Deciding On My Final Idea

My test shots I decided to do on ideas 1 and 2 in my opinion, were successful so I don't feel that I need to do more test shots for my third idea. I'm glad I did a second set of test shots because it helped me develop my ideas and get them clearer in my head so I know exactly what I want to do.

         I really enjoyed my trip to Denny Abbey, I thought it was very interesting to meet Mike and Lorna and learn about how it all started and there was lots of rusty machinery so it was perfect! I think I got some good pictures but I still think I could do better so I am going to go back to Denny Abbey and take more photos, this time more confident in what I'm doing and what kind of photos I want. In my opinion, close up, low angle photos are the most effective ones because it doesn't really matter what you're photographing, as long as the textures and colours of the rust make up for it so I'll attempt more of those. On the other hand, I think it's important to have a mixture of different types of photos to make it more interesting rather than every single one being really similar.

       I think in the photos I took of the flowers for idea 2 I managed to show flowers withering over time quite well. You could clearly see the gradual change in each photo as the flowers started getting more limp and losing their vibrance, however, I didn't think through the lighting very well because I let natural light come through the window in some of the photos and had unnatural light on in the room in others so each photo differed a little in lighting which made it them hard to edit to look similar. Even after my best efforts at editing the photos, they still weren't as similar as I would have liked them to be. Black and white was an improvement upon the original coloured ones because it set more of a sad mood as they die and you couldn't see the green tint on the flower made by the window cleaner I sprayed on them to kill them so that was another advantage of black and white.

  After taking everything in to consideration, I have decided to do idea 1 for my final photos. The main reason I have chosen idea 1 is because I know I can take better photos for it than I can for idea 2  and I enjoy it more because I can walk around and find things and take my photos from different angles, experimenting with different settings on my camera whereas, idea 2 limits me to sticking my camera on a tripod and pressing the button every few hours which is much less interesting. Furthermore, I encountered a few problems while I was photographing the flowers such as lighting and the green colour that the chemical left on them and I don't want to risk making these mistakes again so in a way, photographing rust is the safer option. 

   I am going to return to Denny Abbey to see if I can improve on my last photos.

Idea 2 Testshots (2) Editing Steps

For these photos I edited all the photos in the same way so I'm only demonstrating it through 4 pictures rather than recording the same steps for each one.

 The first thing I did was adjust the levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels) and move the black and white points to where you can see the hill starts on either side. This was to balance the tones in the photo.

Secondly, I made a faint 'S' shape with the line on curves (Image>Ajustments>Curves) to make the colouring richer and contrast a bit more to stand out better.

On some of the photos, the lighting was very different so I adjusted the colour balance (Image>Adjustments>Colour Balance). Mainly, I moved the point between yellow and blue further towards blue and the point between cyan and red towards cyan as this seemed to give me the most accurate results in comparison to my other photos I was basing it on.

I forgot to take a screenshot of the final step - I used the clone tool to remove marks on the wall behind the flowers by holding down alt and clicking to copy the colour then dragging that colour over the marks.

Idea 2 Testshots (2)

My method when taking these photos was to take a photo every 3 hours from exactly the same position and after taking each photo, I sprayed the flowers with window cleaner so that they would die faster.

I also converted them in to black and white because I thought they'd be more effective than colour.

I feel that my test shots went pretty well because I managed to show the flowers dying over time and I think I chose a good time gap between each picture which shows them changing slightly but not a huge amount. As well as this, I'm glad that each photo is pretty much exactly same positioning as the previous ones. However, I think it was a mistake to spray them with window cleaner because it was a green chemical and made the flowers go a bit green so I should have used a clear chemical really.

Final Photos Editing Steps

1.

Firstly, I made the image bigger (Image>Adjustments>Image Size) to make editing easier and so that I could see what I was doing more clearly.

Next, I adjusted the levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels) and moved the black point and white point to each side of where the hill starts.

