The below edits are the results of my shoot in which I photographed steel as a surface in order to capture its texture. I have layered the building face photographs from previous shoots over the steel photographs as a hint at how buildings such as office blocks are now being developed. In the top three edits I have made the composition by removing the natural frames from the photograph to reveal the scratchy steel texture in the background – I have done this previously to show granite and find that doing this with granite in the background looks much more effective due to the unpredictable shapes and colours within the rock whereas the steel is slightly boring and predictable. In the later edits I focused on creating them through using double exposure methods on photoshop – I edited the blending options to blend the two photographs together resulting in the building structures being clearly shown with the texture of the steel being shown at the same time to allow consistent contrast.

Analysis

When capturing this photograph I used the natural day light to capture the natural elements of the building face. Using natural daylight on the steel rod used for the background allowed for the reflections to be seen in the rod to add further contrast and tones within the photograph. The photograph is slightly overexposed but when layered over the darker steel it creates a composition that is abstract in which the overexposed building face does not look out of place. I used a deep depth of field when capturing the photographs used in this composition to ensure that all of the photograph was sharp and in focus. A shutter speed of 1/60 was used as well because the steel and building face were both still objects which didn’t require very fast shutter speeds – when this is paired with the low ISO of 200 used it allows for the best quality composition possible with the correct amount of light entering the lens from the surrounding area. The rust and reflection in the steel rod creates a slightly warm colour cast and creates on old-fashioned eroded feeling in the composition.

The black and white building face contrasts with the warm rust on the steel in a very complementary way as it creates a damaged dynamic to the photograph and really brings the texture of the steel to the forefront to create an interesting composition. There is a wide tonal range in the composition because of the reflections and scratches in the steel. The building face captured is a very flat one and so the photograph is very flat and two-dimensional – it almost looks like a screenprint. The photograph fits in with the rule of thirds as the building face merges into the steel rod on the top third of the photograph to create an aesthetically pleasing photograph along with the man-made shapes such as the windows.

This photograph is the result of an edit from a shoot focusing on the texture and properties of steel. The composition was made by blending together the face of a building and a close-up photograph of a steel rod. I have looked at contrasting man-made building faces with natural granite rock faces in my previous shoots. This has led to me thinking, as I was focusing on the material of granite, it may be interesting to contrast man-made structures with eachother by focusing on how the materials used to make houses have changed overtime. Traditionally granite has been used in Jersey but as office blocks, such as the international finance centre, have been developed there has been an increase in more ‘modern’ looking materials, such as steel. Therefore I have captured close-up photographs of steel objects to capture its texture, which by itself makes for quite a boring photograph, but I will experiment with layering the building faces over the steel. Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon and because of its high tensile strength and low cost, it is a major component used in buildings, infrastructure, tools, ships, cars and other items. Since it is used so much in the world around us, as granite is, I believe that it is important for me to include the exploration of this material in my project. I plan on presenting these photographs in a typology grid or possibly as GIF’s in the future as well as creating more edits in a similar style.

In this post I am showing the outcomes of manipulating both my shoots of building faces and granite faces. Previously I have experimented with removing parts of the building face to reveal other buildings behind it in order to create contrast between the two and to show the similarities and differences between buildings. This experiment draws inspiration from that as I found that it can be quite effective when I remove the natural frames from the photographs to give an insight into the background photograph. I have used this approach when experimenting with integrating the building and granite photographs together – I photoshopped out all windows of the building face in the foreground to reveal the texture and natural colours of the granite in the background. I experimented with presenting the granite photographs in black and white but I found that the outcome was too boring, whereas when the granite photographs were in colour it would bring the photograph to life by contrasting with the high-contrast black and white building face, which would further bring out the colours of the rock. The idea behind these experiments comes from the fact that a lot of houses have granite lying under the decoration and so this represents peeling back the layers of plaster and paint to reveal the base structure.

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Analysis

In this composition, natural day lighting was used. Due to the nature of the house face, the natural light only brought out so many shadows and shapes within it meaning that there is only a simple face to it, which contrasts to the rock face in the background which has all sorts of shapes, tones and shadows brought out from the natural lighting. I used a 300mm lens to capture the photograph of the rock to ensure that I could zoom in enough to create the abstract composition as I intended to. I used a deep depth of field as well in order to ensure that everything was sharp and in focus to ensure that the resulting photograph was as of high a quality as possible.
I used an ISO of 800, an aperture of f/8.0 and a shutter speed of 1/500 when taking the rock photographs. The ISO of 800 is fairly high but ensures that the photograph is correctly exposed along with the quick shutter speed of 1/500 that allows the photograph to be sharp and focused when the camera is zoomed in to such an extent. The depth of field ensures that the photograph is fully in focus and is clear. For capturing the building face I only used a shutter speed of 1/100 and an ISO of 100. These camera settings have allowed me to create contrast between the two photographs incorporated into the composition.

The photograph of the house face has been kept in black and white whereas the rock photograph in the background has been kept in colour to create a contrast between the two photographs and to emphasise the natural colours and tones within the rock face. There is also a wide tonal range within the composition due to the editing to create high contrast and to bring out the shadows in both photographs. There is a strong sense of texture within the composition due to the sharp angles and shapes within the rock face, this adds to the aesthetic qualities of the composition. There is also a sense of 3D in the composition for the same reasons – the jagged rock face contrasts with the flat face of the house in the foreground. The unpredictable structure of the rock shapes also contrasts greatly with the house face structure which has been carefully designed and built to meet form and function requirements.

The idea behind these experiments comes from the fact that a lot of houses have granite lying under the decoration and so this represents peeling back the layers of plaster and paint to reveal the base structure. The house face was originally photographed as part of a shoot to show the variance and similarities between houses within a certain geographic area, but I have realised that I can achieve the aim of that shoot whilst being able to add another element of contrast through contrasting the man-made building structures with the natural granite structures.

In this shoot I have developed on my previous shoots in which I have looked at the faces of housing blocks, office blocks, houses and other types of commercial buildings within Jersey. In my previous shoot I explored the area of Havre Des Pas and took photographs of houses in the area to demonstrate how the houses can have similar features and materials used due to being in the same geographical area whilst also having these features changed slightly in each house to make each house unique and different. In this shoot I have photographed an estate in St. Peters to show how similar the houses in estates can be – they are often designed in bulk to create a quick and easy building process and so leads to lots of similar houses with the same style and layout. Of course, even when looking at how similar these houses all are, there are lots of features which make the houses individualistic, such as the paint colour or the style of window or the curtains. All of these features go towards emphasising how factors such as personal taste can create something ordinary into an individualistic feature that can make the house stand out from others. The essential idea behind this shoot is to reinforce the idea of variance and similarity in previous shoots and to show how even though something may be produced to be similar, there will always be differences.

Below I have continued to edit these photographs in a sharp black and white in order to emphasise the individual features of the houses and apartments. I originally decided this due to inspiration from Tim Booth who, when photographing portraits through hands, found that the black and white prevented the viewer from just focusing on colour and rather focusing on the deeper features and shadows that are brought out when using a strong black and white. I believe that it is important for me to continue to use this contrasting colour scheme as it makes it effective for when I make edits with these photographs later on, such as with GIF’s or with double exposure edits. With some of these edits I am going to experiment cutting out natural frames and layering it over photographs of natural rock faces as I begin to study geology and granite in Jersey.