What is shutter speed?

It’s the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure (the amount of light the camera takes in), a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure.

A faster shutter speed allows less light to pass into the camera sensor. Inversely, a lower/slower shutter speed allows more light to pass into your camera.

Photo games

These images were produced with a slow shutter speed (1/15) creating a blurred effect.

These images were taken with a fast shutter speed (1/250) creating a sharper image.

John Baldessari

John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California.

Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he began working in printmaking, film, video, installation, sculpture and photography.

Bruce Gilden

Bruce Gilden (born 1946) is an American street photographer. He is best known for his candid close-up photographs of people on the streets of New York City, using a flashgun.

Whilst Gilden studied sociology at Penn State, he watched Michelangelo Antonioni’s film in 1968. Influenced by this film, he purchased his first camera and began taking classes in photography at the School of Visual Arts of New York. Captivated with people on the street and the idea of visual spontaneity, Gilden turned to a career in photography.

Gilden has worked on commissions for Louis Vuitton, The Climate Group, and Mission Photographique Transmanche as well as publications including Wallpaper, New York Times Magazine.

“I’m known for taking pictures very close, And the older I get, the closer I get.”

John Stezaker

John Stezaker is a contemporary British Conceptual artist best known for his collages of found images taken from postcards, film stills, and commercial photographs.

Stezaker attended the Slade School of Art in London in his early teens, he graduated with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art in 1973. His works have been featured at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, among others. Stezaker lives and works in London, United Kingdom.

“My ideal is to do very little to the images, maybe just one cut: the smallest change or the most minimal mutilation, what I do is destructive, but also an act of deliberate passivity.”

My Jersey

For my summer task I have decided to focus on my mum.

My mum has been living in jersey for over 20 years, in St Ouens bay. I am going to be showcasing my mums connection to the bay with multiple images taken on a recent family walk.

The images consist of a portrait of my mum inspired by Bruce Gilden, along with a Landscape of St Ouens bay. Through the influence of John Stezaker I have overlapped these two images, With the use of Blend Editor on my Iphone.

I have selected these images because having lived in St Ouens for some time my mum and family have had a significant connection to the bay as seen through this portrait.

The Portrait

The Landscape

The Final Image

The person I chose for this task is my dad. Together with my mum we have lived on the island for just under a month. Having moved from the Scottish Borders we do not have deep roots in Jersey, so I decided to focus this task on my dads new found life on the island following his job.

My dad Alan Gamble was born in Northern Ireland on 14th January 1973. Farming has always been an interest and a job that he he has followed having worked and managed on many farms. The opportunity to move to Jersey following my dads work was one that he nor us could pass up.

Ideas

My main ideas going into this project were to capture my dads daily life in an entirely new place. Straight of the bat I knew I wanted photos of him working as people aren’t normally used to seeing cows in this setting- how milking actually works or the insides of this line of work.

I had a fair few concerns going into this project as photography isn’t something I’ve done before at the end of the day this project allowed me to pick up some new skills that can be expanded on.

Research

Laura Letinsky is an artist born in 1962 in Canada. Her photography work focuses on challenging the norms of domesticity, gender and unsustainable consumption.

“We live in a world where photographs demand more photographs. They generate a need for desire. My understanding of desire is from a psychoanalytical point of view. Desire involves something being just out of reach—close enough that we know it is there, but not close enough, that we can have it.” Lentinsky talks about the constant demand for photos that people can live through and the expectation from Capitalism the photographer should constantly produce “perfection” that they can consume and then get bored of and demand more. Many of her 2010 Photography projects such as ” albeit” and ” ill form and void full” are an attempt to find a new way to view photography without the burden of capitalism and desire and to illustrate how it is often seen by consumers. Laura Letinskys photography focuses on breaking the social norms of photography and much outside of it.

She uses Light backgrounds and overexposure adding a whimsical and calm feeling to her work. She uses soft pastel palettes in backgrounds and subject. She tends to avoid harsh light. Though when severer lights and colours are used in her photography she uses them to create a striking contrast between them and her usual pastel subjects.

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What I find interesting in her work is her use of subject matter. I have decided to focus on her 2006 series “Hardly More than Ever” which depicts half eaten and mashed fruits with cutlery and other dinning items seemingly abandoned at tables. I think the photos make you think as you question what has happened to leave the items in this state.

