Contact Sheets

From this shoot, I ended up with 17 good shots. I need to go onto to edit these shots now as again the lighting proved tricky.

Edit One

I liked this shot, the texture from the tires to the repeated pattern from the spokes and chain. It is similar to the previous shoots detail shots meaning the shoots link together.

Edit Two

Having previously done a similar photo in the last shoot I liked the idea of having a similar photo from a different shoot, linking the shoots and subjects together. I chose the black and white as it added tone to the image, taking away the yellow tinge to the photo. It also highlighted the texture of the mud on the bash guard.

Edit Three

This photo needed cropping, as while it was composed well it would work better with the frame pulled in. the black and white is becoming a common theme throughout these photos as actually the colour doesn’t add much to the image, in fact it is a stronger photo in black and white as it counteracts the lens flare in the corners as it takes away the green colour making the lighting softer.

Edit Four

Unlike the previous photos, I trialled this photo in black and white but found it to work better in colour. Having kept the photo in colour I then increased the blues on the colour mixers as well as increasing the shadows to make the background a deeper black and decreasing the highlights to remove some of the glare from the white plastics. This helped the photo have a bright, vibrant colour, capturing the colour of the bikes graphics, similarly to how, in the previous shoot, I captured the true colour of the cars paint.

Edit Five

I went for a similar approach in this photo, by again increasing the shadows and decreasing the highlights. Following on with an increase in luminance in both blues on the colour mixer panel. This helped bring out the Yamaha blue on the plastic panels, highlight the Yamaha badge on the black plastic panel. It also benefitted the ‘rainbow’ on the exhaust, bringing out details specific to the bike in the photo.

Edit Six

This shot needed very little work but I did want to highlight the ‘WR’ just off centre in the shot. I did this by increasing the shadows, contrast and whites. Following with decreasing exposure, highlights and blacks. This helped bring out ‘WR’, the blue texture on the seat and the blue washers. All of this helped pull the rest of the shots together, having the same blue colour and neutral lighting, focused, detailed shots.

Edit Seven

This shot was trickier to edit as I wanted to highlight the ‘rainbow’ as I had done previously but I needed to make sure the chain didn’t end up looking too rusty as it’s actually gold in colour not rusty. Surprisingly by reducing the exposure and the highlights it made other details pop out, like the blue of the suspension spring and the blue washer again. All these features help pull the photo together and make sense of the composition of the shot.

Edit Eight

Originally I wasn’t sure I liked this shot, it seemed a bit of a throw away shot, but I liked the use of the foreground to pull the handle bars and wrist guards out of focus while keeping the seat and tail in focus. It created this double focused image, as you saw the seat and then flowed the line from it to the handle bars adding deeper depth to the photo. I changed the photo to black and white because it added so much to the tone of the images, the plastics panels allowed for large, smooth panels of different shades of grey. This only added further to the photo as while my tone is fairly low contrast for the black and white shots this ones had so many shades of grey it was interesting to look at and highlighted each section of the bike.

Edit Nine

Alternately I actually did like the raw shot, however to keep it blended with the rest of the shots, I increased the shadows, decreased the highlights and changed the blues on the colour mixer. This not only kept the photos consistent throughout the shoot but it solidified details, like the ‘WR’ and the blue parts of the bike that were otherwise washed out in the original image.

Edit Ten

Normally I’m not a fan of colour pop edits. However when I first saw this photo my first thought was, ‘what would this look like if I used a colour pop technique?’ To do this I went onto the colour mixer and reduced the saturation on every colour other than blues. This worked well, showing the details of any bikes graphics and highlighted the blue parts on the bike. It made for a strong image as in the previous shots I was trying to highlight the blue parts of the bike as it links to my mothers car and is specific to this bike being a Yamaha. This shot also won’t look out of place as the blue on the seat softens the black and white with blue elements. Having edited many of the previous shots in black and white this helped this shot blend in, keeping the tone the same as the previous shots helped as well.

