Process
For this brief I decided to go for a Rural Vs Urban theme. The reason for this is that I have spent my childhood growing up in a very rural area, so coming to university is very different experience for myself, and I have probably found the adaption to university life harder than others.
So what I decided to do is to take three images of rural areas, and urban areas to make up my six photo’s for this brief.
I am going to start off with rural and my first image. I had many attempts at trying to get the right image to start off with, I tried many different locations and camera settings to get the image I was looking for. This is first location I went too to get photo’s, for this image I used aperture of 2.8 to get a good depth of field on the image with ISO 100. But the photo is a little overexposed because the shutter speed was on 1/160, and the photo was taken around mid-day which would increase exposure after I saw this photo I decided that I didn’t really like the location of this image anyway so I decided to move elsewhere.
So I moved to this location which I preferred because there is much more going on in the frame. With the people walking and the houses in the background and tree’s each side, I thought this represented a rural area much better than just a landscape photo of a field. I also decided to go back to an aperture of 5.6 because some of the images I was taking were not completely clear and in focus so the higher aperture would make much more of the image in focus. I also turned the shutter speed down to 1/125 this is because I was getting a lot of overexposure in previous images. I actually decided to use this image as one of my final images and imported it into Adobe Lightroom.
This is the Lightroom edited version of the photo what I did to this image was increase the temperature slightly to bring out the green and brown in the grass and tree branches. I also increased the exposure a tiny bit because I thought the image was slightly to underexposed and also wanted to brighten the image anyway. Apart from those two things that is all I did to the image and as you can see it has made a big difference, and in my opinion vastly improved the image, it has also saved me from having to go out and re-shoot the image.
For my second image I wanted to get a photo of some farm animals because this reminds me of home, after looking around some what, I came across some horses. I started taking images like this far away from the horses using camera settings aperture 5 to get a good depth of field and relatively good focus, ISO 100 to keep light sensitivity to a minimum and shutter speed 1/125. I liked this set up for this photo but I decided a close up of one of them would be a much more powerful image. So I walked round the pack of horses and picked one to get a close up of.
This is the horse I decided on. I am still using the same camera settings as before but the close up of the horse gives it that extra depth, plus I didn’t want to keep doing landscape photography for the whole brief because I wanted to show that I can all kinds of different styles.
After looking through my images, this one of the horse was the one I decided on. So I looked into improving it in Lightroom and came up with this photo. What I have done to this image is simply increase the exposure to make the image much brighter and visible. I have also increased the contrast slightly to bring more of the black and white out of the horse, and make it more visible to the viewer. This is all the editing I have done because I didn’t want to make the image look to artificial when it is something natural and rural.
For my third image and the last image for the rural section of this brief I decided I should get a photograph of a woodland area as it reminds me of the woodland I always walk in when I am at home. I decided to take only one photo of this because I was very happy with the first photo I took for this particular image and what I was going for in the brief. For this image I used aperture 2.8 this was to get a good depth of field and so the background would be more out of focus which is what I wanted for this particular image because I wanted the foreground to be crisp, clear, and in focus. I also decided to turn up the ISO to 200 and the shutter speed to 1/160 this is because in this woodland location the light created by the sun is blocked by the trees plus this day was particularly cloudy.
After I took the image into Lightroom it looked like this. What I did firstly was crop the bottom of the frame off because of the wooden fence which I didn’t see before. After this I reduced the exposure of the image which I felt gave the wood and bark a much more natural feel to them and more lifelike. I also increased the contrast making the dark areas darker and bright areas brighter to give a greater separation between the bright colours and dark colours in the image. I also reduced the blacks which just makes the dark areas of the image darker.
This is the end of the rural section of my brief. I will now move on to the images I took of the urban areas.
For the first image I wanted get an establishing photo of an Urban industrialised area of Lincoln. So I walked round the city for a while trying to find the best area for this sort of photo and came up with this. I felt like this image has a lot going on it and a lot of buildings and other things making it look urban and industrialised. I thought to get this image I would use the 10-20 mm wide angle lens. This is so I could get as much as I could inside the frame. For this image I used ISO 400 and you can see that the image is still very dark, but I did have the shutter speed on 1/100. I also had the aperture on 6.3 so I would get a crisp and clearer focus but still quite a big depth of field.
The next image I took which is the image I am going to be using I turned up the ISO to 800 to increase the light sensitivity. Forgetting to increase the shutter speed, but the ISO increase did very little damage to the grain. I then took this photo into Lightroom and completely transformed it.
What I did to this image was increase the exposure the whites and made the shadows brighter a lot to give a more of a day time feel to it. I feel like this editing has worked and has made it look more like daytime which was the look I wanted to go for.
For the last two photo’s I decided to do some night photography of and urban environment because I feel at night time the urban areas really come to life, with all the lights lighting up the city. Which gave me the idea of experimenting with light exposure photography.
I started with taking photos of this ride here using an extremely high shutter speed to get the light exposure effect, which was two seconds for this one. But I experimented with a lot of different shutter speeds. I also turned the aperture very high to around f16 for this one but in other photos I have gone much higher than this so the image is very clear. This fairground ride was very good to experiment on and I learned a lot about this kind of photography from it.
After I photographed this for a while I moved on to a different ride the high swings. When photographing this ride I focused on experimenting with shutter speeds for example, with this one I used a shutter speed of four seconds. I kept using the same aperture until I understood what sort of shutter speed I thought looked best for these experimental images. Once I had thought about that I went on to some other rides such as the Ferris wheel and got some photos.
