in her environment more.

Photo 4. Cyclist in silhouette. An effective photograph of a building, with the cyclist in silhouette giving some human interest.

Photo 5. Couple in silhouette, sunset at Noosa. Another effective photograph of a stunning sunset complete with moon finished off with the inclusion of the (small) couple in silhouette.

Photo 6. Red wall, advertising sign with people. About the place (under a bridge), with the inclusion of people slightly blurred against the bright wall.

Photo 7. Perth convention centre - a cleaner and man shown from behind add interest to the foyer of the large convention centre.

Photo 8. One from the archive - Munich showing small people which emphasise the scale of the gardens.

Photo 9. Another from the archive - this time Dubrovnik, old buildings with a very blurred person who almost looks ghost-like in this photo...

So not all were a success but a good collection of examples showing how people can be included but with less emphasis. I need to step back a bit more sometimes to capture more about the space than the people. With projects like this I'm so glad I have my super dooper point and shoot (Canon Powershot S95), it's so useful to have it with me all the time!

Update. Exercise 18

2011-09-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

I have taken a few more photos for Exercise 18: How space changes with light. The local netball courts provided a good opportunity for some interesting lines and shapes, and I decided to photograph them both in the early evening and in the middle of the day, with obvious large differences in outcome!

Photo 1: Time of photo 5:51pm. ISO 160, f/4.5, 1/3s, -5/3 EV

Photo 2: Time of photo 12 midday. ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/400s, -4/3 EV

I slightly prefer the first photo taken at dusk. The purple sky and small pools of water reflecting the sky are particularly successful I think. In both images the wide angle view emphasises the large space, and the lights give the vertical space some definition. The white lines painted on the ground lead the eye through the image.

Speaking of leading lines through an image, check out this awesome photo taken in New York by Stephen Doyle and photographed by Stephen Wilkes, he has installed tape on the floor/walls and then photographed kids over the top. The effect is incredible.

Exercise 19: A single figure small

2011-09-20T03:43:00.000-07:00

The task for this exercise was to photograph '... a place which is mostly free of people, yet with an occasional figure passing through it'. And I guess it should be somewhat interesting too?

I went walking at Southbank for a short while on the weekend and took a couple of photos. The first is a someone standard photograph of the front of the train station, with someone exiting the frame on the right. Although convention is to have people walking into the frame, I thought it was more interesting in some ways having him exit the frame, i.e. just arrived on a train and leaving the train station area. Not sure. Anyway, he is dynamically placed close to the edge of the frame. Bright blue sky in the background (matching my person's outfit, though obviously I didn't plan for that!) and lovely brick building with a yellow post as accent in the foreground.

The second photo is of one of the fancy hotels in the area, the Mantra. I had not spotted the pool before, and I think it fits in nicely with this exercise which was to see if you (the viewer) can have a delayed reaction in noticing the figure. In this case it is not the scale that is unusual but the presence of the figure indicates that actually there is a pool overlooking the road! I like the strange relationship of the traffic lights superimposed on the building and man, and also like the bold oranges and blues in this image. The strong geometric lines are effective also (though some may say might work better on a diagonal?)

The inclusion of people as small accents in these two photos _definately_ make for more interesting images of the buildings and this is a technique I will continue to explore with my photo making.

Assignment 3: Buildings in use

2011-09-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

I have recently completed Assignment 3, which is titled Buildings in use. I have chosen 5 buildings tophotograph for this Assignment. I have found capturing each of thebuildings to be quite challenging – finding both the 'right' angleand viewpoint and then good light is hard.

Building 1. RCH Bus Station,Herston

A bus station on the Northern Busway, Brisbane.

Photo 1. Overview of Station

Photo 2. Bus departing station

Photo 3. Passengers alightingonto bus

Photo 4. Stand behind yellowline, Platform 1

Building 2. Bridge, Airlinkproject, Herston

Part of Australias largest construction project, a bridge over the entrance to the Clem Jones tunnel.

Photo 5. Isolated bridge

Photo 6. Bridge amidst massiveconstruction project

Photo 7. Light post and crane

Building 3. Spicers HiddenVale Resort

Luxury resort west of Brisbane - such a treat to visit and photograph!

Photo 8. Red Angus Cottage

Photo 9. Loungeroom

Photo 10. Little luxuries

Photo 11. Bedroom

Building 4. Northey CityFarm Office Building

The new, very environmentally friendly office building at our local city farm (located in floodplain which explains its height!).

Photo 12. Rain water tank

Photo 13. Stairs up to office

Photo 14. Office view

Photo 15. Highrise

Building 5. Powerhouse ArtCentre

Large arts centre which was the Brisbane powerhouse in its former life.

Photo 16. Stairs to stage

Photo 17. WorldPress Photography Exhibition

Photo 18. Front of building

This assignment has been another bigchallenge for me. Choosing the buildings and then executing eachphotograph and trying to get a complete view of each building was noteasy. I have learnt a lot during the course of this assignment, and feel like I have improved considerably in my photography of buildings and spaces. More practice required, as ever...

Exercise 15: Public space, public activity

2011-09-15T03:36:00.000-07:00

This exercise is actually from chapter 2, however I only finished taking photos last weekend for it. I actually started it a year ago in Edinburgh with some photos take in the Princes St gardens one (rare) very sunny day, with everyone out sunbathing enjoying the warmth. Since moving to Brisbane where it is warm almost all year round, I have noticed a real difference in attitude - I have not once seen someone sunbathing on the lawn here, as opposed to Edinburgh where as soon as the sun is out and it's somewhat warm there are people lying on the lawn with bellies exposed. Quite a contrast. So I wanted to photograph a public area here in Brisbane, the local farmers market has an adjacent lawn patch with a few stalls around where people congregate on a Sunday morning after they have done their grocery shopping, sit back with a cup of chai and enjoy the atmosphere.

The first 8 photos show the way people are using the space in Princes St Gardens, Edinburgh.

From Exercise_15

The second set of 8 show a variety of activity taking place at Northey St Farm on a sunny Sunday.

From Exercise_15

I really like the contrast between these two sets of images. In each of them there are some solitary people enjoying time on their own, and also small groups of people chatting, interacting with children, eating and drinking or relaxing in their own way. Capturing different activities gives an overall picture of the area which can be more telling than a single photograph. The strong contrasting sunlight is present in both sets, despite them being taken on opposite sides of the world! I like the strong dark shade patches in some of the first set of photographs in particular.

Exercise 18: How space changes with light

2011-09-08T03:52:00.000-07:00

The aim of this exercise was to understand better how important good light is to a successful photograph. I have seen this before during my TAOP studies, but this time the exercise is more directed towards _space_ and perhaps buildings to a lesser extent. I undertook this exercise while I was working on Assignment 3 Buildings in Use so there is some overlap between the two.

I have chosen two locations for this exercise, one is an overpass near my place of work. I have photographed in full sunlight during the middle of the day where strong shadows are seen cutting across the overpass and captured a cyclist - he looks almost sandwiched between the roof and strongly patterned floor. All the lines converge and add to this image.

From Exercise_18

I chose a different angle for the second photograph, choosing this because of the lovely sky behind. The very low angle of view and framing of the star-like structure in front of the cloud and directly over the cyclist works very effectively in this image. A little motion blur does not detract from the image. I underexposed by a full stop to keep the slightly dark feel of the photo in keeping with the time of day.

From Exercise_18

For the second location I have used the bridge that I am including in Assignment 3, half built as part of Brisbane's Airlink project. The changes in light I saw at this location were very dramatic and reminiscent of the light in Scotland (though much warmer of course :). I was out taking photos making use of the slightly overcast day, and was not terribly happy with the results (see first image). Then suddenly the sun broke through the clouds and there was brilliant light on my subject and the contrast between it and the dark clouds and blue sky was so dramatic it was amazing. These two photos are taken in basically the same location but very strongly show the difference between average light and excellent light. Worth waiting for.

From Exercise_18

OK so I continue to learn the value of good light whenever I am lucky enough to encounter it... Unfortunately I don't always have the time (... and patience) to wait for good light and need to just get the shots and go. Good to continue learning about the value of light, as we are all just painters of light...

Exercise 17: The Users Point of View

2011-09-08T03:32:00.000-07:00

The aim of this exercise was to choose spaces designed for a particular activity that is taken from a specific distinctive position and to photograph from that point of view. I had a number of ideas for this exercise but it has been a while in the making and I'm not sure it's yet complete... It was slightly difficult to think of appropriate viewpoints that could be captured in public places without looking strange, though perhaps I should give up on that idea and just accept that I do stand out sometimes with the camera. I have used my point & shoot (Canon Powershot S95) for these examples as it is generally easier to carry around with me and use discreetly.

My first photo idea was to photograph not the car that I drive in (because I hardly ever do) but instead the bike that I ride to and from work. I chose a relatively attractive background and then framed the image to show my view of the handlebars and bike path beyond, just near the Roma St Parklands in Brisbane. As a photograph there are good diagonals in the photo and the lighting interesting.

From Exercise_17

My second photo idea was to photograph the beauty salon that I go to, from the relaxation bed. The view is not particularly interesting and I'm not sure I have conveyed the users point of view particularly well in my photograph.

From Exercise_17

Another idea that I had was to photograph my son on the see-saw. I am sitting on one end and him on the other, so it literally is a users point of view, but it doesn't really fit the brief as it's not a 'space' per se. Nonetheless it conveys something of a users point of view.

From Exercise_17

The final idea was photographed in a cottage, with a view over a table with nice scenery beyond. I have had some challenges in executing the lighting for this image (I didn't have my flash with me so only had on-camera flash and this did not do a very good job of lighting the scene in the diminshing natural light).

From Exercise_17

I feel like I have learnt a lot about _trying_ to see from the users point of view, but I'm yet to successfully capture this with my camera. It's a good lesson though, and now when I am out and about I'm looking for 'users point of view' examples and trying to capture them. I guess that's the whole point of doing these exercises!

Hidden Vale

2011-06-08T04:16:00.001-07:00

I went on a fabulous work trip recently to a little known spot called Hidden Vale. Stunning. Hard to believe we were so close to Brisbane. We did lots of fun team building activites, but I was most excited about the photographic opportunities. Lucky for me we got some free time in the evening and I got up early the next morning too to take photos. And boy was I rewarded. I know I'm not particularly skilled in the landscape area, so I was very pleased to have such a fine view right on the doorstep and was provided with a lovely sunset in the evening and gorgeous mist in the morning. I managed to get nice shots by taking quite a few photos, but also tried to frame my shots in attractive ways and use a range of focal lengths.

