PLAN

WHO?: The couple I am going to photograph will be me and my boyfriend. As mentioned in my specification, I will be exploring my own personal issues that effect my relationship on a daily basis, this assignment will help me get some practice and help get a feel of how I want to portray this symbol.

WHAT?: So like the artist that I analysed, I am mainly looking to explore my ideas through body language:

• Paranoia – shown by me having the urge to look at his phone all the time, me sitting next to him with a closed body language, me looking bored etc. That is how i could portray paranoia.
• Self-Confidence issues – me looking in the mirror with his reflection in the background behind be, me covering up my body, me looking at models on Instagram, me crying etc.
• Anxiety – me never knowing whether I am annoying him, could be shown through doodles on the images with my mouth appearing to be shut.
• ^ doodling could also actually be a really good idea in order to show my emotions and my inner thoughts, I will have to explore this idea carefully within my editing process.

WHEN?: The week of 21st September-24th September in order to get the assignment in by the deadline and to keep up.

WHERE?:I will most probably base my photographs around the areas me and my partner are a lot of the time. So this would be my house, his house, his car, aesthetically pleasing out-doorsy places. However, I want a similar aesthetic to Hsing Wang, so, plane and bleak, so I will most likely be shooting and mine or his house.

HOW?: I will be taking these images on an IPhone and most likely, a DSLR camera as this would give better quality and will give the tones that I want my images to have. A tripod will also be extremely helpful with this shoot as I am photographing myself and my partner, this would mean having to pose in a specific position in order to get the perfect frame.

Shoot:

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Editing

To start editing, I cropped the image to my preference, mainly to cut out all of the extra space in the image that wasn’t needed. After, I turned the image into black and white. Firstly because I didn’t particularly like the photograph in colour and secondly because it fitted my narrative for my story which is insecurity and isolation based, therefore creating a somber tone. Black and white helps to create that overall mood.

After turning it black and white, I then played with the shadows/exposure/contrast etc. I increased the level of shadows to increase the glow of the TV, this made the image more aesthetically pleasing. After, I increased the contrast, this helped boost the blacks within the image and gave the image more structure. I also lowered the exposure as I didn’t want the image to be too bright, as again I wanted it to match the tone of my overall narrative, this darkened the image nicely. Lastly, I increased the sharpness of the image. Since these images were produced on the phone they were a little grainy, therefore I decided to increase the sharpness of the images just to add more detail and quality.

I repeated this process with every photo until I was happy with the quality of each image.

Final Images

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Evaluation Of Final Images

So, just to restate I changed my plan for this photo shoot in order it to fit yet juxtapose with my narrative. These are images of me and my partner in some of our happiest moments and saddest moments that will contrast with each other in order to create my sense of narrative.

One thing that I would change about the images is the framing. I found it quite difficult, considering I was taking the photos without a tripod and with a timer, to frame the images well because often, I couldn’t see what I was photographing; it was almost a hit and miss when it came to framing. So, in some images there are fragments that I wish were not in the frame to make the image more aesthetically pleasing. However, considering it was quite difficult, I do also think I did well.

In addition to framing I feel as though there was more that I could’ve done concerning the background; in some images the background was quite cluttered and for me this takes away the aesthetics of an image. I wish I I had done something about that when photographing.

Another thing that I wish I would’ve focused on more is the lighting. One image that I loved was the image with me and my partner in front of his computer as there is a nice glow that lights up the room. However in other images, there was a harsh artificial light right above us that I don’t think compliments the images very well. The atmosphere is quite bland and I feel as though there could’ve been more depth and manipulation when it came to lighting. The lighting also affected the quality of the images. For example, in the last image the lighting was very dark which therefore affected the camera ability to pick up me and my partners outline. Therefore it made the images quite grainy and unfortunately lacked in quality, however this could add to the tone potentially.

Another thing I lover about the final images is my editing. In some images, the lighting made the quality of the images grainy, however, turning the images into black and white almost concealed the low quality and almost increased the atmosphere of the images. Also, editing the highlights, exposure and contrast also turned the low quality images into silhouettes which added to the tone beautifully in my opinion. This is why I feel as though my editing of my images was a good aspect of this process.

Story Options/Planning:

STORY TITLE: DISQUIETUDE

3 Words: A Love Story

A Sentence: A Reflection of Deeper Issues Within My Relationship.

