My first Assignment was to look back on all of the previous exercises I have completed and use the techniques I had learnt to find contrasts in my photography. Not the obvious contrasts though; for example a photo of an elephant and one of a feather would obviously show the contrast between heavy and light, but could I find the unobvious contrasts, where the way I had shot a particular photo made it appear something it wasn’t? The task was to make 8 pairs of contrasting photos from either previous ones I had taken, or by getting creative composing other contrasting images. Below are my 8 pairs, plus one shot that I thought showed contrast in the one image, with my thoughts about why they may or may not have worked. at first I found it quite difficult to see in my own work any pairs, or even one type of contrast, but after studying them for sometime managed to find what I thought were the beginnings of contrasting pairs, and then set about taking other photos that I thought would make good second halves to the first shots. Some have worked well and others I’m not so pleased with, but I will explain this when I get to those pairs. Some have also not worked as well in printed form, as at the printing stage some of the detail was lost.I hope for my first assignment it goes well!
Many/Few
Many
Few
I started out with the shot of the coins, which came about at the same time as I was trying to photograph my mum rolling them across the kitchen work top for the ‘photographing movement ‘exercise. I scattered a handful onto the work surface and closed in on them with a long focal length and very small aperture of 5.6. The long focal length and small aperture combined I knew would produce only a small area of focus as in the previous exercise ‘focus at different apertures’, and create more blurred areas in the back and foregrounds. This out of focus and blurred effect I’ve learnt actually has a proper term and is known as ‘bokeh’ , which describes the aesthetic quality of blur in an image. The bokeh in this particular photograph helps to make the background feel extended beyond its physical surface, making the subjects of the piece appear more isolated than they are, and this isolated feel makes the 8 coins look as though there are fewer than there are. The position of the frame for this piece puts the subject in the lower right corner, giving way to the vast emptiness of the rest of the background, which amplifies the subjects position of isolation. This causes the viewer to only really focus their attention on the lower right area, giving the subject a static feeling, giving additional support as to why I chose it to be named ‘Few’.
For the shot I used for ‘Many’, I took a few bags of sweets and spread them out onto a mirror, which helped in making it appear that there were more of them to begin with. I used my longest focal length of 55mm again, but this time to make the objects appear larger and to fill up the entire frame, helped to emphasize the amount of objects in making the contrasting image. Again I relied on using bokeh to help exaggerate the depth of field within the shot and teamed up my long focal length with an F-stop of 5.6. I picked an angle that would give me a greater depth of field and made sure that the subject extended past all sides of the frame, so that to the viewer it would be unclear of exactly the amount of sweets were actually in the shot, there fore making them appear that there was a greater number of them. The angle that I have chosen also helps to drawn the eye up and down in a continuous motion over the image, and this movement makes you feel as though there is more and more of the photograph to be looked at, adding to the idea that there are ‘Many’ objects. I had to use a longer exposure time on this particular photograph as I was shooting this on an evening with only bulb lighting, making it difficult to produce an accurate reproduction of the colours and light I was actually seeing.
To compare the two together, even though I have used similar techniques with both, it is the position of the subjects within their frames that gives the overall impression of ‘Many’ or ‘Few’. The same use of bokeh over a plain background makes the emptiness of a space increase, and yet when used when there are multiple objects at different depths of field it can make them appear more than there. Ultimately these photos already show many and few by how many of each object there are in the shots, but the key was the position of the frames and the angle, making them look and feel like there was more or less than there really was.
