My plan

As well as executing planned photoshoots, I plan to bring my camera with me on walks through town, to school and anywhere else I go. This will help me to capture (mainly) unstaged, everyday life in my images.

Photoshoot plans

	Lighting	Genre	Idea	Camera Setting
Photoshoot 1 – Rodeo and parade	Natural	Landscape and Portrait	Documentary, sport photography	Landscape, portrait, sport
Photoshoots 3 and 4 – football games	Natural, floodlight	Landscape and portrait	Sport, Documentary	Sport, portrait
Photoshoot 5 – Baker town and outskirts	Natural	Landscape	Documentary	Landscape
Photoshoot 6 and 7- hikes	Natural	Landscape	Landscape	Landscape, portrait
Photoshoot 8 – garden	Natural	Portrait	Portrait	Portrait

Photoshoot 1

Below are two of my contact sheets from the rodeo I went to while in the US.

In this photoshoot, I struggled a bit with different settings – I started off in landscape, which I initially thought would be better. I then realised, as I began to shoot, that the movement of the horses in the images was too blurred in this mode, even though the rest of the image was well in focus. I then decided to switch to sport mode for images that contained lots of movement – this enabled me to take lots of pictures quickly with minimal blurriness, and I think this helped me to capture high-movement images in the best way as I was able to select images from a large set and ensure my best images were of the highest quality I had.

Also in this photoshoot, I struggled to capture a lot of the action as my lens did not have a high enough zoom. I did not anticipate this, and in the future, I would have either tried to sit closer to the action or bring/use a lens with a higher zoom for situations like this. In my images, the composition is often too busy or not focused enough on one part of the image. Because of this issue, in my editing, I will have to utilise cropping quite a bit in order to make sure I still have balanced, exciting compositions.

Evaluation

In this shoot, I realised that it would have been ideal to have a zoom lens. I think I produced some good images but I think that the action and focal point in each image are lost due to the lack of zoom in each image.

Photoshoot 2 – Rodeo Parade

Below is a selection of my images from my photoshoot at the Rodeo Parade. I had a lot of images for this photoshoot so have only included certain contact sheets.

In this photoshoot, I was again shooting moving subjects, but not as fast as my first photoshoot. This enabled me to use portrait and landscape modes more effectively, depending on the subject. If my subject was a single person, or group of people and nothing else, I used portrait mode which helped me to capture detail in the faces of my subjects. When capturing multiple subjects as well as background and surroundings, I used landscape mode.

Due to the weather conditions on my day of shooting I experienced some quite annoying overexposure in my shoot. I tried to combat this by changing my ISO and shutter speed and shooting from different angles and positions. I will also need to fix this further in my editing I think.

Evaluation

Overall I think this photoshoot was one of the most successful from my trip, as I produced some images I really like that I think show a different part of American culture that I had not experienced before. Even with my problems with overexposure, I think this photoshoot was overall very successful and produced some good images for me.

Photoshoot 5 – Town and Surrounding Areas

Below are my contact sheets from my photoshoot of the town I stayed in, Baker City, and its’ surrounding area, Baker County.

When planning this photoshoot, I decided to shoot during the golden hour, early evening. This was because of the exposure issues I had in my previous shoots – I did not want to ruin my pictures and make the mistake of shooting at the wrong time of day. I think this really influenced the quality of my images for the better. I think the quality of the light made the shadows and shapes of buildings stand out more, and I’m glad I shot in the golden hour.

Evaluation

Overall I think this photoshoot was one of the more successful of my trip. I think my decision to shoot in the golden hour was a really good idea as it made the lighting much better than in some of my previous shoots from my trip away. Where I stayed on my trip the light tends to be very bright and glare-y during the height of the day, with no clouds, so shooting later on really helped this I think.

Photoshoots 6 and 7 – Hikes

Below are two of my contact sheets from both hikes I went on.