Here are two favourites:

Evening light:

From Landscapes

Misty morning:

From Landscapes

Sustainability Project

2011-05-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

What does sustainability mean to me?

I've been asking myself this question for a while now, and I am going to enter a competition with this same subject (due in a few weeks). I'd love to get peoples opinion on my images and will take any suggestions seriously!!

Thanks in advance.

I've tried to think about what I do in my life to try to be more sustainable. Apparently if we all keep living the way we currently are, we need about 6 earths. We've only got one, so we all need to make changes in our lives to decrease our impact and be more sustainable. The classic images you get when you search online for sustainability are all a bit cliched in my opinion. I didn't want to take photos of small children holding growing plants, of solar panels, or wind farms or globes. I thought about things that impact my life directly. I have tried to take photos of things that are personal to me and give some indication of what I am trying to do to be more sustainable.

On the technical side. For the first time I (finally) downloaded the Photoshop CR2 raw converter so I have taken these 3 photos from raw files and processed them myself. Happy with the results and how quick and easy it was! I should have been doing this for ages!! I also took the first two shots using my big external flash in a somewhat studio style setup. It has been a fun challenge.

Here they are:

Photo 1: ... and three veg

From Sustainability_Project

Photo 2: Live Local

From Sustainability_Project

Photo 3: Double Garage

From Sustainability_Project

If you have any comments or questions please comment below. What does sustainability mean to you?

Perth Street Photography

2011-04-30T04:43:00.000-07:00

I was in Perth (Australia) for work a few weeks ago and took the opportunity to take some street photographs. I used my point and shoot camera (Canon Powershot S95), a fabulous little camera which allowed me to be fairly subtle and less in-the-face than the big 30D. It was quite challenging taking photos of strangers in their rush hour heading home, but it was fun too, particularly playing with the strong contrasting light.

Starting off with a quick self-portrait (well, a partial...)

From Street_Perth

Girl at a bus stop (challenging bright light behind)

From Street_Perth

I like the shadows in this one, and the fairly severe expression on this womans face!

From Street_Perth

Look at those shoes!

From Street_Perth

Sneaky photo not looking through camera viewfinder.

From Street_Perth

Strong late afternoon sunlight and great facial!

From Street_Perth

Sleepwalking

From Street_Perth

Nice light separating my subject here from the background

From Street_Perth

Blurry but I like it

From Street_Perth

Still got a ways to go with street photography, but it's definately fun to try!

Light

2011-04-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

Popped out today for a quick (20 minute) shoot to get a start on Assignment 3 for People & Place. It has been raining on and off so there were some great clouds in the sky, and I thought I might get a few overcast images for my planned bridge shot. I was busy shooting away thinking the photos were ... ok... then the sun broke through - awesome light. My favourite - dark clouds with sunlight breaking through. Here's a quick (unprocessed) shot...

From Miscellaneous

Great fun. That should mean one ticked off for this project, if I'm happy with my images as I look at them tonight.

Assignment 2: People and Activity

2011-04-09T18:12:00.000-07:00

I have chosen to photograph at a music festival held in my home town of Adelaide. The festival is called Womadelaide and is held yearly in March. It attracts very large numbers of locals and interstate visitors. Everyone gets out their 'Womad' attire and enjoys a fabulous weekend of listening to music, dancing, eating fabulous food, shopping for unusual gifts and generally enjoying the lovely outdoor atmosphere. I have attended before and I love the atmosphere which is what I have tried to capture in this assignment.

Photo 1. Couple viewing Womadelaide program
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 70mm, 1/1000sec, ISO 200, natural light.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 2. Women at Fig Tree Stage
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 70mm, 1/180sec, ISO 200, +1/2EV, natural light.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 3. Girl in tree
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 55mm, 1/45sec, ISO 200, natural light.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 4. Mexican hat
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4, 24mm, 1/90sec, ISO 200, 580EX, -1/2EV, natural light.
Music provided by Marshall McGuire.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 5. Hula hoop
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/19, 55mm, 1/60sec, ISO 200, +1/2EV, natural light.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 6. Trio
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4.5, 24mm, 1/125sec, ISO 200, natural light.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 7. Sunlit couple
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4.5, 70mm, 1/250sec, ISO 200, +1/2 EV, natural light.
Music provided by Martha Wainwright.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 8. Girl Reading
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4, 70mm, 1/500sec, ISO 200, natural light.
Music provided by Yasar Akpence Harm'de.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 9. Woman Dancing
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4, 70mm, 1/1500sec, ISO 200, -1/2 EV, natural light.
Music provided by Yasar Akpence Harm'de.

From Womadelaide_2011

Photo 10. Dancing Girls
24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 24mm, 1/30sec, ISO 800, -1 EV, natural light.
Music provided by Ash Grunwald.

From Womadelaide_2011

Strong and contrasting lighting proved challenging for this assignment. I took a lot of photos over the weekend trying to capture different aspects of the festival, good people expressions, and make the most of the varying light conditions. I really enjoying photographing this fantastic festival, and am quite pleased with my selection of images of the 3 days.

Womadelaide

2011-03-21T03:57:00.000-07:00

Womad was on last weekend and as a result I finally got around to shooting my event for Assignment 2, People & Places. Here are a few grabs from the (pleasantly large) pile of good photos I captured. I know I've been in the UK too long... I forgot to take a polariser with me!!

From Womadelaide_2011

The greatest festival in the world for fabulous world music, dance, food and fun set in a beautiful environment in Botanic Park, Adelaide. What a great weekend. More photos to come ;)

Project 3: Buildings and Space

2011-03-01T02:26:00.001-08:00

I have been starting research and photographing for Project 3 despite not quite finishing off Project 2 (I have a plan for my 2nd assignment).

Looking into Architectural Photography for research has been interesting. This link gives examples of 'traditional' architectural photography. They show rooms/buildings lit with beautiful light, the colours are complimentary, B&W is used to emphasise pattern and repetition. All lines that should be straight _are_ straight! This is achieved either with a tilt-shift lens (pretty expensive) or can now be done more and more easily in post-processing (not something I've done myself).

This link:
http://www.smashingapps.com/2009/03/22/50-stunning-examples-of-architecture-photography.html
was suggested by fellow P&P student Paul Burgess and shows some great examples of 'architectural' photography. I recognised a number of locations in the images but have never taken such photos myself! Some were a little 'extreme' in my opinion, with very stange angles and slightly severe post-processing on some of them. Reflections and dramatic lighting seem to be quite common in this particular set of images.

I am a fan of order and clean lines in my photos so I'm going to post below some examples I've taken in the past of buildings that might fit loosely in the 'architectural' category and provide good starting point for this section of the course. I have not been taking photos of buildings much lately so need to get my eye back in. Most of my photos for the last year have featured my family!

Split, Croatia. This photo was converted to B&W to show off the lovely form of the circular open dome. The strong sunlight worked to my advantage in this photo.

From Architecture

Rooftops in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The patterns of the roof tiles and similar colours throughout make this photo effective.

From Architecture

Croatia. In this photo taken in the dawn light, the beautiful warm light on the building contrasts nicely with the blue clouds behind. A low angle looking up at the building means that although lines aren't straight, because of the unusualness of the angle it doesn't matter.

From Architecture

Trogir, Croatia. This alleyway in the small walled town of Trogir is low key and almost monochromatic. The texture of the bricks is brought out and the inclusion of the pigeon finishes off the image. There is a nice leading line through the photo in the bricks in the pathway.

From Architecture

Madrid. This plaza was quite busy and I struggled to get a good angle. Here I capture a cyclist going past one of the entrances. I have placed the entrance off-centre using roughly a rule of thirds.

From Architecture

Building in Madrid. This painted building was bright and asking to be photographed! Some interesting people on the balcony would have completed the picture.

From Architecture

Munich. Statue and building photographed in (very) cold morning light. The building is very uniform and linear (though not straight in an architectural sense) and the statue reminds us that we are in Europe.

From Architecture

Amsterdam. An old favourite that I used in TAOP1. The sun came out at just the right moment and I captured this great image of balconys with shadows. I converted to B&W to emphasise the abstract nature of this image.

From Architecture

Amsterdam. Another image from the same area of town, I have focussed on the repetition of windows and subdued colour palette with striking orange doors (well it is holland!).

From Architecture

Amsterdam. A very thin building! Well, the end of it anyway. I like this slightly unusual angle.

From Architecture

Florence. Beautiful light and dramatic clouds gave me this lucky photo in Florence, Italy. Light like this is unusual (though I notice it much more now than I ever have before starting to study photography), and needs to be captured!

From Architecture

Venice. Stairs up on the left, water in canal on the right. I like the juxtaposition and this is seen everywhere in Venice (though is challenging to capture well).

From Architecture

Venice. Lovely evening light and a long exposure capturing the tiny cafe (with concealed entrance apparently) and canal.

From Architecture

Paris. More 'lucky' light at Notre Dame in Paris. Being at a greater distance from the cathedral means that some of the unsightlier aspects (people everywhere, scaffolding etc) can be removed.

From Architecture

Adelaide, Australia. A slightly quirky image of a shade at the beach with brilliant blue sky beyond. Taken with a woolworths disposable camera bought as they went into liquidation in the UK.

From Architecture

Glenelg, South Australia. A lifeguard hut and glenelg jetty. Taken with same disposable camera as previous. I really like the slight vingetting and grainyness of these images. Thinking of getting another disposable camera or possibly going down the holga route... another post another time...

From Architecture

This look-back over my photos has really inspired me to take more photographs of buildings which I have not been doing much at all lately.

Exercise 16: Exploring Function

2011-02-15T20:32:00.001-08:00

The task of this project was to start looking at spaces/rooms/buildings with a view to their use. How will a person/people use this space, what is the purpose of the room? I chose to photograph the yoga studio where I studied in Edinburgh(see my previous post regarding this exercise).
I found this exercise harder than it first appeared. I went there thinking that I had to take a series of photos of the studio, which was relatively easy. Upon rereading the task, I actually should have gone with the aim of taking _one_ photograph of the area to reflect it's purpose/use. In hindsight this makes sense - we need to have the skills to capture the use of a room in its totality, not to seperate it out into chunks (which was a fun process too). Anyhow, I did take one photo which I feel captures the space (or part of it at least) though is perhaps not the best one I could have taken if I had the opportunity again. I will try this exercise again with another room... In the meantime, here is the photo which I feel captures the lightness and fresh feeling in the studio.

