Formal Assessment - People & Place

Well I received my formal notification of my results for People & Place 1 last night. I was very pleased to see I have passed with a Class 1 again, the same as for The Art of Photography. I didn't think I'd done quite as well as TAOP, so I was pleased that the assessors disagreed with me! I also appreciated the comments, one of which reads "Continuing to develop your personal style and take innovative risks will further strengthen your work". This I feel is an excellent comment and something I am working towards as I progress through the degree pathway. My other blog (for Digital Photography Practice) is being kept up to date, and now that I have finished the first module (Workflow) for that, I am taking some time out to do more reading and looking at other peoples work, which I am finding enlightening and inspiring.

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...

Skater Girls

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...

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 Photography 1 next. I feel like I need to improve my post-processing skills and this is the logical way to do so whilst continuing to study for my degree. I'm also going to try to install lightroom and make this my main platform for work.

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

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

Macro photography – work on seeing the detail again, a passion I used to have but have not practiced for a while.

Portrait photography – get the studio set 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 to grips with my flash more now after completing a short course here in Brisbane. 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

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

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

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.

Assignment 4: A Sense of Place

North Stradbroke Island, QLD

I have chosen to photograph an island which is very close to Brisbane. This assignment is to photograph for an intelligent, thoughtful travel publication, so I did some research looking at magazines such as those in the national newspaper, The Australian, and also the Qantas in-flight magazine. The images in those travel sections were bright, complementary colours and carefully chosen depending on the story at hand. Thus for my assignment I had to think carefully about what story I was try to show in my photographs, and not just shoot randomly. This made the project quite challenging and meant a number of ideas had to be discarded due to a lack of a cohesive story. I have chosen to document a relaxed weekend at Stradbroke, consisting of time on the beach and also time walking in the beautiful national park areas. This is the sort of holiday we enjoy, and I also decided to capture some slightly personal images of my family as I thought the article which might go with my photo essay would emphasise activities for a young family at North Stradbroke Island for a weekend.

Photo 1. Brown Lake

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 24mm, 1/90sec, ISO 200, natural light, dodge at low opacity over people.

Photo 2. Main Beach

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/16, 46mm, 1/250sec, ISO 200, natural light, minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 3. Blue Cat Red Cat

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/16, 24mm, 1/90sec, ISO 200, natural light minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 4. Domain Resort

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 24mm, 1/250sec, ISO 200, natural light, minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 5. Spiderweb on bark

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 34mm, 1/60sec, ISO 400, natural light, minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 6. Abstract water droplets

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 70mm, 1/350sec, ISO 400, natural light.

Photo 7. Beach reflections

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 48mm, 1/1000sec, ISO 200, natural light, minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 8. Beach abstract

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 17mm, 1/90sec, ISO 400, graduated neutral density filter, natural light, very minor contrast enhancement via curves tool.

Photo 9. Greenery near Blue Lake

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

Photo 10. Kite Flying

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 24mm, 1/750sec, ISO 200, natural light, free transform rotate and crop.

Photo 11. Surf Patrol

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/16, 24mm, 1/250sec, ISO 100, natural light.

Photo 12. Ice Cream and Gelati

24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, 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!

Exercise 22: Adjusting the balance between person and space

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.

Exercise 23: Selective processing and prominence

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

Brisbane Organic Growers Inc Annual Fair, Sunday 2^nd October, 2011

I have chosen to photograph a local fair run by the Brisbane Organic Growers Inc (BOGI). I chose the organising committee as my notional client and my brief was to photograph the fair in all it's parts. This would include setup before the actual fair, the stalls, cafe, vegetable growing competition and auction at the end of the day. This was to be prepared in a short photo essay which would be included in the November newsletter and thus had a deadline of two weeks after the fair.

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

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

Photo 1. Preparation. Setup area for stalls

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, 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 check tablecloth

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4.5, 17mm, 1/45sec, ISO 640, bounce flash.

Photo 4. Cafe. Preparing cupcakes in the kitchen

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 19mm, 1/60sec, ISO 1000, diffuser on flash.

Photo 5. Cafe. The first punters arrive

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/4.5, 17mm, 1/45sec, ISO 1000, diffuser on flash.

Photo 6. Cafe. Choosing and Paying

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 17mm, 1/45sec, ISO 1000, diffuser on flash.

Photo 7. Stalls. Forbidden Fruits Nursery

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/11, 17mm, 1/180sec, ISO 640, natural light.

Photo 8. Stalls. Tropical Fruits trio

17-35mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, 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. Viewing the entries

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/2.8, 50mm, 1/90sec, ISO 500, natural light.

Photo 11. Competition. A young prizewinner

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/5.6, 50mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 12. Auction. Graeme and Charlie call the auction

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/3.5, 50mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 13. Auction. Bidding

50mm f/1.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/5.6, 70mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 14. Auction. A young bidder

70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 120mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, diffuser on flash.

Photo 15. End of the day

70-200mm f/2.8 lens, Canon 30D, f/6.7, 125mm, 1/60sec, ISO 640, natural light.

From Penny, BOGI vice president: 'Your photo story depicts from setup to cleanup and so much of the colour in-between, really wonderful.' It's a pleasure being able to provide a great set of photos to a client.