These shoots were not my best from my trip away – I don’t think they link necessarily link as well as I would like to my chosen artist studies, but I think the variation in my images is also good. Again, in this shoot, I wished I had a zoom lens to capture more detail in the mountains.

Evaluation

Overall, I think this shoot could have been improved by shooting at a different time of day to improve the lighting, as well as a zoom lens to help my pictures improve in terms of detail and composition.

Photoshoot 8 – Garden shoot

Below are my contact sheets from my photoshoot taken in the garden – this was my main portrait shoot.

This photoshoot was one of my favourites, and overall it was quite successful. It was unplanned, so I think this created better pictures, as they looked a bit less awkward and I much prefer this to my pictures looking super staged.

Evaluation

Overall, I really like this photoshoot. I think I shot at the right time of day, which helped me to achieve nice light in my images. I would have loved to have had my portrait lens when shooting, but as I was travelling I didn’t. Even without my portrait lens, the portrait mode on my camera worked well with the light when I was shooting so overall I’m happy.

My shoot

For my shoot i used different set ups and different light to create different atmosphere. I edited the image to be more dramatic.

The finished outcome was more eye catching and a sharper finish looked nicer so you can really see the detail of the image. I then adjusted the exposure and contrast to how i like it.

For most of these images i edited the tint so it gives an affect of under the sea, some of my images were a bit blurry so the sharpening and detail made them clearer.

Best edits

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Shoot 1

For shoot 1, I took 56 still life images and use the pick or reject tool in Lightroom to select my best images, which left me with 19 images to edit with and select my final edits.

Shoot 1 edits

I used the before and after view in Lightroom to show the edits made to my selected 19 images to improve them, the editing I used mostly consisted of changing the tones and presences of the image as well as creating black and white edits of some of my images. Most of the edits created were very subtle just to improve the image slightly as big edits would have ruined the images.

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Shoot 2

For shoot 2, I took 64 still life images and use the pick or reject tool in Lightroom to select my best images, which left me with 17 images to edit with and select my final edits. I was left with only 17 images as a lot of the images came out very blurry and out of focus.

Shoot 2 edits

I used the before and after view in Lightroom to show the edits made to my selected 19 images to improve them, the editing I used mostly consisted of changing the tones and presences of the image as well as creating black and white edits of some of my images. Most of the edits created were very subtle just to improve the image slightly as big edits would have ruined the images.

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Best Edits

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For this photo shoot, I went to the studio and laid out objects in a specific form to try and get the best photos. I took around 50 – 60 images of different layouts of beach like objects such as, rocks, dead bushes, seaweed, and shells. I made a total of 3 different layouts for 3 different types of images I was going to take.

Contact Sheets

I took a total of 51 images throughout my 3 different object setups. Most of the images turned out well, however some were slightly out of focus and had a shutter speed which was too high for some of the photos. After seeing how many images I had I decided to colour coordinate my images to narrow them down into specific colours for each object layout.

After organising my images into specific colour I decided to start to edit some of my images in Adobe Lightroom. I knew which images to edit first because of the P and X tool which helped me pick out the usable images for these edits.

Lightroom Edits

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Lightroom Colour Experiment

For this image, I wanted to try something different and experiment with the colour tools on Lightroom. I started by choosing the image I wanted to edit and chose the one displayed below.

To begin, I first thought that the rocks need to be more centralized so I decided to crop the image down into a smaller portrait photo.

I then did the usual and edited the image using the basic developing tools such as, texture, exposure and contrast until I decided which way it looked the best.

Finally I travelled to the colour tools to experiment with the tools such as, colour grading, tone curve and effects.

Final Edit

For my first photoshoot, we went down to L’Etacq and La Pinacle which is in the top left of Jersey. When we went down the weather was suitable for taking photos as the sky was different in parts, changing from a light blue with clouds to a light grey. This provided me with a good background for my photos as it wouldn’t contrast and overexpose any of my pictures, and making them clear.