At this Ferris wheel is where I took one of my final images which is this one here. For this image I used a shutter speed of 30 seconds to really let in all of the light exposure from market and especially the Ferris wheel. I used an aperture of f14 this is because I wanted the image to be clear, but the I did not want the depth the field to suffer to much. Once I decided that this would be one of my final images I took it into Lightroom.
After a little bit of time in Lightroom I came up with this. What I have done firstly is crop the image because I felt the edge of the buildings on the left hand side were very unnecessary and added nothing to the image. I have also increased the exposure as well to really bring out all of bright colours in the lights without it really effecting back background. Also shadows and whites have been increased and blacks darkened to really make the bright lights of the Ferris wheel the focus point of the image.
After this I went to another fairground ride and decided to use this as my last final image for this brief.
For this image I used f32 because there isn’t really much of a background in this image so I wanted the clearest best quality focus I could. So everything in the image is completely in focus. I used a shutter speed of 10 seconds I previously experimented with other shutter speeds but this shutter speed seemed to get the best quality. So once I reviewed the image I took it into Lightroom.
In Lightroom I created this image, again I increased the exposure to bring out more light in the image and get the audiences focus point on the ring of light near the top of the frame. I also turned up whites and shadows to make them brighter which I have done in most of the other images. This shows that I am using the same theme of editing through-out this brief which is good because it looks like all of the images relate in some way other than the Urban vs Rural theme.
In self reflection I felt like I may have rushed this project slightly as the deadline came up on me quite quickly which therefore gave me less time to be creative. Despite this I am still very proud of the work I have managed to create, especially the light exposure photo’s for the urban theme side of my brief. However I am slightly disappointed with the work I produced for the rural side of my brief as I rushed it too much, and didn’t get as high a quality image as I would have liked to have had.
Research
My first inspiration for this brief came from Urban Photographer James Maher. Looking at his landscape photography gave me the idea of doing urban vs rural theme for my work. As I grew up in the countryside I am going to use this brief to explore the differences between the two since moving to university.
This photograph was the first one I looked at, what I like about this photo is the framing this is because you get all of the different colours in the frame. This has been thought of carefully before taking the image. This is because you get just enough at the bottom of the frame to work out the location but not too much to take up the whole image. Then there is the great mix of bright coloured bricks really showing the culture of the location, there is just enough of this information in the frame to show that this image has been taken in an area with a mainly Chinese ethnicity.
What in don’t like about this image is the fact that the background is so shallow so you don’t get any depth to the image. However not having a deep background makes the image very sharp and focused which is clearly the preferred taste of the photographer.
I looked some more through James image’s after discovering the first image and came across this image ,Grand Central Station and Chrysler Building. What I like about this urban photo is that it is being photographed in the evening which is something that I would have never have thought about doing until now. In this image it has been done well and you can see the urban environment and a different light to usual. The image has a great contrast in colours with the foreground and the bottom of the frame being very light and as we get further up the frame and the background the light darkens bringing the focus point and the attention of the audience to the Grand Central Station. This is what I want to do with my work, decide on a focus point for the image and try and use the lighting in the frame to make it the focus point of the image. I also got inspiration to start doing night-time photography for this brief as well.
Another inspiration came from light exposure photography and one in particular, which was this photo by Europe Trotter which is called Westminster Light trails. What I like about this image is the variety of different colours that all work so well together all over the frame. Like the blue, green, red and white beams of light travelling through the image from the background to the foreground. Which also contrasts so well with the golden colour of the Westminster parliament building. When I saw this image it gave me the idea of doing something similar with light with the Lincoln Cathedral in the background.
Here is another image by Europe Trotter, this image has influenced my rural side of my brief, I like the use of the different shades of green in this photo and the depth of field used here which is what I want to aim for my first photo of the rural theme in my work.
My final Inspiration came from photographer Mike Curry and his portfolio of Norway’s Northern Lights. These beautiful images really inspired more to have a go at light exposure photography. Also Mike Curry has had a very successful career being in the photography business for over thirty years. He is known for his landscape work for clients such as, The National Maritime Museum, Caprice Holdings, and the Canary Wharf Group. This proves that he is a great photographer, which means that he is good person to be inspired by for this project.
Here is another Photo of his Northern Lights work. Look at the framing of the work, he manages to get all of the beautiful snow covered mountains in with that green tint over it as well as the lights in the sky. This must mean he has used a very large lens to take this photograph to fit all of that inside the frame which I have now decided to do for some of my landscape work for the brief.
Bibliography
James Maher.(undated) Three Cooks. Doyer’s Street, Chinatown ( James Maher Photography.) available from https://thisweekinphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/6-three_cooks-chinatown.jpg [accessed 30th November 2016]
James Maher(undated) Grand central Station and Chrysler building. (James Maher Photography)https://www.jamesmaherphotography.com/new-york-urban-landscape/ [accessed 30th November 2016]
Europe Trotter. (undated) (untitled). Santa Maddalena, Val di Funes Dolomites, Italy: Europe Trotter Galleries. Available from https://500px.com/photo/186005151/santa-maddalena-val-di-funes-dolomites-by-europe-trotter?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=1451397 [accessed 30th November 2016]
Europe Trotter. (undated) Westminster light trails. London, England; Europe Trotter Galleries. Available from https://500px.com/photo/57093006/westminster-light-trails-london-england-by-europe-trotter?ctx_page=12&from=user&user_id=1451397 [ accessed 30th November 2016]
Mike Curry: (undated) Northern Lights. Norway:Mike Curry Photography. Available from https://www.mikecurryphotography.com/product-category/portfolio/landscapes/norway/ [accessed 30th November 2016]
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