raw images before and after editing using Lightroom.
Images after turning them black and white from the edited versions done previously. Some images were turned to black and white before so I changed them to show how they would look in colour.
Final images after final adjustments:
This photoshoot was inspired by Ansel Adams and his photography. this is why I have turned all my final images to black and white and edited them in a dramatic way , decreasing exposure, whites and blacks to make the image darker. I wanted to make a high quality photograph and show this in the detail in the clouds or waves. What I focused on and tried to balance was decreasing the brightness enough to show the texture in the clouds but not to make the rest of the image too dark. changing from coloured edited versions of the images to black and white I had to adjust them as the coloured images had settings designated for them.
because I am going to be photographing landscapes I am not going to include people or their faces, however sometimes there might be some people within the landscape which are far away , these usually will be random strangers.
what may be photographed are cliffs, streams, rocks, trees and other natural forms within the landscape. what I will try to avoid are man-made objects or buildings as well as technology as these don’t fit in the whole romanticism aspect and are further away from nature.
where I plan to photograph are the inner as well up more open places, like the beach and coastal areas, and good places for that would be L’etacq , St. Ones beach, and the north coast areas like Bonne Nuit or Greve de Lecq. Places I will try to avoid are towns or heavy populated areas as these may be beautiful but are not of nature and sublime I want to photograph.
Since it is autumn the weather will be in constant change this is why even if I have a selected day, like on this weekend, I should not be dependant on weather as if I would want to capture images with a lot of sun and lightning in them, on the day it may be stormy and dark. This is why I should be prepared for any weather and may need to repeat or have another photoshoot in other places, preferably within a couple days later.
when taking pictures of the landscape that has a lot of open area, meaning there is a lot of sky visible and not so much landscape, or half and half, for example like the beach , where half is sand, a bit of water and then the rest is sky, I will try to photograph these when the clouds are in an interesting colour or shape, or will make sure I edit them to achieve this. with the camera I will aim for different photographs or the same landscape but from different angles. my biggest aim is to capture as much landscape possible within the frame and maybe some with different depth of field.
The main reason why I want to photograph those locations, and in a certain type of way is because I want to respond to romanticism and the sublime in landscape photography. Through the images I also want to capture Jersey’s beauty that makes the images have awe and terror, make a person that is looking at the image astonished and intrigued.
what is important to know is the age of enlighten witch is a period in Europe in the 17-18th century when many writers and thinkers began to question established beliefs, this could be religion where people started to question it and wanted more of an scientific proof of it. Soon after that there was the age of romanticism which was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. these 2 ideas were opposing each other, one the Enlightenment thinkers would believe in science and rationality, where as Romantics “favoured depicting emotions such as trepidation, horror, and wild untamed nature.”
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. His work was one of the early beginnings of the romantic era, that focused on the romanticism of nature, which he represents in his work.
the beginning evidence of romanticism:
1762-a swiss philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau publishes a book about the raising of children, which praised the wisdom, spontaneity and natural goodness of little children. it contains diatribes against the oppressive world of adults. He publishes this book during very sientific times when people would be drawn to logistics, but against this he emphasises the qualities a child has and glamrises their thinking, creativity ,pureness and outside of adult discipline
1770- A 17 year old poet Thomas Chatterton commits suicide because no one want to publish his poems, he becomes this idea of a sensitive, doomed artist that is rejected by the cruel society.
1774- ab author Geothe publishes a love story which is about the unconditional love one has for a married woman, where he kills himself and is labelled passionate and moved by love. this book becomes the most popular novel of the generation and gets a lot of recognition. this made people change the way they would think , they would side with outpouring of feeling rather then traditional rational thinking. making people believe that following your heart is more important and the outcomes of it are far less important.
There is also the importance of the sublime which is really important to understand and it goes in pair with romanticism. The word sublime that we use today means “of very great excellence or beauty” but in its history, it has a deeper meaning, reaching to something truly extraordinary, an ideal that artists have long pursued. This is pursued by artist to create awe and wonder by their artwork, throughout years there were different periods of time which each had specific generalised want and needs from the artwork being produced, as times change their needs did and so did the artwork. These are the key periods of time of the sublime: The Baroque sublime, The Romantic sublime, The Victorian sublime, The modern sublime, The contemporary sublime. Where this is is important is the link of romanticism and the sublime in a time period called the romantic sublime.
