Final Evaluation

My research has helped me in my exam because it has given me inspiration for my final three shoots. I did some preparatory shoots related to shadows and I really liked how they turned out, however I still wanted to explore other types of everyday objects photography so I did do other techniques in my preparatory shoots. By far the shadow images were my favourite, and by the shadow images, I mean my shoots two and three from component 2. They worked really well and still didn't stray from the subject area which was everyday objects.

The photographers research has helped me a lot because i was able to look at successful photographers and what they did in their photography and how that worked. My main inspiration was probably Andre Kertesz, I didn't know much about him previously, however now I really like his work and I think you can definitely see the inspiration in my work with how I use shadows. I like his photograph of the fork leaning against the bowl and that was my inspiration for my second preparatory shoot. 
I looked at a number of photographers and their work, however I think that Andre Kertesz had the best work for what I wanted to take photographs of. 
Although, I really liked Stephen Shore's photography. I think that he took really interesting photography that I would like to explore if I had longer. His was a lot more casual than Kertesz's imagery and worked with colour and layout rather than with shadows. 


I love this image because of the colours used. The pink is very subtle and goes with the green on the background really nicely. I also really like the contrast with the pastel colours and the white newspapers on the side. It means that the colours aren't overwhelming.

This is Kertesz' image, as you can see, he has used a light directly above the fork to create this shadow, we know this because it is the same shape as the fork, it isn't warped in any way, I really like this because it doesn't look fuzzy or anything it just looks normal.

This inspired me because I really like how the shadow is just as important as the object itself, rather than just something that is there which is what shadows are sometimes. I think that the shadows are possibly even more important than the actual objects because they are a lot darker and bolder and I think that when you look at that image your eyes are drawn to the shadow more.

This is a photograph by Emily Blincoe, she takes photographs of arrangements of objects like this, I was inspired by this photograph and the works of Andre Kertesz to take my photographs in the second exam shoot. I am very happy with how they turned out as I think that they look great. I had to do some editing work so that they all worked together, however overall, I think that they turned out good.

Her image looks a lot like a staircase because of the way they are going up like that.

This is one of my photographs from the second shoot, I am very happy with this, it is very different from Blincoe's photography, however I think that this image is very good as well. She lays her objects out so that they are in an order, whereas I didn't do that, mine are laid out quite randomly and in addition, my matches aren't straight, some of them are quite wonky because they don't stay perfect when they are burning. In her image, all of the matches are quite perfectly laid out.

I think that my image looks quite like a fence because of the way they are standing up in a line like that. 

In my preparatory shoots and my three exam shoots, I learnt a lot about how to progress my photography. Technically, I have got better at taking photographs as my understanding of camera settings has progressed. Recently, I think that my photographs have been at their best as I have been putting a lot more effort in than I was last year.

Before this year, I didn't work with light in my own images much, however now I can use studio lighting with confidence and also use lights at home in a professional way which shows some development of skill. I tended to depend on daylight for my photographs last year, as they were all taken outdoors. However, now, I use synthetic lighting for a majority if not all of my shoots, especially in component two.

My aesthetic ability has also developed, I think that from last year to this year, there is definitely an improvement. I am taking much higher quality images this year because I am spending longer on the shoots and thinking about how they are framed and how they look. I also think about how the photographs will work as a series, however I am not as good at that yet. I would definitely like to improve on that. And although the photographs work one by one, they don't always look as good when I put them together. 

This is one of my photographs and I really like how it looks because of the framing, 

in my opinion my work is strong in many areas, I like how I use lighting because I think that you can tell that a lot of effort has been put into it. Although it isn't perfect, I am still learning how to take good photographs and what works best for my photography.

I like the aesthetic of this photograph because I think that the colours work really well in this, it looks very simplistic because the tones are quite dull, the pink is bright but it isn't too bright, and the table it is on is a very neutral colour which goes with the jar well.

