Photoshoot 4: St. Catherine’s Woods

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History about St. Catherine’s woods –

St. Catherine’s woods is a circular woodland path found on the east of the island. Once you enter the woods, there is a reservoir on your right which was built during the German occupation, which people can fish in as it is full of carp, and many of the trees here are known to be some of the oldest in the island. It is also home to many different wildlife from animals such as great spotted woodpeckers, short-toed tree creepers, blackcaps, etc. It is also home to different flowers such as bluebells, foxgloves, celandine, etc.

Examples of least successful shots –

Why I think that this photo is one of my least successful shots from the St. Catherine’s Woods photoshoot is because I do not think that the framing of the photo is very well and I have taken it at a tilted angle and the water creates a blurry effect, similar to the previous photoshoot, and I do not like how it looks. If I were to redo this photo I would use a tripod which may help with capturing the effect of the water and also provide a better position for the camera angle so that it is not tilted.
Why I think that this photo is one of my least successful shots from the St. Catherine’s Woods photoshoot is because the lighting within the photograph is too dark due to where the sun was positioned as it was quite low in the sky which meant that the areas where the sunlight can’t reach would appear to be quite dark. If I were to redo this photo I would go back at a different time of day where it is brighter as I think that it would make the details of the tree trunk easier to see and focus on the specific framing of the tree instead to make the photo appear to be more focussed.
Why I think that this photo is one of my least successful shots from the St. Catherine’s Woods photoshoot is because the photo is quite blurry due to the object (dog) which is moving wihtin the photograph. If I were to redo this photo I would use a tripod to make sure that the photo is straight and I would experiment with different shutter speeds to create a whimsical effect with the animals movements and it would help the photo to appear less blurry.

Contact sheets of my best shots in Lightroom –

Once I had brought all of my images into Lightroom, I began by choosing the images which I thought were the best ones in which I could use. I did this through an elimination process where I used ‘P’ to select the images which I liked the most and ‘Z’ to remove the images which I didn’t like. This made it easier for me as I was now able to make the amount of images I had smaller, this is so that I can end up having about 10-12 images which I can edit further so that they can be used in my photobook.
Here are some examples of images which I have selected to use:

Sorting system –

For this photoshoot in St. Catherine’s woods, I began to use a sorting system to determine the photos that I wanted to use within my photobook. I sorted these images out through a system where I began by putting the photos that were successful to an extent but had limitations due to their composition, framing, etc to have 4 stars, whereas the photos that I felt confident enough with had 5 stars. These photos that had the 5 star ratings were the ones that I will move further with in my work to with further experimentation and being used in my photobook.

Colour sorting –

How I colour sorted my photos so that I had a strong and successful set images which I could use, was through the further analysis of the photos in Lightroom where I went through them once more. This is where I coloured the photos yellow if I felt as if they would not work well with the other photos and had slight mishaps within them which I was not keen on, whereas the photos which were coloured green represented the images which I thought were the most strong and successful

Best shots to use in my Photobook –

These are the final set of images which I have chosen as my best shots to use within my photobook. This is because I like how they create a range of photos from landscapes to close ups of leaves/other surroundings or images of people/animals. This photoshoot was fun and enjoyable to do and I liked many of the photos which I produced form it because it showed how the weather can impact an area and its surroundings and transform how it is viewed as many of the photos show the area of St. Catherine’s woods to be quite muddy and wet. If I were to do this photoshoot again I would make sure that I focussed on different textures within the landscape as I did not do much experimentation with it in this photoshoot unlike my 3rd photoshoot for Fern Valley as there was a variety of different textures which I did not capture.

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