Learning Log: General

The Photographers' Gallery.


BURTYNSKY: OIL.


Edward Burtynsky is one if Canada's most respected photographers.
These two prints are a very poor representation of the beautiful square meter prints on view in the gallery. They feature two phases of his OIL series. Namely - Extraction and The End of OIL. The top two combine to make one huge panorama of geometric patterns of
oil pipes and pumps and ancillary equipment with an infinite depth of field, and a high resolution taken in a late afternoon light
.

The second image, one of his End of Oil series,
shows the breaking up of discarded  oil tankers
at Chittagong.
The overbearing mass of steelwork is emphasised by the worker in the lower right foreground. here as in the other two he has used the warm evening light to embrace the towering hulks of rust.







This copy of his Oxford Tire Pile does not do justice to this image of a crater of tyres. The original does not contain the shades of distracting light, the sides of the crater appear much steeper and unstable, the image has an atmosphere of menace.

Assignment 1: My Neighbourhood - Learning Log.

Assignment 1.Learning log.

As with most of my projects I take a number of shots of the same subjects except where people are involved. In these cases spontaneity and the avoidance of unfavourable reaction of the subjects is essential.


Elderly.

Image 3013243 in a subtle way illustrates age - the sitting posture and white hair- but of the two 3010158 is the better. The bent knees, the stick and the slightly humped posture all are indicators of many past years.

This image was cropped severely to eliminate extraneous subjects on either side.



Young.

The two children playing on the stump could be said to make an interesting composition but I considered the stump dominated the image.

I chose the other because it is a natural full length shot of a happy relaxed child taken against a grey background.

The vertical perspective needs correcting







Accommodation.

I have here chosen two extremes, the two up two down cottage and the huge mansion.

I considered, after cropping, the 3053277 version to provide best balance of proportion.

The mansion had restricted access and the image was taken hand held through a gap in the boundary railings.

The lower image while providing a more three dimensional view also contained too much shadow and an intruding branch. 3053991 with slight cropping provided the best alternative.








Education.

Contrast here is between a nursery and a university. The image 3053278 provides a realistic idea of the size of the building and the forecourt.

The wide angle shot of the nursery 3053283 illustrates the best essence of the function of the building.



















Religion 1 of 3

The environment of these images prevented me obtaining a satisfactory shot. Either the steeple or part of the structure was missing or I could not exclude the tree.
















Religion 2 of 3.

The two top images provided more of the contrast I was looking for.  The church in the lower image is too much like the chapel in the lower batch 3 of 3.


















Religion 3 of 3.

The top 3 of the batch on the left of another Norman church do not compare with those in the above batch.

The middle one of the bottom 3 shows both the proportions and the front entrance of a simple contrasting chapel. This was cropped slightly to exclude some of the road and the foliage on the right.

Shopping 1 of 2.
Of the 8 images on the right the one on  bottom right provides the best atmosphere of a busy brightly coloured market place.

Shopping 2 of 2.
Inside shots of a posh store. The top left providing an interesting perspective image of the furniture department.
















Noise and Peace.
The noise of the area is well demonstrated by the bottom left image where I am amongst the traffic.
The peace and quiet is best illustrated by the impact it has on the individual. Hence my final choice of the bottom right image.













Sport.
A stressful moment of a hockey match - top left, contrasts well with putting practice bottom left.

Claim to Immortality.
My objective here was to show the difference between elaborate burial sites and a simple urn containing ashes
I consider the sepulchre top right the best of the images. There is a slight vertical perspective present and I would wish for less fuss in the background. The Urn, centre left while only one of its type serves to illustrate the beauty of a simple religious container.

    

Assignment 1. My Neighbourhood.

Assignment 1.

My Neighbourhood:

My neighbourhood, as with many areas in Greater London, has a variety of interesting features. However, it does not have a feature that could be claimed to be unique therefore I shall attempt to adopt the spirit of the assignment and illustrate some of the features of my neighbourhood by way of contrasts.

It is peopled by the very Young and the Elderly.

       Young.

       Parents are always protective of their children so when hoping to take an image of a
       child I always ask permission of the parent. On this  occasion I approached several
       mothers with babies and consider this one the best. Here the lighting is to left of the
       child so not causing  the child to squint.
       It is advisable, when  photographing subjects that are moving or can move, to ensure
      the lighting is adequate and to preset camera controls as far as possible.Here set
      aperture for small depth of field at f6.3 @ 1/160. Lens 110mm equiv.  

 Elderly.                         