I used computer experiments in this exam because I think that they work best with what I am doing and I have a lot of experience with working on photoshop. I have decided that physical experiments aren't very relevant to what I am doing so I'm not going to use them in my exam. I think that usually they are very time consuming and they don't end up looking that good.

I am very happy with the way this turned out, I wanted to use warm colours like yellow and orange and red etc because I think that it made the most sense with the matches because of the connotations of fire and warmth. It definitely made more sense to use those colours than colours like blue and green.

I think that I chose really nice colours for this image, I needed to use one lighter colour and one that was quite dark because otherwise the photograph would be too dark/light. So I chose the colours yellow, and an orangey brown. I think that this looks really nice overall.

To conclude, I am very happy with the progression that I have made since we as a class were first given this subject for our photography. I really enjoyed exploring this and I think that with my preparatory and exam shoots I have shown a high level of skill, I explored many different styles of everyday objects photography and I think what I did worked out looking really good. My shoots are all nice and I am pleased with what I achieved in this exam. 

Final Images

These images are my final best images and are the ones that I am most proud of. I think that they look really good. 

The first image is of a jar that I have edited on photoshop. I also cropped it so that the image is slimmer and it is mainly focused on the jar, there isn't an excess of background in the photograph.

The second image is of four different sizes of glass containers, I like this photograph because it looks like a set of stairs. It is very exact and isn't in a wonky order. I also like how bright all of the colours are, and how different they are. It was easy to find bright colours like green and blue and pink, rather than just plain colours like white or grey. I think that this paid off as the photographs are very interesting to look at.

This third photograph is focused on the shadows/reflections coming from the glass, rather than the glass themselves, I like this photograph because it looks like water because of the way the reflection ripples.

The fourth image is of matches, I love this image because the shadow is stretched so far in front, but you can still tell what the shadows are, they aren't warped to the point where you can't see what they are. It was difficult to take this image with the matches all in focus. 

This image is similar to the previous photo. however, the shadows are a lot shorter and more defined. They are the exact shape of the matches and probably the same sort of length as well.

The sixth image is also of matches, however this time I took the photograph from above so that the shadows are the most in focus.  You can still see the matches because they aren't completely straight up, so a lot of them are still very visible as well as the top of them.

The seventh image is of screws, I took them directly in front of me so it looks like a skyline, I was very happy with this image as it was something I found difficult to do at home because the background wasn't white.

The eight and last image is also of screws, I took this from above similar to how I did it in my experimentation in component 2, in the preparatory shoot I really liked how the screw shoot looked, however when I did it in the studio, I was unable to use as many screws and this meant that it wasn't as busy and there were less shadows.

Computer Experiment Five

I changed this image so that the bottle was a different colour as I think that this looks quite interesting. I didn't realise I would be able to change it to such a sharp colour so convincingly like this so I am very happy with how this ended up.

I used photoshop for this photograph, I used the selective colour filter over the background to create this effect.

To make it this colour I used the sliders and moved them around until I got the colour that I wanted. I moved cyan, yellow, and black to +100% and magenta to -100%.

This is the original colour of the bottle and although I really like how it looks, it is interesting to see what it would look like in another colour. Although the colour of the shadow didn't change which would be a problem if I was making it a brighter colour that isn't blue, like pink or red for example. But as I only turned it a shade of green, there wasn't an issue.

Exam Shoot 3 - Work Record

Plans for the shoot:

For this shoot I intend to take photographs of bottles, I want to use glass bottles of a variety of colours as if I do this the shadows should end up being very bright and colourful and really interesting to look at. I have put many of my shoots in black and white before now, however I think that this shoot won't work very well in black and white so I would have to do it in colour. I think that this should end up looking really good. I will do this shoot at home because it would be much easier, although the lighting is better in the studio at college, I am happy to work with the lights that I have at home.

What I hope to achieve:

For this shoot I hope that I will be able to work with different types of objects and colours.  Most of my shoots where I've worked with colour have been put into black and white, including the first exam shoot, however I think that this shoot will work much better in colour.
It would be very bland in black and white and the glass would all look the same, so it is definitely a good idea to do it in colour instead.

