How well have ideas developed? I have an idea I am following and I am expanding that as I do more shoots.
Are ideas explored and selective appropriate to intentions? I believe they are as I shot what I thought suited the topic and the project idea I am following
Are they sustained and focused? I have been following one idea and have stuck to it.
How many responses/ shoots? I have produced 2 responses so far and plan for a further 2 if not 3 in the coming weeks.
What are the overall quality of the images? The final outcomes I have selected so far have been of a high standard and I am proud of the way the have turned out so far.
How do they respond to research? My images so far have followed my theme of circles, I have explored circles in different way through changing location, subject matter, style and Urban/Rural environments.
How do they relate to artists references? I have chosen my artist references for a reason. Each artists I have explored has inspired me imagery wise or conceptually. Each artist has produced images that could be circle related or follow a conceptual path that relates to my project.
How do the interpret exam theme? Circles follow the exam theme by looking at the similarities of the shape but in different environments and contexts.
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Photoshoot plan | Lens Ball + Tiny Planet St Helier
I plan to execute two photoshoot ideas in one go. I plan to use a new idea, lens ball, of which I will photograph key landmarks and locations for Jersey within the lens ball. The ball itself is circular and therefore follows the format of the project idea and also adds the attachment to Jersey as a place and adds another similarity. I will shoot just St Helier for this shoot however I will head out in other shoots to shoot lens ball in rural areas so I can have the difference in location.
Similarities:
- Circles
- Jersey (local attachment)
Differences:
- Urban/Rural
- Locations within Jersey
- Subject Matter
Locations to shoot
Other locations to shoot outside St Helier include Gorey village, Mont Orguiel Castle, La Rocco Tower at sunset and Corbiere Lighthouse.
Drone Shoot | How
The drone images I produced came out nicely however I think its important to share the time it took to really get those images. We were at Noirmont for around 3 hours shooting, it can take 10 minutes just to get one shot right, especially on the accuracy level I was aiming for to ensure my images were perfect.
Trying to capture an image such as the one above looks simple but requires skill and patience, two things that I honestly don’t have with drones! I have very little experience but luckily I had someone to talk me through and help me along the way. The drone will hold its GPS position automatically however this can drift in around a 1 meter size area which is not good when you are trying to get a perfectly straight top down image such as the one above, You can see the light bulb on the top is perfectly in the center and it may have taken up to 10 minutes to get it perfect, you end to find that you make a slight left correction for example and it moves too far and you want to go back a bit but its too far and it will never sit perfectly where you like it when you’re shooting a subject close such as this with a high requirement for visual accuracy. I took a number of images I believed were central and confirmed this later then selected the best images to go forward to editing.
Noirmont Shoot |Final Outcomes
The shoot at Noirmont comprised of air and ground shoots. My main aim was to scout around looking for circles with my camera and snapping what I saw that formed a circular shape, I would also map out places to look at from the air using a drone. I then took the drone up and photographed circular shapes from the air over the Noirmont headland and Janvrin’s Tomb in Portelet.
Below are my final outcomes:
German Gun barrell 
Lens 
Logo 
Wood 
Janvrin’s Tomb 
Range Finder 
MP1 Noirmont Lighthouse 
Lighthouse 
Portelet 
Gun 
Gun 
Emplacement 
Emplacement 
Water storage
I am very happy with my final outcomes above, they really capture the more rural side of my project and show how circles can be found everywhere.
Image Analysis
The above image was a wooden post on the Noirmont headland as part of the shoot you see above. The pole itself caught my eye as I was walking looking for spots to shoot with the drone. I positioned myself above the pole and shot top-down with a low aperture, automatic white balance, 100 ISO and a medium shutter speed. The low aperture produced the effect where the grass below is not in focus yet the pole is extremely sharp. This allows for the viewers eyes to be drawn straight to the pole and have little to distract them, it also makes the image very simple and eye catching.
The rings on the pole are the growth rings of the tree the wood came from. Each year, a tree forms new cells, arranged in concentric circles called annual rings or annual growth rings. These annual rings show the amount of wood produced during one growing season. Therefore this pole shows the life of a tree that once stood and lived and grew, each circle representing the growth and age of the tree and this can be interpreted into human life and human context.