      If I ask adults for permission to 'shoot' them, at worst they behave as if I'm going to -
      with a gun- at best they adopt a rigid unnatural expression. Here I walked ahead of 

      the gentleman, pointed camera to his left so not to alarm him, framing the subject to

     give myself sufficient space to crop to a suitable frame when editing.

      f7.3 @ 1/180  lens 180mm equivalent.The background would have been less
     obtrusive with a wider aperture.

                                     

Who live in both Modest accommodation and Luxury mansions.


Modest.

Would have preferred a detached cottage to provide a better frame but I think the front doors indicate the size of the properties.  Care was needed to correctly expose the white walls.

    f10 @ 1/640.    Lens 36mm equiv.

Luxury
Perhaps an extreme example of the more luxurious property. Unable to approach closer I ha to take this through the railings - couldn't use a tripod - with a wide angle lens.The lighting  was               excellent and the corner shot illustrates the size and grandeur of the property. The cars in   front provide a sense of scale.

      Used f18 @ 1/250 to provide a good depth of  field and a 36mm equivalent lens.

 Educational facilities are available ranging from the Nursery to University level.

  Nursery.

 A wide angle view of the entrance that explains the function of the building. The surrounding

 hedges obliged me to shoot close to the front of the building. f10 @ 1/400. Lens 18mm equiv.

University.

Large building, used wide angle lens to frame it. Pity about the tree - it was the best alternative

view. Lighting was variable with quick moving clouds. Used wide angle lens and waited for the
sun to light the building. f16 @ 1/160. Lens 36mm equiv.

Religious instruction can be obtained in a Small Chapel or a Norman Church.

          Small Chapel.

        This is probably one of the most simple of places of worship.I tried here to capture the 

         simple surroundings and shape of the building. People entering the building would have 

         given humanity to the scene. The day was cloudy but bright and f10 @ 1/125 gave 

         adequate exposure. Lens 36mm equiv.

        Norman Church.

        Here in direct contrast to the simple chapel is this beautiful Norman church. Perhaps 

        earlier or later in the day shadows would have provided more detail of the structure.

        I would have preferred the figure to be further away, nearer the church, smaller, to

        lead the eye into the church rather than away from it. f9 @ 1/25

       The needs of life can be purchased at the Local Market or in one of  the Posh      Shops.
Market.

This is a colourful busy scene, perhaps too busy. Closer cropping with the camera could have been beneficial. Moving to the left if possible would have taken the bright dresses out of the foreground. Here the whole image is dominated by bright dominant colours of the,dresses at the expense of the rest of the image.

                              f11 @ 1/250. Lens 18mm equiv.

Posh Shop.

The quality of goods and decoration indicates something more expensive than the  market.

The ceiling lights and walls give perspective and size to this particular 'floor'. Moving to the left would have included the length of grey polished pathway between the furniture and given more symmetry to the image. The camera was hand held, one has to be discrete when shooting this type of image.
                    The ISO was set at 400. f9 @ 1/6. 

                     Lens 20mm equiv. WB was on 'Auto' and is a faithful rendition of the colours.

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The noise of Congested Traffic can be escaped to an area of Peace and Solitude.




Congested Traffic.

Found a busy junction and tried various camera positions but none were suitable for capturing a mass of traffic. Eventually picked a position behind a bollard with tripod legs only part open to ensure pedestrians crossing didn't trip. Some support for the camera was necessary for I was using a slow shutter speed of  1/13 sec. with a 4 stop ND filter in order to capture the movement of some of the traffic. I believe this has been achieved and provides a good comparison with static car in the middle.

         f22 @ 1/13. 4ND. Lens 36mm equiv.

 Peace and Solitude.

 Late afternoon in a local park. Did not wish to disturb the fisherman  but needed to convey the setting.
           f9 @ 1/80. Lens 36mm. Cropped the image when editing.

Sporting activities vary from a gentle game of Golf to a shin cracking session of Hockey.

Golf.

This image of putting practice illustrates gentle motion. The flags gives an indication of his    target. Early morning low light. All is calm. f8 @ 1/250. Lens 90mm equiv.

Hockey.

The body positions of the players with the ball between the two sticks indicates high stress.

The image would be better without the lines.  f11 @ 1/500. Lens 200mm equiv.

Claim to immortality - an Urn or a Sepulchre.

       Urn.
       The lighting on the urn in a crematorium shop was good all round artificial. Had to be
       discrete. Set the ISO to 400 and bracketed the exposure. This was the best.
        f5.6 @1/20. Hand held. Lens 140 mm equiv.

      Sepulchre.
      Sky was cloudy but bright being approx. 2 stops brighter than the foreground. Scene was
      not suitable for a graduated filter so used a compromise setting of f5.6 @ 1/400. Parts of
      sky still over exposed but acceptable. Terrain obliged me to stand near so used a wide
      angle lens 22mm equiv. I was fortunately able to position the camera at a fairly high level so              
      avoiding much of the vertical perspective.              

