The City or Urban Sprawl

Although I have not explored this area of landscape photography to its full potential as I would have liked to have done I did whilst on both of my main locations, Haworth and Blackpool, ensure that I did capture images to reflect how the urban landscape has grown due to the continual expansion of the human population.

We did take a group trip to Salford Keys in February where I did capture some urban photographs, as shown below, however I feel that they are not strong enough to convey my concept above.

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DSLR settings - ISO 400, 28mm, F11 @ 1/160 - White balance (AWB)

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DSLR settings - ISO 400, 105mm, F10 @ 1/160 - White balance (AWB)

The above photographs were taken from the top of the War Museum in Salford Keys. I liked the fact that I was able to capture an aerial view point which is not always possible to do so.

RAW Image

DSLR settings - ISO 400, 38mm, F10 @ 1/160 - White balance (AWB)

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DSLR settings - ISO 400, 28mm, F11 @ 1/160 - White balance (AWB)

In Blackpool

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DSLR settings - ISO 100, 28mm, F11 @ 1/160 - White balance (AWB)

I captured this image whilst on the Big Wheel on the central pier in Blackpool, again taking advantage of being able to capture an aerial viewpoint. Due to being on the ride I wasn't able to compose my images therefore I took one light metering and just continually clicked away in the hope of capturing a successful urban landscape photograph.I feel that this image greatly suggests the build up of the urban area, from the slight area of the sea captured in the little corner of the right hand side of the image, the beach to the road, the buildings and slight detail of the surrounding countryside.

Again this is one of my photographs I think I should consider to use to dipict the urban sprawl.

In Haworth

Another photograph I will be considering to use is one of my images from my return visit to Haworth as shown below.

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DSLR settings - ISO 100, 85mm, F5.6 @ 1/100 - White balance (AWB)

A full in depth description as to why and how the photograph was taken is detailed within my post titled 'Re-visit to Haworth'.

Wilderness, Countryside or Coast

As I had already planned to visit Blackpool in regards to my significant place I thought this would also be the perfect opportunity to take some memorable coastal photographs. It was my intention to display Blackpool's coast from a different and personal perspective.

RAW Image

DSLR settings - ISO 100, 28mm, F5 @ 1/1250 - White balance (AWB)

This photograph was taken not long before magic hour lighting. Luckily the sun was hiding behind the clouds therefore not allowing as much glare into my camera lens which also added a great drama at emphasising the under pier with a silhouette effect. This also emphasized the beauty of the clouds formed in the sky adding to the extra aesthetical beauty of the photograph.

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DSLR settings - ISO 100, 28mm, F8 @ 1/320 - White balance (AWB)

This is my favourite of all my coastal photographs. I concentrated on detailing the patterns formed within the sand within the foreground therefore allowing the background to be out of focus although still showing Blackpool tower to evident which coast I was photographing.

RAW Image

DSLR settings - ISO 100, 33mm, F5.6 @ 1/1250 - White balance (AWB)

This photograph was intended to show the meeting of the sea with the shore to depict a classic coastal photograph.

RAW Image

DSLR settings - ISO 100, 30mm, F5 @ 1/1250 - White balance (AWB)

This image was taken with a similar intention that I earlier mentioned as my favourite coastal photograph. Although I decided to capture a viewpoint compositionally with half of the sea and half showing the sand which also again detailed Blackpool tower in the distance and being evident of which coast I had taken the photograph.

The 'Alien' or 'Foreign' Environment

An amazing adventure for this area of the 'places' project would be to go to exotic cities and landscapes across the world and photograph a completely foreign environment where socially the ways of life would be completely different to that of my own. In the future I will make this dream come true, being able to explore strange new lands (omg how 'Star Trek' did that sound - lol) and document the entire journey through my eyes behind the camera lens.

Unfortunately as it so happens at this time of my life I am having to juggle looking after my daughter, running a house and working a full time position as a customer care team manager therefore I am having to keep my feet firmly on the grounds of England. I have decided however to go and photograph a part of Yorkshire as my 'alien' or 'foreign' environment. I plan to take a day out with my family to a place which we have never visited before and hearing through the grapevine that 'Haworth' near Gibson is a very beautiful and interesting village, due to its historical 'still running' steam trains and cobbled roads, we headed off on a beautiful Sunday blue sky day.

http://www.haworth-village.org.uk/visitors/visitors.asp

http://www.haworth-village.org.uk/360/places/places.asp

Unfortunately whilst I was in Haworth I had technical camera problems with my old school film SLR camera as it was my intention to take some moody black and white images of the steam trains and cobbled roads however below are my contact sheets of the images I captured with my DSLR Cannon D50.

Below are my chosen photographs from my journey exploring Haworth which I feel I should consider to use as part of my submission for 'The Alien or Foreign' Environment; they are accompanied with their original raw file and camera information. All manipulation was done via Lightroom 2.0 working in my usual way of firstly checking correct exposure for the whole of the photograph, cropping where necessary then adding detail to colour and tones to bring out the best features of the final image.

