Interior Brief final & Overview

I choose the Catholic Church as my interior brief. Being brought up as a catholic, the thing I remember most from an early age is being absolutely petrified of the local priest and the church in general, church was always freezing cold, dark and damp and I wanted to be anywhere on a Sunday morning than sat on a hard wooden pew, freezing cold having to put half my hard earned pocket money into a tray for the poor. Initially I wanted to portray the church as I saw it growing up, cold, damp and frightening. What changed? I spoke to the most helpful priest in the world, who bent over backwards to help me and I felt myself not wanting to portray his church in that way or maybe it was just age old catholic guilt! So the final 10 images show from my 7 year old self what the church and my faith meant to me growing up. The icons and items of everyday church life, from Mary and Jesus to baptism and confession, from collections for the poor to the splendor and richness of the church itself.

The lighting was an absolute nightmare and I shot various exposures for each photo. I didn't want to use flash as this bounced off every available surface and I lost the ambience of the church. I feel the images are composed well and I've achieved in my minds eye what I set out to achieve. I'm disappointed that some of the stain glass windows didn't show up as well but I could only achieve this on some occasions if I totally underexposed the rest of the scene and by doing this I lost a lot of the detail. A couple of images of the church itself have been deliberately under exposed to compensate for the windows.

The bible photo is a bit over exposed and isn't all quite in frame so I would use a different exposure next time and get it all in frame.

The statue of our lady I should of in hindsight used a shallow depth of field to blur out the background but the use of flash as slightly compensated for this as it's brought out her face from the background as I wanted to give her a more life like and dare I say angelic feel as opposed to a rock hard statue. The Jesus statue didn't work out as well and I'd possibly shoot from a different angle next time.

The more I photograph the more I seem to be leaning to searching out the small random details that by some would go totally unnoticed but that I find fascinating, so we have the collection for the poor sign, the organ keys, Mary and Jesus done as portraits instead of statues, the opened bible.

Still a lot to learn, but I feel I did the best I could with the lighting conditions I had and I'm quite happy with the results.

BLOGGER WON'T LET ME UPLOAD PHOTOS AT MOMENT

Exterior location - final & overview

To show in 10 images our understanding of "exterior location".

I chose to photograph a subject "water" as opposed to doing all landscapes for example. What I wanted to show is how water comes in all different forms and how it is used and needed in life.

In my 10 images I have incorporated depth of field, shutter speeds, field of view etc.

I haven't edited the images so they are all straight from camera.

Here are the 10 final images, these aren't the ones I chose as I printed off the wrong file but you can still see from the images my planned intentions.

My thoughts........I hate them! The main obstacle being Me! Getting to know all the various settings etc, I found I was thinking too much about the technical element of photography rather than the creative element, which frustrated the hell out of me, this led to me missing out a lot of the basics, use of a tripod, rule of thirds being 2 of the main failures. On a more positive note, i know where I went wrong and as I'm now more confident with the camera than when took these, I'm now creating images I want to create as opposed to panicking and shooting whatever!

Dunstable Downs - Practising Exterior Location!

 

Saturday afternoon on Dunstable Downs Quickly went from bright blue skies to peeing down rain. It was windy as hell and freezing cold, I could hardly press down the shutter it was that cold. I played around with various apertures, shutter speeds and ISO's, Theres even a Martin Parr inspired image!  Although some of the photos are the wrong exposure I feel this adds to the images as it takes into account the mood of the day.

