In this shoot I have created more photographs of steel surfaces for me to work with in my edits. My previous photographs of steel surfaces were mostly of brushed steel and therefore there was not a lot of texture to add interesting features to the photographs. I have photographed more worn and rusted steel to provide character and more emphasis to the steel exposed over the building faces. This rust also hints at the age of both the steel and some of the houses, and links back to political landscapes due to showing how something can be changed over time through wear and tear.
Edits
The below edits are edited in the same style as my previous double exposure edits. I did this through photoshop – I layered the photographs of the steel over the photographs of the building faces and used the ‘darken’ blending option in order to bring the rusted and ruined textures to the forefront resulting in double exposure edits that are more characterized and interesting than my previous edits due to more colour and layers.
Analysis
When capturing this photograph of a house face I used the natural lighting from the area, as I did when capturing all the other similar photographs of building faces in the shoot. This use of natural lighting allowed for the shadows and contrast to be displayed naturally within the image, which was helped by using a deep depth of field, shutter speed of 1/60 and an ISO of 200. These settings ensured that there was enough time to allow light to enter the lens but not so much time that the photograph became overexposed. There is a slightly cold colour cast in this photograph which matches to the metal structure layered over it (which have connotations to cold).
The photograph is in black and white it appears due to the natural silver of the metal face layered over the building face. This lack of saturation allows the shadows and contrasts to be brought forward in the photograph which leads to a wider tonal range and a more dramatic and effective photograph. The texture of the metal can also be seen throughout the composition as the metal bolts go up the side of the photograph whilst the lower half shows the texture of the brushed steel and brings the photograph to life. The photograph is set up so that the door is set along the lines of the rule of thirds which makes the photograph more aesthetically pleasing for the audience.
This photograph is from a set of compositions that I have made in which I have layered photographs of steel over photographs of building faces resulting in abstract compositions with texture. The idea behind this is that houses and office buildings are increasingly being built with steel structures in Jersey rather than the traditional granite base used. This steel gives a forecast into the future of housing and shows what will potentially be the base of houses as buildings develop and change. When this photograph is seen as part of a set it shows how buildings are all unique and different even when they are designed as batches.