After that, I cropped the image using the crop tool to get rid of the edges that aren't needed in the photo and are distracting from the focal point.

I felt that the fence and barbed wire didn't stand out enough in the photo and the brightness and colours were a bit flat so I used the magnetic lasso and dragged it around the area, then adjusted the curves (Image>Adjustments>Curves) in to an 'S' shape. 

Finally, I selected the whole photo using the marquee tool on 300pixels so that the line would curve round the corners. I then clicked inverse (Select>Inverse) so that only he corners were selected then also darkened them using curves.

2.

The first thing I did on my second photo was crop it because I thought there was too much pointless background.

Next, I moved the black point on levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels) to the the point at which the hill starts. I didn't need to move the white point as it was already in the right place on the other side.

I then changed the curves of the photo to make the colours richer and more eye catching. I found that I only had to move the line slightly to achieve a richer but still natural effect.

Lastly, I used the marquee tool in the same way as I did with the previous photo to darken the corners. 

3.   

  

On this photo, the first thing I did was adjust the line on curves to a faint 'S' shape.

The second and last thing I did to this photo was use the marquee tool to darken the corners.

4.

After editing the levels, curves and using the marquee tool, I used the magnetic lasso to select the metal object then inverse (Select>Inverse) so that the area around it was selected, then I increased the blurriness of the area (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) to 18.2 pixels. 

5.

I cropped and adjusted the curves of this image then adjusted the vibrance (Image>Adjustments>Vibrance) because I thought the photo looked too dull and flat as the colours weren't very rich. I increased the vibrance to

I also darkened the corners with the marquee tool to give the photo more depth and create a slight contrast in brightness.

On every photo, I adjusted the levels, curves and used the marquee tool but on a couple, I increased the vibrance and increased the blurriness of an area in one of the photos.

My Final Photos

I chose to take this photo because in my photographer research (view here), I wrote about Barbara's photo that had a number of different textures; wood, barbed wire, chain and leaf from a plant. I like my photo because the textures look good against each other and the aperture is on a narrow depth of field.

I think this photo turned out quite well because the colours of the rust look really good against the blue and you can see all the definition in the gaps of the pole. I also took this with a narrow depth of field.

The idea of this photo is that the chains mirror each other and both lead off in to the same direction. Although there isn't a lot of rust in the photo, I liked the little bit that's in focus because it looked different to the patterns of a lot of the other rust I had seen, it's more speckled all along rather then a large area covered in orangey rust.

I loved the different layers of this object which is why I chose to take it from this angle, so that the same shape is repeated across the image, each smaller than the one before it. However, I think I should have focused on the part closest to the camera to make the textures and colours clearer.

I love the colours of this, they're really rich and vibrant but with little patches of rust scattered all along, disappearing in to the distance as it becomes more and more out of focus.

I included a lot of empty space in this photo because I think it makes the chains look more like they're put away and slowly getting more rusty. 

I took a photo of thus hook because it's a really pretty shape that also acts as a lead in line where your eyes follow it along to the middle.

This is a slightly different photo to a lot of my other ones because it's not really close up where you have no idea what the thing in the photo is, it's a medium shot with the same thing being repeated further back in the photo. Again, I thought the shiny silver metal contrasted really well with the vibrant reds and green and brown rust. 

I think this is my favourite of all my photos because it flows nicely, your eyes travels down the chain then along it across the bottom, then round the wheel and back again, almost as if your eyes are the chain as it moves.

This is my photo with the most rust in it so I think I should have used a wider depth of field to emphasise the strong colours and different textures.

This is a grater in one of the houses in Denny Abbey. It took me a while to get this photo right because the room was really dark and I didn't want to use flash so it kept ending up out of focus. In the end I did use flash for this photo but I after editing it on photoshop it grew on me! 

For this photo I held on to the end of the chain and rested my camera on top of it. It was hanging against a wooden barn which brings in the different textures again. I love the tones and colours in the photo; greyish bluey black colours because I think they're quite relaxing and compliment each other well.