From Yoga_Room

Study of a Yoga Studio

2011-02-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

For 'People & Place' I went to photograph at the Yoga Studio I studied at in Edinburgh, called 'The Yoga Room' (link here). I took a series of portraits of Rowena doing her yoga practice, and also took a kind of a portrait of the studio itself. It consists of 3 main areas - the lovely, light filled yoga studio itself, the changing areas/bathrooms, and the entrance area for sitting and relaxing before & after class.

I feel like I have managed reasonably well to capture the essence of the studio in this set of photos. I found over exposing the photos slightly helped to capture the light airy feel of the studio, and I really enjoyed capturing some shadowy images - I was very lucky on the day of the shoot to have a bright sunny day. If I was still in Edinbugh it would be great to go back in winter and photograph the studio as it changes a lot; Rowena puts up fairy lights and obviously it is much darker outside when we are practicing.

First, the entrance area:

From Yoga_Room

Next, the main studio area:

From Yoga_Room

And finally the bathroom/change area:

From Yoga_Room

It was interesting to take photos of this room which is quite familiar to me, and also now (more than 6 months later) to look back and still 'feel' the essence of the lovely practice area. I hope you also can get this feeling from my set of photographs.

Thankyou to Rowena for letting me take these photos.

Magnum Magnum

2011-02-07T15:01:00.001-08:00

I picked up a copy of Magnum Magnum before we departed Edinburgh last August. It's a mammoth book of very high quality. It's layout is quite unique, with each Magnum photographer choosing 6 photographs taken by another Magnum photographer. This means that the photos chosen are not necissarily really well known photos, which results in a fascinating in-depth review of some of the best 20th century photographers work, each with a small history of the photographer and a short essay by the Magnum member choosing the work.

To look at photographs and feel your heart quicken, and almost bring tears to your eyes. That is what some of the best photographs in this book did to me. That and laugh out loud and wonder in amazement how the photographer 'saw' that photo _and_ managed to capture it on film/ccd. Incredible array of photos, from the banal to the heart-wrenchingly passionate.

Can art change the world? (this is a quote... I just finished last night watching the final episode of Simon Schama's 'Power of Art' - awesome awesome show) I certainly believe that photographs can and have changed the world. Debatable for the good or not however. I remember reading an account of somebody who first saw (I think it was) Lee Millers photographs taken in Germany at the end of WW2 and was struck by the violence and destruction of humanity and forever remembers the moment he/she saw the photographs. Now (21st century underway) we see the destruction of a town (I'm thinking here of the Brisbane floods and QLD cyclone in the last few weeks) online, on the tv, radio, twitter, facebook constantly recorded and viewed around the globe - the same of the recent Egypt demonstrations. Are we now dulled to such images of destruction and does it now mean that the photographs (and other media) hold less sway over us and make us actually feel _less_ now than ever before? Nonetheless, even though I've been exposed to the average level of images that a person has, I was still moved by many of the images in this book. It shows the good, bad and ugly (and some funny too) side of humanity, all captured by a brilliant set of women and men behind their respective cameras.

Well worth a read.

Floods and Cyclones

2011-02-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

I thought I was coping fine after the floods until the next wave of distaster to strike Queensland reared its ugly head over the last few days. We were fine in the end during the floods, but it was a highly traumatic and stressful experience expecting our house to be flooded potentially up to the upper storey. What were the things I wanted to save? Photos, hard drives and jewellery. Obviously we were looking after our personal safety first, but photos were the first thing on my list of irreplacable objects. Even my beloved camera could be replaced and so was not on the list of things to be taken out of the house in the case of the extreme flooding which was expected early on. Natural disasters happen to 'other people', not to us. Particularly after we'd only just moved into our new house a month previously. Hard to comprehend, even now 3 weeks after the event. We won't be affected by the mammoth cyclone here in Brisbane, but it makes me realise just how vulnerable we all are, having survived one natural disaster already. What have I learnt? Keep living life as full as possible, something we already do quite well, and always have a hard drive of photos ready to take out of the house if the need arises!

From Flooding

Exercise 13: A Standard View

2011-01-22T19:56:00.001-08:00

This exercise dictates using one focal length, in my case about 35mm which is roughly equivilent to a 'standard' view. This is a challenging lens length to use because the photo matter and viewpoint must be interesting enough in themselves without relying on the use of wide angle or telephoto characteristics to make the photo interesting. I decided to photograph this morning at our new local Organic Farmers Market here in Brisbane. The weather is hot and sunny and there are plenty of people out getting their organic produce at the market. I have tried hard to capture a variety of views of the market and I think I have succeeded moderatly well with 10 quite different photos which capture the essence of the market - trade, people, fresh vegetables, animals, children and colour!

Photo 1: A girl at the market

From Exercise_13

Photo 2: Basket with busy view behind

From Exercise_13

Photo 3: Mother and daughter having a snack

From Exercise_13

Photo 4: Tasty bananas and a yellow hat

From Exercise_13

Photo 5: Lettuces galore

From Exercise_13

Photo 6: Busy feet

From Exercise_13

Photo 7: Fresh produce basket

From Exercise_13

Photo 8: A dog watches at the market

From Exercise_13

Photo 9: Queue for purchase

From Exercise_13

Photo 10: Live music completes the scene

From Exercise_13

A fun project, it's good to finally get back to taking photos again!

Exercise 14: An Organised Event

2011-01-21T21:24:00.000-08:00

This project was to photograph an organised event with plenty of people and a variety of images to be taken. I chose to photograph the Edinburgh Jazz Festival event held in the Grassmarket in August 2010. I did use a variety of lenses and focal lengths but in the end the 10 photos I took are mostly at the 200mm end... I think I 'hid' a bit behind my lens in this exercise and should have tried more wide angle shots. There were lots of people about (unfortunately more were sitting in chairs than ideal) and I did manage to take a wide variety of photos to 'tell' a bit of a story about the day. The weather was harsh - bright sunlight for most of the time culminating in a heavy rain storm at which point I decided to leave! Here are my 10 best images from the day, posted almost 6 months later and from the other side of the world (now based in Brisbane, Australia).

Photo 1: Clarinetist takes to the stage

From Exercise_14

Photo 2: Onlookers enjoying the Jazz

From Exercise_14

Photo 3: A happy face!

From Exercise_14

Photo 4: Dancing Lady and unamused friend

From Exercise_14

Photo 5: A performer

From Exercise_14

Photo 6: Clapping

From Exercise_14

Photo 7: A keen dancer

From Exercise_14

Photo 8: Many happy people enjoying free Jazz on a summers day

From Exercise_14

Photo 9: Young jazz fans

From Exercise_14

Photo 10: The grassmarket is an excellent open air venue in the right weather!

From Exercise_14

Update & portrait photos

2010-08-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

A quick update on my one portrait project and other stuff... it rapidly turned into one a week, and now it's one whenever I can manage! The last few months have been hectic, and the next few will continue to be so! We are moving back to Australia in a few days so have been preparing for that over the last few months. It's all systems go (apart from my photography!)

I've recently finished TAOP and sent it off for the next Assessment. I'm excited to hear the results in a few months. The journey has been fantastic for me and I feel I've risen to the challenge quite well. I'm also working on People & Places which I continue to feel more comfortable with.

Here are a few recent portraits that I've taken, expect a bit of a pause from the blogging, but the next photos will be from Adelaide and then Brisbane!

Jazz Festival, Edinburgh. I took my camera out during the Jazz festival free event in the Grassmarket. It was a lovely day with constantly changing light conditions. I took loads of photos (for the P&P course, though I have not posted them here on my blog yet). These were my favourite portraits on the day.

From Portrait_Project

Princes St Gardens, Edinburgh. This was a sneaky shot, very voyeristic of me, but then she was lying there in the sun so I wasn't being that naughty! I like the composition of this photograph, and it works well with the strong high contrast sunlight. A rare hot sunny day in Edinburgh!

From Portrait_Project

Jupiter Artland, self-portrait. Not terribly inspired, but I liked the artwork and I never miss an opportunity to star in my photos!

From Portrait_Project

Rowena, an amazing yoga teacher who I've been very lucky to study with for the last 2 1/2 years (www.ro-yoga.com/). We had a short photo session in her yoga studio, which is a beautiful light place - perfect for practice and photography. I took some photos for the P&P course here which I will post in due course.

From Portrait_Project

A friend. Would be better without her sunglasses blocking her lovely eyes, but then there wouldn't be the cool reflection of me in the photo too :) She was a reluctant sitter so I didn't push it.

From Portrait_Project

more to come...

Book: 'Between the eyes', David Levi Strauss

2010-08-22T12:42:00.000-07:00

The Rwanda projects of Alfredo Jaar, in David Levi Strauss, Between the eyes
This essay is a fascinating look at photographs taken by Jaar immediately after the Rwanda genocide on 1994. I found reading the essay disturbing, but the way Jaar presents his photographs afterwards was what I found really interesting. He has managed to reduce the immensity of the genocide (which according to Strauss, we the public watched glued to our screens and newspapers but didn't react), to single people and the impact on them. He did this initially not showing his photographs, of which he took about 3000 during his time in Rwanda, but by describing them, or just trying to bring Rwanda as a place into our mindset. Then later on he has used single photographs with descriptions (lots of use of words by the sound of things), to really bring home the personal impact of the civil war. From reading 'Between the eyes', I am beginning to learn more about the difficulty of reporting such massive events in a compassionate way that will make the public think. With the onset of 24hour news in our lives we are being dulled to these tragic events, because we see them (internet/tv/newspapers) constantly. This makes it harder for reporters/photographers to make us empathise with the individuals on the ground. I think that the approach that Jaar took with his Rwanda work has been very effective, and I found just reading about it to be incredibly moving. I found a couple of Strauss's quotes key, in relation to war/social documentary photography:
“One terrible truth about photographs is that they can only ever show us what happened, never what is happening or will happen. They are always about something that is gone, and so are in league with death.” this is “the futility of a gaze that arrives too late”.
Pp 103.

Can you hear me? In David Levi Strauss, Between the eyes
Interesting quote from article about modern life – connectivity and the place of art in the busy modern world.