How it all started was when Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry (1757) connected the sublime with experiences of awe, terror and danger. He saw nature as the most sublime object, which created strong sensations, and emotion. This link to landscape photography today, as the landscape usually produced created awe but terror, by being dramatic yet beautiful, these photographs/artworks are so successful when they create a sublime feeling in a person, as then it moves the person and is more likely to create a certain feeling in one then other images that don’t have what a sublime image may create. Those sublime images may be:
His perception influenced a lot of artists, where they would look at nature in a different way, they would get inspired by nature, wanting to create artwork, usually paintings at the time, however this ideal of romantic sublime till this day inspires people. Because now there are much more different ways of creating artwork, like through photography, so many people explore these different areas, without knowing or simply not labelling it as romantic sublime, however this idea has lived on till this day .
There are many artists that have their work related to The Sublime, some of being :
John Constable Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831
John Martin The Great Day of His Wrath 1851–3
George Stubbs Horse Frightened by a Lion ?exhibited 1763
during this project, I have learned different techniques, programs and camera handling skills which I did not know before. I have not taken photography as a GCSE therefore the summer task has given me an idea of what I should expect from the subject but using a camera was the most important lesson to me as I have learned and will continue learning more advanced settings etc, but knowing how aperture, shutter speed and ISO effect an image has helped me and allowed me to get used to a camera. I like how the objective was still life as well as the project being based on the idea of home and what home is to me. this is because I was able to photograph objects that meant a lot to me and were personal to me, for this reason I think photographing objects was a bit more interesting and fun to do. I’ve noticed that when we were given objects from the beach to photograph, because the objects were not personal to me but also because it was my first photoshoot in the studio, the photoshoot was less fun as I had less control over it because in a little group we shared the same images and the objects were not ones that I could pick. that’s why I liked having more freedom when it came to picking my own objects and me being the person that decides how I would want to photograph them. What I think went well are the group photoshoots we would do, around the school or in the studio, but also using the camera in the studio, prepared to take single object images from above, these I think came out in great quality and detail. I also think what went well is using Lightroom and photoshop, as I adjusted to the program quickly and liked being able to alter the images to my vision. what I think I will need to work on is getting more used to the camera as a couple times while experimenting with the camera I was stuck and didn’t know how the settings could be changed to adjust the camera to the lighting and object being photographed. sometimes I also struggled t keep up to date with the blog posts and had overdue work that I needed to catch up on , this is why I plan to be more organized in the future projects.
Regarding my final images, I tried to include the best images from each photoshoot, as all vary in their own way. I have shown this in my virtual gallery were I tried including a set of images from my final images that went well together and were from the same photoshoot. With most of my images when editing them separately I aimed to show their tones and selecting and editing the images that would be a bit more colourful then others. With my final images I only had one in Black and White so in the future I may experiment with those tones rather than colours, so that I can learn to use both, as editing an image to black and white involves looking at a different set of editing options.
Once I had my final pictures printed out i went throught a process of photo mounting.
I have used spray mount to spray it on the back of my photograph to make it sticky, this is useful as the spray gets to all the corners of the image.
After sticking the photo on a white foam board. Then using a craft knife and by aliening the ruler with the edge of the photograph I cut firmly the edge.
After an image is stuck on a foam board I could stick it using double sided tape onto other backgrounds like another foam board or a black board. This is previously measured so everything is in a proportional shape .
beavel cutter
There is another way of photo mounting which is a window mount, this involves creating a “window” in a black board.
This process involves a lot of measuring done in steps
measure the length and width of the black board.
divide the measurements by 2 to get the middle length and draw straight lines using a ruler ( so that they meet in the middle )
Once a center point is located,measure like with the board, the length and width of the image
calculate the middle of the length of the photo and width of the photo
aligning the length of the photo with middle line crossing the middle of the board, measure the given half length of the photo from the center horizontal length
do the same with the width length, aligning it on the center line an marking the middle of the photograph.
once a rectangle of where the image is going to me placed , draw an inner rectangle that is a millimeter or 2 smaller, this is so the image can fit in the window mount without falling out.
using a metal ruler and a bevel cutter, a machine that hooks on the metal ruler and cuts a straight cut that is a 40 degrees cut through the board, cut on the inner rectangle on the board
make sure to cut so that you are standing on the left side of the ruler and the bevel cuter is on the right side of the ruler, facing the center of the board
Once a window was cut out I put 2 pieces of tape on the image and facing it up put the frame on top of it so that I could see how well it fit, then flipped it so I could see back of the frame and the image and with more tape I taped the edges of the image to the back of the board.