What I actually achieved:

This shoot ended up going really well and I am very happy with it. I got a lot of different coloured bottles which meant that there was a large variety of colours in the shoot.
I took a lot of photographs in this shoot because I did it at home so I had less time constraints. It was also easier to do this shoot at home because if I did it in college then I would have to bring in a large amount of glass and carry it on the bus which isn't really very easy especially if the bus is busy. 

ISO: 200

exposure: 1/40 second

F/3.5

The left photograph is the original and the right is the edited image, I love this image because of the framing of it, you can see the whole top of the jar, and the pink shadow, but nothing else. 
The focus of the photograph is also really nice, it is focused on the top of the jar, however, it still looks really good even though the shadow is quite blurry. You can definitely see that where the jar is thicker, the colour is darker and more difficult to see, where it is quite thin, the colour is a bright pink.

ISO: 400

exposure: 1/160 second

F/3.5

The left photo is the original and the right is the edited. I really like this image and I think that it is high quality. I did this shoot at home because I would've found it difficult to take this many bottles to college on the bus. So instead of doing this I took it home as this would be more convenient and easy.
I think that I did end up with some very good photographs in this shoot and I am very happy with this one in particular, I love the framing for this image because it is focused more on the  shadows/reflections coming from the bottles, rather than the bottles themselves. I love this because the shadows are very pretty, they look like they have been reflected onto water.

Computer Experiment Four

To create this image I used photoshop, I used invert, and I also used brightness/contrast.

Once I got the photograph up on photoshop, I went to the menu and selected Invert which made it look similar to the above photograph, however it was quite a bit brighter as I will show you.

 

So after I'd made this, I used brightness and contrast which is also on the menu to make the photograph a bit darker. I also made the photograph more contrasted.

I love this because all of the colours are so bright. Sometimes putting the invert filter on photographs can make them look really bad, however in this case I don't think that it looked bad, in fact I really liked it, I had to make the image a lot darker as with the invert filter it looked over-exposed. 

Exam Shoot 3 - Straight Images

ISO: 200

exposure: 1/40 second

F/3.5

This is one of my favourite images from the shoot, I really like how the top of the jar is in focus but the rest of the image isn't because of the depth of field of my images. You can see all of the scratches and imperfections on the top of the jar in this image, whereas if it was further away from the camera lens, you probably wouldn't be able to see this. 

I also love the colour of the jar in this photograph as it is very bright and you are able to see all of this colour in the shadow as well.

ISO: 400

exposure: 1/160 second

F/3.5

This image is also very good in my opinion because the glass is going up in size, it also has a lot of variety of colour in these images. The pink, blue, and green are very bright colours, whereas the brown isn't, which is a shame, I would've liked if I could have bright colours for all of the bottles in this image but I couldn't find one the right size.

ISO: 400

exposure: 1/160 second

F/3.5

I really like this image because it is in a lot of detail, we can see all of the jars/bottles in detail, and we can also see their shadows, this is because the depth of field was a lot larger for this image than for many of my other photographs. 

ISO: 400

exposure: 1/160 second

F/3.5

I like this image because it's looking at the bottles/jar from the top, the neck of the bottle is the thing that is in focus and you can see that in a lot of detail, the rest of the bottle is in a lot less focus and therefore our attention is drawn to the actual bottle top. Sadly I couldn't get the jar and the small bottle in focus as well because they are too small and were out of the field of focus.

Exam Shoot 3 - Contact Sheet

Computer Experiment Three

This is selective colour, I used photoshop to create this effect.

First, I selected all of the matches and then inversed it so it looked like this. This meant that everything but the matches was selected so any effects I put on the photograph wouldn't affect the matches.

Then I added the black and white filter, however as you can see there matches weren't selected so the filter didn't affect them and therefore they are still in colour.

I did this because I wanted to see if I could put more focus onto the matches in a different way. I don't think that this worked as well as the tilt-shift focus could've so this probably isn't my favourite. 

