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.