Shoot 6-Ponders end flats

Shoot 6-Ponders end flats, first urban shoot

Ideas for shoot

I wanted to try and convey how an area is effected after it has been left untreated and the effects of urban living. In this case, the area of Ponders end has really decreased in terms of quality living, to the point where the council are taking down a whole street, of shops, houses and flats. So that they can rebuild ponders end. I decided on Ponders end because my family has been linked to that area for a very long time, i have been going to ponders end ever since i was born, so i thought it would the perfect area for my first urban shoot, because i know a lot about the situation that is going on their, so i will be at a contextual advantage with my photos, as they will have a background about them. So I will go around the flats and capture the state of them and the one flat that's already being taken down, I would also like to go around the sounding area of the flats to capture how the area is as a whole because some of ponders end has already been redeveloped so I could convey the difference that the council has now made.

Contact sheet

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

For this shoot, my third overall but first urban shoot, so as this is my first time shooting in an urban environment i don't really have anything to improve upon because i will use different techniques when shooting in urban environments. However with this whole shoot i have shot multiple times improving upon faults from the first time i shot. So the first time that i shot at ponders end i encountered multiple problems mostly due to not using a tripod, so i went back to the same area in ponders end with a tripod at different times during the day. I shot at night time because after i had taken my first set of photos for this shoot i was told about photographer Rut Blees Lexemburg who has a photo collection of flats similar to the ones that i and been photographing but she shot during the night. So the first time that i shot at night i used camera Raw file so that i could achieve greater detail in my photos, but i had problems with the camera settings for shooting at nigh because i had never shot in the dark before. So i used the largest aperture that my camera has, f/4.0 and the highest ISO of 3200 so that i could let as much light as possible into the camera sensor, however the photos still came out too dark. So i went back again and i had the same problems, however i think its because there was not enough street lighting to actually let into the camera sensor, because in Rut's work, even though its night her photos are illuminated by the street and flat lights , but as i needed to be far away from the flats to fit them in the area that i was in was poorly lit . However given that i was not as successful as i had wished to be with shooting at night, i was able to greatly improve with the photos that i had taken during the day by using a tripod and shooting at a reasonable time so that i could focus on the camera settings.

Straight images

Images needing improvement

I took this photo of vandalism on a bus stop, because I wanted to show how some people treat public services that the general public use. Also the lighting of the bus stop interested me because I thought that the orangey/yellow lighting would look good reflecting off of the surface of the window and on the writing. However because this photo was one of the last photos that I took it was already 7 so the lighting was really dark which meant that I had to lower my shutter speed which caused the photo to spear slightly blurry. I wanted this photo to be one of my straight images because I liked how I took the photo and just the message that was trying to convey, however as my shutter speed was 1/4 of a second, being very slow it meant that it was easy to become blurry. To actually capture the scratching on the window, I had to have a shallow depth of field, so that the background boards would become blurry and the bus shelter would be the main point of focus, which did work, but I still think the photo needs improving. To improve this photo I would retake the photo, in black and white, still have the shallow depth of view but just try to minimise the slight blur that I have in this photo. If I did take this photo in black and white, I wouldn't have the yellow light effect, but there would still be a visible increase of light in come sections, depending on how late I take the photo.

I took some photos from this perspective of the flat because I wanted to create the illusion of a never ending building and I anted to get the contrast of the sky being bright and the building being dark because all of my other images were quite dark and so I thought I could create the contrast. However I wasn't really able to convey this, because when I started taking photos they were all coming out too dark as a whole image. So I increased the ISO to 1600 whilst having a shutter speed of 1/25 and an aperture of 6.3, this allowed me to get the brightness in the sky but obviously the building appeared light too. Because I was almost lying on the floor so that I could capture nearly the whole height of the building my hands were shaking a bit because of the awkward position, so I could really change my aperture and shitter speed to get the effect I wanted. However I do think that if I was to retake the photo in black and white it would just be simpler, as I would a complete contrast of black and white and the dark and light tones in the photo. So to improve the photo I would either edit it black and white, or I would retake it in more of a central way so that the amount of sky was equal at the top.

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

For this shoot i took it on a Saturday at around 6, so the lighting is very dim and not the ideal lighting that i wanted however i managed to work with it, with a few exceptions as some of the photos did come out slightly blurry because i needed to have quite a slow shutter speed of 1/13 at the start, but I was able to get it up to 1/25 when I was taking photos of the taller flats, but then when I got to the train line to use the bridge to take photos of the flats from a higher perspective I had to decrease my shutter speed to 1/3 and increase my ISO from 800 to 1600. After my first few photos with my Nikon D3300 i started achieving good photos after i had adjusted my iso, however i didn't want my photo to become too grainy so i kept it at ISO 800 until the end of the shoot when I increased it to 1600. I kept to shutter priority as I really needed to focus on the shutter speed because of the darkness of and the overcast skies. This allowed me to have more time when I was taking the photos as the light was decreasing very quickly. However for this shoot, I would like to go back another time to show the progress of the destruction of the building at a lighter time.