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 135mm, F6.3 @ 1/125 - White balance (AWB)

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 47mm, F4 @ 1/80 - White balance (AWB)

Although these two images are very similar it was my intention to photograph the scene with both a landscape and portrait viewpoint to see if as a viewer you would interpret each photograph differently. I believe that the landscape approach gives you a theatrical sense that you are looking out to the world as a stage whilst quietly sitting back enjoying a nice cold beer at the bar. I used a combination of both shallow and deep depth of field to enlighten my required effect to the onlooker, that the audience is actually there watching the world go by whilst perched at the bar.

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 65mm, F5 @ 1/125 - White balance (AWB)

Using a portrait approach I feel that this is not as evident, especially having zoomed into the station in the background making this the main area of the overall image.

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 33mm, F5.6 @ 1/200 - White balance (AWB)

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 35mm, F5.6 @ 1/100 - White balance (AWB)

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 38mm, F4 @ 1/30 - White balance (AWB)

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DSLR settings - ISO 200, 75mm, F8 @ 1/125 - White balance (AWB)

It is my intention to go back to Haworth very soon to do a re-shoot and possibly incorporate both sets of images I obtain into a sequence which will bring together both journeys as one narrative. I hope to do this in the form of a sketchbook, documenting the history of Haworth and showing the vast changes to the landscape over the many years which have past from the early days of Haworth becoming a built up area within the countryside.

Portrait Lighting Class Workshop

In today's lecture Mr F gave some insight into how to achieve a certain portrait look via the set up of lights within the studio. Firstly we looked at the photography of Jill Greenberg whose fine art portraits display a halo of light around the sitter. http://www.manipulator.com/

Like above the majority of Greenburg's images are of small children but they have not been photographed as children are usually seen as being happy and carefree but whilst they are showing a state of upset, pain or unhappiness. Yet still due to the way Greenburg has portrayed them through her clever and powerful lighting technique this shows the viewer a powerful message of being beautiful through their innocence even through a state of distress. The halo of light for me symbolizes that they are but angels through happiness or sadness brought upon them in the world.

The above photograph of Gwen Stefani is definately one of my favourite images of Greenberg. Taking the photograph from a lower angel to the sitter has given Gwen a majestic value of importance. The lighting used giving a full halo of light around her body conveys a message that she is a beautiful goddess. This type of image reminds me of the work of David Lachapelle due to the bright and detailed colours within the final image, although Greenberg's photographs are much more of a tamer nature compared to the very expressive, energetic and fascinating works of one of my most loved photographic artists Mr LaChapelle.

http://www.lachapellestudio.com

So to achieve a 'halo look' we set up the studio with the use of five lights, the main key light being the raised Beauty dish pointed down onto the sitter (which was one of our fellow student's Mark) and four surrounding lights around Mark - two with honeycomb masks both at 45 degree angles behind Mark and another two at 45 degree angles in front of mark - thus creating a cross lighting effect.

The two lights at the back of Mark were of a wattage of 250 (GM250) where the two lights at the front of Mark were of a higher wattage of 500 (GM500).

The meter reading taken from the highlight shining from Marks ear from the back lights gave F11.5 at a shutter speed of 1/125 and from the front of his face from the front lights gave a reading of F8.5 at a shutter speed of 1/125 - ISO 200.

Therefore compensating the difference between the readings we took the following photographs using a aperture of F11, shutter speed 1/125 at ISO 200.

As you can see the halo of light is showing around marks face shot on the FLASH White Balance however to achieve a cooler colour look we set our colour balance to K4000 to add the bluish tint seen in Greenberg's images. The below image was shot using White Fluorescent light balance (Approx 4000K). I found using this white balance gave Marks skin tone an unnatural look like the overall image had a bluish/purplish tint!

I therefore manually set my white balance to 4000K which gave a much more pleasing and natural look to the final image

Within our second sequence of shots we did not use the front two 45 degree lights and re-metered from the above key light which again after compensating gave a reading of F11 at 1/125.

WB Flash

"Strike a Pose" - Really like this shot and definitely prefer just shooting with the use of the above and two front 45 degree lights !

F16 @ 1/125 WB Flash

From F-Stopping up 1 (allowing less light to pass via the aperture) you can see the different mood created, showing very little highlights apart from a the slight few on Mark's face.

F11 @ 1/125 WB Fluorescent

"Almost angelic"

Our third sequence of shots where taking with the use of the top light only of which the effects of the halo lighting are very minimal compared to using all or part of the set up as shown in the diagram picture above

Within the 2nd part of the workshop we experimented with different angles of view photographing Natalie with the use of continuous lighting with one 45/45 degree light above head height. Setting our DSLR camera's to shoot in monochrome only!