'Artists cannot compete with the Pandaemonium on its own terms; they are outgunned and vastly undercapitalized. The only way to effectively subvert it is to change the rules of engagement, to engage the audience differently. The most basic questions about audience and communication have to be asked differently now than in the past, perhaps especially when it comes to images, but they still need to be asked. The question is no longer, Should there be a global mass-market consumer culture?, but Should there be anything else? With all of the hype about interconnectivity, are we really more connected than before? What is the nature of that connection? Is the Internet the first and only transparent medium, or does its form determine its content? Is art a subcategory of mass-market consumer culture or something different from it? What is the difference between commercial messages and art? Does motivation affect the message essentially? Can you hear me?'
pp164

The highest degree of illusion, in David Levi Strauss, Between the eyes
A discussion about the September 11 attacks – the most photographed event in history. Clearly planned and executed to maximise imaging – ie the delay between then two crashes seemed calculated to allow cameras to turn en mass towards the towers. An interesting observation... Some of the other trends Strauss observes are interesting too – regarding the treatment and reaction to images as opposed to reality. I'm not sure I agree with him totally about preferring images to reality, but certainly this idea in todays image saturated world is something to ponder upon.
pp182

This book is a fascinating if challenging (and sobering) read. I would recommended it to anyone interested in the use of images in a political environment.

Assignment 5: Applying the techniques of illustration and narrative

2010-08-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have chosen to photograph the Island of Mull, which is off Scotland's West Coast. It has been our favourite place to visit over the last 3 years that we have lived in Scotland. As we are heading back to Australia at the end of August I thought it would be a challenge to try to capture something of the still beauty of Mull and what makes it such a special place.

I have storyboarded how I imagine these photos might go in a magazine.

Title Page

From Assignment_5_Mull

Page 1,2

From Assignment_5_Mull

Page 3,4

From Assignment_5_Mull

Page 5,6

From Assignment_5_Mull

And here are the individual photographs:

Photo 1. Title Page, Escher 3 worlds

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 27mm, 1/350sec, ISO 200

Photo 2. Page 1, Top, Wild Waves

From Assignment_5_Mull

70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 200mm, 1/750sec, ISO 200, -1/2EV

Photo 3. Page 1, Bottom, Still reflections

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/16, 30mm, 1/90sec, ISO 250, -1/2EV

Photo 4. Page 2, Left, Tobermory Harbour

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 macro lens, Canon 30D, f/9.5, 57mm, 1/180sec, ISO 100

Photo 5. Page 2, Right, Keeping in touch

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/8, 24mm, 1/350sec, ISO 100, -1/2EV

Photo 6. Page 3, Travel by boat

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/5.6, 35mm, 1/350sec, ISO 200

Photo 7. Page 4, Top, Powerlines in the mist

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 67mm, 1/180sec, ISO 400

Photo 8. Page 4, Bottom, Remote roads

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 70mm, 1/750sec, ISO 200

Photo 9. Page 5, Saying goodbye

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/5.6, 40mm, 1/180sec, ISO 200

Photos 10. Page 6, Sunsets at Croggan

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/8, 24mm, 1/20sec, ISO 400, -1EV

Photo 11. Page 6, Sunsets at Croggan

From Assignment_5_Mull

70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/8, 120mm, 1/250sec, ISO 250

Photo 12. Page 6, Sunsets at Croggan

From Assignment_5_Mull

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/8, 25mm, 1/10sec, ISO 250

I can hardly believe that I have come to the end of the course. It has been challenging, rewarding, difficult at times and kept me very busy! I've really enjoyed it and feel like my photography has improved quite a lot over the (almost) 2 years that I've taken. I plan on getting assessed and hope to do well but I'm not too bothered as I feel like I'm moving in the right direction of developing my photographic eye and skills along the way. The course has made obvious some of my technical shortcomings - mainly in artificial light use and also photoshop. I hope to keep working on these skills during the People & Places course that I started at the beginning of this year. I also feel like some of my 'natural' ability with framing a good photograph in the camera, and choosing unusual subjects/viewpoints has become more obvious with this course too. It's great fun!! :)

Project 26: Triangles

2010-08-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

This project has been a real challenge. I have found the still life part of this project difficult as I'm just not used to thinking about setting up my photographs, it is something I do _so_ rarely. So it's been a long time in the making. The other real difficulty has been finding an inverted triangle by perspective. In the notes it says 'you may have to think about this one'. I've been thinking and thinking and still have got nowhere. So I'm going to post the rest of the project and just keep thinking in the hope that I find one. Perhaps my friendly blog readers can post a comment to help me out?

Triangles are more dynamic and have a sense of activity compared to rectangles & horizontal/vertical lines. It can be useful therefore to construct triangles in photos, or enhance those that are already present there. In this project there were some specific aims, one of which is still evading me.

Photo 1: Real Triangle in a photograph. This photo was taken in Waverley train station Edinburgh.

From Project_26

70mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO200

Photo 2: Triangle by perspective, converging towards top of frame. This was the easy one, all buildings when photographed from below converge towards the top of the frame. This is taken in Marchmont Edinburgh.

From Project_26

24mm, f/5.6, 1/500s, ISO320

Photo 3: Triangle by perspective, converging towards bottom of frame. I'm still thinking about this one!

Photo 4: 3 people in a group. This photo of was taken on the Isle of Arran, with 3 friends looking out to sea for birds. A distant island is on the horizon.

From Project_26

70mm, f/6.7, 1/500s, ISO200

Photo 5: Still life, apex at top. This small setup is on our fridge, and is made up of shopping list, egg timer and magnets. It was fun to play with different compositions, and the simple triangular setup works well.

From Project_26

50mm, f/3.5, 1/60s, ISO400

Photo 6: Still life, apex at bottom. This is another kitchen setup, this time consisting of the ingredients for a pasta dish. I have arranged the ingredients on our stovetop which provides the plain black setting. The slightly asymmetrical loose triangular setup is more interesting than a random placement of objects.

From Project_26

40mm, f/2.8, 1/45s, ISO500

This project has been slow to finish, partly because of the difficulty of finding the perspective image, but also because I am a bit wary of still lifes! Triangles do make the composition more interesting and I have been using them in my photography since I started this project (October last year!)

Project 61: Making the best use of built-in flash

2010-08-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

Project 61: Making the best use of built-in flash

The aim of this project is to make the student aware of how built-in flash (or a small extra on-camera flash) can be used, and some potential pitfalls of this type of flash.

Shiny surfaces are difficult to photograph, as they reflect the light - I really noticed this when doing the final part of this project, which was photographing an object against a bright window - the flash was reflected in the window! I could crop my images to remove the flash, but it is fine for the purposes of this project. In photo 3 the light is reflected from the spoons but the effect is not so harsh - so in some instances the reflecting effect can be good, even interesting.

Photo 1

From Project_61

50mm, f/1.8, 1/180s, ISO100, flash pointing at subject

Photo 2

From Project_61

100mm, f/2.8, 1/180s, ISO100, flash bounced from ceiling

Photo 3

From Project_61

100mm, f/2.8, 1/180s, ISO100, flash pointing at subject

Photo 4

From Project_61

100m, f/2.8, 1/180s, ISO100, flash bounced from ceiling

The shadows can be quite harsh when the flash is pointing directly at the subject, for example in Photo 1. This effect is lessened when the flash is pointing at the ceiling, though perhaps I am too close to the subject in Photo 2 for this to work well. When photographing a painting (Photo 5 and 6), the textures on the painting are seen if the flash is pointed directly at the photo, whereas the light is softer when the flash is pointed at the ceiling.

Photo 5

From Project_61

100mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO100, flash pointing at subject

Photo 6

From Project_61

100mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO100, flash bounced from ceiling

Only one plane within the photo can be lit when using on-camera flash, certainly when pointing directly at the subject. I have photographed a mobile hanging in our flat (photos 7 and 8). When the flash is pointing at the mobile only it is lit, whereas when I point the flash at the ceiling, both the mobile and wall behind (about 2m away) is lit. In this case, the former is better because the mobile is more isolated and because it is bright and colourful it stands out against the dark background.

Photo 7

From Project_61

100mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO100, flash pointing at subject

Photo 8

From Project_61

100mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO100, flash bounced from ceiling

Light falls of exponentially, so the flash needs to be quite powerful to light an object more than a few meters away, thought this has the advantage that at that distance the flash won't overwhelm the photograph, as it does when shooting very close to the subject. Photo 9 is taken with the lens as close as it can focus - the teddy is very bright and quite harshly lit. In photos 10 and 11 I have stepped about 1 1/2m back from the subject and used similar settings. Photo 10 is directly comparable, with the flash pointing directly at the subject, and the light is much softer and more pleasant. In Photo 11 I have pointed the flash at the ceiling which makes the light reflected off the sofa have fewer harsh shadows. The whole photo is more evenly lit in this case, and looks much more naturally lit.

Photo 9

From Project_61

70mm, f/2.8, 1/4s, ISO500, flash pointing at subject

Photo 10

From Project_61

70mm, f/2.8, 1/4s, ISO500, flash pointing at subject

Photo 11

From Project_61

70mm, f/2.8, 1/4s, ISO500, flash bounced from ceiling

From the above, I can see that in general it's better to point the flash away from the subject, for more even, natural lighting. I also have a diffuser for my flash head which gives a similar effect. Sometimes pointing the flash directly at the subject is good for making the subject stand out against the background, isolating it. This depends completely on the subject in question and the aim of the photograph.

For the final part of this project, I photographed one scene which was backlit (against a bright reflective window!) to see the effect of using fill-flash. Photo 12 has no flash - here the bamboo is almost silhouetted against the buildings in the distant background. With a full flash pointing directly at the window the plant is nicely lit, though the reflection from the window is not very attractive (Photo 13). I then tried keeping the same flash setting and changing the exposure of the photo - Photo 14 is -1EV, and Photo 15 is -2EV. These have the effect of keeping the light on the plant quite constant (influenced by the flash) but making the background darker. Though they are impacted in this case by the flash reflecting on the window, this effect could be useful in other situations to make the subject stand out against a busy background. Photo 16 and 17 are slightly different- keeping the exposure correct and reducing the flash output, first to -1stop and then -2stop. I think this is not as effective with this subject, but again could be useful to have some extra light on a subject (eg a person) without overwhelming the photo with the flash. I then tried pointing the flash at the wall (Photo 18) and ceiling (Photo 19). I think these are the most effective in terms of natural, even lighting (as with my earlier finds for this project). In Photo 18 the light comes from the left and so is flattering on the smooth curves of the plant, without harsh shadows. In Photo 19 the light comes slightly from above, and so while the lighting is not as interesting as in Photo 18, it is even and not harsh.

