Assignment 5: feedback

Just a quickie on the feedback I just received on assignment 5. Overall I am very happy with it, My tutor compliments me saying that my photographs have a visual assurance to them that is the mark of a professional photographer. I am very happy with this compliment.

He spots a recurring theme in my work though, of reverting to the binds of the aesthetics. This is something that I also agree with. When I look at the set now I see that some of them are nice images but they do not add anything to the story I am trying to tell.

Signs and symbols come up several times and how to link images together better. I have been thinking about this for a week or so now, before I received his feedback. There was a time that I would have considered a picture without perfect light, without perfect composition, without perfect colour a right off. However images work deeper than that. Especially when telling a story. I have a habit of always looking for an aesthetically good point of view for an image and I am working on breaking through this at the moment.

I think that I do put a lot of store on getting something technically perfect. Now I don't think that there is anything wrong with that. However as Flickr bears testament to, there are many technically perfect images that lack soul. They are all about object and environmental aesthetic but communicate nothing.

On this subject I came across this quote from Jose Navarro:

I would say that the act of being-in-the-world is primarily – but by no means exclusively – a visual experience. It follows that photography has the uncanny ability to articulate how places affect our emotions and how we feel about them at a deep, almost unconscious level. The basis of psychogeographies in photography lies in skipping the cognitive process that leads to taking a photograph. What I mean is that we can bypass our minds and take photographs straight from the experience of perception, of the perception of the place we are in. In other words, do not think about the photograph you are about to take, just capture what your body is perceiving that precise moment – with all your senses, although the sense of sight will prevail, obviously. Lee Friedlander springs to mind as, knowingly or unknowingly, one of the first psychogeographers – see his photographs in the book The Desert, published by Thames & Hudson. Raymond Depardon’s Errance photographs are also a good example of psychogeographies."

I think this is along the lines of what my tutor means. Because a camera is a technical piece of equipment, it is a trap that any photographer can fall into, to get caught up in the shutter speed and f stop. What the above quote says to me is that what makes great photographs is being able to combine this technical ability with the ability to transfer what we feel about a place or person, any subject, into an image.

Assignment 4 Review & Feedback.

As part of the preparation for having my work assessed I have been re-reading the assignment tutor reports. I did not actually realise that it would be advisable to re-shoot the suggestions in the reports. However I can see the wisdom of it now. So for Assignment 4 here are the original photos with the edits too.

Photo 1.

My tutor's remarks are complimentary about the photo and he does say that it meets the requirements of shape. However he does feel that the creases in the white sheet distract from the subject. He suggests that shallow depth of field would have been better and I agree.

Here I have blurred the background in photoshop and its a definite improvement.

Photo 2.

The critical remarks are very much the same here. He points out the creases in the sheet and also the base and backdrop seperation. Again he suggests that shallow depth of field as a possible solution.

Here again I have blurred the background in photoshop and the improvement is noticeable.

Photo 3.

The criticism is the same here.

This is a big improvement.

Photo 4.

Here the main criticism is that the lighting from the top rear light off left highlights the hair/head of the statue but leaves the face in shadow. This unbalances the composition. My feeling on this is that I do not completely agree. I feel that the empty space to the right acts to balance the composition. However here below I have applied a curves adjustment in photoshop which does lessen the effect.

Photo 5;

Here the only point he picks up on is the specular high light on the ear.

Here I have changed this in photoshop. I agree with the criticism. The eye is drawn straight to that point in the previous shot.

Photo 7.

Here I agree with his criticism which is that although the composition is good, the light on the left ear, which is out of focus is distracting.

Here I have attempted to focus attention on the eyes. I do like the way the previous photo brings out the curve of the cheek.

Photo 8.

His main criticism here seems to have been that the light on the hair on the left is distracting from the main graphic element of the eyes. He also suggests a central composition.

This is the amended photo and again I agree it is much stronger.

Photo 9.

Here the criticism is that the focus is on the nose and not on the eyes. He does however like my deliberate use of specular highlights.

Here is my attempt to retake this. Again looking in comparison with the previous I agree.

Photo 10.

here the feed back is again positive. The only critism is to remove the ear lobe that is a distraction.

This version is better.

Photo 11.

The only point made here is about the highlighted area on the right. It is suggested that it is a distraction.

I think this is better.

Photo 14.

Here while he likes the colour and the flowers he does rightly point out that the composition is unresolved. The hand of the statue is on the periphery of the composition and out of focus and the flower in the centre needs to be facing the camera.

Here I have made the hand the centre of interest. The picture is definitely much stronger.

Assignment 5 complete!

I just sent off my final assignment to my tutor by e-mail. I hope it goes through alright. Here are the photos and the details of each photo. Overall I am very happy with this assignment. I took a lot of photos and experimented with lighting and effects for it. I have gained a greater understanding of how the camera "sees" and its dynamic range. I can see the effect of adding light for all sorts of reasons. For 3-D effect, to show shape, texture and colour. Also by adding light to balance the highlights and shadows. Adding light to improve sharpness, allowing a smaller f stop to be chosen for instance. I look forward to receiving my tutor feedback, its always informative and insightful.