Edit Eleven

This photo, was tricky. Again I struggled with the yellow lighting in this shot, I also found I didn’t really like the shot. It had potential but I found the background distracting and made the shot look unfinished. I went onto to try the photo in black and white but it didn’t help, however I then tried using the masking brush tool. With the tools exposure lowered I then coloured over the background to darken the distractions. This hugely benefitted the photo as it polished the image, creating more of a studio setting.

Edit Twelve

This shot is the same composition, just slightly zoomed in as the previous shot. However when editing it I wanted to keep to background as it is less distracting than it was in the previous shot, and in fact the soft lighting factors and soft grey tones benefit the photo. I did make this shot black and white, unlike the previous one as the shots looked too similar and I liked how the soft greys make the graphics lines and patterns clearer.

Edit Thirteen

This shot is a common one within the motorsport community, I liked the shot as it shows the bike through my eyes as I normally walk up to it on the left. The black and white, again does benefit the photo as it highlights the shadow of the bike and draws the bike out from the background. Even though I changed the photo to black and white it didn’t need additional editing and already fitted fairly well with the other black and white images I’ve produced. I did move the tone slider to reduce the yellow from the lighting though, this helped keep the greys, grey rather than have a yellow tinge.

Edit Fourteen

This is a very simple shot, an angled front on shot. However it does show the bike well and the close cropped frame draws the focus to the bike as there isn’t much room for looking around the photo. I liked the colour with the blue and red contrast but the yellow from the lighting had reflected on the white plastics so I preferred the shot in black and white, highlighting the details with light tone and many greys rather than black and white.

Edit Fifteen

This shot is very similar to the previous one, but I had changed the lighting and it created a very different effect, the bike looks like it is appearing out of the background, which is what I was originally going for as I wanted to focus on the bike itself. I kept this shot in colour just pulling the tone to a bluer setting. Having kept it in colour it has allowed for the bikes colours to be seen, showing the personal choices I made to customise the bike. (red wrist guards on a Yamaha)

Overall Summary

This shoot wasn’t easy, I found the lighting tricky to contend with, as it was dark outside and I only had two small lights to move around. However I did find this taught me a lot about what I actually wanted in the photo rather than just trying lots of things with little direction. This helped pull me in direction of planning each shot before hand, moving the lighting purposefully framing each shot. I went into the shoot with the intention of getting a mixture of detail shots and full shots of the bike, similar to my previous shoot. I had liked the results of my previous shoot so I wanted to link the two together by keeping the style similar. By having very little background showing I have presented the bike without much context, this allows the viewer to see how the bike is mine as such. Like any person who likes their bike/car there are certain things I’ve changed and kept on the bike, like the choice of red wrist guards on a Yamaha (a blue bike brand) it shows the love for the bike and the personal choices I ‘ve made for it both appearance and mechanically on the bike. This is shown through my parents bike and car. I picked up a lot of my choices from them, with them both having unusual aspects to their bikes/cars or just in general unusual taste. It’s clear I’ve followed in their footsteps with odd colour combinations on the bike, this is what I wanted to capture in this shoot, not only the bike itself being one of my bikes but how my parents have influenced even the smaller parts of the bikes.

Final Photos

Having looked through the pictures I then arranged them in a grid, placing images that work well together, together. I found I had a lot more interesting detail shots than bigger picture photos, but the wider framed photos were important to provide context. With a mixture of editing styles from simple low contrast black and white images to bright, luminance colour shots to a mixture of both with colour pop style editing. I think this worked well, keeping all the photos interesting but by having three ‘set’ editing themes all the photos are cohesive, working well together to show the colours, textures, patterns of the bike which is what I wanted to achieve.

Mood Board

Plan

This shoot was challenging in terms of lighting and angles. After spending well over an hour shooting I only got 42 photos, I did get some good shots though. As shown above there were a few good shots but they do need some work as the lighting was yellow at times.