Decisions...

 Now that I've done secondary research, test shots and photographer research for all three of my ideas, I've come to the conclusion that my strongest ideas of the the three are idea 1(rust) and idea 2 (decay and withering). I think this because I will be able to produce better quality work for them whereas idea 3 (forces of society) is quite hard to photograph it well because to achieve a high grade I would need a real setting such an abandoned building or site and it's very hard to find one nearby that I would be allowed into, let alone take photos as they're often private property and would most likely involve me having to move things around possibly resulting in damage. However, I think my third idea is the best in the sense that it's quite thought provoking.

         In order to be sure of my decision, I am going to do more test shots for ideas 1 and 2 to see if I encounter any problems that could affect my final work. If this is the case, I may also do another set of test shots for my third idea. 
       

         Planning for idea 1 test shots:

• Setting         - scrapyard - old, crushed cars and car parts

                     - dump - household appliances, bikes, different                           materials

                           - Denny Abbey - ploughs, chains, wheels, tools

                           - farms - tractors, ploughs, barns 

• camera    - different angle - low, high, close up

                      - aperture - narrow depth of field - small are in focus

                                     - wide depth of field - whole image in focus

• lighting - natural light, daytime, sunshine/rain = nice effect

        Planning for idea 2 test shots: 

• object  -   bunch of withering flowers in clear glass vase

• setting - on desk in front of plain wall, next to window for light

• spray chemical on them to make them die faster.

• time   -   every 3 hours?

• lighting   -   natural light through window

• camera   -   on tripod

                     - exactly some position for each photo
                     - flowers + vase take up whole shot
                     - portrait, not landscape


                      

Idea 3 Photographer Research - Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman

Francesca Woodman was born and raised April 3^rd 1958 in Denver, Colorado to well known artists George Woodman and Betty Woodman. She first developed her photographic skills at the private Massachusetts boarding school Abbot Academy. She moved to New York City in 1979 where she claimed she wanted to “make a career in photography”. She sent portfolios of her work to fashion photographers but “her solicitations did not lead anywhere”. In late 1980 Woodman became depressed due to her work and a failed relationship. She even survived a suicide attempt, after which she lived with her parents in Manhattan.

On January 19^th, 1981, she committed suicide at the age of 22 by jumping out of a loft window in New York.

Francesca was a photographer best known for her black and white photos always featuring either herself or a female model. Many of her photographs show young women who are nude, who are blurred (due to movement and long exposure time), who are merging with their surroundings or whose faces are obscured.

This is my favourite photo by Francesca Woodman because I think it is a powerful representation of insecurity. The image shows a girl/woman standing against a wall in what looks like a derelict building. The girl is covering her face and legs with the wallpaper that's peeled off. I think this represents insecurity because it gives the impression that she wants to hide from the world and be invisible as she is literally 'blending in to the background'. I think it's a good image because there is a lot of texture in the setting and the fact that it's in black and white gives a really good effect to emphasise the depressing message it holds. This photo was what inspired me to do a something similar myself.

This is another photo I found by Francesca Woodman that also connotes insecurity because similarly to the previous photo, she is effectively trying to hide behind the obscure fireplace almost as if she's escaping from the world. You can also see in the photo that she's moving which I think suggests distress and panic. I get the impression that the overall message of the image is that she wants to be unnoticed but feels angry when she can't completely hide herself. If I were to do a photo like this, I would have to put my camera on a slow shutter speed to capture the blurriness to show movement.

This photo in relation to the previous two seems as though she's reached a worse state of depression and insecurity because nearly her whole body is blending in with the wall, only she doesn't appear to be distressed by this because maybe she's happier now that she's almost entirely invisible. also, I think that the building represents her life as it's all dark and gloomy which contrasts with outside which is brighter and sunny representing the rest of the world. In which case, the point of the photo, to me, is that she's so absorbed in her own world and doesn't interact with the outside world.

This photo looks like she's desperate and reaching for help