On Adobe Lightroom, I went through my photos and selected the photos which I think turned out well and organised them by colours. As seen above, I put the photos that I thought were potential best shots into the yellow colour so that I could go back for further analysis when deciding on my final 4 best shots. Then I coloured the photos which I thought were the strongest in green, and on further analysis the 4 best shots which I decided on can be seen to be marked with 5 stars.

4 best shots from the photoshoot –

Here are my 4 best photos from my first photoshoot of L’Etacq and La Pinacle.

1 and 2)

Why I chose these 2 photos is due to the way the camera has focussed on the rocks in them, because it can be seen to be blurred in the background and in the foreground. In the photos, the camera has focused on the smaller and finer details of the bumps and formations of the rocks and how the shells which are spread across the rock cling to it, which I really like. I also like the slight highlight that is created by the dim sunlight on the rocks, this makes the formations and patterns to become clear which represents their beauty and uniqueness and how 2 rocks are never the same. To further develop these 2 photos I would change this into black and white because I think that it may create quite a sinister look with the way the filter would fall on top of the way the rocks edges and faces have been formed.

3 and 4)

Why I chose these 2 photos as part of my 4 successful best shots is due to the way in the 3rd photo has the darker area which has been created due to the shadows of the rocks and this creates a strong contrast against the highlighted rockface from the sunlight. This is then able to show the finer and smaller details of the rockface, as if you are staring at it with a magnifying glass due to the way the highlights and contrasts work together which create the illusion of if you are zooming in to the photo.
For the 4th photo, I like how the contrast of the straight line of the pole works against the jagged, rough textures of the rockface behind it. These 2 features work well alongside one another to create a separation as if you are looking at 2 photos that have been merged together. I really like this effect because one side of the rockface is lighter than the other side which could be used to represent the two different types of weather and how this can make other features of Jerseys island feel.

Joiners –

From our photoshoot, I was really happy with how these turned out because I made sure to take photos which I could use to create and experiment with different joiners further on in Adobe Photoshop.

I have taken inspiration from David Hockney and have made my joiners of Sticky bay and Le Pinacle. Below I have included some photos to help explain how to make these joiners. First I would export them from Lightroom and into photoshop, there I found the photo merge button which is used to create the joiners automatically.

Editing

Before exporting my images from lightroom I had to edit them all so that they completely matched in colour, for this I had to first start with one photo and edit it how I wanted my joiner to come out, I then selected all the photographs that would be in my joiner and used the ‘sync settings’ to edit all images the same. Doing this it saved me time as I didn’t have to edit all photos separately.

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After exporting my images to photoshop I proceeded to make my joiners, for this I started by clicking ‘file’, going down to ‘automate’ and using the photo merge tool to automatically put all my selected photos together.

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Experimentation

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After I created my joiners I decided to experiment with different features on Lightroom such as adding a drop shadow to try and give the final image depth and make it seem like it has been embedded into the background. I was also experimenting by using the 3D tool and creating different edits of the same joiner and I was able to morph them into different shapes and objects.

This is my edit of a 3D sphere of one of my joiners, I have also changed the background colour, which makes the 3D object in the centre look like it’s floating in midair.

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Here is another example of my experimentation with using the 3D tool and have edited the final joiner into a 3D plane.

Above I have chosen to invert the colours in one of my joiners to try and create a different atmosphere and meaning for the final image.

Final Joiners

Contact Sheets

Below I have included some contact sheets displaying the wide variety of images from my Still Life shoot, this is important as it gives an indication of how many images I have from each shoot, and helps with the organisation before image sub selection.

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Continuous and Flash Lighting

Below I have included some examples of my continuous lighting images and some of the flash lighting ones, this is in an attempt to demonstrate the difference between the two different types of lighting and how this comes to affect the final images. In my opinion, the flash lighting images look like they are of a better quality, however, this may just be because of the camera settings at the time. With the flash lighting its easier to see the details of all of the rocks and shells and take up close images.

