More images for Assignment 1

I have nearly completed the photography for Assignment 1 but have a couple of ideas that I still want to try out: photographing Cleethorpes sea front at night.  I was keen to get a straight night shot of the lights, but I wanted them to be reflected in the water/wet sand.  This required both darkness and high tide so I have had to wait a couple of weeks for the conditions to be right.  I went down a couple of days ago to try my luck.  I had missed the tide but there was still a reflection in the wet sand.  I used a wide angle to get the whole of this section of the sea front in but felt it looked better when cropped to the image below.  I used an aperture of f22 to secure the star burst in the lights.  I am going to try again tonight and make sure that I hit high tide at 5.00 pm to see if there is more of a reflection.

I also wanted to try a couple of experimental shots that I had in mind.  I enjoy playing with zoom bursts, the subject of the next picture taken from the same position.  In all these shots I used a tripod as I was working with a long exposure.  For the one above an exposure up to 30 seconds was fine but for the zoom burst I needed only 1 or 2 seconds, the idea being to zoom out the lens during the exposure; 30 seconds would have been too long.  I like this shot but wonder if it would have been better if I had been at right angles to the lights in order to get a symmetrical burst.  I shall have to wait for the tide to go out a bit for this shot though otherwise I shall be up to my neck in water.

The next experiment I wanted to try was the one below.  I had already tried this at dawn a couple of weeks ago when I noticed that if the lens was slightly defocused the lights turned into lovely globes of colour.  I wasn't sure that it had worked at dawn so decided to try again on this occasion.  I am much happier with the result.  I have seen this effect on television occasionally and my wife says that this is what Christmas lights look like when she removes her glasses.

I'm not sure about these experiments; I suppose you either love them or hate them.

Just as I was finishing I spotted this, more conventional night shot.  I waited for a car to pass in order to get the straks of red from its rear lights.

A Walk in Broughton Woods; Experiments with My Polariser.

Went for a walk with my wife and dog Jet today in North Lincolnshire.  ( Blog and all photos in Mike's Natural Musings).  As well as other photography I experimented with my polariser.  I regularly use this to darken blue skies and make clouds stand out but I wanted to see what effect it had on other colour saturation, particularly vegetation.  The following images are more or less straight out of the camera with some adjustment to clarity but no adjustment to colour temperature or saturation.

No polariser

Polariser used

No polariser

Polariser used

It can be seen in each case that the polariser increases the colour saturation.  The effect was most noticeable when used at right angles to the sun.

I have recently come upon an article in the British Journal of Photography by Justin Jin about an environmental and social crisis affecting arctic Russia (written about in another blog).  The article made me think of the problem of fly tipping in Lincolnshire, something I often see when out walking and cycling and also feature on a Look North television documentary.  When I saw the example shown below in Broughton Woods on our walk, I was saddened but it did give me thoughts for a possible subject for assignment 3 later in the course.

Project 4: Applying a Drop Shadow.

PS Elements seems to be working OK at the moment and this exercise went to plan.  The only way I found that Elements differs from PS is that instead of selecting Layers - Rasterize, it is necessary to select simplify layer and then Gaussian Blur can be selected in Filters.  All else remains the same.

Now I have experimented I need to look at the two links provided in the resources.

Project Using Type Tools: Getting Started.

A first effort here.  I have used Photoshop Elements 7 for this as I do not have the full PS as I use Lightroom for my photography and only do a little in PS.  So, I am hoping to be able to do this in Elements.  I have opened a new file and made it A5 as requested and put in the word Title as a heading with no problem.  Opening a text box was again no problem, nor selecting font and size etc.  When it came to typing, however it seemed to run the lines in together unless I pressed the return key to manually double space.  I cannot yet find another way of doing it. I have found the layers palette and worked out to select the text by double clicking the icon for the layer.  I have experimented with changing the text alignment.  All seems good.

Reflections on Part 1 of the Course.

Well I have almost completed part 1 of the course; assignment 1 is virtually completed, I just need one more shot which requires high tide and darkness.  I should secure this this weekend and then I need to edit them down to the final 10/15, prepare and send them to my tutor.  I have however completed all of the projects and exercises and done some reading and research, although perhaps not enough of this.
I have enjoyed the first assignment.  I used the same locality as Assignment 4 in People and Place as I wanted to build on and improve my work from that assignment.  My aim is to display a range of styles and genres, although I have leaned towards my favoured wildlife and landscape.

 I enjoyed the section on writing descriptively.  Describing one of my own photographs flowed, although it was more taxing to write specific and succinct captions.

In writing analytically, I found it surprisingly difficult writing about one of my own photographs.  I elected to write it in the third person as someone viewing the image but perhaps it should have been done more personally.  It did make me look at it very carefully, though, and consider aspects that I normally wouldn't spend so much time thinking about such as intent, style and success.  I usually decide if I like it enough to keep it.  I do like my chosen shot and feel that it is a success but close examination made me notice some distracting features.  I do think it fits what I think of as my style in landscape photography.  I  set out to show 'just the right amount' of motion blur in the water and I think that I have succeeded in this.  I also feel that it illustrates the season well.  I really enjoyed researching and writing analytically about 'The Afghan Girl'.  It is more difficult looking at someone else's image as you have to try and get into their mind.  Care has to be taken to use only researched facts and not opinion.

Analysing the essay was excellent practice at teasing out the writers meaning and encapsulating it in a few words.  It was a good reminder also not to take on face value what someone writes.  Are they correct?  Is it just their opinion?  Do I agree?  Why/wny not?  I found this more difficult as I found Berger's style of writing convoluted and  and not easy to follow.

I hope that this will improve my own photographic practice by making me analyse my images more carefully and look at them through a third person's eyes; there is a lot of ownership of your own work.  Reading and research will also hopefully inform and inspire my own work.

