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.
Noirmont Lighthouse
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.
As part of my experimentation stage, I have taken a number of my own images and experimented with editing them in Adobe Photoshop. I have used the ‘extrude’ tool, which has split my photographs into geometric shapes. I found this to be interesting as it portrays every pixel of colour in my photographs individually in shape form. This tool also gives my images a sense of movement and dynamism which isn’t achieved in a usual still photograph.
I really like my image below, taken in Shoot 7. There is a lot going on in this image, split up by the tree structures in the foreground. From subtle, pale shades of green to darker, prominent shades, my image captures the wide spectrum of colour contrasts in nature and how this presents the most sublime landscapes. Due to high camera quality and prime time of light exposure, I was able to photograph the intricate detail of the landscape; from the reflection in the water to the outline of each individual tree in the background and leaf in the foreground. This image was taken at Queen’s Valley Reservoir. The reservoir has a natural wealth of flora and fauna and is home to many species of birds and wildlife.
Image 2:
This image was taken in Shoot 3, based around cloudscapes. This particular photograph was edited in response to the photographer John Day. Day heavily edits his photographs of cloudscapes to emphasize the cloud outlines and bold colours of the sky behind. In order to respond effectively, I edited my photograph in Lightroom, increasing the clarity, contrast and vibrance to get an unusual capture of the sky above. The small-scale seagulls scattered in the photograph emphasize the immense size of the clouds.
Image 3:
The composition of this image differs from my other large-scale format photographs. I thought a panoramic picture would be an interesting response to cloudscapes. This image was edited in response to Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer who created a famous series of cloudscapes called Equivalents. I firstly edited it into black and white but thought this wasn’t enough to portray the stormy sky visual I was hoping for. I consequently increased the clarity and shadows of the photograph, which created a more distinct horizon line and contrast within the separate clouds.
Image 4:
Another black and white edit taken at Queen’s Valley Reservoir, I have captured the water and 3 geese int the foreground, and vegetation in the background. The black and white edit has created clear tonal contrasts of white, black and grey, following Ansel Adam’s zone system. The water is calm, with little visual movement and almost looks like a dry surface with the geese on the surface. This image is much more tranquil and serene compared to image 3, an element of nature I wanted to capture.
In order to further develop my photographic investigation into diverse nature, I have decided to analyze 5 of my primary source images. I have chosen one image from shoot 8, one from shoot 7, one from shoot 5 and another two from shoot 6.
Image 1:
This image was taken in my response to the colour ‘green’, shoot 7. Although it incorporates clear evidence of vibrant shades of green, it also exhibits a range of other colours and tonal contrasts. As this project I am focusing in on the beauty of nature and zooming in on how nature can produce such unique and wonderful structures and forms, I thought this was a perfect capture. This product of nature represents how zooming in on seemingly simple and everyday things can be surprisingly interesting. Each leaf of this plant is different, from pattern and shape, to size and colour. The striking pinks, greens, yellows and reds all come together to portray a energetic and dynamic picture of nature close-up.
Image 2:
I like this image as it is fairly abstract and unique to my other primary source. I took this from a birds-view point at the top of a fish bowl, for a different perspective. The combination of the water and movement of the fish, has created a blurred effect. This photograph is unedited and original, despite it looking altered. The flamboyant orange colour of the fish contrasts with the paler background, and the three-dimensional bubbles above, on the surface of the water.
Image 3:
This photograph was taken in shoot 5, responding to the works of Rinko Kawauchi, a sublime photographer who uses light to her advantage to capture the basic beauty of the world, au naturel. I really enjoyed this shoot as I came out with a large collection of successful images resembling hers. This particular photograph was captured at St Ouen’s Bay, towards the end of the sunsetting. It is a relatively basic image, but has clear composition and a split horizon. The top of the horizon has a subtle orange glow, fading into the blue of the sky and ocean below. At the bottom of the horizon, the waves fan out into the sand in opposing directions. Due to the time of capture, this image is fairly underexposed, giving the photograph an alternative feel than nature’s usual colourful and bright visual.
