Witley Court

For part of our location assignment we went to Witley Court in Worcestershire to take photographs on location. We were required to produce a series of images fit for purpose for our client English Heritage, these images were for a target audience of young people.

Typography

In this session we learnt about typography and its place within photography. Typography is the art and technique of arranging typeface and is incorporated into photography when looking at advertising and commercial work where text and images are integrated. 

The type of font used can help the viewer to associate the text with certain things, for example, Times New Roman is the standard font, having official and authoritative connotations. The different fonts used can all invoke different feelings in the viewer; bold typefaces are designed to be beside the original and used to attract attention and stand out. Script typefaces are used to make the text look handwritten which people associate to be personal and friendly. Display typefaces are used when the text is already saying something before it is even read, for example, they are often associated with western saloons, fun fairs and wanted posters.

Research: David Carson is an American graphic designer well known for his innovative typography, having worked for many high profile clients such as Pepsi, Ray Ban, Microsoft, and Nike. He also conducts lectures on Typography to students around the world.

                

Above: (left) one of Carson's designs for magazine Ray Gun and (right) Carson's advertisement for Pepsi.

We were given two tasks for this session; one was to create a typography of our own using three colours (black, red and 50% grey) and the word 'typography'. The other was to create three images integrated with our own typography to be used in a 'how to' magazine, we were required to go out on location and shoot the photographs for this task to then combine them with text using PhotoShop CS6. My outcome of task one is shown below:

The photographic terms we had to take photographs of included: aperture, shutter speed, rule of thirds, contrast, low key lighting, high key lighting, shallow depth of field and motion blur.

My task two outcomes:

Overall, I liked this task however I don't feel this will be of much use to me as I do not wish to be in the advertising/commerical industry but it was good to experiment and broaden my knowledge. I am happy with the outcome of my images but felt I would have produced stronger images had I been able to plan and research this task further and I felt I could've done a better job had I photographed elsewhere. The last image does not fit the brief as we had to stick to landscape during this task but I felt it worked well to illustrate the motion blur.

Night Photography

For my location assignment I was required to explore the techniques used and effects created with night and low-light photography. I enjoyed this shoot as scenes look very different at night and there are many ways to experiment. I created light trails by using long shutter speeds and a tripod, I also worked with the artificial light that was available from street lamps, in buildings and other sources. I then edited the photographs in PhotoShop CS6 and Camera Raw; after tweaking the exposure and colour temperature slightly in C.R. I either converted to black and white and created a Levels layer or reduced the saturation of the image. I didn't really like the orange cast produced by the tungsten street lights so felt they were stronger images after being edited. Overall I am happy with the outcome of these images and would like to experiment with this type of photography further. 

Portfolio

 We have been creating portfolios of our work using the digital softwares iMovie and Lightroom 4. Below is a Street Photography portfolio that I made using iMovie:

Hollywood Portraiture Workshop

For this workshop we were taught about classic Hollywood publicity portraits from the 1930-40's, we were shown the different lighting set ups generally used and how the photographers created the light to show the character and their personality.

Lauren Bacall: This photograph of Bacall's face fully lit with shadows curving off one cheek and underneath the eyebrow suggests a manipulative woman. The background is lit with a single light angled down to imply she likes to be in the spotlight. Her facial expression is confident and looks as though she is taking advantage of a situation; her eyes show a strong and smart character. 

Humphrey Bogart: This photograph of Bogart with his hat and coat on shows that the photographer wants the viewer to think that he is outside, his gaze is into the distance as if he is interested in something else and this helps to further explain his character which was a detective. The high lighting ratio implies he is shady and using no fill light suggests a 'bad guy' character as half his face is in shadow as if he doesn’t want to be seen.

Common stylistic techniques of Hollywood Portraits: steep differences in light and dark tones, the angles at which the shots are taken show the hierarchy of the character, extensive use of shallow depth of field because of the lack of light, blown out highlights in the faces of the subjects, the use of direct light allowed the photographers to carefully create areas of light and shadow.Before going into the studio, I took some test shots to try and perfect the pose from my chosen photograph as best as me and my model could. Below is the final image from our test shots:

Lighting set up: The lighting set up I chose included one key light to light the subject and one back light with a snoot attached to provide a concentrated source of light for the black backdrop. Below shows a diagram of the lighting set up with annotations.