Hopefully I will be more able to promote and disseminate my work by the use of careful descriptions and concise and succinct captions.

This part of the course has been a timely reminder to further hone my research skills and make sure that I read widely (more widely!) and to study other photographers for inspiration and ideas and to inform my own work.

Project 3: Reading About Photography; Analyse an Essay.

Understanding a Photograph - John Berger.

In this exercise we are tasked with reading the essay at least twice; the first time just reading straight through and subsequent times making notes.  It is suggested that we summarise in one line the main point of each paragraph.

• For many years, although enthusiasts regard photography as fine art, the vast majority of people do not.
• Fortunately few museums have opened photographic departments, as photography cannot be considered as fine art.
• Painting and sculpture are fine art but are dying because all works of art merely become a valuable property.
• Photographs have little property value as they are infinitely reproducible and so cannot be considered to be art.
• A photograph is a record of an event the photographer decides is worth seeing.
• The difference between a good or bad photograph depends on the photographers skill to choose what is worth recording.
• Photography should not be compared to the compositions found in fine art as composition cannot enter into photography.
• If formal composition in a photograph explains nothing, what gives it meaning?
• The importance of a photograph is dependent on the moment of capturing the event.
• A photograph captures a single event or moment in time; a painting is an accumulation of many events.
• The only decision a photographer can make is what moment in time to capture, what is not shown is just as important as what is.
• A photograph is effective when the most truthful moment is captured.
• The minimal message of a photograph may not be as simple as it seems.
• We need to understand that photography is a weapon that we can use and which can be used against us.

In one sentence, what is Berger's argument?

Berger's argument is that photography should not be regarded as fine art as it is a recording of one moment in time, either more or less truthful, whereas fine art is an accumulation of many events.

John Berger is well-known for his socio-political stance.  How is this reflected in the argument that he presents in this essay?

Berger feels that all works of art become property, become valuable and perhaps he feels that they are the preserve of the favoured few; the wealthy.  In his view photography should not be regarded as fine art because it has no rarity value, as it is infinitely reproducible.  He feels that the value in photography lies in the photographer's decision on when to press the shutter as he captures a fraction of second in time - freezes motion in time (Ansel Adams) or captures the decisive moment (Henri Cartier-Bresson).  He finishes with the suggestion that photography is a weapon that we can use or can be used against us.  Perhaps that is why the British Government refused to allow Don McCullin to photograph the Falklands War!!

Are you convinced by Berger's argument?  If not, why not?

I agree with Berger when he argues that photography is all about capturing a moment in time.  That moment may be the one when the man's foot is hovering over a puddle in Cartier-Bresson's case, or it may be pressing the shutter when a cloud is in exactly the correct spot in a chosen view as with Ansel Adams and many other landscape photographers; or it may be the difference between capturing a scene when it is lit by a patch of light as in the image below that I took of Saltwick Nab on the Yorkshire coast last week.

In this image I waited for the sun to emerge from behind a patch of cloud so that it caught The Nab in the background.

I feel that his argument about photography is only partially true as, in my opinion, the rules of composition play a significant part in a photograph and sometimes they can be broken.  I took the image below last week as I was attracted to the pebbles and sea-glass.  Yes, I captured a moment in time and this time the moment was when the sun went behind the cloud to give softer lighting, but I also chose how to frame the photograph.  I could have placed the sea-glass in the centre of the frame but I chose to place on a junction of thirds.

I can see Berger's point that photography is not art because it has no property value because of it's lack of rarity, but if a gallery or museum chose to buy an image and also destroyed the negative or original digital file, then it would assume property value.  As it happens, since Berger wrote this article, most museums and galleries have set up photographic departments and photography is more widely regarded as art.

What is your opinion of Berger's writing style?

I found his style rather convoluted and difficult to follow on a first reading.  I needed to read through it several times to get a feel for the meaning.  The initial task in this exercise helped: that of summasising each paragraph into one line.

Reading and Research: Tuscany, Inside The Light; Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barret.

I first came across Joel Meyerowitz when I was studying for my Level 2 Landscape course and read Cape Light.  When I was planning a road trip to Italy to visit Umbria and Tuscany, I came across this book and managed to acquire a copy second hand.  It is a book full of beautiful but subtle landscape images of the Tuscan countryside through the seasons.  It works well with Project 15 of the Landscape course.  The photographs are accompanied by Maggie Barrett's beautifully evocative descriptive prose.  The images are subtle and understated with quite restricted colour palettes and almost as if they have been slightly desaturated, reminiscent of a slightly faded 1960s or 70s transparency.  Meyerowitz does not seem to seek out dramatic sunrises and sunsets and his photographs could well have been taken in the middle of the day.  He does favour misty scenes, however, and I am sure these will have been taken early in the day.  Something that inspires me about these images, though, is that they could have been taken in the Lincolnshire Wolds, my local area.  I shall forever think of the Wolds as Tuscany in miniature.  One or two of the images remind me of some that I have taken in Lincolnshire.
 Plate  43 (Wheat Field, Late Afternoon), his first summer photograph, reminds me of the ones below that I took this summer in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

 Plate 46 (Hayfields) of a harvested field with large round bales brings to mind  similar ones I took this summer.

Similarly Plate 56 (Sea and Sky) makes me think of one I took in Robin Hood's Bay last week, although in slightly different weather conditions.

With being muted colours and a restricted palette Joel Meyerowitz's photographs are very different to many many  practioners' work such as Joe Cornish or Galen Rowell, which I admire but which tends to be taken in the golden hour and is richly saturated.  It is perhaps more akin to the work of David Noton.

I shall certainly be looking at The Lincolnshire Wolds with new eyes and using this book as inspiration for my future photography.