The last thing to do was to put velcro on the edges of the photo mount ready for display.
As well as with digital photo montages, the ones done in Photoshop, I have also had a go at experimenting with different forms of montages done by sticking some images together , cutting some up, gluing, and taping different parts of images together and combining things manually , in real life.
With the above image , after printing 2 different images I have measured and drawn horizontal lines with a pencil and a ruler on one of the images. These lines were uneven as I made one bigger then the other and then when they would reach a certain point I would make them go smaller, this pattern repeated until I’ve reached the end of the image. Aliening the strips again i have glued each other strip onto another image, leaving gaps in where every 2nd strip would be.
With an image that was already montaged with another one in Photoshop,by slitting one in half and having a split between 2 different photographs. I have cut out the above image using a utility knife, the darkest, inside areas that the canvas rolls created. Then I layered them over the other half of the image and cut around them, then when I had 2 identical shapes I have switched them around so that it looked like the paint on the right was in thee canvas rolls.
With the last image I have got 2 separate ones and not touching one , as the bottom photograph was sort of as a background. Using different tapes and glue I simply ripped parts of an image and stuck it onto the other. Since both images were matching tones and quite messy, I decided to make the final image chaotic, therefore that’s why I went for an unprepared form of montage like ripping the image and using tape.
Since my first still life photo shoot, I haven’t photographed single objects but instead composition of them. Which this photo shoot i was able to focus one object at the time as well as some together.
With this photo shoot, i have used 2 different set up cameras, one was on a regular tripod, and another was set up at an above angle so that the objects could be placed underneath it, this also meant the light was pointed at the objects from the side to not create shadows from the camera.
Best images from the photo shoot:
In my opinion the above images are not perfect as they still need to go through the editing process and final touches, however for the images I have for now, I would like to focus on editing these.
While taking the photographs, the pictures on the camera kept on coming out lighter then how i could see it in real life, therefore i experimented with the cameras setting and firstly changed the shutter speed of the camera which was 0.4 sec
This was how the photo firstly turned out, which was not as dark as i wanted the image.
I have then changed the shutter speed once again, this time to 2.5 sec and the image was as light as i wanted it, however i then realised that it may look even better is there is more light as then more detail would be visible
I still wanted to keep a similar light that the camera was capturing however with a more detailed image, this is why i have change this time the ISO to 800 and as well as aperture to f6.3 and shutter speed to 1/60sec.
i kept on increasing the shutter speed and aperture to f16 and shutter speed to 1/125sec while making the ISO, 100.
This meant the image was brighter and the camera took a shorter amount of time to take the actual picture.
Single Objects Edits
As I established before which images i liked the most, i have then edited them in Lightroom, changing exposure, shadows, sharpens&texture etc. as well as adding filters and playing with the settings of them.
Single Objects Best Images
Once Edited I had a few Best images that I thought were interesting as of capturing a single objects beauty. This meant they were sharp, defined and balanced when it came to their tones, highlights and shadows.
I have experimented with aperture, changing it to the lowest possible aperture that the camera can have, and to the highest aperture possible,and the middle apperture on the camera.
The highest aperture :
The middle aperture:
The lowest aperture:
What I’ve noticed is that with the highest aperture more of the objects are in focus and the image is darkest compared to others. The higher the aperture the greater the depth of field. As the aperture is lower, more light can enter through the lens and the image will be brighter and less in focus, the depth of field would be smaller, so objects closest to the camera will be in focus whereas the further away the objects , the less in focus they would be. Especially when photographing a set of object in a line or one behind another I find it interesting to photograph them with a lower aperture as this shows layers to the photograph and make it more entertaining.
while taking these photographs I have also set up the shutter speed on the camera as too slow, where it took the camera 4 seconds to take a singe image. this caused the pictures to turn really blurry as we were holding it , meaning each little shake would have a huge impact on how the camera captured the photograph. These were the pictures we ended up with.