Photo 12

From Project_61

57mm, f/5.6, 1/30s, ISO500, no flash

Photo 13

From Project_61

57mm, f/2.8, 1/180s, ISO500, flash pointing at window

Photo 14

From Project_61

57mm, f/4, 1/180s, ISO500, -1EV, flash pointing at window

Photo 15

From Project_61

57mm, f/5.6, 1/180s, ISO500, -2EV, flash pointing at window

Photo 16

From Project_61

57mm, f/5.6, 1/45s, ISO500, flash -1EV, flash pointing at window

Photo 17

From Project_61

57mm, f/5.6, 1/45s, ISO500, flash -2EV, flash pointing at window

Photo 18

From Project_61

57mm, f/2.8, 1/180s, ISO500, flash bounced from wall

Photo 19

From Project_61

57mm, f/2.8, 1/180s, ISO500, flash bounced from ceiling

There is much to take away from this project. Playing with the on-camera flash makes me more comfortable with its use (though not with the manual settings of my 580 which are still a challenge to be faced!). I think that I'll try playing with the exposure settings of both the flash and camera and probably use the flash a bit more in my photography. It would be good to try using it more when I'm out and about photographing on the street - I think there are many cool effects that can be done with the on-camera flash. It's also been a good project to learn about the limitations of the flash too. I have a cord that I can use to take the flash off the camera, but I would prefer to be able to do this wirelessly, so I might try to pick up a cheap wireless controller some time. This would open up more creative solutions for the flash. As I am coming to the end of TAOP I need a new challenge (apart from the P&P course!), so perhaps I will try to master a bit better my artificial lighting skills.

Project 53: Fluroescent lights

2010-08-18T02:19:00.000-07:00

The aim of this project was to observe the effect of shooting in fluro lighting, and to use colour balance (in the case of digital shotting) to remove the various colour casts that fluros give off. I took photos in 4 different interiors; a supermarket, home, shop and art gallery. In each of the photos I think the best (closest to reality) WB setting is Auto WB. I feel like both the Sunny WB and the Fluro WB at times give an unpleasant colour cast. I think the lesson with this project is to use Auto WB when shooting inside unless there is a lot of natural light around, or some test shots can be done with different settings at the start of the shoot. I have had problems before with using Auto WB if the photos are to be used as part of a set, and the colour cast changes throughout the set. This could perhaps be overcome by setting the WB manually (which I have not tried) or using the RAW files and manually setting WB that way (which I also don't often do).

Apparently the variations in colour cast are due to factors like the make of the lamp and that they can change colour with age. The only sure way to know how to set the WB is to do test shots or edit the RAW file later.

The four interiors are shown below, each set of photos with 3 different white balance settings:

From Project_53

Project 46: Choosing the moment

2010-08-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

The aim of this project is to take a series of photos of exactly the same scene, and to watch how the shadows and light change across a few hours, nominally just before sunset or just after sunrise. I chose to do this project when we were on our summer holiday recently in Glencoe. The scene was chosen because it had a background (mountains which would catch the light), midground (trees and powerlines which might occasionally catch the light) and foreground (field and fence which would get bits of light depending on the clouds). I thought the composition was quite interesting, with the mountains being strong diagonals/triangles in the photo, and the strips of sunlight across the field horizontals.

I set up with tripod and cable release, and for the first few photos I experimented with exposure compensation. I ended up taking most photos with both -1/2ev and -1ev. This set of photos is all -1ev.

The light changes were quite dramatic. I was surprised with how quickly the light changed, and the way it changed on the foreground and background was different. This meant I took a lot of photos. For this project I have selected 16 photos which show the changes over the 1 1/2 hours I was out for and also some of the more dramatic changes which occurred over minutes.

The best photos are those that have dramatic differences between the brightly sunlit areas and the darker shaded areas, photo 14 in particular is a favourite.

All photos were taken with the same setup (except shutter speed which varied because of the changes in light levels):

35mm, f/9.5, ISO200, -1EV, tripod

Photo 1: 6:55pm, 1/250s

From Project_46

Photo 2:7:03pm, 1/125s

From Project_46

Photo 3: 7:24pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 4: 7:27pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 5: 7:29pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 6: 7:31pm, 1/125s

From Project_46

Photo 7: 7:32pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 8: 7:46pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 9: 7:48pm, 1/90s

From Project_46

Photo 10: 7:50pm, 4/45s

From Project_46

Photo 11: 7:56pm, 1/45s

From Project_46

Photo 12: 7:56pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 13: 7:57pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 14: 7:58pm, 1/60s

From Project_46

Photo 15: 8:00pm, 1/45s

From Project_46

Photo 16: 8:31pm, 1/10s

From Project_46

I have found this to be a very rewarding project. It has taken me some time to find a suitable location where I could be close to home (a caravan in this instance!) and the weather and location be good for taking a series of photos. I was surprised with the speed of change of the light, and also how dramatic the changes were. It was very refreshing!

Project 67: Rain

2010-08-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

The aim of this (challenging) project was to shoot a magazine cover depicting the subject 'Rain'. I have found this to be quite difficult to execute. I thought of a number of ideas (eg, child in car looking through rainy window imploringly, or raindrops on a window and an interesting/colourful view on the other side), and saw some photos online which I thought were quite interesting. I made a note early on to make my possible photos in the portrait orientation, though cropping later would be an option with some photos. Making the photo interesting and attractive was a real challenge. I decided in the end to take some photographs on a rainy day, and chose closeup images of wet leaves and grasses. They were nicely reflecting and the greens were really varied and lovely. I think my resulting photograph, which I have cropped slightly because the original was quite busy, is attractive and fairly interesting. I have placed the main leaf slightly off-centre, used a shallow DOF and kept the colours mostly in the green tonal range. The water droplets are sharp and reflect the grey sky above. The inclusion of some brown/purple/red foilage adds texture and interest to the photo. The criss-crossing long narrow leave breaks up the photo but I think adds extra interest. Overall I feel the photo is a success and depicts 'rain' effectively.

From Project_67

68mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, ISO500

Project 64: evidence of action

2010-08-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

This project is about simple illustration, the example being to illustrate 'evidence of action'. The suggestion in the notes was to photograph something either broken or emptied. I chose a slightly more obscure subject; a woman dancing. It is very obvious from her movements that she is in 'action', particularly when contrasted with the very 'still' gentleman beside her. I spied this couple at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival on Sunday and thought her enthusiastic dancing was wonderful and quite inspiring!

From Project_64

200mm, f/4, 1/1000s, ISO200

Project 7: Objects in different positions in the frame

2010-08-02T09:47:00.001-07:00

I have decided to redo this project as I chose a pretty boring subject last time! This time I have photgraphed a boat in Craignure Harbour, on the Isle of Mull. The lighting is pretty flat and the sky nondescript so including to much sky made the photo a bit blank. However, the water also (because it's reflecting the grey sky) fairly grey. This means it's hard to take an interesting photo. I think the most effective photos are the ones that include more of the forest shore, and where the boat 'fills' more of the photo, even though the same angle of view is used in each photo (40mm, and standing in the same spot).

Photo 1: Boat in dead centre of photo. This photo doesn't have any interesting dynamism to it, and is a fairly boring photo as a result.

From Project_7

Photo 2: Here the boat is off to the right, there is an interesting triangular shape to the left, made up of a sloping hillside, and the water has some nice texture to it. This is definately a more interesting photo.

From Project_7

Photo 3: Here the boat is situated in the lower right hand corner of the photo. With an interesting sky, this would make an even stronger photo, but the sky is quite mediocre and therefore there is a bit too much grey cloud, however this is the best photo in the set.

From Project_7

Photo 4: The boat is situated in the left, slightly upper part of the photo. In this photo there is almost no hillside showing, and as a result the photo has a very different feel to the previous photos. The jetty forms more of the background, but there is a bit too much water in the foreground.

From Project_7

Photo 5: The boat is situated in the lower left region of the photo. As with photo 4, there is little hillside, so not as much interest in the background. As with photo 3, the sky is not very interesting so doesn't add much to the photo.

From Project_7

Photo 6: A portrait photo of the same scene, with the boat situated in the upper right quadrant. I think there is too much water in this photo.

From Project_7

Photo 7: Another portrait photo, here with the boat in the lower right quadrant. The boring sky dominates again in this photo.

From Project_7

I think it was most worthwhile to revisit this project and the effect of changing the position of the boat is really quite large!

Picturing New York

2010-07-16T12:11:00.001-07:00

Picturing New York. Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art.

I have just checked out this book which I found at the local library. It provides an interesting history of photos in a place which has been heavily photographed for most of photographys history! The emphasis is on the MOMA, which has supported photography for many years, and includes work by 'famous' photographers, and also a few news photos and unknown photographer shots. I found it to be really enjoyable to look at. There are a couple of beautiful Alfred Stieglitz photos (Flatiron Building, 1903 in particular) - I quite like the soft focus and dreamy character. The early shots of 'skyscrapers' are great, and I also really liked some of the clever cropping and unusual lenses used in the 1920s (eg Bernice Abbott and Ralph Steiner). A real minimalist photo that I liked (particularly in it's B&W nature and strong geometric design) is Charles Sheeler 'United Nations Secretariat, 1951. The range of subjects is incredibly diverse, the 1940s section in particular - from shopfronts, to subway portraits (Walker Evans), abstract unusual views (Lisette Model, Times Square, 1940), blurred lights & distorted focus & double exposures, studio portraits (Irving Penn), and a couple of real comedy shots - such as Helen Levitt (New York. c. 1945 - a shot of a woman bending over with her hed in her childs pram, the child is grinning hysterically!). Also Weegee's 'the critic', 1943 is a classic comedy shot of three women, two dressed quite smartly with a third caught looking on with a look of criticism - fabulous capture! The range of photographs seem to capture every aspect of life in the city, and the photographers whos names we (mostly) now know very well appear to have grasped something of the soul of the city. A few more favourites: Lee Friedlander, 'New York City, 1966' - a street photo of a womans head from behind (in fur) with the shadow of a man on the top - it looks like the man is wearing her head as a hat!! This is a fun book and I'm really glad I picked it up for a look.

Published by the Museum of Modern Art
ISBN: 978-0-87070-763-6

Project 50: Rain

2010-07-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

This project has been somewhat long in the taking! I have found opportunities to get out in the rain difficult to manage, however we have had some good rain in the last few weeks (Scottish Summer and all), and I have actually taken the camera out with me. I have found it surprisingly rewarding taking photos in the rain. Everything feels fresh and new and the colours are vibrant and exciting. Even my photo of a discarded desk next to a bin is more exciting than it would have been in bland sunshine or cloud. The presence of water around seems to be very cleansing. I also very much enjoyed seeing the water droplets on the foliage of plants when I was out and about. While I have noticed this before, having my camera in my hand while out walking made me notice them _much_ more than I ever have before. One of my first interests in photography was macro photos of flowers (something I have not pursued in years!) and I never used rain to my advantage - it really makes flowers and plants look beautiful!

