The plan for this photoshoot is here

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Contact Sheets

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Editing/Selection Process

Selection:

As always, I started editing the images on Lightroom by using the ‘Pick’ and ‘Reject’ functions to narrow my image selection down.

Next I used the Star Rating feature to choose the best images from this selection, which narrowed my selection down to these images.

I also applied a colour filter to make it easier to see which images I think are the strongest.

Editing:

To edit the images to make them appear like Bhamra’s Images, I used the Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast sliders on Photoshop to adjust the images to match the colour and contrast of Bhamra’s images. These are the selected images after being edited this way.

Next, I added a ‘Dark Stroke’ filter to each image to make them seem closer to the dark shapes that can be seen in some of Bhamra’s images.

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Best Images

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Comparison to Bhamra’s work:

I think my images adopt the likeness of Bhamra’s effectively, both images use strong, almost overpowering colour to create their otherworldly aesthetic, however, Bhamra’s use of colours are far more vibrant than my own. Bhamra’s images have a greater contrast between the lightest and darkest tones in the image, with her images including a hard black and hard white a large majority of the time, while I went for a slightly less contrasting aesthetic. In my photoshoot, I decided to take close up images of plants and parts of the landscape, which I think blended with the other images quite nicely; Bhamra does not include any close-up shots in her project (as far as I can see). To me, Bhamra’s images have a painterly tone, which is created by the use of colour and contrast (the blacks on the trees in the image above for example could resemble brush/pen strokes), while images appear solidly rooted within the genre of photography.

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Evaluation

I am happy with the way this photoshoot came out, as it allowed me to take pictures in a way I find the most fun, that being landscape photography. I think the images I have made for this small project are strong and match with the artist I have studied, while giving them my own touch. The photoshoot involved mainly wide landscape shots and medium shots of nature, which fits the criteria I set out for this shoot.

This photoshoot will fit well into my project as it fits the genre of landscape photography, while also having a surreal tone to give it a bit more life and variety. The time in which I chose to do this photoshoot worked well as it gave the colours especially a more intense feel. I think the photos without the editing were good and had some variety.

This photoshoot will be a response to Sonia Bhamra’s ‘A Surreal Landscape’ project, which, in a generalised sense, is a series of surreal/abstract landscape images that involve nature and colour. Bhamra’s final images each have an unnatural/surreal colour scheme, which gives it an abstract feel, however, the images themselves, with no editing, are fairly traditional in terms of subject matter and composition.

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Photographs from Bhamra’s Project:

These are the style of images I will aim for at the end of this photoshoot (as well as the editing process).

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Plan:

What?	I will take landscape images within a natural environment (woods). Like Bhamra’s work, I will aim to make these images seem like regular, non-surreal (pre-editing) images so that I can focus on the composition of the original images rather than the editing part.
Where?	I will take pictures of a woodland area near my house as it has landscapes similar to those depicted in Bhamra’s work (minus the odd colours). These areas will give me access to a different kind of landscape to Bhamra’s work as well as it has some rural roads/paths which could offer an urban contrast.
When?	I will try to take pictures later in the day in order to get a greater contrast in terms of light and shadow. More intense sunset lighting will also help bring out the colours in the landscape which will translate nicely into what I am aiming to turn the images into.
Why?	I think Bhamra’s work and the message it portrays is similar to what I am trying to achieve in this personal study, as such I think studying her work and responding to it will be a good way to start off my project.

I decided to start my project by looking through a collection of images in family photobooks, which include pictures from my parent’s wedding as well as of my mum growing up, alongside some family members.

I marked which images I wanted to use with P and X and then started editing them. I brightened some of them up and shifted some of the colours, and then marked the ones that I want to use as blue.

I like how I gave some of these a more sepia tone making them look older, this warmer colour scheme also giving off feelings of nostalgia, something I might contrast with my other shoots.

I decided I would like to put this image into Photoshop to experiment.

I then placed the image on top on ‘lighten’ allowing some parts of the bottom layer to show through. I think I will try to make more of these inspired by Vasantha Yogananthan.