Shoot 1-Forest

Shoot 1-Forest-Rural shoot

Plan for shoot

For this shoot I would go to this wood near my house which has quite high trees, the floor is just covered in leaves and has quite a few squirrels. I think that this wood would be appropriate for my firsts shoot as I know the area so I know what will be there, which is quite a variety or leaves and acorns for my macro and I, and as the trees are quite high, if I went at the right time when the suns above I could capture the suns rays coming through the tree canopy, For the second shoot I would do this when I'm back at college so I would have to plan it in a forest/wood type area near the college. So for my second shoot I would go to this wood land about 10 minuets walk away that has a small river, this would then allow me to capture a similar type of environment but it has different trees, a river and different wildlife.

Contact sheet

Straight images

Images to improve

This photo is of a tree that has been set on fire by someone. I found this interesting because I found it after I capture the log that had been set on fire. For this photo I wanted to capture the detail of the effects the fire had had on the tree so that I could show how some humans treat our environment. So in order to achieve this I needed to take a clos up of the burned section of the tree, however when I did this it then took away the effect of having the whole burned section of the tree visible so I decided to try and capture of all it, instead of just a section. When I was trying to take a photo of this tree, I found it quite difficult to get even tones across the hole photo as the bottom section was appearing more exposed than the rest of the photo. For this photo I used aperture priority because I was trying to get the exposure right, an aperture of f7.1, shutter speed of 1/6 and an ISO of 800. Because I used aperture priority my camera selected the best shutter speed to suite it but because of this there's a slight blur at the bottom of the photo. But the shoot was around 4:30, in woodland so the light wasn't really direct so I couldn't really have a faster shutter speed and I needed to have a reasonably high ISO. So to improve this image I would re take the image probably fro a different perspective because I don't feel like this perspective gives off the meaning of the photo that I want it to, because I want it to really show the effect the fire ha had on the tree and its future development, as the tree cant grow back that section of itself, so now its weak.

This photo was the best out of the collection that I tried to take of this pathway to the woods. For some reason I found it quite difficult to take a good photo that captured what I really wanted to be captured, as I wanted it to give off more of an uncertain tone to the path and the small entrance it the woods at the end of the path. However the photo would either in-central, blurry or over exposed. So for this photo I used aperture priority because I was really trying to sort out the exposure of the phot and make it darker, an aperture of f5, a shutter speed of 1/25 and an ISO  of 800. Even though the photo appears to be bright I used an ISO of 800 because whenever I used a lower ISO the photo would turn out dark. So my problem with this photo is that its off centre and too light, so all I needed to do was increase my aperture, but because of that my shutter speed had to decreases, resulting in the photo being blurry because I was holding the camera, however if I had used a tripod it would have been better because I could have a slower shutter and still have a higher aperture allowing me to have a darker photo. So to improve this photo I would re-take it, so it could be more central giving the effect of the leading line to the forest and have the whole tone of the photo darker, so the photo gives off a more mysterious effect.

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

This was my first shoot, I wanted to capture images of how beautiful the environment was until the visible effects of humans was seen. Before I actually set out to take photo, I knew that the area would have some litter and vandalism so that's why I chose this area to show how some humans don't care for the environment. The way I entered the "forest" area was more of a cleaner section and you couldn't see any bad effects of humans until I got to the centre of the forest, so I thought that this would be a good effect for my photos because I was able to show the beauty and then show the destruction. For this shoot as it was a small area and around the time I took my photo it was just staring to rain and so clouds were forming, making the light decrease, so I didn't really have enough  time to take every single photo more than a couple of times to try and improve them, and it didn't give me the time to actually figure out how to improve the photos.

Reference to my best selected images 

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

Out of all of the photographers that I have researched, I believe that this shoot is most linked to, Ansel Adams because even though the photos aren't what Ansel would normally capture, I still felt as though there was a similarity with the perspectives on some of my photos of trees, as the way I took them reminded me of some of his photos that I had seen whilst researching his work. So a couple of my photos of tree are taken a bit of a distance away so that I could captured a collection of trees, which I have seen similar photos that Ansel has taken to this. And with Ansel's photos of collections of trees he would normally just have the tree trunks and having some leaves visible, which is exactly what I have done in a couple of my photos. However whilst I was walking around, there wasn't many situations in which I could get so many similar photos in Ansel Adams style, which is why I could only capture a select few. As Ansel Adam would normally use large format cameras, I think it would be beneficial on later shoots to use raw image quality for my photos, so that I could capture better quality images.

