Shoot 4-Trent park

Shoot 4-Trent park

Plans for shoot

As this shoot will be my second to last shoot on rural landscapes i wanted to experiment a little bit more with different techniques and perspectives, so thats why i chose Trent park for this shoot, because i know that its a large area with a variety of different landscapes, enabling me to capture photos from different angles and perspectives. I think with this shoot i will be able to capture whole landscapes and then also zoom into those landscapes and look at certain objects in more detail. I think that this shoot will be more closely linked to Heather Angel so that i can keep the link of development in the style that i take my photographs that i have shown in my previous shoots, so for example looking up towards the canopy level/sky.

Contact sheet

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

I think that from the photos that i have taken for this shoot, i have achieved the best photos in terms of quality and techniques used. This is because i reflected on what i needed to develop further from my previous shoots and what i needed to start doing to help progress further. So one thing that i had not used with my previous three shoots was a tripod, by taking a tripod with me i was able to progress on the problem of taking blurry photos because of a slow shutter speed that i needed to accommodate changes to aperture. I also think that with this shoot i took a wider variety of different aspects found within the environments and i looked in more unusual places. I think that with this shoot i spent more time with the camera settings and deciding what perspective would look best for what i was photographing, for example i took more photos from high and low angles.  I think that overall this shoot shows the progress that i have made from my first shoot, because within this shoot i have  incorporated the techniques, angles, perspectives, etc that i used in my previous shoots and i have further developed those techniques. Within this shoot i have also shown influence from both of my main rural artists, Ansel Adams and Heather Angle, which in my previous shoots i would normally just focus on one of those photographers, so i have made progress by incorporating both of their styles of photography into my own work.

Straight images

Images to improve

I took this photo because it reminded me of one of Ansel Adams photographs of a large lone tree, and so i thought that by taking a photo from the perspective of the largest tree being in the centre of the frame of the photo, then my photo would have the same effect as Ansel Adams photo. However whilst taking this photo my family walked into the frame of the photo, this is a problem because in all of my rural shoots i haven't taken photographs with people in my photos because i am photographing the environment that we live in not people within the environment. Also, as the whole point of taking this photograph was to have the large tree as the most eye-catching aspect of the photo, having people right next to the tree goes against that idea. So to improve this photo i would re-take the photo and time it better so i can capture just the landscape, i would also move further away from the tree so that i could fit the whole tree into the frame of the photo and make the tree more central.

I took this photo because i thought that the branches were interesting and unusual, however i think that the overall outcome of the photo needs improvement. This is because some of the photo is blurry and out of focus even though i used a tripod all throughout this shoot, however when i took this photo i was on a very uneven surface and so i may have moved the tripod without noticing, ultimatly causing the photo to be slightly blurry. When i took this photo i was suing manual mode and i had just come out of an area with darker lighting which means i needed to change my settings, I used an ISO of 200, a shutter speed of 1/160 seconds and a large aperture of f/4.6. Due to me using a large aperture the whole photo isn't in focus and is effected by the lighting behind the branches because more light than necessary is being let into the camera sensor.  So to improve this photo i would have to re-take it, as to improve the photo i would have to use a smaller aperture to accommodate the lighting

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

(Ansel Adams )

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I took the image above because at first the type of tree reminded my of trees in Ansel Adams photo above mine, so therefore if i took a photo from the same perspective and have a line of trees in the foreground that contrast against the trees in the background then the photo would be like Angels'. However as i had originally taken the photo in colour i needed to edit it black and white so that the photo would be the same style as Angels'. Ansel's photo also has dark background with the trees contrasting against the background due to the brighter tone, so to try and get the same effect I used the polygonal lasso tool to individually select the trees one by one, after i had fully selected a tree i would edit the brightness adjustment of the section to +35 so that i would have the same effector the trees in the foreground being brighter than the background. However i still found that the background was too bright and so the trees didn't really contrast against the background, so i selected sections of the background again with the polygonal lasso tool and adjusted the brightness so that each section i selected was of a -15 brightness. I think that by this photo i have shown the influence of Ansel Adams within my work as i fully developed this photo so that would look more like Ansel's style of photography. I think that even though the original photo is similar to Ansel's style because of the perspective, it was still missing some of the key aspects of Ansel's work, like black and white and a range of tones, which after editing my photo i was able to achieve these aspects.

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

For this shoot i used a tripod so that i could progress past the problems that i faced with previous shoots due to not having a tripod with me, so for example using a tripod allowed me to shoot with faster shutter speeds if i needed to. I also shot with a jpeg file, however i now know about camera RAW file so on my next shoot i will use RAW. I used an ISO of 200 most of the time as i shot during the day so i didn't require a high ISO unless i took photos in dark area, which i would then use an ISO of 800. As i had a tripod i was able to use shutter speed ranging from 1/80-1/1250 seconds depending on what i was taking a photo of  aperture of f/22 to f/32 for photos of whole landscapes as i needed to have everything in the photo in focus, and when i took close-ups i would use a larger aperture of f/5.6.

My plans for this shoot was to experiment with different techniques, photographic processes and to develop upon current techniques and styles of photos from my previous shoots. So in my first shoot i had taken a photo of a reflection and so in this shoot it had been raining early and i was near a body of water so i thought i would incorporate reflections as a technique. For example one of my straight images, the photo of a reflection of a tree in a puddle with leafs, was somewhat difficult to take because to successfully take the photo i had to make sure that i had the correct depth of field so that the reflection of the tree in the water was clearly visible and in focus in stead of the leafs on the ground.  So i think that a common technique with this shoot was depth of field as i have numerous example where i had to have the right depth of field for the photo to be its best or i experimented with the depth of field like the photo of the blueberry.

I edited this photo by creating a vignette effect, so that the centre of the photos is lighter compared the rest of the photo, which then draws the audiences' attention towards the centre of the photo. I think that by adding a vignette effect to the photo, it makes the photo more interesting because the light gradually fades from the centre to the corners, creating darker tones throughout the photo which to me makes the photo eery. The vignette is a new editing technique for me, so i think that i would use it again in another shoot to see the different effects that adding a vignette can have on a photo.

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

For this shoot my main intention was to focus on different photographic techniques, as in my previous shoots i had focused more on photographer research and improving problems i had faced within those shoots. Which, in this shoot I do still have clear influence by Ansel Adams work and I improved on my issues that would occur because of a lack a tripod, I still thought that it would important to try different techniques. Ultimately, I think I did meet my intentions for this shoot because I experimented with both new editing techniques and photographic techniques that have developed my work and improved its quality. For example I experimented with creating a vignette effect and creating more tones in my photos, I also used more photographic techniques, like depth of field, reflections and close-up photography. For my initial ideas when i started this project i wanted to take photos of the environment as a whole and then zoom further into the environment and take photos of different aspects within the environment like the photo below of the blueberry.