A Paragraph: Within my love story I am looking to photograph my own relationship and how my own personal insecurities and personal issues effect my relationship. This includes things like low self confidence, trust issues, anxiety, stress, family problems etc. These issues cause arguments, feelings of loneliness and isolation, feelings of paranoia and overall make a relationship very stressful and harder than normal for me. On the other hand, I am also going to be photographing the good side of me and my partners relationship. Thus, my photo zine will almost be a battle between the two sides: the good vs the bad.

AUDIENCE: The audience will mainly be aimed at teenagers. This is because young teen relationships face a lot of pressure and a lot of struggle when it comes to making this work. This is down to things like social media, social expectations, toxic friendships, our age and naivety etc. These factors make it hard to maintain a strong relationship in this day and age. I feel as though a lot of young couples, or even teenagers not in a relationship will be able to relate to these every day struggles which will form a sort of relationship between my images and the viewers.

NARRATIVE: I will be exploring this idea of isolation and own personal struggles through images and most probably texts – most likely hand written notes to my partner or to myself explaining my emotions that were shown in the images i will take.

My aesthetic and inspirations come from Hsin Wang with her series named De-Selfing:

She is a Taiwanese photographer currently based in Portland. Her work is “arresting through the intimate, honest and provocative approach, turning her personal stories into powerful metaphors and symbolic images of the complex relationship not only with the other, but with one’s own self.”

https://www.hsinnyc.com/about

Analysis

TECHNICAL: The type of lighting used within the image is most likely to be studio lighting. This is because it looks very artificial and quite harsh, probably a type of fluorescent lighting. There is clearly a high level of control in this particular image. You can tell that everything has been carefully located and positioned, this includes the lighting and even the subject’s within the image. This would enhance the overall metaphorical meaning behind the images. The camera would’ve most likely been selected to a lower f/stop in order to allow more light into the camera as these images appear to be moderately bright.

VISUAL: The colours within the image are very pale and dull and overall un-exciting. Again, this could help with the overall metaphorical meaning that the image holds. The tones are also very bland with no range at all in them. Everything in the image is of a light, bright tone. The composition of the image is clearly very well planned and very intricately located. She really wants to get her emotions through, through her and her partners body language. You can see, as they look away from each other and lean away from each other that they are visibly dealing with their own struggles or that they are falling out with each other over one person’s struggles. Whatever the symbolic reason is, there is clearly and element of discomfort and isolation that has been represented within this image.

CONTEXTUAL AND CONCEPTUAL: As mentioned in the description of Hsing Wang, she is exploring her complex relationship with herself and her partner. You can really see this through the composition of her images as i said before, especially her/their body language. She almost always seems to cover her face also, which says to me that she is dealing with her own issues such as confidence which is having an effect on her relationship. The lighting and tone of the images as well also hint to me that there is a struggle. Usually, within photography, happiness is shown by bright, bold, warm colours whereas Wang’s photographs have a bleak, pale tone to them indicating that there is a lot of unhappiness or loneliness trying to be put across.

Creating an edit.

When creating an edit of images, Lightroom provides a quick and efficient system to pick your best images.

1.

I began with a small photoshoot of 33 images. To filter through these images I clicked the single view button starting at the first photo. I held down the shift key and pressed P (for images I wanted to flag) or X (for photos I wanted to reject).

2.

Once I flagged my top images, I viewed them by clicking the ‘flagged’ option in filters. With only these photos in view, I was able to start ranking them. I decided that if I rated my photo 4 stars, then it’s an image I’m unsure about. If I rated it 5 stars, then it’s a photo I’m fully confident with and will definitely use.

3.

After rating the images, I colour-coordinated my choices. Green= Definitely using. Yellow= Unsure. Red= Rejected.

4.

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To decide between images that are similar, I used the ‘X|Y’ tool with the magnifying glass. For these two images I wanted to compare the exposure and the visibility of my subject’s eyes. I selected the image on the right for a final selection as the colour within her hair is more vibrant and the eyes are far more visible.

5.

Finally, once all the images for the set have been selected, I am able to easily pick them out from the whole shoot.

Developing images.