I have included one photo taken on holiday in Venice last year as I like the effect of a city scene doused in water - in this case the lights reflecting are particularly effective.

I am a little frustrated that I didn't push to finish this particular project earlier, though I did have the challenge of the fact we had masses of snow in winter and not much rain. I feel like since I have finished it now I feel more confident taking photos in inclement weather and that the results are going to be pleasing. Perhaps I just needed the time to realise this anyway. However, here are the photos that I have produced.

Photo 1. Venice, a rainy evening in the square.

From Project_50

35mm, f/11, 4s, ISO200, tripod

Photo 2. Abandoned desk next to rubbish bin. I quite like the quirky factor in this shot.

From Project_50

50mm, f/4, 1/250s, ISO500

Photo 3. Chair and leaves. A simple photo which is made a bit stronger by the bold colours which are brought out by the rain.

From Project_50

50mm, f/4, 1/180s, ISO200, -1/2EV to saturate colour

Photo 4. Yellow flower. Shallow DOF in this case makes the yellow flower punchy. I tried another photo with -1/2EV but I found I preferred the colour in this photo.

From Project_50

50mm, f/1.8, 1/1000s, ISO200

Photo 5. White flowers. In this photo the presence of rain is not obvious, but I felt like the colours and background were influenced by the rain, and the same shot in strong sunlight would have not worked as well.

From Project_50

68mm, f/2.8, 1/1500s, ISO500

Photo 6. Pink flower. I tried to slightly increase the DOF in this photo to have more of the flower in focus. In retrospect use of a tripod would have been better here and in that situation I could have increased the DOF more, though the flowers were moving around in the wind that accompanied the rain.

From Project_50

64mm, f/5.6 1/250s, ISO500, -1/2EV to saturate colour

In retrospect, I probably didn't need the ISO as high as I pushed it, as by using large apertures I could easily handhold at the shutter speeds selected by the camera. However I have found low light levels to be a problem before in the rain, which is why I set the camera up this way. The rain got heavier and heavier while I was out, so I didn't play with my settings very much!!

Exercise 12: Close and Involved

2010-07-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday morning photographing the Edinburgh Farmers Market and the characters there. I used my f/2.8 17-35mm lens at the widest angle, which is roughly equivalent to 25mm. I had previously been using my telephoto lens at 200mm, so the change was very dramatic when I put the wide angle on. I found I had the lens right up close to people which if they noticed could be a bit intimidating, but most people simply didn't realise that they were in the photo at all! This made for great fun, and I could capture people and their strange expressions!!

In this series of photos the guy with the dog actually posed for me, so I just took a quick snap (metering was challenging in the bright sunshine), but I don't think anyone else really noticed what I was doing. Sometimes people tried to get out of my way, as if I was photographing something else, so I just smiled and kept on shooting generally. I found the technique of keeping the camera down and then bringing it up quickly to take a shot worked quite well.

I don't like the way the backgrounds are all in focus, pretty much regardless of what aperture I used. However, I tried to use this to my advantage in a few shots by filling the background with other people. And I attempted to avoid blown-out bright backgrounds where possible. I think flash would be useful in this situation but I'm not quite comfortable enough to do the Martin-Parr-style street photography yet!!

Most of the stall-holders I photographed seemed quite happy for me to do so, they probably assumed I was a tourist photographing their lovely wares. It was fun capturing the expressions of people, but generally I found using the wide-angle lens to be more challenging than the telephoto. It was hard to get close enough to people to fill the frame, and because of the optics of the lens in some cases people look a little distorted. However, being able to capture, for example, the produce on the table, the stallholder and a customer all in one photo is effective. I think with some more practice (like all photography hey??), using this lens could be even more fun than standing back with the telephoto.

I've put my best photos below, my favourite is the final one, with the elderly man trying to get out of my way and the little girl in the background. His expression is priceless :)

From Exercise_12

Exercise 11: Standing Back

2010-07-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday morning photographing the Edinburgh Farmers Market and the characters there. I used my f/2.8 70-200mm lens which is a large, heavy white lens which stands out. I have noted in other students postings the challenges of using a lens like this in a public place because you are really noticed. I knew that this could be a problem before I went, but I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to take photos without being noticed. I think this is mainly because it was really busy and people were concentrating on the stalls & produce, not on other people around. There were a few other photographers out too, and it is a common place for tourists to visit, so perhaps it was a good place to pull out the big lens.

My first photos were not great - a few blurry, some out of focus and I had some real challenges with metering in the bright sunlight. As I realised this, I adjusted some settings, and waited for the patches of cloud to drift past the sun to take my photos, and also chose my position more carefully so I wasn't shooting towards the sun. I also became more aware of the background of my photo, and tried to avoid bright spots (eg from vans in the background etc). I wandered through the market a few times and gradually felt more comfortable taking photos. Towards the end of the morning I simply stood in one spot and shot a few photos of people in the distance, exchanging money, chatting, drinking coffee. I felt a little like shooting prey on a safari, but I did like the feel of being able to stand back and take photos without people noticing, or at least most people not being aware of me.

It was a shame that a number of people were wearing sunglasses, though I guess this is a common problem, however it would be nicer if their eyes were not covered. I took a lot of photos and have chosen what I consider to be the best ones and display them below. I have tried to choose a mix of people - some young, some older, some were watching a cooking demonstration, others are simply walking around. I have cropped in close with some, and tried to capture a bit of background in others. This was really fun project and a good challenge for me. I really enjoyed using the long lens to grab shots of people, and I quite like the effect of the telephoto - blurred backgrounds and foregrounds in some shots. This really makes the subject 'jump' out of the photo I think.

From Exercise_11

These people were watching a cooking demonstration and were easy to take lots of photos of.

From Exercise_11

A stylish young lady with her fancy sunglasses on.

From Exercise_11

Even though she is blurred in the foreground, I really like the capture of this girl with her mother.

From Exercise_11

This lady seemed very expressive.

From Exercise_11

I found sometimes people walked through the shot as I was taking it, and sometimes the shallow DOF didn't work so well, but overall I found using the telephoto quite good. If I was more clever, I think you could play with juxtaposition with the telephoto lens, but I have not managed to do that in this set of photos. I think my favourite photo is of the mother & daughter, the young girl is out of focus but she looks directly at the camera (I think she noticed me), she is biting her lip and the mother is looking at something in the stall. I think it is an interesting image.

Exercise 10: Movement & Gesture

2010-07-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

I spent Saturday morning photographing the Edinburgh Farmers Market and the characters there. I played with different lenses (for the next few exercise), and also managed to capture a variety of movement and gesture photos.

I took a series of photos of the Falko stand (our favourite German bakery), and saw a woman who looked like a bit of a character, so took about 15 photos of her (using a telephoto, so I was not noticed). I have chosen 5 which show interesting facial expressions and gestures. I quite like the last photo as it puts everything into a bit more context by including arms of a customer and the seller exchanging money in the foreground.

From Exercise_10

I also photographed one of the entertainers on the stage, she was easy to photograph because she stayed in one place, had a variety of facial expressions and I could just stand back and take photos. She was singing and playing guitar, and I think a couple of the photos are reasonable. However because she was singing her mouth looked a bit strange in a few shots. I find this a challenge when photographing people talking/singing etc, however in this case it gives her a fun variety of expressions!! I have included 5 photos of her below.

From Exercise_10

I found using the telephoto lens good for capturing gesture & movement, as it enabled me to stand at a distance and take repeated photos of the same person/people. This is not so easy with the wider angle lenses. Taking repeated photos of people means you are more likely to be noticed, so this is something to take into account. I got more comfortable taking photos throughout the morning.

Day 2, portrait 2

2010-07-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Today I went out in the rain to take some photos. Already this project has forced me to make some changes to my photography - I put on my lightest lens (the plastic fantastic - 50mm f/1.8) because I was already laden with my 5 month old and all the associated paraphernalia (one of the main reasons I have not been taking photos much lately). This meant that I could whip the camera out when I needed to take a photo and not worry about changing focal length. This is good for street photography, though some people would certainly say that a shorter focal length would be better (it is closer to 80mm full frame equivalent). Anyway, it suited my purposes for today.

Today's photo is of a young woman waiting at the bus stop - she is nicely looking up at the electronic board which tells us when the next bus approaches. I don't think she noticed me taking a few snaps, and I am quite happy with this photo. I have cropped a little to remove some bright reflections from the left side of the photo from the wet road. I really like the way the umbrella frames the photograph, and her hands are neatly crossing her chest.

From Portrait_Project

Exercise 9: A comfortable situation

2010-07-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

According the the notes in my study guide, the aim of this section (People Unaware) is to have the “confidence and skills to tackle street photography … without being conspicuous while still being able to make effective compositions with good timing” hmm... somewhat of a bit challenge I think! Nonetheless, I'll have a go.

I chose for this project to take photographs while on a recent holiday in Northumberland. We were staying in a cottage right next to Hadrians Wall, and went for a few walks along it. One day I took my camera along and aimed it at the other walkers/holiday makers. It was easy to take photos of the scenery, but I found it quite challenging to take shots of the people there. Most of my photos are actually backs of heads/people, which is not terribly interesting to look at! I think I gradually improved over the morning, but never felt very comfortable.

I used the lens I normally have on my camera – 24 to 70mm, which is roughly equivalent to 35 to100mm full frame. In the chosen 12 photos I have used most of this range except the widest angles. The subjects are generally quite small in the photos, but this is partly a factor of the environment. Given that the area is quite large (ie the wall is long, and there is a large area to walk in), it meant that although busy with people, they were generally spread out. This meant that I couldn't get really close to people without it seeming strange (and very obvious!). At least one pair of people noticed I was taking their photo (no. 3), but it didn't seem to matter.

It was fun to undertake this project, and I found I did slowly get more comfortable throughout the morning. I am moderately happy with the photos, and my favourite is number 10.

Photo 1.

From Exercise_9

Photo 2.

From Exercise_9

Photo 3.

From Exercise_9

Photo 4.

From Exercise_9

Photo 5.

From Exercise_9

Photo 6.

From Exercise_9

Photo 7.

From Exercise_9

Photo 8.

From Exercise_9

Photo 9.