Continuous lighting: you can see how the light falls on your subject as soon as you switch it on. You don’t have to wait until you’ve taken a photo to get an idea of what kind of image you’re going to end up with. However, A disadvantage of continuous light you have to adjust the white balance on your camera another one is the lights tend to become warm.

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Flash Lighting: The biggest benefit to flash lighting over LED lighting is that flash provides much more power and in a shorter burst that is less disrupting to a model. Additionally, some darkness and shadows are illuminated when using this type of lighting.

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Image Sub-Selection

I have included evidence of image selection below, with me choosing to use a star and colour rating system to understand the quality of my photographs before editing them. I think that this is a good and effective way of choosing my images as it helps me pick out my best images from the not so good ones.

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Editing

Below I have included a visual explanation of the editing process, for the first screenshot I have included the settings I have changed, for example to make this image monochromatic I had to get rid of all of the saturation and change the exposure and contrast in order to make the detail in the rocks and shells more visible. Additionally, I have added small galleries of all of my photographs before and after the editing process, this is an attempt to show the editing process.

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Final Images/ Analysis and Critique

For my final images I have decided that these are my best options, I have included evaluations for each of my images, with explanations for each stating the strengths and weakness of each.

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I have selected these as my first final images as I think they compliment each other well, the first image is filled with the same components as the second, being a reflection of the Jersey’s Sites of Special Interest and the history of the island. The objects in the second picture have been placed in an attempt to create a gradient with the shells in the foreground, with the small shells being places from brown tones, to red and then following a orange gradient down to yellow at the end of the chain of shells. In my opinion, the colours and tones of the rocks mean they match well together.

There are some weaknesses present in these images, the whole idea the flash lighting in the studio is to either get rid of or create different levels of shadows in the areas you would like. However, in these images I never wanted the shadows at all, I was aiming for a white background for these two pieces. Additionally. I think when taking the original image the F setting should have been changed more to try and increase the clarity of the original image.

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I have included this type of editing throughout one of final images to show that some still life images look better when the white balance and temperature has been edited to make them look more eye-catching, as usually still life work consists of more mundane images and editing process, as many piece can only be altered by making changing them to monochromatic, I think that this is my most interesting final images as the blue toned background means that I now have more variety within my work. Furthermore, the vibrancy of the white shells is increased with cooler toned editing and this juxtaposes with the brown and darker tones throughout the brown objects. I think this image would be better if the clarity of the original photograph was better, and if this along with the exposure didn’t have to be edited.

I think this is my strongest final image as it many different visual components to it, this makes it more successful as the whole image is more eye-catching. The composition of the image means that there is many layers filled with different colours, the white shells have been placed so that they break up the colours in the composition so its not too busy. Furthermore, the textures in the image mean that the plain white matches with the arrangement of the rocks. To achieve this image we had to keep changing the angle of the camera on the tripod and this meant that some came out more blurry, however I think this image turned out to be high quality. The weaknesses of this piece include the fact that it could be viwed as a composition which is too simple, making this still life piece slightly boring, however I think that it links really well to the theme of ‘islandness’.

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These two images are my most successful examples of continuous lighting, as the composition of this pieces is the best in my opinion. I have placed them together in order to show the difference between cooler toned under-light (the first image with the turquoise) and warmer toned under-light (the second image with the pink). The right piece is a brighter then the left but I think both images are successful because the differently lightings means that the composition looks altered. This means that your attention is draw to different aspects because of the colours. For example, attention is draw to the top of the image in the first image and more to the bottom centre of the second image. In my opinion, both of the colours compliment the tones within the woods, rocks and plants within the composition.

This has been selected as my last final image as I think that this piece has it has an aesthetic simplicity to it, with there being a subtle colour gradient going from the top to the bottom of the rocks. I like that the smaller white shells provides balance to the composition, as it breaks up the colours throughout the piece. However, in my opinion the composition would have looked a lot better if it was all central and not placed to the left side. Additionally, this piece would have looked a lot better if the background wasn’t grey and the foreground wasn’t as bright white. A balance between the shadows would have made this a lot more successful as it would show more photographic technique.

