Art Photography: Market

Showing posts with label Market. Show all posts

Monday, 20 February 2012

Portraits

Off to the market again with camera and flash...

I asked this lady to pose for me and am quite pleased with this natural shot. Some minor post processing with curves, crop and removal of a small background imperfection. I like the narrow DOF which isolates her from the dark background which still has some interest, and she looks smart and fresh despite her age. I may try doing some alternate images (in post-processing) for this one...

Friday, 7 October 2011

Assignment 5: People and Place, on Assignment

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

Thursday, 15 September 2011

Exercise 15: Public space, public activity

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.

Saturday, 22 January 2011

Exercise 13: A Standard View

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