Image 4:
Taken in response to natural patterns, this photograph is clearly evident of natural texture and shape as a result of natural processes. Taken along a coastline, my image shows the layering of rock and the interesting form it has created. The sand has been eroded through wind, waves and erosional processes like abrasion, furthermore allowing me to witness the end product of nature’s ways. The sand fades into the dark, murky water, becoming less intricate and distinguishable towards the top of the photograph. The light was prime at the time I captured this, the sunlight giving me full exposure of the detail of the sand and rock, displaying each individual line and curve in all its beauty.
Image 5:
In this image from shoot 8, I have focused in on the element of light and how it interacts with nature. I’ve captured the sunlight hitting the water, creating a beam of light on the sea surface. The pale yellow light glows on the dull water, radiating the waves and movement of the water.
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
Wood
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.
Brett Weston war born 1911, Los Angeles, the second son of photographer Edward Weston. Brett was removed from school at a young age to become his father’s apprentice in Mexico, this surrounded his by revolutionary artists of the day such as Tina Modotti, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, not only did this influence his but also presented his with a striking contrast to life in Mexico but as also where he first started taking photos with a small Graflex. This introduction that Brett was shown and the work of the painters unintentionally influenced his sense of form and composition, this quality of design was evident in Brett’s early images of organic and man-made subjects. Here he started to appreciate how the camera transformed subjects close up and how the contrast of black and white altered further the recognition of the subjects. Overall it is not hard to understand his attraction to focus on abstraction dye to the characteristics he was influenced by would allow him to be uniquely identified with throughout the rest of his career.
Weston later returned to California in 1926, and Brett continued to assist him in his Glendale portrait studio whilst exhibiting and selling his own photographs at the same time. From the age of seventeen a group of his images were included in the German exhibition ‘film und Foto’, considered to be one of the most important avant-garde exhibitions held between the times of the two World Wars. Because of this his received great recognition which brought Brett international attention and inclusion in various photographic exhibitions in the following years. Although his art will always be linked with his father’s it is unfair to say that his photography is imitative of Edward’s beyond the early years as he produced an enormous body of work over the seven decades. Some examples of his work can be seen below:
After looking over some of his images I decided that I would go onto look at one specific image that I thought would best reflect my intentions for my future shoot based around abstract patterns. The image I have chosen is called ‘Mud Cracks’ and was taken 1966 highlighting the patterns found in everyday things such as mud. Here I will go onto look at things like visual, technical and contextual aspects which would allow me to further my knowledge regarding techniques used and the style of photography created.
Visual:
Visually the piece is quite simplistic in the sense that the photo is of a piece of mud, however its when upon further inspection that there are cracks which form patterns across the mud, something the every-day eye would miss unless focused upon. For me the piece is extremely aesthetic due to how the tones used across the composition are varying grays with the only real shades coming from the cracks which allow separation in the image which prevents the outcome of pure mud becoming too overpowering. To stop the mud becoming too much Weston has made sure to include smaller cracks within the cracks of mud to add variation to the photo whilst stopping a continual generic surface from occurring across the entire image.
Technical:
When looking across the image it is clear to say that a slightly lower exposure has been used so that the darkness in between the cracks is highlighted above the rest of the image which due to sunlight is a lot lighter and therefore becomes the focal point. It looks like a higher shutter speed has been used to capture crisp detail of the mud as you can clearly see the lumps and grooves present on each slab of mud whilst there being no evidence of motion blur whatsoever. Weston has made sure to include a clear fifty fifty ration between mud and cracks which stop one or the other from becoming too overpowering and stopped the effectiveness of the other.
Contextual:
The aim of the piece is meant to create the subject and present it in an unrecognizable fashion, devoid of sentimentality. There is meant to be a sense of a lack of human presence and narrative making it unclear of what the photographer is trying to express. The composition is not amazing and the angle is wrong, however this is the aim of the photographer who could argue that the aim of modern photography is so that the image is only partially aesthetic. These concentrated images share the high-contrast and graphic qualities of Weston’s panoramas while emphasizing his affinity for “significant details” and the unprecedented attention to form, texture, shadow, and light that he explored throughout his nearly-seventy-year career.