 

Here are just a few images from the day, as always unedited ( Photoshop is in the post!) & randomly selected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photographer Research - Simon Roberts

 

 

Simon's photographs have been exhibited widely, with recent shows at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai and are held in a number of private and corporate collections, including the Deutsche Börse Art Collection, the George Eastman Kodak House and the Wilson Centre for Photography. He has been published in national and international magazines including Granta, The Sunday Times Magazine, Guardian Weekend Magazine, Next Level, Saturday Telegraph Magazine, Details, Art Review, Esquire, Der Spiegel and Le Monde.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On first glancing a few images I wasn't too impressed until I looked at them all in detail, The images "We English" as I've shown above, depicts in Photographs a part of English outdoors and leisure activities, from the sweeping landscapes and the people in them as a collective rather than individuals, it shows in a range of images our oddities and customs, from car boots to seaside, birdwatching to surfing he shows our obsession with caravans, alcohol, sports, picnics , BBQ's etc

Photographer Research - Jane Evelyn Atwood Specialist location

Jane Evelyn Atwood is one of the world’s leading photojournalists. In 1976, Atwood bought her first camera and began taking pictures of a group of street prostitutes in Paris. It was partly on the strength of these photographs that Atwood received the first W. Eugene Smith Award, in 1980, for another story she had just started work on: blind children. Prior to this, she had never published a photo.
In the ensuing years, Atwood has pursued a number of carefully chosen projects-among them an 18-month reportage of one regiment of the Foreign Legion, following the soldiers to Beirut and Chad; a four-and-a-half-month story on the first person with AIDS in France to allow himself to be photographed for publication in the press (Atwood stayed with him until his death); and a four-year study of landmine victims that took her to Cambodia, Angola, Kosovo, Mozambique and Afghanistan-always with the same personal and passionate approach.
Jane Evelyn Atwood’s work reflects a deep involvement with her subjects over long periods of time. Fascinated by people and by the idea of exclusion, she has managed to penetrate worlds that most of us do not know, or choose to ignore. She limits her stories to those which truly compel her, devoting to each subject the time necessary-in some cases, years-to explore it in depth. In 1989 she started to photograph incarcerated women, eventually managing to gain access to some of the world's worst penitentiaries and jails, including death row. This monumental ten-year undertaking- encompassing forty prisons in nine countries of Europe and Eastern Europe, and the United States-remains the definitive photographic work on women in prison to date.
Jane Evelyn Atwood describes her method of work as "obsessive". She does not move on to a new subject until she feels she has completely understood the one at hand and her own relation to it, and until she believes that her pictures reflect this understanding.

I love the way she captures human emotion through her photographs, often shooting in black and white this gives her images a more dramatic and edgy feel. I haven't quite made up my mind if its the subject matter that draws me to this photographer or the strength of her photographs

Biblography - Jane Evelyn Atwood

Photographer Research - Joe Cornish

Joe Cornish is a British Landscape Photographer noted for his large format landscapes.
He has produced a large amount of work for The National Trust mainly working with 5x4 cameras.

 

 

 

 

 

I find Cornish's work although very beautiful, very surreal and dream like which I don't particularly like, I find his work too boring for my liking, his use of photo shop or similar is very evident which gives his work in my opinion a very unnatural feel to them.  I prefer the more dramatic and moody images of Thomas Joshua Cooper and Ansel Adams

Different Types Of Cameras

SLR - Single Reflex Camera

"SLR" stands for Single-lens reflex, the method by which most professional-grade cameras take photos. In an SLR camera, light enters the lens and is reflected upwards by a mirror into the viewfinder assembly. When the operator looks through the viewfinder, he or she adjusts the lens and the camera in preparation to take the shot. When the shutter button is pressed, the mirror swings up and the shutter opens, allowing the light from the lens to fall onto the film and capture the image. SLR cameras for professional photographers were introduced in the 1920's, and became popular with photographers of all levels in the 1960's. Film used in a standard SLR was 35mm

A Digital SLR operates on the same principle as a film SLR camera: light comes through the lens and is reflected into the viewfinder, allowing the user to adjust the camera and the lens before pressing the shutter button to raise the mirror and take the shot. But instead of projecting the light onto a strip of film, it's captured by a digital sensor and saved to a memory card as an image file. There are many advantages to Digital SLR photography beyond the files: batteries last longer, settings are easier to adjust with an LCD screen, and the cameras can be physically smaller.