The images we received from the camera were interesting and beautiful in their own way although this wasn’t the effect I was trying to achieve. Because of this “mistake” I now am aware for the future how I can achieve similar photographs like these but intentionally and how a slow shutter speed may be useful for other types of images , like fast moving traffic or movement, however because I was aiming at first for a high quality image and one that captures the objects in its best way, these images were not useful for me in that moment , specific to the photoshoot. Because I find these images interesting I will still keep them for a later use like if I’m doing edits and montaging , so that I can include them, combining them with another photographs.
After adjusting shutter speed to a faster one we were able to produce photographs which we originally wanted to create.
after editing the photo in Lightroom I have ended up with my own version of the photo. where I made it more sharp and got rid of the circles , which are caused by a dirty lens.
Mary Ellen Bartley is a still life photographer, and is a great inspiration when it comes to deciding what objects to photograph and how to align them as the objects she choses always comliment eatchother and have similar tones. she choses objects that go very well together when it comes to shape and colour. she stick to being manimalistic chosing objects that are quite simple in design like books and containers and cups .
during lockdown in 2020 she gave herself a project to photoraph the same thing over and over again, she named this project 7 things again and again. she actplained in the vidio bellow this project in thurder detail.
from what I have learned from the video and her project is that with each day she desired to expand he creativity, using back lighting, montages and different forms of lighting whereas at the start she just stuck to capturing the objects in different positions. through this project not only she learned but also inspired people to think outside the box and that photographing still life doesn’t have to be boring. There are many opportunities to photograph objects creatively producing interesting and exiting photographs.
6. Conceal and reveal – light and shade
The objects in this picture are simple when it comes to their shape, because the objects aren’t rigid or have much detail to them, what can be seen is a lot of straight parallel or horizontal lines correlating to each other as well as opposing. There are no rough edges or cracks making the photograph appear calm, smooth and unlayered. This is because the are not many layers when it comes to a photograph. There is a plain colour for a background which its colours corelate to the objects, making them not stand out as much as if a more vibrant or even black background was used they would. There are many greys and whites however what stands out the most is a soft yellow container which is the only object of the most different colour. What is interesting in this photograph is how given the fact that the objects are simple and so is the background and colours of them, the light plays an important part in the photograph . Using a book she blocked the light source and placed objects inside the shadows of the book as well as the toilet paper on the outside. By doing this she created an image which is exiting and interesting to look at as she found a balance between whites and blacks and used light to her advantage. What she also put in the final image is a little square of the same or similar object on top of the white toilet paper which is hardly noticeable but is an additional element of the image. With this photograph she showed even what can be said by most, ordinary objects and plain , unexciting colours can produce an interesting image depending how creatively the picture is taken, she shown her creativity when blocking the light by the book and on top of that when she included a tiny square. What I’ve gathered from this is the photographers input and the way the picture is taken make an image interesting especially if their creativity is shown, not what is being photographed, although this also has a big part.
Using photoshop I was able to create a virtual gallery which showed how my own final images would of looked like in a gallery. To make this I have selected an image from Google and after saving it I’ve opened it in photoshop. then I have opened all the other images that I was planning to layer on top of the other existing ones. Once I have copied and pasted it on top of the background image , using Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste.
I have Used Ctrl+T to transform the image and I was able to use a mix of scale, perspective and skew to layer my image to the same like on the photo of the gallery. first I moved the perspective in the way so it would be fitting of the angle. This means when i saw the picture was taken in a way where one side of the hanged picture is bigger then the other , I made sure mine was the same, the nearer the image was to me then that side will be bigger then the other.
After using perspective I have bought the corners in so that they would be in the right place using skew, that allowed to drag each individual corners to the frame.
I have repeated the process for all my images where some perspectives were different to others, like the middle image was the opposite perspective then all the others. I had to also ensure to leave the shadow that was created in the original photograph of the gallery so that my images appear more real and not photoshoped.
The way I decided to display my final images is based on what is being photographed, so with the still life photoshoot of the beach objects I have put them together and my home items together so that they can be displayed together and are not over the place mixing with each other, as if I did that the colours and tones are different to each other and would make less sense if each wall had images that are not similar or matching each other. Because of my layout the photographs also compliment each other when grouped, they have similar qualities.