Edit One

I like the composition of this photo as it has a good angle and shows a good portion of the car. However before editing the colouring is very yellow which while it does give the photo a nostalgic look to it, it would be hard to link all the photos together in terms of lighting as daylight photos. It also means the true colour of the car is shown. To change the lighting I adjusted the temperature to remove some of the blue hue, I then went into colour mixer and selected mixer and went into the yellow and chose to turn down saturation so the yellow lighting was lessoned.

Edit Two

I spotted this heart drawn onto the car, it made for an interesting photo so I composed it outside of the rule of thirds as I didn’t want it to be the main focus so much as a part of the photo. I wanted a photo as I have a habit of drawing hearts onto my bike when it’s muddy so it will be a connecting shot to my own bike which probably also has a heart drawn onto it. I chose to make the shot black and white as I think it adds to the atmospheric feel to the photo. Within this edit I adjusted the tone to make it a high contrast image. This shot in itself is abstract, with minimal parts of the car shown but it will connect well with the next shoot as well as providing some family connection with the car having a heart drawn onto my mothers car and then a heart drawn onto my bike.

Edit Three

This photo is a great contextual image, I think it shows the love for the car and the age of the car being present in that all the books about it are still books not videos or online manuals. The composition of the shot is good so I didn’t need to crop it. However the colours are dulled down, so to fix this I reduced the exposure and then adjusted other contributing sliders. This helped bring out the true colours and made for a better photo.

Edit Four

This shot was a confusing one to edit, I liked the original shot but the colour of the metal was wrong as the yellow lighting effected it. To counteract this I changed the exposure and then the highlights and shadows. I still did not love this image as now the car was not true to it’s real colour. Black and white was the next step as then the yellowness wouldn’t effect it. I chose a high contrast, stark editing style, this highlights the details and shadows of the photo. I liked this as the ‘ford’ stands out really well against the darker background.

Edit Five

This shot on the other hand didn’t need much editing as the yellow lighting suited the brown of the dust.

Edit Six

This is again another shot that doesn’t need much editing as the colours already went well. Having used the 70-20mm lens the frame is already a tightly framed shot so the composition was important, having framed the car on an angle to the lens it added dynamic to the photo as well as providing a well composed shot, with interesting angles.

Edit Seven

This shot is interesting within itself with the age and condition of the car showing. However I found the background distracting so decided to change the photo to black and white to add not only deeper tone to the car but remove some of the complexities in the background. This also worked really well to neutralise the yellow tone from the lighting.

Edit Eight

This shot while a creative, interesting image, having been shot through a windshield with multiple leading lines and context on the car. Overall I like this shot but it is a much more impactful image in black and white as while the book still appears worn from its age it doesn’t have the same washed out colours. The tone of the image is completely transformed once the image was edited to black and white as the high contrast shot, similarly to the previous shot it removes all the background busyness that doesn’t benefit the shot. This also provides a base for any future black and white shots as I have a style to base it off of.

Edit Nine

This image again is much stronger in black and white, it has removed the washed out colours and new key colour but kept the apparent wear to the car. It has also brought out the highlights in the shot, showing the badge in the steering wheel and outlining the wheel itself.

Final Images

After editing these photos I noticed, while I didn’t dislike the results I felt I could get more similar shots with a different lens. I would like to redo this shoot with a 18-105mm lens as I would have a lot more range in the shots I could get. I did however end up with a strong set of images with a mixture of colour and black and white shots. I think the detail shots were particularly successful and created a strong starting point for this project. Having researched Keith Dotson’s work on old cars in a forest, left to rot I wanted to take a similar approach using highly tonal images with a range of wider angled shots and closely framed shots, although shown in both mine and Dotson’s work neither of us feature much of the background as for wat we are trying to show in the images it is not too important and can be distracting.

Mood Board

Plan

Lighting

I will be shooting at night so I will have to be careful with lighting, however I will use two of these lights to focus and create the lighting situation I want for each shot. This means I can create dramatic shadows or use direct lighting. This will be time consuming but will allow me to create a specific atmosphere for each shot.