Light/Heavy
Light
Heavy
I took the first photograph here for ‘Light’ whilst out walking in the grounds of my old employer. I just though that on that particular day the light was shining nicely on the leaves and casting some lovely highlights on them. Again I used the same long focal length and small aperture technique as I have already described, but when focusing I had obviously focused a little too far in front of my intended subject. When I checked the images at home I realised this, but I was fond of the soft effect it had given on the leaves, and the quality of the bokeh throughout the image gave it a very ‘Light’ feel, so I chose it to represent this. I admit that at the time I hadn’t given the framing an awful lot of consideration, but composed the shot naturally trying to pickup the light shining on the surface and wanting to keep the sense of them blowing softly on the branches. I think it is how softly focused the entire image is that helps it to retain this feel, and the fact that the leaves flow gently outside of the picture and there is no reference of ground or trees to help guide the mind in thinking it is connected to anything. If you couldn’t tell by now I’m growing very fond of this type of Macro photography.
Interestingly I used the same shot for my ‘Heavy’ image to explain balance within an image in a previous exercise. Even though at the time I felt it showed balance, looking back on it I didn’t quite feel the same. I had previously said that the reason it felt balanced to the viewer is because the larger space of background and tone to the upper left, out weight that of the main subject in the lower right, like this:
but since reviewing my work, when I looked on this image again, I thought that actually the shape and size of the subject really worked against the background in a slightly uneven weightiness. It is only slightly too heavy to be balanced by the area of the field behind it, but this extra weight to the image does cause it feel ‘Heavy’. By using a very short exposure time of 1/400 sec, I created a darker image, and this combined with the position of the object in the lower right of the frame makes it look as though the object has been dropped with a thud into the ground. Again the use of a small aperture to create a softer background helps create focus around the subject, and its balance of weight to this background causes the shot to feel very bottom heavy in this corner, almost as though its about to tip sideways.
The two shots together I feel show light and heavy rather well. The curves in the leaves make the eye drift around in a very curvaceous motion, as though you are caught in an updraft; and the heavy, slightly unbalanced positioning of the second photograph gives it the weight it needs. Had I used balance more to my advantage, I could have composed a much better shot where the balance was very uneven, creating a much more vivid piece that would shot the topic of being ‘Heavy’.
Continuous/Intermittent
Continuous
Intermittent
I will start by explaining that the ‘Intermittent’ photograph was one that lost some of its detail in the print process. The two trees in the scene are almost lost to darkness in the print, and the colours of the lights are extremely heightened. I feel this has detracted to the over all quality of the image. I understand that on screen and prints will always look slightly different unless you have calibrated your screen, but that’s very hard to do on a laptop! Although Boots insisted they check their paper and ink every day I am not happy!
So to begin, the first shot for ‘Continuous’ was one taken from the series at Guildford Cathedral. It is a vast cathedral, and the enormous amounts of chairs posed as a very interesting photo opportunity. I picked an angle that would create lines in the image in both directions to the front and to the side, and the symmetry of the lines and chairs in the piece create the idea of continuous movement from the front and spreading outwards to the edges of the frame. It looks to me as though its a moving sea of chairs in the middle of the cathedral! I chose an aperture of f/18 as I wanted to keep the focus all the way to the ends of the chairs so that they eye is drawn right into the image. The eye follows the seating all the way to the front of the church, and then the symmetry of the architecture carries you the rest of the way up through the columns and tapestry. By using an F-stop of 18, the focus is only lost right at the very end of the cathedral, and the slight amount of bokeh just plays on the idea that the chairs would continue into that slightly hazy area.
The ‘Intermittent’ image posed more of an issue for me as it was taken at night. This meant using a very long exposure time of 0.77 sec. I could have really done with my tripod at this point to eliminate camera shake which at these low lighting conditions creates an awful amount of blur. I used the largest aperture I could to let the most light in, and in turn would help reduce the exposure time slightly and help with any shakes my hands were having; it was a cold night! I chose this shot to represent ‘Intermittent’ as the position of the upright lights created an imaginary line through the frame right the way through to the trees. The eye almost has to ‘jump’ from one to the other to make it across the entire photograph. This is where I am frustrated with the print itself as the details of the trees are lost in a sea of black, which on my screen does not affect them even if I tilt it further forwards or backwards. This loss of detail I feel really effects the viewers perspective of the imaginary line running through the shot, and therefore lessens its appearance of being ‘Intermittent’ as the lights stop 2/3rds of the way across, where the trees would have helped to carry the viewer on across to the edge. Something else which I also think detracts from this piece is the fact the glare from the street lamps is so bright and draws too much attention to itself. I understand a polarising lens could rectify this, but at the time of shooting I don’t own one.
