Of all the books listed, this is the one that attracts me the most. I think that I am drawn to this book as I have a rural background and have a passion for the landscape, countryside and the play of light on the land. Hardy's descriptions of the Victorian countryside are so evocative of my childhood. Not that I am a Victorian child, but the pace of life in the 1950s was still slower and things were only just beginning to change. As a young child, I remember going to watch my great grandfather at harvest time working on top of a thrashing machine and I remember stooking sheaves of wheat and barley by hand following the reaper binder. I worked in land-work gangs performing most farming tasks by hand and, as a child, remember the family pig being kept in the pig sty at the bottom of the garden and the screeching of the pig at the annual pig killing. I envisaged a landscape image for the cover (perhaps wrap-around), but wanted to move away from a 'chocolate box' rural scene and try for something more creative and experimental. To this end I have been trying out a new 10 stop ND filter in order to be able to achieve ultra long exposures to create movement in the clouds. I wanted a moody, atmospheric scene to reflect the tragic nature of the book and planned to increase this effect by converting my image to black and white. One of my memories of the book (and film) are of sheep farming and I remember one of the most dramatic incidents being the stabbing of a flock of sheep to save their lives, so I hope to find sheep out in the Lincolnshire Wolds , if I could find some in a suitable location. This, actually, became one of my biggest problems; as well as I know the Wolds, I was surprised at how cropped the land is when it came to finding sheep. I knew of one nearby sheep farm and started there, but I just couldn't find the view that I wanted; either they were not co-operative or were in a field that wasn't suitable. Fortunately, while out walking on the Viking way on the Wolds escarpment looking towards Lincoln.
Conceptualisation
I wanted a photograph for the cover of the book that would reflect both the rural nature of the book and my childhood. Agricultural life plays a large part in the book, especially sheep farming so I wanted to include this aspect. As this is a book full of tragedy, I didn't want a chocolate box image taken in bright cheery lighting so deliberately chose a dull gloomy day, used the 10 stop ND filter to the sky to add drama and then converted to a moody black and white image to reflect the book's tragic aspect.
The Design
Capturing and processing the initial image
I came across the right setting with curious sheep that didn't head for the horizon as soon as I appeared. Having found them I returned late on a gloomy afternoon hoping for the atmosphere that I envisaged. Below is my first, straight, image. There was too much foreground but I knew that I could crop the image to what I wanted.
I then attached the 10 stop filter, changed the camera setting to bulb and took a 3 minute exposure. The sky looked interesting but I thought that I would need to apply the ND grad feature in Lightroom during post processing.
Producing the cover.
I measured the dimensions of several paperback books and decided to apply the proportions of my copy of the novel in a new document in Photoshop at 300 dpi. Having done this I opened my final cropped image and dragged it into the document. I had to resize and move the picture to get it in the correct position. Using the ruler facility I drew two lines to show the position of the spine and then reduced their opacity. Next came titles and blurb for which I used a mixture of Georgia and Times New Roman font at different sizes. I chose the muted green to suit the cover and reflect the rural nature of the novel with other colours to pick out other aspects. I found the penguin logo in google images and used photoshop to erase the white background before placing it on the cover. Finally I flattened the layers in the document and saved as a high quality JPEG and also as a TIFF file. The only thing that I don't like about this is the fact that I have part images of two sheep on the spine.
What have I learned
Despite finding this assignment difficult to get my head round I have enjoyed both the intellectual and technical challenges it presented. I have learned a great deal about book covers and found their conceptualisation fascinating. I have enjoyed attempting to conceptualise my image for this book and also trying to come up with a more creative and experimental shot. I have learned a great deal about using a 10 stop filter and also about creating Intentional Camera Movement shots. I have particularly enjoyed extending my photoshop skills; working with layers and combining two images was also a new experience for me, despite producing 'colour-pop' images for fun in the past.
Photographers Who have Inspired Me During the Course of This Assignment
I enjoy the work of many photographers but I have particularly been looking at the exponents of long exposure photography, especially when they work in black and white. Four names stand out in my mind: Matej Michalik who is based in Slovakia, Michael Kenna, Andrew Gibson and Pete Bridgewood who is based in Southwell. Mattej Michalik specialises in black and white long exposure and many of his images have those dramatic skies for which I was seeking for this assignment. Michael Kenna again works in black and white, usually in square format and regularly uses long exposure. There is much about the work of these three photographers that reminds me of Ansel Adams. Pete Bridgewood is a GP based in Southwell and he writes a monthly article for Outdoor Photography. Not all of his images are black and white but he often uses long exposures to enhance his photography.
http://www.matejmichalik.com/
http://www.michaelkenna.net/index2.php
http://www.andrewsgibson.com/blog/about/
http://www.petebridgwood.com/wp/
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