For this project I want to explore my connection and love for cars and bikes, from my passions for racing my own bike to my parents love for enduro events and rally cars. I want to capture the intensity and stress of racing events to the tinkering that is always going on. Particularly I want to showcase the difference loves and passions for the sport but in all we are all connected and have built a community. A large part of my family is involved in motorsports to a degree which has had influence on my own enjoyment and interest in the sport. I remember when I was younger my father would be watching moto GP while making me lunch, I never understood it until I got older and started to understand the bikes, teams, and actually understanding the concept of racing. When I was younger I have always been around cars and bikes, I watched my father take his bike away for enduro events in Spain and before that I heard all about the adventures he had been on. One I particularly enjoy hearing about is when he brought a motorbike, a Royal Enfield, in India and then rode it back to Jersey by himself, he still has this bike to this day! Alongside growing up involved in bikes I grew up around farming communities, with tractors and 4X4 which sparked my interest in off-road cars, having driven my first manual car at 10 to put fence posts in a field, since then I haven’t looked back with now having my own 4X4. Both my parents taught me how to ride/drive and I have pushed myself and tried different riding styles of my own and have my own bikes. So while I would like to reflect on their current use of cars/bikes I would also like to show sentimental things, from when they were my age or slightly older and now they don’t have as much time for but I do. I aim to show, almost the handing down of passions, remembering the good times and now their daughter (me) having me own fun and creating memories with my bikes.

To start this project read through the exam boards notes on the theme observe, seek and challenge. I then made a mind map with all my ideas, I also used a dictionary and thesaurus to understand different concepts and add other words in relating to subtitles. I found with collaborating on the mind map helped me experiment and try new ideas, it also added knowledge and each others understandings of the words so I learnt different perspectives and ideas.

Mood boards

Abstract

Following on from the harbour project I liked the detailed, abstract shots I had taken and then used in my zine. I like the way they can add to story and make people notice the smaller parts within a bigger picture.

Tableaux

I looked at this type of photography in my mirrors and windows project and found I liked the effect of my photos. I could choose the shot down to the smallest details, making the photos powerful as I had complete control over what I wanted the photos to show.

Documentary

I really enjoyed taking photos in a documentary style for the mirrors and windows project. I photographed the twisty sprints and found I could be really creative and create dynamic, interesting photos capturing the even and how people went about it.

Studio Portraits

Having previously done studio portraits I found I could create interesting, detailed photos using the different lighting techniques. I like the drama and intensity you can create in the photos and I think it would be beneficial in any project with portraiture as it helps provide a solid starting point for any other types of portraits for a project.

Ideas

Potentially for my project I’d like to explore motorsport in Jersey, having been brought up around rally cars and motorbikes I have always have an avid interest in the motorsport in Jersey. I have always found there are great pictures of individual competitors but I found no one has quite captured the atmosphere of all the aspects of the sport, from the last minute rush to get to a part fixed or the intense wait, waiting for the scrutineering to be passed. The mood board above has a rough idea of what I would like to capture, the actual racing to the ‘behind the scenes’.

Jeff Wall The Drain 1989

For my first photoshoot I will look into the idea of Jeff Wall’s ‘The Drain’ I really like the narrative the photos tell, they appear quite nostalgic in a way people playing in the stream. Equally they also have a creepy undertone as it looks like some of the people have appeared from the tunnels.

Photoshoot Plan

‘Window’ Photoshoot Plan

I have always had an interest in capturing candid sports photos, when researching this project, mirrors and windows, my first thought for windows was motorsport pit lanes or service photos. A true insight into raw emotion, small details, the machines themselves and how teams work.

Mood Board

Windows and mirrors is an exhibition ‘Mirrors and Windows’ an exhibition of American photography since 1960, opened at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in July of 1978. This was John Szarkowski’s attempt at categorising photographers, whether their photos were mirrors or windows.

What is a Mirror Photo?

A mirror photo is a photo that is subjective to yourself, one that you can design or create before hand or see as a reflection of yourself through photography. Another way of thinking of it is, does it capture/represent you as an artist, either through an abstract or planned scene? This is often an editorial style of photography or a personal project for a photographer.