As a contrasting pair I’m particularly pleased with these two. I feel that they show opposing qualities very well, by the way they eye either flows or hops across the image, but for the reasons stated above improvements could have been made.
Broad/Narrow
Broad
Narrow
Isn’t it funny how using the exact same technique can produce two very contrasting images?
For both the ‘Narrow’ and ‘Broad’ photographs in this pair I drew upon the positioning the horizon exercise to help emphasise the two qualities.
In the ‘Broad’ shot, I filled most of the frame with as much water from the lake I had visited as possible, leaving just a tiny strip in the top for the banks and trees. I did it this way so that the expanse of water would take prime position, but what I found was this narrow strip of land at the top drew in far more attention, but to its advantage. It creates a line of sight at the top which you follow up and down alongside the water, making the frame feel much longer and broader than usual. The reflections in the water help to draw the eye downwards into the water, and this sideways and down movement gives the water is broad feeling. I used an aperture of f/8 so as not to give too much focus to what was actually on the banks, as I only wanted to use it as a guide and not a specific focal point.
The ‘Narrow’ photo was taken at Guildford Castle during the fitting the subject to the frame exercise. It was a small corridor/tunnel leading out of the castle gardens and provided the right subject to use for positioning the horizon. If i filled the upper part of the frame with more sky, the tops of the columns were just in view and the shot lost all sense of the kind of narrow passage it was. By making sure there was only a slither of sky available in the frame you get the proper sense of the walls and columns towering over you. The lighting was very bright that day so I only had to use a fairly short exposure, but I chose a much larger aperture this time of f/14, as I wanted there to be focus right the way into the tunnel. This way when you look at the photo you are drawn right in by the height of the walls and by the greater depth of field, thus making the image seem very narrow.
I think again these photos were helped by being either broad or narrow already, but the use of the horizon in the frame expanded on this to give it a greater feeling. Also the angle of the ‘Narrow’ shot was very good at guiding you in by positioning the columns equally either side, balancing the image out and making you almost fall into the centre, which could have been quite static if it had not been for the addition of this symmetry.
Moving/Still
Moving
Still
Both are images of animals in motion, yet I have labelled one as still and one as moving, how can that be?
I have decided to use two pictures of subjects in motion to demonstrate on how the exercises on shutter speeds and panning have helped me to create different effects.
To start with, the ‘Moving’ photograph I used only a marginally smaller shutter speed than in the ‘Still’ photo, but once I teamed this with the idea of panning, I produced an image that had frozen the action of the scene, yet had retained the movement in the blur of the background. Panning as you will have seen is not one of my stronger points in photography, so I was a little disappointed when shooting this that I was still unable to obtain a shot where I had frozen the subject entirely and produced enough blur in the background to give the feel of it still being in motion. Despite this, I liked this image due to its overall lack of focus, yet the dogs paws are frozen in a moving pose. Even though the dog is not clear in the image, the blur makes him appear energetic. The bokeh in the rest of the background is greater than that of the dogs, so the main subject still retains the viewers focus, so overall the effect of the movement of the two together is very pleasing to look at. Panning is obviously something I need more practice at i the future.
The second shot is of my budgie, George. I chose this image to contrast with the ‘Moving’ one as although he is in flight, his motion is completely frozen. I used a shutter speed of 1/80 and a large aperture as I was shooting him indoors on an evening so needed as much light as possible. I also think that the fact he is central in the frame gives him a very static feel, and this paired with the faster shutter speed makes him look as though he is frozen in time. Had this been another type of subject, the position of it in the centre would really have detracted from it, but in this case it really emphasises his stillness.