Stephen Shore is an American photographer born in 1947. He is known for his use of colour in art photography. During the 1970s Shore set of on a trip round America capturing the mundane in a colourful new way and forcing people to look at what they walk past everyday closer and see the beauty in it “discovering America”.

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His work uses saturated colours and everyday subjects expressing parts of boring life in great colour. I particularly like his work “uncommon places” as it captures small snippets of landscape and life in a happy colourful way which is what I am hoping to achieve with my photographs for place.

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Luke fowler born in 1978 is Artist and film maker based in Glasgow. His photography is know for his use of juxtaposition having used old film cameras for his work.

However I am interested in his portrait work as it captures people being people which is my goal for the portrait shoot. I think Luke fowler work is interesting as it expresses many of his subjects just doing their job, or at a party or even just walking and creates an insight into their everyday life.

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I am also fond of Fowler’s heavier use of exposure creating a darker more under exposed photo.

The Object

Planning

inspired by Letinskys “Hardly more than ever” my idea for the object photo shoot I chose a pair of my dads boots as our time in jersey has been about travel and discovery and shoes although not often brought to mind come with us everywhere. They are what we take our steps in through change and the mundane of everyday life.

I wanted to emulate the plain and light backgrounds of laura Letinskys work to focus purely on the boots and their story of travel. The first photos I wanted to use an infinity curve to get the completely plain back ground so I figured my bath tub would work well. The second shoot I took them to the beach to get a plain light background but not completely bare to try and replicate Letinskys simple but effective backgrounds and the beach has been a frequented spot by me and my dad recently as it was a rarity to visit in Scotland.

Raw Photos

I took a total of 80 photos of the boots. I started by taking pictures of them first in my bath tub in an attempted to create an infinity curve so all focus would be on the boots. I used the natural light of the bathroom window and my phone torch to try and light it. A few photos I attempted to emulate having a gel by wrapping my phone torch in a blue plastic bag and waiting for a less harsh natural light from the window to get the effect of the under statured blue light often used by Letinsky. The effects of this I was rather pleased with this and can be seen in the last 3 of the first cut.

First cut- Unedited

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Object – Final Photos

I started by cropping the images to center and align the composition better. I then went on to adjust the exposure to wash out and achieve the more over exposed look of my inspiration that was Letinskys work.

The Place

I could not chose one place when Jersey to my dad is still being discovered so instead I took photos of things he would walk past and see every day that have a sense of familiarity in this new place. My goal was to document things as my dad would see then as he went to and from work.

Planning

Inspired by shore’s trip around America I decided to do a much less epic trip and walk to the farm on the route my dad takes every morning and capture things on my way and at the farm. I tired to take bright saturated pictures to emulate Stephen Shores work. Of course a big part of the place was cows and in my dads line of work it would be criminal for me not to include them.

Raw Photos

Blanc Pignon Farm

First Cut

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Place – Final Photos

I cropped the photos to cut unwanted parts then focused on the contrast and exposure to make the photos brighter and more colourful.

The Portrait

For my dads portrait I did multiple shoots, one like passport photos and focusing on his face and another focusing on him working.

Planning-first shoot

The first shoot I focused less on candid photos and more on my dads face and getting a “passport photo” I then went on to experiment with using a shallow depth of field outside in the garden to attempted to get only his face in focus to frame it.

Raw Photos

Shoot 1 – First cut

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Portrait shoot 2

I went with my dad to work on two different occasions to take photos of him working. getting him to focus on what he was doing and not paying attention to the camera. This is what I was hoping this project would lead up to- taking pictures of my dad in his new job the thing that brought us to jersey in the first place.

First cut

Many of the photographs taken in the shed and parlor are grainy as a result of the light I made the decision to not use flash as to keep the depth and to not spook the cows.

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Portrait-Final photos

Experimentation

I started looking at photo stacking to see if it would suit my photos. I specifically looked at the work of John Stazaker and tried to emulate the way he would stack objects over the face of his portraits obscuring their face.

Photo Stacking

I thought this one was effective as it uses darker tones and the unequally size of the squares is pleasing to look at.