________________________________________

 Planning.

I have a fairly intimate knowledge of my neighbourhood but I confirmed initially without a camera, that the situations and subjects would be available at the particular sites I had in mind. ie The time of day when in the local park elderly people and mothers with young children walked, the type of education facilities that would provide a strong contrast. The local market, open only once a week might prove a problem, the opportunity would have to be prepared for and the image taken when the lighting and lighting was suitable. This also applies to the sports shots.

I anticipated that the image taken in the cemetery would benefit from a not over bright day. The urns I had spotted in a local crematorium shop and had anticipated  that only one shot would be available to me.


Post Processing.

Little was required in the way of post processing apart from the cropping of some of the images.


Presentation.
The nature of my subjects largely defined the format of my presentations. Standing people - portraits, buildings - landscapes. Some images were cropped to more of a square format.


Workflow.
The camera gamut is set to shoot in Adobe RGB in Camera Raw as a standard procedure. This would not change unless a number of images had to be shot in a rapid sequence and the memory card did not have the buffering capacity to cope. In which case the Camera Raw would be changed to JPEG

1) Capture in RAW                                                           
2) Download selected files via Adobe Bridge
3) Edit in Adobe RAW
4) Open image in TIFF.
5) Edit further if required.
6) Save in TIFF, PSD or JPEG. Duplicate if required.
7) Print with calibrated monitor and printer.
8) Print using paper profiles.

Approach.
My conceptual approach was based on a literal translation of the assignment title ' Your Neighbourhood' constrained by the maximum number of images permitted. There is a natural flow to the sequence commencing with people, continuing with where they live, are educated, shop, play and die.The uniqueness of each image is contained in its own detail.

Analysis.
Within the limit of the number of images specified, the portfolio is successful in portraying a cross section of the life of my neighbourhood.
The people images are good. the vertical perspective behind the child could have been eliminated.
An improvement of the education images would have been the inclusion of students entering or leaving the premises.
The hockey image shows the stress between two opponents. The elimination of the lines would have improved the image. A better golfing shot may have resulted from the camera being behind the golfer.
The shopping comparison shows an element of a busy market and a quiet elitist shop.
I would have preferred more shadow shaping the urn and the background to the sepulchre being plainer with the light less flat.

Writing about Photography: Writing Descriptively

Describe a Photograph


Exercise 1. General.

A warm sunny day - lunchtime.
The purpose of the project was to take candid images
of people and their environment.
It is essential in this kind of exercise is to assess the essential features of the image such as grouping, lighting and their awareness of you and take the shot without prancing about with the camera in the region of thesubjects. The two girls made a complete interesting
image. They were relaxed and engrossed in aconversation. The bright lighting enabled me to use a high shutter speed and a medium depth of field.

 Exercise 2. Concise.
The girls are seated comfortably on the pavement. Their grouping forms an oval compass providing an  interesting contrast with the rectangular patterns of the pavement. The blonde girl's posture includes a variety of triangles and her pointed fingers on both hands lead the eye up to head. Her gaze takes one's eye via the bottle and to the darker contrast of her companion. The white strap leads one back to the white bag and the crossed pattern of her legs.
The bottle in the outstretched arm gives continuity to the image. The exposure was f8 @ 1/250 sec. This was appropriate to not burning out the highlights of the shoes and white blouse, and at the same time capturing the details of the shadow areas.

Exercise 3. Caption.
Light and dark - light and shadow - active and passive, the group includes all of these.Lunchtime in Trafalgar Square. A popular venue for visitors. These two young girls displaying confidence,quite at home sitting informally on the warm pavement amongst the bustle and noise of other visitors andoffice workers.

Writing about Photography: Writing Analytically.

Exercise: Analyse a Photograph.

This is a landscape image taken in the higher reaches of the Yorkshire Dales.
The eye is drawn immediately to the frothy water and to the light coloured rock on the right. The boundaries of the rivulet are well defined by the tussocky grass on both sides. The picture is well balanced with the rivulet occupying the bottom left and the dark rocks the top right. The eye is led by the stream down the valley to the hint of softer dales in the distance.
The sole intention of this image could have been to provide an interesting landscape image. If so a variation in the lighting would have been an improvement. However this image is one of a group intending to show a common theme - water. This scene captures the subject halfway through the portion of its life cycle - from rain falling, to the water's arrival at a large lake. This particular image shows a small energetic stream careering down the mountainside. The purpose of the project was to illustrate the various energy states that water travels through in the selected phases of its life cycle.
Planning and research  was required for this image and the potential value of the scene recognised when found. The photographer must have also realised that to illustrate the flow characteristics of moving water that slow shutter speeds could be required and hence a tripod. Here the lighting is dull and it appears that the tripod was set up straddling the water course. The energy of the water has been captured by using a slow speed  and an aperture that provides sharpness to the immediate area and depth to the image.
The image succeeds within its frame of reference. This would perhaps have more impact on the viewer if seen with the other images comprising the group.