The contrast between the two is very surprising considering they are both moving objects, and as a pair I really like time because of their similarity, yet differences. A small change in shutter speed was all that was needed to produce too very different quality images
Light/Dark
Light
Dark
This may have not been something that was covered in my first set of exercises, but something I have noticed along the way. Being the winter months I have not had so many opportunities to get outside and shoot things in daylight, so adjusting to use the flash here and there has been a challenge.
For my first image, ‘Light’, I found some pretty wild flowers growing in the grounds of my old employer. Even though it was daylight I decided I would play around with the effects I could get whilst using the flash. In the end it produced an image that was much brighter and lighter than what I was perceiving in reality. By again using a long focal length of 55mm and the smallest aperture of 5.6, I created a fair amount of blur in the background so that the darkness of the leaves on the ground would not take away from the lightness of the petals on the flowers. Obviously paired with the flash this intensified the amount of light in the photo, making the flowers seem much lighter than they really were.
This lead me on to thinking about when I had used the flash indoors with bulb lighting.
Again my subject was floral for ‘Dark’. Using the exact same technique of long focal lengths paired with small apertures, and using the flash inside, I produced an image full of shadows, even though it was in a fairly well let cream room.
Another note here is this is the second of my photos that I think has lost detail in the printing process. There are far more shadows on screen than I feel came through after it had been printed, therefore I feel that the final print does not show ‘Dark’ as I would like it to. I maybe should have moved the plant to another area with a darker coloured wall, or used a piece of coloured card as a backdrop. In hindsight its easy to see these mistakes, but its all in the learning process and hopefully something I will use to my advantage next time.
Tall/Short
Tall
Short
For my ‘Tall’ shot I used the flip out LCD screen on my camera to help me get as low as possible to the ground at the base of the tree. I then set the aperture quite high to f/20 so that the focus would reach right to the top of the tree. I chose this angle to enhance the height of the tree, and the large aperture so that your eye would move up the trunk to its highest point to make it feel much taller than it was. I think this worked quite well, but the amount of bare randomly pointing branches further up the tree seem to take the attention away from the main point of the photograph. Had I thought about it some more I could have picked a better subject to shoot with less interruption in the rest of the scene.
The picture I chose to represent ‘Short’ was a garden gnome I found in the woods! No idea how it got there but it made an apt subject for this contrasting pair. I tried to stand directly above the gnome, but at a slight angle and used a small aperture so that the main focus would be on the subject itself. Although in theory this seemed like a good idea, I’m not that happy with the photo, and through the rest of my work struggled to find anything more suitable. I found it difficult to choose an angle that worked better than this one, and I feel I could have placed the object better within the frame, as I don’t like its position in the middle, it doesn’t make it feel any more short than any other object I could have placed there. I think my mistake was picking a subject that was short in height already and this clouded my judgment on other factors.
This set of contrasting images is the one I am least happy with due to them not working as well as I had wanted. Both are already tall and short whether I shot them in different ways or not, and this affected the choices I made on how to compose them. For future reference I should try to look outside of what an object already is and really think hard on other ways to make it work for me.
Curved/Straight
Curved
Straight
The ‘Curved’ image was obtained by cropping an earlier shot that I had taken while photographing movement. I saw the lovely curve in the road, but it was actually masked by the rest of the photograph on the left of it. it originally looked like this:
but the blue buildings and road to the left I felt detracted from the curvature itself.
This really isn’t down to my skill at composing a shot and thinking about what techniques to use, but cropping in itself is a technique that can be useful when it is used to enhance an image. In this case it enhanced the fact I wanted the photograph to show more of a curve, so by eliminating the sort of ‘dead space’ to the left of the shot, I now have an image that really gives a sense of the curves in the picture, and not just an ordinary picture of a road. The framing of the curve was crucial in making it stand out, if there had been too much space either side for the viewer to be able to make out other shapes it would have definitely detracted from it; but as the curve veers just outside of the frames edge, it makes the viewer believe the curve is more dramatic than they can actually see.