The image clarity really brings out the textures and feel of the wood and you can almost feel is as you see it, you can imagine your fingers passing over it and feeling the roughness of the wood and feel the individual rings. The high aperture creates the effect of blurring the background giving it depth. The colors itself have been brought out through editing, the original image made the wood looked quite pale and the grass quite bright however through editing the nice woody color and textures could be brought out to their best.
Noirmont Shoot | Edits
Air
Ground
Noirmont Photoshoot
My photoshoot at Noirmont consisted of ground based photography as well as from the air with the Phantom. Below is the contact sheet for all images collected on the day, both land and air. All of the unusable or poor shots had already been removed prior to this screenshot as part of the first stage of selection.
Flying the drone on the shoot
I now plan to edit the images and produce a set of land based and air based final outcomes from this shoot. Focusing on circles in different environments and angles.
Tiny Planet | Creation Process
To create tiny planet images, you firstly need to take images. I took 55 images per planet, creating a 350 degree panorama as you can see below.
This is the step by step process of turning a panorama into a planet:
Photoshoot Plan | Noirmont
This shoot will be at Noirmont point on Jersey’s south coast. I will fly a drone over a few specific locations on and around that headland. The locations I would like to shoot are Batterie Lothringen including the MP1 which covers the majority of the Noirmont headland, the Noirmont Point lighthouse and Janvrin’s Tomb in Portelet bay.
The satellite image below shows the locations I’d like to shoot, each colour coded by a coloured circle.
Green – Janvrin’s Tomb
Blue – Gun Point 1
Black – Gun Point 2
Orange – MP1 Tower + Range Finder
Yellow – Lighthouse
The aim of the shoot is to get top down images of locations that look like circles from above, I used satellite imagery to find the locations and also reviewed air laws and local airspace regulations to develop a plan and ensure the flight is within all regulations. The flight to Janvrin’s tomb takes the drone to it’s maximum legal distance but does not breach it, the location is just outside the Jersey Airport ATZ (Air Traffic Zone) yet we will still file a flightplan to let ATC (Air Traffic Control) know we are flying, giving location, time airborne, height and time down.
Tiny Planet Shoot | Final Outcomes
The above image was a collection of over 50 images taken in portrait covering 360 degrees. I like how smooth this planet came to be and I think this is a very successful attempt at a Tiny Planet as an experiment. I plan to carry on a do a few more. This one in particular was at Les Landes in the fields of St Ouen, this captures the calm and peaceful environment of life in the West. My only dislike is the distortion in the middle however I do not thing there is anything I can do about that.
Again, the above image was a collection of over 50 images taken in portrait covering 360 degrees just like the Les Landes planet. This one was taken on the cliffs at Grosnez where you can see the castle. I would not really call this one particularly successful. Yes it is a tiny planet and it did what I wanted it to do however, due to the nature of the location and subject matter, the planet comes across as being very squished and distorted and makes the subject difficult to recognize and the planet looks very strange and I do not believe it captures the nature of the area.
In conclusion, I think the Les Landes planet was much better than the Grosnez one because I think being on cliffs/by the sea on the Grosnez planet stops the planet being smooth and more circular and makes the image look a bit messy and too distorted for my liking.
Gallery Visits
CCA Gallery – Hill St
The CCA had an exhibition on musical links to photography, for example to top two images here are Biffy Clyro album covers. I really liked the bottom left image, it goes well with my circles topic but also it is very eye catching and well constructed.
Private Public Gallery
This was my first time to the Private Public gallery and I noticed that the work seemed more contemporary than the CCA’s. It was mostly art rather than photography but there were photographs around, whether they be manipulated physically or digitally. One image that interested me was the bottom left about Lily Langtree. Lily was a model/actress in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s from Jersey. She had a global fan base and this image was supposed to be the draft print for a postcard but it was so good that hey kept it. The artist has blown it up and digitally manipulated it slightly and printed it. The image on the top right was pop art and is of a woman who was a boxer or wrestler (something like that) and was able to easily beat men at their own game. The image is aimed to represent women as strong and able to be better than men at things women are stereotyped not to be able to do.