From Exercise_9

Photo 10.

From Exercise_9

Photo 11.

From Exercise_9

Photo 12.

From Exercise_9

Note to self: Next time I will use multi-shoot on the camera – that way if the person's expression improves I can capture a few photos in sequence more easily.

One portrait a day...

2010-06-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

OK, I have decided to step right out of my comfort zone and have challenged myself to a new project. I am still working on finishing up the last few bits of The Art of Photography, and am also working on People & Places, but personal projects have been lacking lately (apart from photographing my son which gets a lot of time dedicated to it!). I have decided to attempt to take one portrait every day. I won't limit myself to a new person every day, and don't know how long I'll do this project for, but one of my main challenges with people photography is having the guts to talk to people and pose them. The best way to overcome this is mileage, i.e. taking loads of photos of people. So my aim is to photograph one person every day and semi-regularly post them here on my blog.

Initially I'm starting close to home (very close...). Self-portraiture is a challenge because you can't look through the viewfinder and frame the shot, you can't see what the photo will look like and you need to do everything yourself. The easy bit is that you don't need to pose someone else and if you look like an idiot then it doesn't matter!! I am inspired by loads of female self-portraiture artists... particularly Francesca Woodman who is a favourite, and I quite like the work of Gabriela Herman, Heather Evans Smith, and also a fellow OCA students work I discovered recently, Penny Watson.

Self-portraits are introspective (or can be), and can be very honest and open – thus are a challenge to do well. I am starting with a simple shot using a handheld camera and large aperture and hope that my photos are vaguely focussed but not worrying about a bit of handheld induced blur. In fact, I have tried to blur a few of the photos on purpose (Woodman-inspired). Below I post the first attempt in this project, which is sure to be a massive challenge for me... Please comment to help me with my challenge!

From Portrait_Project

I think the lighting is not ideal, a catchlight in the eye would have been better, but the shallow DOF and bokeh outside of the main face area is effective. A good starting point?

Assignment 1: A comprehensive portrait

2010-06-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

For the first assignment for People and Places, I have chosen to photograph my father who has been visiting us from Australia for two weeks. I have attempted to capture various aspects of his personality in each of the photos. In order to help this, I planned my shots loosely in advance and asked him to bring along a couple of props to help in the photo sessions.

Photo 1. Reading

From Assignment_1_PP

17-30mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 17mm, 1/125sec, ISO 200, mains flash light with shoot-through umbrella, photo cropped in photoshop.

Photo 2. Glasses

From Assignment_1_PP

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 70mm, 1/125sec, ISO 200, mains flash light with shoot-through umbrella.

Photo 3. X-Ray

From Assignment_1_PP

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/9.5, 60mm, 1/250sec, ISO 200, mains flash light with shoot-through umbrella.

Photo 4. Bow-tie

From Assignment_1_PP

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4.5, 40mm, 1/60sec, ISO 400, 580EX Flash with diffuser, lights on in bathroom.

Photo 5. Gym Gear

From Assignment_1_PP

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4, 51mm, 1/250sec, ISO 100, natural light.

Photo 6. Pouring a beer

From Assignment_1_PP

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 24mm, 1/60sec, ISO 400, 580EX Flash with diffuser, lightened slightly in photoshop.

Photo 7. Binoculars

From Assignment_1_PP

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/3.5, 70mm, 1/60sec, ISO 100, natural light plus fill flash using 580EX Flash with diffuser.

Overall this has been a challenging project. I chose to photograph my father knowing that we would only have two weeks to get all the photos taken. This turned out to be enough time and I am happy with the resulting portraits,which are all showing a different aspect of his character and are each quite different photographically also. I have tried to use different angles, lenses and light, as well as body positions and various poses. Dad helped a lot (he is an amateur photographer himself) by suggesting poses which was very useful and made me feel more confident during the shoots. My biggest challenge still is to feel confident and make my subjects feel comfortable in front of the camera, and knowing how to direct them. I plan to continue to take portraits of people in semi-organised settings when I am able in order to further improve on this deficiency.

Exercise 8: Varying Pose

2010-06-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

I set up a photoshoot with the daughter of a friend who is a keen football player. We posed her standing, kneeling and lying down. We varied how she posed in each photograph, and adjusted where the ball was and how she used her hands. It was fun trying out different poses, but I still felt a bit strange suggesting poses, though it got a bit easier during the session.

Here is a screenshot showing the variety of poses which we tried.

From Exercise_8

My favourite photos are below:

Photo 1: Standing
Here my subject is standing with her arms crossed. I like the triangluar shape made by her arms and body.

From Exercise_8

42mm, f/4.5, 1/125s, ISO100

Photo 2: Kneeling
In this photo my subject is kneeling, holding the ball in her hand. I like the angles created in this image.

From Exercise_8

38mm, f/4.5, 1/90s, ISO100

Photo 3: Lying
This is my favourite photo, of my subject lying on the ground with her ball in front of her. I think she looks quite relaxed and happy and the background is nicely blurred due to the shallow DOF.

From Exercise_8

51mm, f/4.5, 1/90s, ISO100

Exercise 6: The best of a sequence

2010-06-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

I set up a photoshoot with the daughter of a friend who is a keen football player. I photographed her sitting with her football in the garden (bright sunshine but we chose the shady part). I took about 20 photos of her, of which I deleted 6 (closed eyes etc) immediately. I thought as I was taking the photos that the best one/s were about 2/3 of the way through the sequence, when my subject was really laughing and smiling nicely at the camera.

I reviewed the photos later on the computer and still felt that this photo was the best one of the sequence, though I liked a couple of others also.

Here are the photos as displayed in my browser (digiKam) in sequence.

From Exercise_6

I then chose this photo as my favourite and have cropped it in photoshop.

From Exercise_6

42mm, f/4.5, 1/125s, ISO100, natural light

I found this project easier than some of the others because I set the camera on a tripod and could step away from it, thus enabling better eye-contact and interaction with my subject.

Inspiration

2010-06-14T08:10:00.001-07:00

I recently visited the Photographers Gallery in London. We were lucky to see the exhibition 'fresh faced & wild eyed 2010', which is work by recent graduates - an incredible range and variety if images. Most were sets, from two or 3 works up to about a dozen photos. All were inspirational and thought provoking and some were particularly clever and original!

I was particularly taken by the work of Simone Koch (http://www.simonekoch.co.uk/wahl.html). Her piece 'But we must cultivate our Garden' was really excellent - quirky images, mixture of people and place, closeups and abstracts; it really made me think about what made a set of images clever. I hope to be able to do something vaguely similar with my final assignment for TAOP, not in terms of including people in so many images, but taking photos that are not obvious and making them interesting.

We also saw Briony Campbell talking at the Friday lunchtime talk. Her work 'The dad project' was moving and impressive, though I thought the photos didn't tell enough of the story - the captions were needed which I think is a bit unfortunate. I have seen similar works, both online and at a visit to FOAM gallery in Amsterdam. To take such a personal experience (a relative with a terminal illness) and photograph it takes some guts, and she said that it had helped her grieving experience. I'm not sure it's the most original piece of work however, though it certainly was very touching.

I think those students who chose just a few images to present often resulted in stronger impact for me - sometimes it's difficult to make a choice between 'favourite' images, and I think this is actually a very important part of the process of photography (something I myself struggle with at times). But it also distills down the piece of work into the key images and it you can't get your message across in those images then perhaps the work is not strong enough? Another photographer whos work was very impressive and memorable was Anna Linderstam, who had her subjects hypnotised and then photographed them in that state. The massive triptych that results is visually stunning and very effective.

Project 63: A narrative picture essay

2010-06-14T01:37:00.001-07:00

I have chosen a subject close to home for this essay. My mother has been visiting recently and she is a wicked baker. I got her help with baking a family favourite; Oaty Chocolate Bars, and have photographed the process. This was a fun exercise and a challenge to get interesting viewpoints and make each photo different. I think it has worked fairly well, though the photos are not the best I have taken. I used my mains flash to provide additional lighting in the kitchen.

Here is the recipe, it's also on the photos:

1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup castor sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
3/4 cup sultanas
3/4 cup choc bits
180g butter, melted
1/4 cup golden syrup, warmed

1. Grease 20 x 30cm tray, cover with greasproof paper
2. Combine oats, flour, sugar, nuts, sultanas and choc bits. Stir in butter and syrup.
3. Press mixture evenly into pan
4. Bake in a moderate oven for 25 mintues or until lightly browned
5. Cool slightly in pan before cutting

Enjoy!

From Project_63

Exercise 3: Experimenting with light

2010-06-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

The brief for this exercise was to photograph a subject in different lighting situations to observe the differences the light has on the resulting portrait. I have used head & shoulders shots for all the photos.

Photo 1. Studio light setup (ie indoors, with mains flash and shoot-through umbrella).
This photo has nice even lighting over most of the face, though the right side is slightly darker than the left. The light is (relatively) easy to control indoors, and (due to the large diffuse light source) doesn't leave any harsh shadows on the face, and results in attractive catchlights in the eyes. Feature lines on the face are seen because the light is not coming directly from the camera and there are small shadows as a result. The angle of the light is quite important though, and I have not experimented with this in this case.

From Exercise_3

70mm, f/6.7, 1/125s, ISO200

Photo 2. Indoors, with 580EX flash with diffuser fitted.
I have used a simple setup with the 580EX mounted directly on the camera, shooting vertically towards the ceiling with a bulb-type diffuser fitted to create a pleasant lighting effect. In this case it has given a fairly even coverage of light over the face. Catchlights are present in the eyes but also on the nose and wine glass which is not so appealing.

From Exercise_3

24mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO400

Photo 3. Full sunlight with strong reflection from nearby building
I noticed a very strong reflection in the early evening coming off the building, so I positioned my subject in the full sunlight but close to the building so his face is lit on both sides - his left by the sun directly and his right by the sun via the building. This actually makes for a nicely balanced portrait, though the sun is obviously quite bright in his eyes. The creases on his face are emphasised by the strong light, more so than the indoor lighting portraits.

From Exercise_3

62mm, f/16, 1/60s, ISO100

Photo 4. Full sunlight with no strong nearby reflections
This photo is taken in strong sunlight with no nearby strong reflections. The difference with Photo 3 is marked. Here the whole right side of the face is in shadow. This makes for a more dramatic portrait, which in the right setting could be quite useful.