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I started by using the spot removal tool to remove marks present on my camera lens. The tool colour matches the area you want to cover with the surrounding part of the image, meaning the spot can be covered effectively

For this particular image, I wanted to reduce the orange tones of the image and increase the vibrance of the blue background. I made small adjustments to the exposure and highlights within the image, then made more drastic changes tot he vibrance of them image, resulting in a photo with a larger range of colours.

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To reduce the amount of time editing images, I imported the edits I made on my first photo and applied it to the image I wanted the same effect for. This is both efficient and effective as the images are very similar in terms of setting (beach) and colour-wise.

I selected the colour effects (increase in vibrance) that I wanted to apply and unselected the basic tonal changes, as I planned to adjust this seperately. I didn’t select the spot correction, as the positioning of each spot had changes due to the orientation of my two images.

To finish the image, I reduced the contrast by -36 and reduced the exposure slightly by -48 to ensure that my subject’s face was enitrely in focus. I selected the spot removal tool and manually picked out the parts of the image that were affected by the lens. The darker effect of the sky in the final image intensifies the mood of the image. The subject has a somber face and is not masking direct eye contact with the camera and so I felt the darker sky would amplify this.

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For this image I began by editing the basic tone and presence of the photo. I initially decreased the exposure by -0.24 and majorly decreased the ‘whites’ of the image by -45 to decrease the glare from the background. Increasing the contrast and vibrancy, alongside the shadows, allowed me to create a more vibrant and striking image, where all the graphic details of my subject can be seen.

I then used the sharpening tool under ‘Detail’ to enhance the clarity of the image. I increased the amount of sharpening by 77 and the detail by 25 to achieve this.

I experimented with the transform tool to adjust the lines in the background (make them parallel to the frame of the photo) but it took the focus off of my subject and resulted in her being too close to the right side of the composition.

Finally, I converted the image to black and white. I majorly increased the purple and magenta tones to make my subject’s highlights in her hair stand out. I decreased the highlights and whites of the image so as to reduce the glare that appeared during the conversion. Additionally, I increased the contrast to produce an image with a large tonal range.

For my first stage of editing, I went sorted through 363 images and flagged the good sharp ones with P on the keyboard (white flag) and the unwanted images with X on the keyboard (Black flag). Second I went through and starred the images with 1 star a images that had good angles and eliminating duplicates. I then went through them all again giving 2 stars to the best images. Lastly I labelled the images I would use first with a red label and my second images with a yellow label.

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For this shoot I made a preset which I could apply to all the best images from this collection which made the editing process much quicker. Because all the images were taken in a similar environment using the same light and similar lighting angles, applying the edit to all the images worked well and they all look good straight off the bat. I wanted to go for quite a cold look in these images with hints of orange making it warm. I tried to make the images look as much like this in camera by using a 5600k key light and a 3200k colour temperature practical light in the background.

When it came to editing I used split toning to add an orange tint to the highlights and a blue tint to the shadows, this is what made the image feel cold. Because these photos were taken in a garage, I wanted a more grungy and dirty look, I emphasised this by increasing the clarity and texture but not too much so it doesn’t look unreal and too artificially sharpenned. Because of the blue tint in the shadows I had to compensate by decreasing the saturation of the blues to almost 0. I also turned the saturation of magenta and Purple right down to try and get rid of the purple colour fringing that is quite prominent in the images because there is quite a lot of reflective metal surfaces in the garage and on the bike.

Overall, I am very happy with the edit, It accurately captures the vibe and look I wanted but doesn’t look overdone.

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In this shoot i showed the selection of my images using P for Pick and X for reject. Then giving them stars and colours to show my best and least favourite images

I used the compare view between my 2 best images

I started editing my image using all the adjustment settings such as tint, white balance and contrast etc. Then used sync settings to apply all the adjustments to the other images. I then went through all my images and slightly adjusted the settings to match each photo individually

I then exported all my images, saving it in a chosen folder on the media drive, renamed the images to have a more fitting title and therefore easier to find later. Then adjusted to a jpeg with 1000 pixels along the long edge, best for the blog, and exported

I then applied sync settings and made everything black and white, making slight tweaks from helpful tools like spot removal and the brush

I have continued a star rating and colour rating for my shoots following a system of – 1 star means no good, 2 meaning alright, 3 meaning possibly (range of similar images with slight differences) 4 meaning good am likely to use, and 5 for my favourite images.

I then filtered to have equal to three stars and above, giving purple to good possible images, and green for most likely to use.