Merging

Juxtapositions

Looking again at the work of Luke Fowler and his use of juxtaposition the create contrast between images i attemped to create my own.

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Collage

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I started looking at the work of Pariwat Anantachina and his used of photo mashing and merging to create collage like photos which I really liked however I decided to use lower opacity images to achieve less jarring lines between images.

I liked this photo so far but I decided that it lacked colour and contrast so I took more yellow from the photo of the bracelets and added them in.

I really liked the more crowded look of this photo and I think the primary colours scattered throughout due to the other images lead your eye round the photo well.

Final Images

Thoughts

I am over all pleased with what I’ve produced as photography is entirely new to me, however there are many things I would now do different and have learned from. I think for the future I will try and take more interestingly angled photos as I feel many of mine were very linear and lacked compositional interest. I have also learned a lot about camera handling and how to achieve what I want especially when balancing aperture and shutter speed. I ran into a lot of issues with photoshop on my laptop when editing the photos so I had to use other ways to edit them how I wanted which I wasn’t pleased with as I was hoping this project would allow me to explore photoshop more. I have spent a lot of time on this and whilst there is much room for improvement I’m am proud of what I’ve done.

Focal length:

Focal length is the distance between the centre of a lens and the focus. It tells you how much of the scene will be captured in frame.

Focus points:

The focus points are the areas in the camera’s frame that the camera uses to lock onto the subject being photographed.

ISO:

ISO is the camera’s sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO, the better the film’s ability to capture images photographed in low light. Recommendations for the ISO setting:

• 100 or 200 best ISO for outside pictures on a sunny and bright day.
• 400 ISO for cloudy days, or indoors for window light portraits.
• 800 ISO for indoors without a flash.
• 1600+ ISO for really low light situations – that school play your kid is in.

White balance:

The white balance is the camera’s colour balance. It is used to adjust colors to match the color of the light source to ensure that white objects appear white.

what is shutter speed?

the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure, the amount of light the camera takes in, while a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure. The length of time the shutter remains open is determined by its speed. The shutter is a curtain in front of the camera sensor that remains closed until you start shooting. Once you click the button to take a photo, the shutter opens and lets in light that passes through the lens, exposing the sensor to it. 

adjusting the shutter speed, on a camere it can be found:

Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second, on most cameras it appears as a whole number. Easy way to remember=

1” = shutter speed of 1 second.

10” = shutter speed of 10 seconds.

10 = shutter speed of 1/10th of a second.

500 = shutter speed of 1/500th of a second

Slow shutter speeds often refers to a larger fraction of a second, such as ½ or ¼. Slow shutter speeds can capture movement and introduce blur, usually for slower moving subjects.

Long shutter speeds are typically around one second or longer. Like slow shutter speeds, they can be used for adding blurring effects to images.

John Baldessari

Jhon is a photographer which has expressed that his interest in language comes from its similarities in structure to games, as both operate by an arbitrary and mandatory system of rules. In this spirit, many of his works are sequences showing attempts at accomplishing an arbitrary goal, such as Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (1973), in which the artist attempted to do just that, photographing the results, and eventually selecting the “best out of 36 tries”.

This links back to shutter speed as in order to have a clear image of balls that are constantly moving, the camera needs to have an appropriate shutter speed.if the shutter speed is too slow the quality of the balls being photographed would be lower then if the shutter speed is higher.

MY JERSEY

MERGING/LAYERING MOOD BOARD

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RESEARCH

Alexander Rodchenko

Alexander Rodchenko, born 5 December 1891 in Russia, started as a painter and graphic designer before venturing into photography and photomontage in the 1920s. He studied at the Kazan School of art between 1910 and 1914. His work was obscure that was very distinct, often using unusual angles – usually high above or down below – and playing with the geometric aspect. His photography approach was very different from other photographers, he used bold and unexpected perspectives to bend the rules of standard photography at the time. He later died on 3 December 1956.

ANAYLSIS

The images being used are very simple but it is the layering that makes this picture unique. The lack of colour also allows the focus to be on the merged images and not be drowned out by loads of pops of colour. The pictures being placed in two different areas and being slightly different from each other also creates a feel of movement and depth. The pictures have been layered so that you can easily see both pictures and how they blend together.