Andreas Gursky (born 1955) is a German photographer and professor and the Kinstakademie Dusseldorf, Germany which is the academy at which the Bechers’ taught him and influenced lots of art in the Minimalism movement. Gursky is known for large format architecture and landscape colour photographs (similar to the style in which Lewis Bush photographs in his Metropole project. Gursky studied at the Universitat Gesamthochschule Essen in visual communication, with classes led by photographers Otto Steinert and Michael Schmidt. Between 1981 and 1987 he attended the Dusseldorf Art Academy where he received training from Hilla and Bernd Becher which led to a similar methodical approach in his photography.
Gursky would not digitally manipulate his images before the 1990s however has begun to rely on computers to enhance his photographs. A lot of Gursky’s photographs are taken from a high vantage point which gives an unusual but effective perspective. He tends to focus on large man-made spaces such as offices and high rise buildings. The photographs are printed to create huge panoramic colour prints which can be up to six feet high by ten feet long. Critic Calvin Tomkins described the experience of confronting one of his works in person as having “the presence, the formal power, and in several cases the majestic aura of nineteenth-century landscape paintings, without losing any of their meticulously detailed immediacy as photographs”.
Gursky’s photograph 99 Cent taken in 1999 was taken at a 99 Cents Only store in Los Angeles and shows the interior of the store as a wide composition of parallel shelves with a few white columns to separate up the photograph. The photograph represents all of the individual products as one wave of colour and blocky shapes rather than the brands and products on offer. The photograph supposedly depicts a stretch of the river Rhine outside Dusseldorf.
Andreas Gursky appeals to me because, similar to Bernd and Hila Bechers and Lewis Bush, he focuses on buildings and the patterns throughout them in order to create abstract and intriguing compositions. The photographs produced by Gursky often show the contrast and similarity between products and buildings through a typology approach without using a typology grid, for example in his photograph ‘99 Cents Gursky shows the contrasts and similarities between each of the products in the 99 Cents store. This is shown as the individual shapes of each product can be seen if you look closely but when looking at the photograph as a whole all of the products seem to be the same apart from the colour – the branding that the manufacturers pride themselves on are no longer important as all of the products blend together.
Produce a detailed plan of 3 shoots for each idea in your specification that you are intending to do.
Photoshoot One
For my first photo shoot, I am going to visit the beaches along the coasts of Jersey, taking photographs at low and high tide.
The areas I am going to be visiting are:
Le Braye
Le Port
Plémont Beach
l’Etach
For this photo shoot, I am going to be taking inspiration from Michael Marten and his images that show the ebbs and flows of the tide.
Photoshoot Two
For my second photo shoot, I am going to visit l’Etach and take images throughout the day revisiting every hour, starting from low tide (@ 1100hrs) to high tide (@ 1700hrs). After this photo shoot, I should have 7 final images, which I can then present as a moving image or gif, as well as a grid of images.
For this photo shoot, I am going to be taking inspiration from Eadward Muybridge and his series of images that he produced to show that all of a horse’s hooves come off of the ground at the same time at some point whilst they are galloping.
Photoshoot Three
For my third photoshoot I am going to take photographs at the Watersplash and I am going to take images to capture the movement of the water, so I will set up in one place and take constant photographs of this one area.
My 8th photographic shoot is based around ‘light’, an element of nature. I have captured the sunrise, the sunset, golden hour and full exposure light in this shoot to capture light during different periods of time.
Golden hour: In photography, the golden hour is the period of daytime shortly after sunrise or before sunset, during which daylight is redder and softer than when the Sun is higher in the sky. The opposite period during twilight is blue hour, just before sunrise or after sunset, when indirect sunlight is evenly diffused.