Some examples of SLR Cameras

The 35 mm film-based Nikon F, 1959, the world's first single-lens reflex camera

A Digital SLR (DSLR)

Pros

The ability to change lenses.

Larger image sensors allow for better performance in low light situations.

Hot shoe to add external flash removing the threat of red eye.

Bigger images make bigger prints.

Cons

Bigger images meaning bigger files

TLR - Twin Lens Reflex

A twin-lens reflex camera (TLR) is a type of camera with two objective lenses of the same focal length. One of the lenses is the photographic objective or "taking lens" (the lens that takes the picture), while the other is used for the viewfinder system, which is usually viewed from above at waist level. In addition to the objective, the viewfinder consists of a 45-degree mirror (the reason for the word reflex in the name), a matte focusing screen at the top of the camera, and a pop-up hood surrounding it. The two objectives are connected, so that the focus shown on the focusing screen will be exactly the same as on the film. However, many inexpensive TLRs are fixed-focus models. Most TLRs use leaf shutters with shutter speeds up to 1/500th sec with a B setting.

The vast majority of TLRs take 120 film and expose 12 pictures in 6×6cm format. Some models did take 127 film,and expose 12 pictures in 4×4 format, and there are a few models using other formats. No general-purpose digital TLR cameras exist.

Pros

• TLRs are typically very quiet.
• Viewfinder image matches image size on film.
• No viewfinder blackout during exposure.
• TLRs use leaf shutters, which can sync with a flash at any speed.
• TLRs are waist-level cameras. Subjects are usually more relaxed and less likely to pose for photographers using waist-level cameras. Although you can get adaptors for them

Cons

• Parallax is a problem at close distances.
• Reversed image (image is upright but reversed left to right).
• Unlike an SLR, no impression of depth-of-field can be given in the viewfinder, as the viewing lens has no diaphragm.
• Most don't have interchangeable lenses (exceptions: Mamiya C series and Koni-Omegaflex).
• Can be relatively large and heavy (depending on brand and model).

Medium Format SLR

Medium Format refers to the film in the camera.

Medium format film is larger (often significantly so) than 35mm film, and is wound onto reusable spools. While 120 is the most common medium format, there are others available, including 620, which is the same size as 120 but uses smaller spools. Medium format film uses a paper backing to protect it from exposure to light, and should be loaded in subdued light conditions. Currently the two most popular formats are 120 and 220. 120 film is basically a spooled paper-backed film, that will take from 8 to 16 exposures (6x9 to 6x4.5). The paper back typically has rows of numbers that lines up with the (usually red) window on the back for the format of that particular camera. 220 film is the exact same film, except instead of a paper backing, it has a paper leader. The film itself has no paper backing and is twice the length of 120, so instead of 8 to 16 exposures you may get around 15 to 31 exposures. 116 or 616 type film was a 70mm wide paper backed film, which is no longer readily made.

Pros -

• Larger negative requires less blow-up (16X to 24X) to make 8X10s.
• Available in a variety of types, & some systems that are as versatile as 35mm.
• Good range of professional quality films available.
• Most are still small enough to be convenient and hand holdable.
• Automation available on some models.

Cons -

• Many are *EXPENSIVE* compared to 35mm cameras with similar features due to lack of a mass market.
• Local availability of film and processing is limited unless you are in a metropolitan area.

Large Format Camera

Large format means film that is generally at least 4x5 inches (or 9x12 cm). Film this size is generally used as individual sheets, rather than rolls as in smaller formats. (There are large rolls of film, though, used for such things as aerial photography.) Exposures on a large-format camera are made one at a time, using film loaded into film holders.

While there are many varied designs of large format cameras, there are two basic varieties: the monorail camera, and the field camera. A monorail camera uses a single round or square tube/rail as the base of the camera on which the front and rear sections slide back and forth to accommodate lenses of different focal length. A field camera design allows the camera to fold into itself to facilitate ease of storage and transport. The monorail camera design allows for greater versatility in camera movements, such as swing and tilt, but is typically large and heavy. The field design is usually smaller and lighter, sacrificing range of motion and rigidity.