EDITING

To edit these photos I started by turning each into black and white on photoshop, I then used the dodge and burn tool to enhance any areas I believed needed it. For example, I focused on highlighting the faces and hands more so they are the main premise of the image while still trying to make it as natural as possible. I heightened the exposure and contrast I then layered the photographs on top of each other and lowered the opacity until I was happy with how it looked, I ended up with an opacity of 52% on the first image and 47% on the second.

RESPONSE

For this photoshoot, I wanted there to be a lot of movement and depth by merging different facial expressions and hand movements. I used my favourite pictures to make the edit below.

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I had my models pose in font of a white background and had them do different facial expressions and hand movements until I took some that I really liked. I used a tripod to guarantee the camera stayed in the exact same place. I also wanted to replicate Alexander Rodchenko by having the model look into the camera for one of the photos and then looking away for the other, however thing only worked with one of the pictures.

THE TRANSFORMATION

Original

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Black and white

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Final edit

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EVALUATE

Overall, I really like how they turned out, I think the movement and depth resembles the work of Alexander Rodchenko a lot. However, I do think it would have been better if the movements were closer together to make it look a little bit more natural and there was not loads going on to make it easier to see exactly what is going on with out it being drowned out. I also could have gone in and edited the final edit in photoshop, I could have used the dodge and burn tool to make the image have more depth of field.

To make it even better, I could focus more on how the pictures are layered, making some more important areas more visible than other ones that are not as needed. This would make the whole picture not only as chaotic but also the best parts would be the main focus.

LANDSCAPE

Best shots:

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For this photoshoot, I decided to photograph the beach near my house as I walk my dog here almost everyday and I have some very special memories there, it also happened to be a very beautiful day when I took the pictures.

EDITING

I did not want to play around with these images too much as I already thought the colours were perfect and a lot of the picture would be hidden by the previous pictures. However, I did enhance the highlights and shadows just to bring a bit more life to the lower half of the pictures. I also increased the exposure and contrast slightly to pull the bright colours out even more.

FINAL EDITS

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Overall, I really like how they turned out as the black and white complements the bright colours of the background. The still water and beach also juxtaposes with the chaotic and messy portrait pictures that are full of movement.

However, I could have made them better by spending more time editing them and also thinking more carefully about how I take my pictures and at what angles.

When taking a photo, the shutter will open and expose the camera sensor to the light that passes through the lens. After the photo is taken, the shutter will then close which stops the light from hitting the sensor. Therefore, the shutter speed refers to how fast or slow the shutter of the camera closes.

The shutter has two main functions:

A faster shutter speed creates a shorter exposure. This limits the length of time the camera is exposed to light. A slow shutter speed creates a longer exposure. Thus, lengthening the amount of time the camera is exposed to light.

A faster shutter speed allows you to capture better photographs of objects that are moving quickly. For example the photo below is a picture of a bird. Without using a fast shutter speed, the photo would be must blurrier or wouldn’t have even captured the bird in time before it passed by.

The photo-games we did in class consisted of two games in partners. The purpose of these was to become familiar with shutter speed and how it can affect the outcome of your photographs. The faster the shutter speed is, the easier it is to capture the moving object.

One of the games included one person throwing 3 balls in the air, and the other trying to capture all 3 balls in frame and in a straight line. Here are some of the ones my partner and I managed to capture:

The second game was shadow boxing; one person trying to ‘throw punches’ and dodge the camera, the other trying to capture the person dodging in frame. Here are some of the ones my partner and I managed to capture:

Shutter speed is exactly what it sounds like: It’s the speed at which the shutter of the camera closes. A fast shutter speed creates a shorter exposure — the amount of light the camera takes in — and a slow shutter speed gives the photographer a longer exposure.

This is an example of a fan shown in slow to fast shutter speed.

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In this photoshoot, we explored the shutter speed by playing a boxing game. Capturing fast moving boxing actions, trying to dodge the camera creating some blurrier pictures then others; this is due to the use of shutter speed, how much light is being let into the camera.

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In this photoshoot, we also explored shutter speed by attempting to throw three balls in a straight line, using shutter speed to determine how blurry or clear the photos will turn out.

John Baldessari

John Anthony Baldessari was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s.

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