The second shot to represent ‘Straight’ was really just a basic format as the ‘Curved’ shot. I positioned the camera at the base of the window and looked straight up to get the full height of it into the frame. I used an aperture of f/18 so that the full window was in focus, creating in imaginary line to help you follow it all the way up to the top.
I like the fact that cropping has worked to its advantage in this case, but the ‘Straight’ image really hasn’t relied upon my techniques either, as the subject itself is already straight and has symmetry to guide you into perceiving it as straight. That said the angle I chose did show of the window to its best, and lengthened it in the viewers perception, so to some extent did work.
Contrast in one shot: Light & Dark
This was the final image I picked to represent contrast within one picture.
I took the dog for a walk late one evening and start experimenting with the shutter times on the camera to see if I could produce a silhouette effect from the sky and trees. This would demonstrate light and dark in one photograph. After trying different exposure times I found that a fairly fast speed of 1/160 was fast enough to let the light of the sky into the lens, but blocked out the details in the trees towards the front of the shot. I got the silhouette effect I was looking for and still retained the beautiful blue and orange that was still in the sky, hence showing darkness in the shadows where there was not enough light to illuminate the trees, and the light of the sky as their backdrop. I used an F-stop of 9 so that I could still let light into the camera for the sky to be bright enough. I kept the line of the ground just below midway so that the trees would take up the centre third of the frame, following the rule of thirds, as this balances the picture more evenly. I just feel its a slight shame that the tree on the left is so thick in comparison to the others, it may have been a better composition had all the trees been similar to balance the weight in the frame. That said, the brighter orange tones on the right do a fair job of balancing out the weight of the tree on the left as you are drawn to each in turn, but I still feel a more even placement of trees would be more aesthetically pleasing, as in this instances there is no reason for the weight on one side of the scene.
I’m really pleased with this image, it took a few attempts to get the desired effect, but was worth it in the end.
To Conclude…
In all this first assignment has been quite a challenge to try and see through the initial subject of choice, and to make the way in which a photograph is composed the main focus of your attention. I have had a few failures and a few successes, although some were unintentional. Overall I feel I have grasped the composition and basics of aperture and shutter speeds quite well. I can now demonstrate a range of different techniques and I’m now starting to think beyond what I have learnt and branching into a style of my own. As you can see my strengths seem to lay in using aperture to my advantage in a macro style, but I need to improve on my use of shutter speeds in conjunction with aperture to improve the quality and diversity of my photos. I should not let one style dominate my journey into photography, but always try to use new ways and techniques before I am tempted to revert back to old favourites.
I have learnt how to control aperture with a long focal length to produce very pleasing ‘bokeh’, and that by choosing the correct shutter speed and I can freeze motion, or freeze it with a blurred background to make it feel as though it is still moving. I have also learnt that my position to an object can just as easily change its over all appeal as can the angle at which I take the photograph. I now know that a subjects position in its frame can be key to how it makes the viewer feel about it, with images that are central with sparse backgrounds can feel isolated, and yet images that fall off the sides of the frame can feel fuller than they are. I have also realised that I should not shoot a photo in the most obvious way; sometimes to make something look tall does not mean pointing the camera straight up, but by looking at what other subjects can compliment it and how its balance with them can effect it.
This assignment on contrast has made me aware of what other techniques and things I need to be thinking about, such as other angles and view points, and different subjects to enhance my way of thinking. I’m learning to see more images within images, and to see how to manipulate my subjects through my lens to make them feel differently to how you would expect. If I can look at all my future prospective photographs in terms of contrast and how I can make something be what it is not, then I should be coming up with some very exciting pieces!
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