Computer Experiment Two

This effect is called duotone and I did it on photoshop. I used the colours yellow and orange for this experiment as I wanted to use warm colours to signify the flames that burnt the matches down. I think that this works a lot better than the cold colours that I could've used like blue and green.

To create this I first had to get gradient map up on photoshop.

Then I changed the colours from purple and orange which is what they previously were, to yellow and a browny tone of orange. I needed one light colour and one dark which is why the orange is so browny.

I did this because the original photograph didn't have many warm colours in it and it looked a bit cold because of this. The warm tones that I used for the duotone filter mean that the matches looked a lot warmer. And the whole photograph in general looked warmer.

Exam Shoot 2 - Work Record

Plans for the shoot:

For this shoot I plan to take photographs of matches, I think that I will do them standing up as this is different from anything that I've seen before really, I have seen photos of matches that are lying down, however not standing up. The reason I'm going to do this instead of cigarettes like I intended to is because it will be difficult to take photographs of smoked cigarettes as we aren't allowed to smoke them indoors and even if they are smoked outdoors and then brought in, they will still smell a lot and I'm not going to be allowed to do that. 

What I hope to achieve:

Hopefully, my photographs will be a lot better in this shoot than they were in the first shoot, although I liked the images, I think that it worked better at home when I did it in my investigation shoot. This might be because there wasn't any time constraints at home like there was during the exam.

What I actually achieved:

I am really happy with this shoot overall, I think that it went really well in my opinion. I took a lot of photographs because as I did it at home I had a lot of time to explore different ideas. Whereas when I did my shoot in the studio, I don't think that it went as well because I felt pressured for time and it took so long to set up. I definitely prefer the images that I took at home in this shoot as I think that they look like they've had more effort put into them.

This is probably my favourite photograph from the shoot because the matches are in focus and the shadows are also good because they are the same shape as the matches, in some of my photographs, the shadows are stretched out a lot because of the lighting placement, I like both, I just think that I prefer this.

This was the lighting set up for this photograph, the flowers represent the matches.

This is another photograph that I took at home, I am really happy with this image, as you can see I worked with two lights in this image and pointed them in opposite directions to create this effect. I think that this worked really well because of the shapes of the matches, it ended up turning into a gingham type pattern on the background. It definitely worked taking this image from above as it meant that the focus was on the shadows rather than the matches.

This lighting diagram shows the lighting set up for the picture above.

What I am going to do next:
Next, I am going to do my final shoot for the exam. I think that this shoot went well and I would like to do something similar to this again, also with shadows.
This shoot had some issues, it took quite a lot of preparation which was okay because I did it out of class, however if I was to do something like this for the final shoot, I should prepare it at home as it might be fiddly to do at college in the studio, further, I might not have the things that I need.

Exam Shoot 2 - Straight Images

ISO:400

Shutter Speed:1/40

F/4.8

I took this image from directly above as I thought it would be interesting to see the shape of the matches by looking at the shadows rather than the actual matches. The shadow is the way that we are able to see the shape of the matches, rather than the matches themselves. 

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/40

F/4

I love this image because of the way that the shadows are stretched out so much. They are quite a pale colour because of this. I think that it's nice that they are more stretched as this makes the photograph look a lot more relaxed.

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/40

F/4

This image is interesting because you can see the matches in a large amount of detail in the shadows, you can see the texture of the matches even because the shadow is the exact same shape as the matches. I really like that I kept this shoot in colour as I think it works better when the matches look the same as they usually do, it would look too simplified in black and white and I don't think that it would add anything to the photographs.

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/80

F/3.8

I especially love this image because the shadows look like a gingham pattern. It looks very pretty in my opinion. I did this at home with two of my lights and I think that overall it does look good, so I am happy with how this turned out, seeing as I didn't do it in the studio.

ISO: 400

Shutter Speed: 1/125

F/5.6

This photograph is my only close up that I did, I actually ended up really liking this image. The matches are in focus and you can really see how being burnt affected them and their shape. the wonky one especially was affected.

Exam Shoot 2 - Contact Sheet