Most, but not all, large-format cameras are view cameras, with fronts and backs called "standards" that allow the photographer to better control rendering of perspective and increase apparent depth of field. Architectural and close-up photographers in particular benefit greatly from this ability. These allow the front and back of the camera to be shifted up/down and left/right (useful for architectural images where the scene is higher than the camera, and product images where the scene is lower than the camera), and tilted out of parallel with each other left/right, up/down, or both; based on the Scheimpflug principle. The shift and tilt movements make it possible to solve otherwise impossible depth-of-field problems, and to change perspective rendering, and create special effects that would be impossible with a conventional fixed-plane fixed-lens camera.

The main advantage of large format, film or digital, is higher resolution. A 4×5 inch image has about 16 times the area, and thus 16× the total resolution, of a 35 mm frame. see example below:

Pros -

• Makes high definition prints due to little or no blow-up required. 4X5 to 8X10 is only 4X.
• Greatest degree of image control available. Most cameras have various movements to control depth of field and perspective.
• Very high quality films available due professional usage.
• Wide range of lenses available and any manufacturers lens can be adapted to any camera.

Cons -

• Large size makes handholding impractical for most uses.
• Requires more skill to manipulate (no automation).
• Equipment is expensive if new.
• Local film and processing availability limited or non-existent outside cities.
• Equipment is bulky and inconvenient to transport.

Range Finder

A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus. Most varieties of rangefinder show two images of the same subject, one of which moves when a calibrated wheel is turned; when the two images coincide and fuse into one, the distance can be read off the wheel. Older, non-coupled rangefinder cameras display the focusing distance and require the photographer to transfer the value to the lens focus ring; cameras without built-in rangefinders could have an external rangefinder fitted into the accessory shoe. Earlier cameras of this type had separate viewfinder and rangefinder windows; later the rangefinder was incorporated into the viewfinder. More modern designs have rangefinders coupled to the focusing mechanism, so that the lens is focused correctly when the rangefinder images fuse; compare with the focusing screen in non-autofocus SLRs.

Range finder Cameras

Pros		Compact Quiet and practically vibration-free Very bright, aperture independent viewfinder Superb wide-angle and normal lenses Maximum optical quality at f/4-5.6, while excellent at maximum apertures Short sutter lag
Cons		Telephoto lenses are limited to 135 mm or shorter (coincident rangefinder cameras) Awkward macro-photography (if possible at all) Possible parallax errors at close-up focusing Rudimentary depth-of-field control Focus control is indirect polarizers cannot be used (without major obstacles) potential mismatch between lens flare vs rangefinder

Bibliography - SALON, Wikipedia, camerapedia, Northnet, photozone

Photographer Research - Thomas Joshua Cooper

Thomas Joshua Cooper is considered to be one of the best contemporary landscape photographers.

He states Ansel Adams as one of his inspirations.

Cooper founded the Fine Art Photography Department at the world-renowned Glasgow School of Art in 1982. He is now a senior researcher in the faculty of Fine Art, holding a Professor role and Head of Department.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In my humble opinion Cooper is "the" master of Seascapes, his images are very real, when I look at his Seascape images I can feel the Sea spray, hear the crashing waves or feel the calmness. I feel at that moment whatever the image represents.

 

Images taken from Art News

 

 

Photographer Research - Donna Ferrato

Donna Ferrato is a street photographer, but an encounter with family violence led her to take her skills as a street photographer and report report on the lives of battered women, for over 10 years she visited homes, shelters, jails and bedrooms and showed within her images what others would prefer to be unseen. She has done other work but I just wanted to show the images of the battered women project.

 

 

 

 

 

Personally I think Donna Ferrato is a very talented & brave photographer. There are no captions needed for these images as they speak for themselves. I respect her as a photographer and as a person for having the guts and determination to capture these images and show them to the world.