Exercise: Research and Analysis.


The year is 1968. The American involvement in the Vietnam War
 has escalated over the last 10 years from a position of giving
advice and material aid to one of now being fully engaged. The Tet offensive of Hue, an historic city on the west coast of Vietnam, has been in progress for several day, much of the fighting being close quarter street fighting. Heavy losses havebeen sustained by both sides.
In 1968 photographic journalists were allowed to move through a military area more or less as they pleased. Today they are ‘embedded’ within the military and propaganda departments.
Don McCullin – the cameraman – armed only with a coupleof 38mm cameras, risked his life with the front line soldiers to achieve his objective. His intention was to show to the public the horrors of war. This image, one of hundreds that he took of this war and other international disasters does not show the blood and gore of a wounded soldier, but shows the mental damage that a human being can suffer after periods of intense stress of the battle field.
The image, a portrait, is not one that is set up in a studio or a wedding group but an image that has been shot under the most arduous conditions. It falls into the category of a street shot but here the photographer is not concerned with the possible reaction of the subject but rather if his head is going to be blown off by a bullet from a sniper.
There can be little planning for this sort of shot. In all candid shots one can only take into consideration the prevailing lighting conditions, have the film loaded with film of the suitable speed and set the camera parameters as far as possible.
In structure, it is a simple image, a frontal view of the top half of the sitting subject. The image is almost symmetrical about a vertical centre line, the slight offset adding interest. His weapon butt is resting on the ground and the fingers of his hands encircle it, encompassing it just enough to stop himself falling forward. The viewer’s eye is first drawn to the face topped by the bright helmet, the eye then wanders over the haggard, grimy face noticing the loose lips and then to the shadow under the helmet rim. It is here that the essence of the picture lies. The eyes are not looking at the camera, they are not focusing, and they are seeing only something that is part of his mental vision. He has been battered by explosives, and covered in dust. He has narrowly missed death and seen images that his mind can’t cope with. He is shell shocked.
The exposure has captured all the essential features. Shadow details are all there. The only nit picking criticism would be of the burnt out sky at the top left. One interesting feature, possibly unintentional, is that of the inverted cross at the top right, depicting evil.
The intention of the photographer was to remind the public of the terrible effect war can have on the individual. It is dramatically successful.

Writing about Photography: Reading about Photography.

John Berger: Essay 1.

1) Photographers and their apologists have been trying to categorise photography under the heading of ‘fine art’.

2) Because it will not have a rarity value, it deserves to be considered not under that category.

3) The survival of a fine art object depends on the value placed on it by the wealthy.

4) Photographs have no property value because they are infinitely reproducible.

5) The photographer has decided that the particular is worthy of recording at that particular time.

6) The value of a photograph is relative to the degree that it effectively translates its inherent message.

7) The virtue of composition in a photographic image should not be overstressed.

8) The effect on the viewer of a photographer depends largely on their life experience.

9) The true content in a photographic image lies in what is not seen.

10) A fundamental difference between a photograph and a painting is that the former relies on what is not seen rather than the interpretation of what is seen.

11) The still photographer cannot demonstrate a time lapse in one particular image.

12) The successful photograph must contain an element of truth.

13) The photographer is saying that his image contains all the inherent features to lead the viewer to a successful judgement.

14) Why not judge an image on its face value.

______________________________

.John Berger: Essay 2.
1) It is that fine art is categorised by its property value and its property value by its rarity and since photographs are easily producible and reproducible and hence are of large quantity, they cannot be classified as fine art.

2) He believes that the common held assumption that property provides protection to society is illusory.

3) His argument concerning the relative creativity employed in a painting and a photograph may have had some justification in 1972 when the essay was written. Today there can be as much creativity involved in a photographic print as in a painted canvas. The difference lies in the tools used. A painting requires pigment and a stick with hairs attached to the end or a palette knife with which to apply it to the canvas. The photographic print is created by the tools such as the camera a computer screen and complex software.

4) His style is interspersed with vague references to underlying political biases which are of not much validity to his arguments. His language and reasoning are academic and complex.

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Photography in Publishing 1.

Project: Using Type Tools.










Exercise 1. Getting Started.

Exercise 2. Applying a Drop Shadow to Type.

Project: Choosing Type.

Exercise 1.