Camera settings: I used the manual mode on camera to allow more freedom and control over my image, auto white balance, set my aperture to f/32 to obtain the sharpest image, used a shutter speed of 1/100 sec and an ISO of 1600. I used a Canon 1100D with a 18-55 mm lens, however used a focal length of 50 mm as the subject is a portrait. 

Post-production: I used PhotoShop to manipulate this photograph after shooting in the studio as I wanted to get as accurate as possible to the original image. I converted the image to black and white, altered the brightness and contrast and created a curves layer to add drama to the image, to smooth and soften the models skin I used the Spot Healing Tool to remove any blemishes, the Clone Stamp Tool to brighten beneath the eyes and Gaussian Blur to soften the skin tone.

The photograph below is my initial edit:

 

Below shows two images; on the left is the original photograph and on the right is my recreation.

   

Water Drop Workshop

Today we took part in a Water Drop workshop with Jon Wild and he showed us how to capture images of droplet movement. I enjoyed working with this type of photography as it allows us to see what is usually invisible to the human eye. 

Harold Edgerton: Known as the master of high-speed photography, Harold Edgerton became interested in photography at a young age through his uncle who was a studio photographer and taught Harold the basics of capturing an image, development and printing. After studying Electrical Engineering at MIT and whilst investigating synchronous motors, Edgerton found that when a flash of light synchronized with a motor's turning parts, it made them look like they were standing still. During the 1930's, Edgerton began photographing even more and in 1937, one of his milk-drop photographs, titled Coronet, was included in the Museum of Modern Art's first photography exhibition. Towards the end of his career, he became a professor of MIT and although retired he continued to work in the institute's stroboscope Light Laboratory and taught the freshman course in stroboscope photography.

In the studio, we were shown a basic demonstration of how to create these images, we were then put in groups to take our own photographs and had to use our creativity when considering what backgrounds to use, what liquids to use, what colours to experiment with and had to try out the technique of high speed photography. At first I found it hard to time the shutter and when to press shoot but eventually got the hang of it and learnt what effects would be made on the water droplets depending on when the shutter was pressed.

Set up: below is an image to show the studio set up that we used. It consists of a tripod to prevent camera shake, a table to put the bath of water on, a background with a variety of patterns, two stands holding a stick to hang the bag of water which would produce the drops and a box to place the flashgun onto.

Equipment: the equipment used for this technique included a camera with a zoom lens which allowed us to photograph from a distance from the subject to prevent water damage to the camera. We used an off camera flash gun with a connected shutter release which enabled us to have a light source illuminating the water droplets and the shutter release made it easier to see what was being captured.

Camera settings: I set my camera to manual mode and white balance to flash, with shutter speeds of around 1/200 sec to 1/250 sec, an aperture of f/18 to obtain the sharpest image possible and an ISO of 100 to minimize grain. I set the flash gun to E-TTL (Evaluative Through The Lens) which means the gun will use a pre-flash to calculate the necessary flash power required before the shot is taken.

Post-production: although I liked my images, I felt they needed some manipulation as they were a little flat. I used PhotoShop CS6 to alter the brightness and contrast which added stronger colours to the photograph and used the Burn Tool to darken certain areas.

Below are my final images from this workshop: 

Risk assessment: I believe I carefully followed the health and safety precautions for this workshop as I handled all electrical items with more care than usual as we were working around water. I also acted with caution when changing the water and removing the bags of water from above to avoid spillage.

Evaluation: I liked this workshop and the different shots/effects that could be obtained. However, I would have liked to have had more time to experiment as I only got 3 shots that were decent. I liked using the coloured droplets in the bath of milk but they had to be captured quickly as the colours then ran out into the white milk. My favourite combination would be the clear water and the patterned backgrounds, I think they produce really clear and colourful images. Overall I am happy with the outcome of my water drop photographs and think it was a useful workshop for the future.