“David Hockney was born 9 July 1937. He is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.”

Joiners

In the early 1980s Hockney began to experiment with photo collages which were famously known as “Joiners”. Hockney called photo collaging painting with photographs.

Examples of David hockney joiners

Photo Analysis

This is one of Hockney’s most famous images. it shows an elderly couple solving a crossword puzzle however Hockney has managed to achieve something in this image that is very rare, and that is the image of time. usually images only portray a simple one frame scene but in this image due to hockey’s unique joiner style he has shown multiple stages of the image that he being captured. this can be seen in the facial expressions of the models as well as the hand placement. Due to the images clearly being made up of many image many viewpoints are shown. This image seems to have natural lighting which shows that Hockney wanted this image is seem as natural as possible. However the clothing is the models seems rather formal which implies that they could be passing time before they head out.

What is a geopark?

“Geoparks are places where landscapes with outstanding geological heritage are used to support sustainable development; this is achieved through conservation, education, interpretation and nature-based tourism.” – dictionary.com

Geoparks are a way that a country can preserve and protect a historical heritage site.

We visited jersey museum where we spoke with geologist Dr Ralph Nicols about jerseys bedrock and sites of special interest in out geological features. He explained to us about how jersey is working to become an island geopark.

https://www.jerseyheritage.org/explore/geopark/

Sites of special interest

What are sites of special interest?

Natural Sites of Special Interest (SSIs) are places that are considered to be of public importance because of their special zoological, ecological, botanical or geological interest, or a combination of these and other special qualities. – dictionary.com

These sites are very important to the people of jersey as they are places that represent jerseys heritage.

Jersey’s sites of special interest.

Still life is historically a genre of painting where the subject of the painting includes either dead animals and/or inanimate objects such as fruit, candlesticks, fish and cut flowers. Typically still life displays material pleasures and often a warning pointing towards hedonism. Still life can also be a display of memento mori– designed towards remind the viewer of their own morality.

HISTORY OF STILL LIFE

Still life became a dignified art genre with Netherlandish painting of the 16th and 17th centuries. The English term still life derives is translated from the Dutch word stilleven- in French, the term for Still Life is nature morte, which means “dead nature”. Early still life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted- for example some of the earliest still life paintings were created by the Egyptians in the 15th century BCE which decorated the interior of burial tombs

Throughout history still life travelled across the globe, but finding its primary home in the Netherlands during the Dutch Renaissance (17th century) where it became a prevalent art form with many paintings displaying rich colours, hedonistic implications, religious symbols and symbols of death as a reminder of human mortality. Click on the image below for a guide on symbolism in still life.

Still life was then translated to photography, with its origins residing in the early 20th century. Art photographers emerged such as Baron Adolph de Meyer who took direct inspiration from the Dutch painters of the 17th century.

ANALYSIS OF STILL LIFE

This vanitas still life painted by Pieter Claesz in 1625 displays a candlestick holding the stub of a candle, a watch, a letter, a pen and an inkpot, a flower, a skull and a walnut arranged on a table. All of these objects are part of the established language of classic vanitas paintings, engulfed with symbolism of mortality and time passing. The flower at the edge of the table is an anemone, It appears newly picked as the petals and the leaves are still fresh, however anemones have a reputation for withering quickly- the Roman poet Ovid called the anemone a ‘windflower’ because it clings to life for such a short time. In this still life, with its message of time slipping by, the flower certainly refers to the fugitive nature of life; this is further enhanced by the candle which seems as if it is about to blow out and quite obviously, the skull which is where attention is mostly drawn to as the light in the painting is coming from the left side (the candle- and possibly another light source so the painting could still be worked on) and concentrates on the skull which is outlined by shadows, defining its shape. This painting is quite interesting as the composition is quite spread out meaning the shadows are every visible which is especially unusual compared to the contrast of the quite light objects- the flower, skull and paper which are primarily white based.