(First take)

(Re-take)

I took this same photo around 20 times because I couldn't quite get the effect that I wanted for the photo, because kept coming out over exposed or slightly blurry or just the framing wasn't right. However the photo on the bottom was my last try on a different day. What I was trying to convey was the darkness and uncertainty of this path and what it was actually leading to, so with this photo I feel like I achieved it because it looks as though the path is dark but its being lit up by a torch. To take this photo I used manual mode, a shutter speed of 1/125, an aperture of f8, an ISO of 400 and a focal length of 32mm. From using all of these settings I feel as though it allowed me to achieve the outcome that I tried quite hard to get, and by the framing being central it gives of the effect of the leading line of the path leading to the tiny hole right at the end of the path. Originally I was just taking this photo to try and improve on the original, but after I started looking at the photo I started to notice simulates within Ansel Adams work. Even though this isn't a photo he would typically take, it reminded me of his photo of Aspen trees, because when I analysed those two photos and then looked back at this photo I realised that I had the same type of effect that I had described in my analysis of the photos. T he effect was how the trees looked as though they were never ending, which is what I see when I look at my photo too. I also said that the photos of the aspen trees were of quite a dark tone, which I think my photo is of a dark tone too. So when I was taking the photo, I didn't have the idea of using Ansel Adams work as an inspiration but I now know hoe his work links to my, in terms of the deeper analysis of his work.

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.  

From this shoot, I feel as though I succeed in what I set out to capture and convey through my photographs. As my intentions were to capture the natural beauty and peaceful nature of this environment and then how humans have disrupted that peace by vandalism and littering. e.g. my photos that show how a tree and log had been burned, the scoter that had been dumped in the woods and set on fire. So I do feel as though I have meet my intentions of my shoot and illustrated various human negative effects on the  area. I do feel as though it will be one of my smaller shoots, so i  do wish I could have captured examples of human destruction within that environment, but there wasn't any more visible effects that humans have had.

I think that throughout most of the shoot, I did capture the negative effects of humans in a good way, for example the photo of the red sweet wrapper on the floor. I decided to have most of the ground visible and then have the wrapper in the top right corner of the photo, so that I could show the difference how how nice a plan ground looks and then how it looks with litter, instead if just having a close up of the sweet wrapper. However some of things that I tried to capture didn't quite go the way that I wanted it to be captured. like the photo of the tree with a hole that had visibly been set on fire, but at the time I didn't quite know how to capture the photo in a way that conveys just how much effect that fire has had on the tree. So in the near future I would like to go back and re-take the photo so I can show the full effect the fire has had.

For my next shoot, I want to try and find a larger environment so that I can capture more of the negative that some humans have on an environment. And capture more of the beauty within that environment too. I also plan on capturing more photos that are inspired by some of the photographers that I have researched, like Ansel Adams.

AO2 Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

For this shoot, I took it around 4:30 to just after 5, the shoot was quite quick because the area itself where I took my photographs was relativity  small, it only takes 5 minutes to walk though it. Also the time off day meant that it was starting to get dark and the weather on the day was very overcast so the lighting was dull and dim, and I didn't have any direct light in any of my photos. When I started my shoot, on the path leading to the woods, I started off with an aperture of f5 and a shutter speed of around 1/25 to 1/60, with the exception of when I took photos with the sky which I would use a shutter speed of 1/200. Throughout the shoot I used an ISO of 800 and used aperture priority because at the time of the shoot I found it difficult to get the right aperture and I didn't rally have a lot of time. When I actually got into the forest my aperture and shutter speed were ranging more depending on what I was taking a photo of.

Throughout the shoot I tried experimenting with the depth of field on quite a lot of my photos, as I was trying to capture the effect of how important the subject of that photo was. So for a few photo of trees I used a shallow depth of field, to have the tree in full focus and all of the detail of the tree visible and then the background would blur out. I also used a deep depth if field which I normally don't get to do on one of my straight images where I'm laying on the ground looking towards a whole line of trees, but there's a bit of grass right in front of the camera, but because of my depth of field being deep, it allowed that grass to be blurred out, showing the importance of the trees in that particular photo.

I also tried to get the effect of contrast in a couple of images, I did this by either taking a photo of tree looking up at it, so that the grey sky would be in the photo, but because of darkness of where a I am and lightness of the sky, when I take a photo it would contrast almost to black and white. One of my straight images is an example of this as I used a shutter speed of 1/1000 and an aperture of 7.1, the fast shutter speed then allowed for the darkness of the photo. Even though the effect of the total contrast didn't come out as I intended I still got the effect of contrast. So in later shoots I intend to try and do this effect but have more of a contrast than I captured this time.

Edits