Bowland Photographs

These photographs were taken in Bowland, all on my digital SLR. Most of the pictures are based around water, carefully concentrating on composition and exposure, making sure the ambient reflections in the water aren't too bright. It was a really sunny day so it was difficult to expose everything properly without making the water appear white in the photos.

I link these photographs mainly because of the composition, I think I've captured the scenery quite well within the frame. I also like the comtrast and tones in the images, there's a massive range if greys, black and whites in every frame, and I think these are the key qualities to the photographs.

If reshot, I would try to shoot more, I think I've learnt a lot from shooting like this, and putting the new knowledge to use when shooting would benefit me massively.

Photographs - 13th January

These are some more photographs taken on a digital SLR and turned black and white through Photoshop. They are mainly based around the natural environment, focussing closely on the lines and curves within the frame. The main curve, line or the horizon is positioned close to the centre of the frame, as part of a task assigned during feedback of  my previous work.
I like these photographs because of the composition, having something to focus on made it a lot easier to produces a series of work with similar aesthetic properties.
I will probably reshoot similar styled work during different weather conditions and with different equipment to produce a wider variety of photographs.

 

Natural Landscapes

These are some photographs taken in Jack Keys in Darwen on a DSLR, with a 50mm 1.8f lens. The photographs were taken with a 1.8 aperture to give a shallow depth of field, drawing focus to the foreground. 

I like that I've stuck with the theme of lines and curves within the photographs, carefully composing the scenery within the frame. I think the composition is one of the key points to the photographs.

If I reshot these, I would go when the weather was more cloudy, but still bright. The white sky takes up too much of the photographs and is a large area with no detail. I've been able to make it more subtle with the use of vignettes, but different weather conditions would definitely make things easier.

Final Major Project Plans

For my final major project, I'll be photographing a series of landscapes. The landscapes will be mainly black and white, but will be different kinds (urban, natural, etc). I'll be focussing mainly on the lines and curves within the frame at a theme, carefully composing every photograph to produce a series of geometrically similar pictures.
As well as making photographs, I'll be making my own frames, which will be suited to the specific photographs - for example, natural landscapes will be going in a frame which looks like trees and vines.
I thought this was a better way of working, as it gave me more to do, and it was more practical than just taking photographs. Below are little sketches and notes from when I first came up with the idea.

Clay Frames

These are the pictures of my clay frames from before they were fired. The first picture was the original plan, but as it came out really wonky and scruffy looking, so I reshaped the pieces and did them brick by brick instead of in strips. I think doing it brick by brick came out a lot better, it looked a lot straighter and a lot more like what I expected.

I also tried making the frames as one big rectangle, cutting the middle out. It turned out well, but looks slightly uneven, and the centre is too small.

With all of the frames, I imprinted the unfired clay with a concrete block to give the clay more of a stoney texture. Pressing down softly made slight imprints, which was what I wanted, so it turned out quite well. 

Clitheroe Photographs

These photographs were taken around Clitheroe Castle grounds, and are based mainly around the architecture and the structures based around it. I added the pictures in because they fit in well with my theme, I wanted to avoid just shooting photographs off hills and other generic landscapes, so taking pictures of the man made landscapes seemed more appropriate.

Sky Photographs

As part of my landscape theme, I tried to photograph the sky whilst it was really bright and colourful. 

The colour has shown up really well, the sky looks bold in most of the pictures, making the range of colours stand out a lot. The problem with this was that the rest of the surroundings were really dark, which meant I had to brighten everything up when making the exposure. I had to use a high ISO to compensate for the darkness, which made the photographs grainy. As well as that, I found it difficult to focus on the horizon with it being so far away; in most of the photographs, the sky is in focus and the horizon is slightly blurry, it's more apparent in the ones with trees. 

I'd definitely like to shoot similar things, I think it went well for a first attempt. In future I'd use a tripod, so I can use longer shutter speeds and lower ISOs (getting rid of the graininess in the photographs)