Photo 1. The cover shot I think. Shot at f20 (1/80 sec iso 200) to get the starburst effect on the sun. This shot was taken about a month ago when we had a period of hot weather with the most glorious of skies in the evenings. I used a canon 580 EX, with a Stofen flash diffuser and a radio trigger to balance the highlights and shadows. Two lights, one the sun, the other flash. Until recently I never understood fully how different the dynamic range is between the camera and the human eye. I used the strobe to help the camera see better I guess.

In terms of captions what I had in mind developed as I took the series of photos. I came to realise that the secret ingredients of success in a garden are as follows;

Sunshine:

Caption: Sunrise

This was a photograph I had been thinking of trying for a while. I had watched the sun come over the top of this mountain opposite our house for a few weeks, the difference it made to the garden in the morning was really something. I found these flowers were in the right line of sight. I used a canon 580 ex again, this time mounted on a light stand and shot through a shoot through umbrella. Triggered using a radio trigger. These are to the camera left of the shot. I took a lot of photos that morning, getting the set up right. This is the best shot of the series. It was taken at ISO 400 and f22 1/250 second.

Caption: Shade.

One of the features of this area of the French alps is the great numbers of Walnut trees. They grow everywhere and are beautifully shaped. I tried different shots of this one and decided that they were too clichéd. I like this point of view from under the canopy. I also wanted to include the sun in the shot, nice diffused sunlight peeping through the canopy. Off camera flash through a light stand and triggered using a radio trigger. F6.3 @ 1/160 of a second to allow the ambient light bleed into the photo.

Water:

Sub Caption: Water has become a strategically important resource that is more important than even oil.

Off camera flash on a light stand. Bare un-diffused light. Radio trigger again. F 6.3 1/250 sec using a macro lens. ISO 400.

ISO 100. F7.1 1/250th second. Flash as a fill combined with natural light.

ISO 100. f 4.0 1/250 second. Again flash and natural light.

Soil:

ISO 50. F4.0 1/160 second. Flash and natural light. I added blur and a vignette in photoshop.

soil 1 |soil|nounthe upper layer of earth in which plants grow, a black or dark brown material typically consisting of a mixture of organic remains, clay,and rock particles.

ISO 400. f14 1/160 second.

Cross lit with flash and natural light. If you look closely at the arms you can see edge lighting from the flash. I set it up and tried different angles, this photo best captured what I was trying to convey.

Above all :Hard work

A preconceived idea I had from reading Charlotte Cottons book; the photograph as contemporary art. Combination of natural and artificial light with the natural light providing the modeling effect. I used a polarising filter to saturate the colours. F 4 1/250 second at ISO 500.

Caption:Pruning or dead heading petunias

Natural light. ISO 400. F4.0 1/2500 second.

Caption: Picking French beans.

F13 at 1/50 second iso 400. Natural evening sunlight.

Caption: Tools for the job.

Shot with diffused sunlight through a large white diffuser on a stand. Supplemented with a bare flash on camera left to give a modeling effect, with a second flash using a stofen flash diffuser on camera right to fill the shadows cast by the hat. Both on manual and triggered with radio triggers. The camera white balance was set to cloudy to give it a nice warm effect. F 16 @ 1/250 second ISO 200.

And finally

The rewards for all that hard work!

F 6.3 @ 1/250th of a second. ISO 400. I used a flash on a light stand triggered by a radio trigger. It was shot on manual mode and through a shoot through umbrella. Positioned above and to camera right.

Assignment 3 review and feedback.

Photo 1.

I took this photo for the colours and shapes. My tutor agrees that these are good commenting that this is a powerfully graphic image. As this is my first image he says that it should immediately grab ones attention and explain what the essay was about and that perhaps a wider shot of the market would be better. Also he likes the fact that the eye immediately alights on the one star on the lower right he feels that I could have used deeper depth of field to draw the eyes upward rather than down. I see what he means about that however I do feel that this star is like positioning a single point. As for wider shot of the market, I have to admit that I never considered this as a photo essay. I went looking for strong single images in the same places over several weeks. I did take a lot of wider shots but I never considered them to be good enough to submit.

Above are some of them.

Photo 2.

For this shot he suggests that I remove the text as it is distracting. He does say that it is English text and he is right, this never struck me at the time.

This is better.

Photo 4.

Again the suggestion is to remove a distraction. This time the orange detail in the top left hand corner.

I agree that this is a stronger image.

Photo 5.

While he likes the composition he does say that it is a pity the customer is not facing that camera because its always more engaging to see someone's face. In this instance I could not do much about that. His second criticism is about the distracting sign in the background and he also thinks I could cut down on the dead space to the right.

This is definitely better.

Photo 6.

Here while he agrees that this has great atmosphere but feels that more people in the shot would have added interest. I agree however there were no more people. I did take some other shots that day and I add them below.

I guess this has something of the atmosphere of the first one.

This has atmosphere too.

Photo 8.

This image received good feedback however my tutor feels tah I should have continued to deepen broaden the theme.

Photo 7.

One detail too many was how my tutor described this.

When I look back now I had several images that would have linked the essay together better for instance like this;

I rejected it because its not sharp but it would have been better than the last one. Or this;