From Exercise_3

60mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO100

Photo 5. Shade with no strong light reflections
Instantly this photo is much more gentle and balanced than the previous two, much more like the indoors portraits. The light is diffuse and even across the subjects face, though the right side of the face is lighter (when looking around at the scene - there are a number of buildings reflecting sunlight at a distance in that direction). Shade is good for gentle balanced light with no harsh shadows.

From Exercise_3

70mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO100

This was an interesting project. I also had a play around indoors with my husband using the flash bare and diffuse and the differences are marked. This project shows how important careful use of light is in portriature, but also how different effects can be used to advantage. I often get 'scared' of shooting in full sunlight, but I will try to do this more to create some strong shadows and more dramatic photos.

Exercise 4: An Active Portrait

2010-06-07T01:51:00.001-07:00

Exercise 4: An Active Portrait

The aim of this exercise was to photograph someone engaged in an activity. We were time limited due to the constraints of having my baby with us, but I managed to get some good photos of my subject, our baby massage teacher Jane. She was demonstrating how to give a baby massage on her 'baby', Joe. I felt like the session went quite well but I am still not very good at relaxing my subject and helping her to feel at ease. This is something I need to practice, and possibly would be made easier by using a tripod for the camera so that I don't have to be looking through the camera while photographing.

Photo 1: Setting up Joe for his massage

From Exercise_4

Photo 2: A high angle photograph of Jane demonstrating a leg massage

From Exercise_4

Photo 3: Jane demonstrating an alternative position for a back massage for a baby

From Exercise_4

Photo 4: Jane demonstrating an alternative position for a back massage for a baby, making eye-contact with the camera helps to make the photograph more personable

From Exercise_4

Photo 5: As Photo 4, but from a slightly higher angle

From Exercise_4

Photo 6: A different pose, closer in with Joe over her shoulder getting a back massage. Some minor editing in PS to lighten.

From Exercise_4

Photo 7: A different pose, closer in with Joe over her shoulder getting a back massage. By the end of the session we were both feeling more comfortable, and I think this is probably the best shot. Some minor editing in PS to lighten.

From Exercise_4

More practice required, but it was fun to photograph Jane with Joe, and I think she was more relaxed having something to do while I was taking the photos.

Exercise 7: Focal Length & Character

2010-05-31T12:53:00.000-07:00

Exercise 7: Focal Length & Character

The aim of this exercise is to explore the differences between various focal lengths on a portrait. I have set up a simple background and a mains flash indoors. My father is visiting and agreed to be photographed. I thought it would be interesting for him not to look at the camera, so he is reading a book and looking down through his glasses. I have used focal lengths from 17mm (x 1.6 conversion factor) to 200mm (x 1.6). The wide angle emphasises the front of his face and makes his nose unflatteringly large. I was also very very close to him which would have been slightly uncomfortable. As the focal lengths increase, his features flatten and begin to look more like we are used to seeing. I found the optimum distance to be somewhere around the 70mm (x 1.6) mark. Any focal length longer than this didn't seem to change the photo much, but it was not so practical to be so far away from the subject.

Photo 1. 17mm

From Exercise_7

Photo 2. 27mm

From Exercise_7

Photo 3. 35mm

From Exercise_7

Photo 4. 51mm

From Exercise_7

Photo 5. 70mm

From Exercise_7

Photo 6. 200mm

From Exercise_7

Spring is Here

2010-05-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

and is beautiful indeed. Here are some shots from nearby Harrison park taken late one evening last week when I managed to sneak out of the house when the wee one was asleep... photography of anything other than him has rather taken a back-seat lately! Hope to be back onto it soon though...

From Miscellaneous

Project 66: Juxtaposition

2010-05-16T13:04:00.001-07:00

This project has a simple aim - to use juxtaposition to make a photograph interesting and suggest a connection between two things - in this case a person and his hobby (birdwatching, so binoculars). I chose to use a very wide angle lens and posed my subject with his hands more outstretched than would be usual for bringing the lenses up to the face for use. However this meant that the binoculars were larger in the photo and thus more prominent. This adds drama to the photo and I think it works really well.

From Project_66

24mm, f/11, 1/250s, -1EV, on-camera-flash,

Project 54: Outdoors at night

2010-04-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

The aim of this project (which I actually finished a while ago but seemed to have missed writing about on my blog) was to photograph a city at night, capturing a variety of lighting effects and colours in artficial light. It was a fun project to do, I went out a couple of times in the evening, some particularly colourful ones caught over the Christmas break with the markets and show rides, to photograph the city of Edinburgh. I was surprised with how quickly the light disappeared from the sky, but luckily I had my tripod, so there is still hints of blue in the photos, if I pointed the camera in the right direction! Here are the photos:

Photo 1: Canal at night

From Project_54

70mm, f/2.8, 1/45s, ISO200, -1EV

Photo 2: Buliding not long after sunset with deep blue sky

From Project_54

40mm, f/8, 1/2s, ISO400, -1EV

Photo 3: Foyer of theatre lit up with indoor lights

From Project_54

24mm, f/8, 1/6s, ISO400,

Photo 4: Edinburgh castle lit by spotlights

From Project_54

25mm, f/8, 2s, ISO400, -1EV

Photo 5: Building lit up from outside, car lights going past too

From Project_54

24mm, f/8, 1/4s, ISO400

Photo 6: Lit carpark

From Project_54

35mm, f/8, 1/2s, ISO400

Photo 7: Entrance to same carpark

From Project_54

27mm, f/8, 2s, ISO400

Photo 8: Castle again, but with darker sky

From Project_54

24mm, f/8, 3s, ISO400, -2EV

Photo 9: Blurred carlights and traffic lights

From Project_54

35mm, f/8, 3s, ISO100, +1EV

Photo 10: Statue and tree lit by workers lights (sodium?)

From Project_54

24mm, f8, 4s, ISO100, -2EV

Photo 11: Church

From Project_54

24mm, f/8, 10s, ISO100, -1EV

Photo 12: Christmas wheel and skating rink

From Project_54

24mm, f/8, 3s, ISO100,

Photo 13: Building on the mound

From Project_54

54mm, f/6.7, 1s, ISO100, -1EV

Photo 14: Christmas wheel and Scotts monument

From Project_54

34mm, f/16, 8s, ISO100, -1EV

Photo 15: Skating rink with blurred people

From Project_54

32mm, f/9.5, 1s, ISO100, -1EV

Photo 16: Helter Skelter

From Project_54

24mm, f/22, 3s, ISO100

Photo 17: Ride with lights spinning

From Project_54

43mm, f/22, 8s, ISO100, +1EV

Photo 18: Christmas wheel and Scotts monument

From Project_54

40mm, f/9.5, 3s, ISO100,

Photo 19: Storefront

From Project_54

32mm, f/16, 3s, ISO200

Assignment 4: Applying lighting techniques

2010-04-09T06:21:00.000-07:00

I have chosen to photograph a handmade vase which has a beautiful texture with iron coloured spots which are unique to each piece, and only become evident after the firing of the piece. I thought the colour and textures of the vase was really lovely, and would be a challenge to photograph to show the different features.

Photo 1. Shape

From Assignment_4

f/2.8, 60mm, 1/60sec, ISO 400.

Photo 2. Form

From Assignment_4

f/2.8, 70mm, 1/70sec, ISO 400.

Photo 3. Shape

From Assignment_4

f/8, 42mm, 1/8sec, ISO 200.

Photo 4. Colour

From Assignment_4

f/4, 100mm, 1/30sec, ISO 200.

Photo 5. Texture

From Assignment_4

f/5.6, 70mm, 1/45sec, ISO 400.

Photo 6. Form

From Assignment_4

f/4.5, 68mm, 1/60sec, ISO 200, slight rotation and crop applied in photoshop.

Photo 7. Shape
From Assignment_4

f/2.8, 35mm, 1/10sec, ISO 400.

Photo 8. Form
From Assignment_4

f/4.5, 43mm, 1/15sec, ISO 200, dust spot removed in photoshop.

I found this assignment to be quite challenging. It was difficult to make the vase look different but still interesting in each photo, and to try to bring out a different feature of it in each photo. I took a lot of photos in order to get the desired effect, and still feel I have a lot to learn about using artificial and other kinds of light in photography.

Art Photography

Digital Photography Practice 1

Deleting Photos

Middleton

Skater Girls

Beyond People & Place...

Assignment 3: Revisited

Photobooks

Exercise 20: Busy traffic

Colour Level 1: Weeks 7 and 8

Assignment 4: A Sense of Place

Colour Level 1: Week 6

Exercise 22: Adjusting the balance between person and space

Colour Level 1: Week 5

Colour Level 1: Weeks 3 and 4

Colour Level 1, Assignment 1

Colour level 1

Exercise 23: Selective processing and prominence

Assignment 5: People and Place, on Assignment

Brisbane OrganicGrowers Inc Annual Fair, Sunday 2ndOctober, 2011

Assignment 5: People and Place, on Assignment

Online Art

Exercise 16: Exploring function... revisted

Hair Salon

Exercise 21: Making figures anomyous

Update. Exercise 18

Exercise 19: A single figure small

Assignment 3: Buildings in use

Exercise 15: Public space, public activity

Exercise 18: How space changes with light

Exercise 17: The Users Point of View

Hidden Vale

Sustainability Project

Perth Street Photography

Light

Assignment 2: People and Activity

Womadelaide

Project 3: Buildings and Space

Exercise 16: Exploring Function

Study of a Yoga Studio

Magnum Magnum

Floods and Cyclones

Exercise 13: A Standard View

Exercise 14: An Organised Event

Update & portrait photos

Book: 'Between the eyes', David Levi Strauss

Assignment 5: Applying the techniques of illustration and narrative

Project 26: Triangles

Project 61: Making the best use of built-in flash

Project 53: Fluroescent lights

Project 46: Choosing the moment

Project 67: Rain

Project 64: evidence of action

Project 7: Objects in different positions in the frame

Picturing New York

Project 50: Rain

Exercise 12: Close and Involved

Exercise 11: Standing Back

Exercise 10: Movement & Gesture

Day 2, portrait 2

Exercise 9: A comfortable situation

One portrait a day...

Assignment 1: A comprehensive portrait

Exercise 8: Varying Pose

Exercise 6: The best of a sequence

Inspiration

Project 63: A narrative picture essay

Exercise 3: Experimenting with light

Exercise 4: An Active Portrait

Exercise 7: Focal Length & Character

Spring is Here

Project 66: Juxtaposition

Project 54: Outdoors at night

Assignment 4: Applying lighting techniques

Brisbane OrganicGrowers Inc Annual Fair, Sunday 2^ndOctober, 2011