Final Print Selection and Organisation

For my final prints in this project, I will be making 4 pieces of work that take work from both the object side of the project and the woodland side of the project equally. I will create two final pieces using my object images, one using the images I took with my camera and the other using the cyanotype images. The other two final pieces will use images from my woodland shoots, one will use images from my first shoot and the other will use images from the third shoot.


Images I will be using for my final pieces:

(An image of my cyanotypes)

First Woodland Piece (A3 x 4)

For this piece I will create a series of classic window-mount images. I possible, I would like to place this into a black frame to give it a formal/professional look. As I am printing these images as A3, all of the images will be separate from each other.

Above are two mock-ups of window mount images.


Second Woodland Piece (A4 x 3)

I would like to lay these images out in a simple sequence, either on plain white foam board, or on a black window mount. Below are screenshots of me experimenting with the layout of the sequence.

Three images horizontal on white foam board
Three images horizontal on a window mount
Three images vertical on white foam board (I will use this for my final piece)
Three images vertical on window mount

After experimenting, I think the vertical layout on white foam board will be the most effective for this piece, as the white offers a nice contrast to the darker images.


First Object Piece (A5 x 4)

I will lay out these images in a sequence, either on white foam board or black window mount.

2×2 grid on white foam board
2×2 grid on black window mount
Horizontal sequence on black window mount.

At this point I quite like the 2×2 grid on black window mount, below are experiments on the order of the images:

After experimenting with the layout and sequencing of the images, I think the last layout (the image above) is the layout I will aim to recreate with my final prints.


Second Object Piece (A5 x 9)

For this piece, I am going to create a 3×3 grid using my cyanotype images in the sequence (or similar sequence) as shown in the image above. I will be using double sided tape to mount each image onto a piece of foam board, which will not fully stick each side to the board, giving them a sense of shape and three-dimensionality. I will then cut this grid out from the foam board and place them in a window mount, giving it a black boarder.

Final Prints

(A few are missing due to bad quality and time restraints)

Photoshoot 1 Final Images

Overall I had 6 final images from shoot 1 which I would use in my final pieces of work, my work and editing was loosely inspired by the artists which I studied within the case studies.

These 3 images above were inspired by the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, who shoots architecture in black and white. Overall I believe that these images are very effective at catching the eyes of viewers.

These images above are the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, who captured these in similar style to mine, black and white with shadows exaggerated within the images.

These 3 images were inspired by another artist who I studied, Andreas Gursky, who photographs buildings at large scales and detail showing off much of the buildings. I took inspiration from his work to create these pieces. The large scale and details of the photos are very effective in my opinion and are very eye-catching.

These images by Gursky, are very vast and show off a suprising amount of detail for the subjects in which he is photographing.

Final Images

Evaluation

I am very happy with the final images which I have produced from shoot 1, I believe that they are all very effective photographs and have been a good response to the topic of the project which I am doing.

Development and experimentation: outcome 2

For my second outcome I will be printing architectural photos in a4 and a3. These are some of the photos I took at the Waterfront. I kept these ones in colour because the sky was clear blue which goes well with the simplicity of the modern buildings at the Waterfront

I chose to make these next photos in black and white because the sky was cloudy, and the area I was photographing was less colourful than the Waterfront.

Planning

Photoshoots

My photoshoots will be very similar to each-other. I will compose a different car in the varied locations around Jersey. These locations will mostly include my own car in numerous spots along the north coast, five mile road, St Brelade’s bay and the avenue. I can also photograph Mx-5s that I see outside of people’s houses whilst driving to a new spot. I will aim to represent each of my artist references in all photoshoots. This will vary from the landscape photography of Skodvin, to the moody and mysterious night-time style of Chang.

Image selection

I will adopt the same image selection process that I used for my previous project. This will be conducted by rating my images in Adobe Lightroom by colour (green/yellow/red) and by stars (1-5). This will provide me with an easy-to-use visual representation of which images I feel that I can use and which ones I would prefer to leave out. I can easily filter through my images once this process is complete. After this I can begin my editing process with the images that I have selected.

Editing Processes

For this style of photography, editing my images in Photoshop will prove much more effective than Lightroom. I have learned my way around Lightroom’s features well enough to try something new, and am willing to learn how the varying tools in Photoshop can be used to enhance my outcomes further. For this, I plan to patch up my images on a microscopic level. This will include removing people in the distant background, or removing small stones and gum from the road to give a sense of tidiness. To do this, my primary tool selection will consist of the clone stamp tool, the smudge tool and the spot healing brush tool. These tools have a similar effect, but each has a better look when used in different scenarios. This will hopefully smoothen up the rough areas of my images and have a positive effect overall.

Post-editing and Printing

After this excruciating editing process, I plan to have my photos printed by a professional company. This is because of how I wish to display them as final outcomes. I am going to produce a 3×3 window mount of A5 images on an A1 piece of black mountboard, as well as two large A3 prints mounted on A2 pieces of Previously being a DT student, I understand the importance of measure twice, cut once. So far, my window mounts from past projects have received praise not only from other students, but also teachers outside the subject.

lightroom editing & selection

SELECTION (PHOTOSHOOT #1)

I began my selection process by separating my photoshoots into two separate collections on Lightroom, named according to photoshoot – therefore this would make the selection process easier and quicker to sort through since I have limited time. I then went through my images and labelled them with the colour rating – green for my strongest images, yellow for ones i was unsure about and red for photos I wouldn’t use, for examples ones that were blurry or boring. The use of artificial lighting (LED lamp) proved very successful for this photoshoot, therefore I feel none of my final images for shoot #1 needed editing as I am satisfied with their outcome.