As this was my first urban shoot I did find it quite different in terms of how I was taking my photos compared to my rural shoots. So as most of my photos are taken from far away because all of the subjects of my photos are quite large objects I couldn't really take close-ups of the flats, so I couldn't use techniques like I have used in my previous shoots, like depth of field or macro. However, after this shoot I think for all of my urban shoots, I will use the black and white filter on my camera, so that I can convey the seriousness of what I am capturing, and it will also make it easier for viewers of the photos to focus on the buildings and the main subject of the photos , If I don't get to take photos of the flat again, I will just edit my images so that they are black and white so that I  can  have a steady flow of progress through my shoots.

Second set of photos-(7/11/17)

I went back to Ponders end at night, so that i could try and improve on my first set of photos that i took for this, as i experienced problems with my shutter speed and aperture causing blur because of the times and took the images and i dint have a tripod at the time, which would have helped and i wouldn't have experienced blur in my photos as the camera would have been steady. So when i went back i went at around 6pm because i had just researched Ruut Bles Luxembourg and so i was inspired by her images of flats at night time. Ruuts photos of flats are taken at night so that the picture is evidently lit by the flat and street lights only, which gives all of the photos a yellow luminous effect. I wanted to replicate this type of effect with my own photos which is why i shoot at night time, however like my first set of photos i didn't have a tripod on me, and as i shot in the dark i had to have a slow shutter speed of around 1/8 to 1/20 and small aperture 4.5. So my photos ending up blurry, too dark and too pixilated because of the very high ISO which was 12800. I did use a wall to stand the camera on, but it didn't have the same effect that a tripod would by keeping the camera completely steady. Because I'm not completely satisfied with the photos that i have taken for this shoot as i know i can do better, i plan on going back with a tripod and at night time to re-take these images.

Third set of photos-14 at 3/4 pm

I went back to Ponders end again,  but during the day time because i still wanted to capture and improve upon the photos that i had taken the first time when i went to shoot during the day. I also went back to capture the process of the building being destroyed but it had already been taken down.  Again i used a tripod so i didn't have to deal with blur from how unsteady my hands when taking photos without a tripod. I also shot with camera RAW files, as opposed to jpeg, so that i could get better detail and quality with my photos.

This photos were taken to improve on the photos of flats that i took during the first shoot, i knew that i needed to improve on being closer to the flats and just trying to get ply the flats in my photos, instead of loads of cars and trees obstructing the photos. However because of how tall the flats were as i got closer to them it became harder to fit all of the flats in the frame. Even though on some of the photos the top or side of the flats are cropped out, because i got close i was able to capture more detail in the flats, e.g the stains on the sides, which links in with the purpose of the shoot, as i was trying to show the effects of urban living. For this shoot i shot with an ISO of 200 for all of the photos, because the lighting was still bright as i shot around 3 so it allowed me to have a low ISO. I used low apertures for all of photos 4.5-9 and a shutter speed of 1/60, these settings allowed me to capture many images without the photos being effected by blur or noise, and using a tripod also meant that i wouldn't get any blur from the unsteadiness of holding the camera with my hands.

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

(Ruut bles Luxemburg)

I think that this shoot links to photographer Paul Grogan, because the work of his that I researched included photos of buildings and infrastructure showing signs of decay because they haven't been up kept. So the whole idea of this shoot was to show how some buildings can decay because they have been neglected, up to the point where it needs to be destroyed. So when I thought of the idea for this shoot, I immediately thought of Pauls work because some of his photos show paint literally failing off the outside of  house. So when  I was taking photos of the flats I tried to get this effect when I went close to the side of the flat and captured the side vents. However I realised once I had finished the shoot that he would normally take photos in black and white, but when I was doing my shoot I was too focused on the time and changing my shutter speed, so I forgot about changing my camera settings to black and white. However, for the rest of my urban shoots I think that I will use the black and white filter for all of my photos in those shoots.

(Paul Grogan)

 When I took this photo I thought of Pauls photo above because of the similarities in the position of the windows and what the overall message of the photos are. In this photo I tried to show the damage on the building, from what looks like water damage so I think its damp. Even though my photo isn't of the decaying of the bricks of windows, it still has the same message of how a building will start to deteriorate if it is not cared for. To improve my link to the photographer in this particular photo, I think that it will help if I edited the photo black and white, not so that it will look more similar to the artists photo, but so that it will have the same effect that Pauls photos do. However, overall i think that from my image, it still conveys the same message as Paul's photo does above, as they are both showing the gradual wear that impacts the quality of a building overtime.

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

From this shoot, my first urban shoot, I have learnt quite a few things for my furture urban shoots. Because I have been used to shooting in rural environments, this shoot was quite different for me, in terms of what kind of techniques I could use whilst shooting and just what I would be looking out for in general, as in an urban environment the things that I have to capture are just not the same as what I would be looking out for in a rural environment. I feel like with this shoot, I did capture what I wanted and it was what I expected to be photographing. However, I wasn't completed satisfied with this shoot in terms of how much I was able to photograph because of the timing and light restrictions. I still think that I was able to convey the message that I wanted to, so I still think that I meet my intentions for the shoot, and I did get to capture more than I thought e.g. the boarded houses. For this shoot, I defiantly plan on going back to either retake certain images in better lighting, or just do the whole shoot in black and white to show the progression of the flat being taken down. I would also like to go back during a time when the construction workers are actually working on the destruction of the building so I can numerous photos of the cranes  to show the process.