For my project, I either wanted to display my photos framed up on a board or create a small zine. For this, I needed to shorten my selection process down to only 6 images, which left me with some difficult decisions, as this was a big photoshoot and the majority of my images I really liked – however, some of them were taken from the same angles with similar poses, so I made sure that my final six were all aesthetically different yet captured the same insider perspective I aimed to achieve. Unfortunately none of my purple / blue coloured images made the final cut, as they were either too blurry or didn’t quite catch my eye. I am satisfied with the final six photos I chose as I feel they are all very unique and although they do contain the same colour scheme, shutter speed and lighting help to enhance each image differently to make each one more aesthetically interesting to look at.

SELECTION (PHOTOSHOOT #2)

Unlike my first shoot, some of the images in my second photoshoot needed further editing, as I felt the colours and lighting didn’t stand out enough compared to my first photoshoot – however my first shoot used artificial lighting, which I could heighten and adjust as I wanted. The second shoot relied on natural lighting from the sun and was therefore out of my control, so i had to carefully decide the angles i took my images from to get the outcome I wanted. Repeating the method I used earlier, I sectioned my images from photoshoot #2 into a separate folder then sorted through them.

Unlike my other photoshoot, I chose to have only 5 final images instead of 6, as I want to display them a certain way once I frame my photos up. Once again my selection process was difficult, as there were a lot of photos I liked, but again wanted to make sure all of them were visually different. This photoshoot was the more difficult of the two, as although my other images appeared candid, the photoshoot was staged and carefully prepared. Whilst capturing images for this photoshoot I aimed to have all my images candid, however in the majority of them the subjects are looking at the camera or posing, and although the image may have turned out well, I felt they weren’t aesthetically fitting with the rest of my photos as i really relied on the candidacy of my images to convey the insider atmosphere.

EDITING

I decided to crop this image as I felt the objects on the sink were too much of a distraction and instead wanted the focus to be on the way the lighting reflected onto the figure and the window. Cropping this image will also help it fit nicely in my arrangement of images once I have them framed up.

I edited this image too as I felt it was lacking colour in comparison to my other images – therefore I turned up the vibrancy, temperature and tint in order to achieve the outcome I wanted. Although the editing is minimal I still felt it made a change to the image when displayed amongst the others. My other images for the most part however were left unedited, as I wanted to keep the authenticity of the natural lighting and not further enhance it too much.

Development and experimentation: outcome 1

One idea I had for this project was to photograph corners of buildings. Photos taken in this way show both sides of the building stretching off, and can sometimes create a shadow effect if the sun is in the right place. I think I captured this shadow effect in this photo:

Here are some more of the photos I took in this style

I am printing these images to create a grid of photos. This will be my final presentation of this idea. It will look like this:

Photoshoot 2

For my second photoshoot, I wanted to create a few different characters similar to Sherman. I used makeup and costumes on my subject in order to create the illusion of different characters as well as creating that classic Hollywood makeup look.

Here are a few images which I looked at in order to gain inspiration for this shoot

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Editing images photoshoot #2

Click on the contact sheets above to see the outcomes from photoshoot #2

Following the same structure as my blog post on editing, I started by flagging all the images I believed were successful green, this turned out 8 images as the rest of my images from this photoshoot were blurry and dark, a common theme in trying to capture images in the dark. I did not have to crop any of these images so I went straight to editing to bring out colours.

Editing is once again minimal, in this photoshoot many of my images turned out with orange and yellow tones which I have chosen to accentuate- once again my images have grain in hem which suits them however some have turned out too grainy for me to introduce colour without making them look low quality.

The editing for the “After” image above, meant to bring out yellow and orange tones which is my main focus for this photoshoot.
Some of my images became very grainy after editing- due to this I may not use the ones which are massively grainy as it makes them look low quality and less defined.

Through editing I was able to make a smaller selection of successful/unsuccessful images, I have changed the images which were less successful to yellow in my coding system.

My unsuccessful images

A lot of my images were too grainy after turning up the exposure so this already made them unsuccessful however this was a difficult selection of images I feel did not fit up to the intent I had for them- images I am still not sure about are the first and third images on the left of the grid as well as the bottom image as I like the interaction with the camera (turned towards it- including making eye contact with the camera) and the colours in the images (specifically the highly grainy green image however I feel as if it does not suit the rest of the images).

What I think is my most successful image from this photoshoot

I really like this image as it massively reminds me of Claudia Andujar’s “They’re Looking For Peace” collection which is one of my biggest inspirations for this project, this is due to the sweeping motion my subject has- making him the certain main subject, the colour is also similar to Andujar’s work, she often used oil lamps to keep the colour consistent across the whole image however although I did not use an oil lamp the lighting outside of the car carried throughout the car, keeping the same consistency. Although this image is slightly blurry it is not massively noticeable- I feel as if this blur adds to the image in a positive light as it looks like it was screenshotted from a film- showing motion makes the image more than an image as it implies a further story.

Planning and recording: photoshoot 2

For my second photoshoot I will stay in St Helier, but explore different buildings that are more centred in the town. These buildings will mostly be a lot older than the waterfront buildings, so I am aiming to show the history of some of the architecture right in the centre of St Helier.

Here are a couple examples of what my work might look like:

Photoshoot 1

My idea for my first photoshoot was to blur the male gaze, to do this I captured images of the female subject moving around on a low shutter speed in order to create a blurry image as well as an image which displayed clear movement.

I also wanted to create a character profile within these images, I decided to capture images of my subject dressed up and crying, similar too the style of Sherman.