What is a Window Photo?

A window photo is the opposite of a mirror, instead capturing the world true to life. A version of this being documentary photography or journalism photography. By reflecting the truth a photographer has little to no personal influence or output onto the photo as it is as others would see the scene.

Do Mirror and Window Photography Cross Over?

Szarkowski – ‘is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it or a window, though which one might better know the world.’

Mirrors and windows often cross over, for example recreating a crime scene. This is posed and being directed by someone but it is also a capture of what supposedly happened at the time. In many mediums there is a cross over of mirrors and windows, but in particular photography is guilty of this. Many photographers will use mirror photos to get a point across and have ‘perfect’ photos or said better, an accurate representation of what they imagined, however this also occurs in ‘window’ photos. While a true window photo will be snapped completely candidly sometimes photographers have an idea that cannot be completed just using candid work but want the style to remain similar to a window photo. Photographers might also start with a window photo, snapped at chance and then find it inspires them to get a particular planned shot (a mirror photo) the next time they come across a similar situation or even planning a whole shoot around that one window photo.

Photo Analysis

This is a photo from ‘Mirrors and Windows’ the book but I think it accurately shows the blend between mirrors and windows at times, this could be a candid portrait as the subject is just in their home preparing to go out, but it also has elements of a mirror photo as it is planned and a thought out image. I find that may times when mirrors and windows cross over it is because they want to tell a personal story or capture something that just isn’t regularly captured without planning but the photographer wants to do so in a documentary style. This is a very successful photo when it comes to be able to break it down and pick interesting elements from a very basic photo, it is also quite impactful as it is something not normally seen, normally curlers aren’t normally seen anywhere but the comfort of the subjects home and not a normal subject in a photo as he is just ready for a night in rather than composed, formal portraits.

Virtual Gallery

Overall my zine made good progress form the raw photos to the final product. I went through a lot of editing to pick the best photos from multiple shoots, I then found some photos I liked originally didn’t fit with the rest of the photos I had to re edit the image or pick one to replace it. It was a tricky balance between picking good photos technically and picking photos that went together and told the story I wanted to tell, an insight into the harbours. I found a mixture of detailed, abstract shots and wider perspective shots of the harbour made for the most comprehensive narrative. To keep cohesiveness throughout the zine I matched colours of photos, for example on one page I put three predominantly yellow photos on a black and white background photo. I also thought about this seeing the success of it in the zine when creating my virtual gallery I used a similar technique paring photos with similar colours, themes and textures together. A particularly good page in my zine is the second to last double spread, it shows the industry not only in detail with the background shot being a close up but the in the bigger picture with the bigger photos, with this page I thought back to the visit to Societe Jersiaise and how the industry has changed over the years from horse and cart and doing everything mostly by hand to now the machines and even how the scale of the industries has hugely increased while it’s not cod fishing anymore, over here, the harbour is still a huge part of the islands income and essential to the island. I also chose to use deep colours on this page contrasting the old photos of the harbours industries. Overall I am very happy with how the zine came out and I think I made great use of all the research I did into the history as well as capturing the new elements of the harbour of Jersey.

Final Photos

Creating the Zine on InDesign

This was how I set up a new document that then became my zine.

This is how the document came out, this allows me to have creative freedom over each photo I put into this zine. I will use my paper mock up to help create a base before I make any major changes to it.

To make sure I have access to the tool bars, I changed the setting on the top right from ESSENTAILS to ESSENTIALS CLASSIC.

I changed this setting to make the zine high quality without having to use the shortcut SHIFT W to remove the guidelines.

Front Cover

Page One

Following my paper mock up I put these three photos on the first page after an empty page. By matching up the images making them into a sort of joined tryptic photo. This worked well and created a bold, interesting first page setting the narrative for the rest of the zine.

Page Two

Before

After

For this page on my mock up I kept the background blank, however when I did this on the actual document it appeared too empty so I experimented with backgrounds, before settling on the one above. This actually then helped link the next page in as the next page is all black and white images, while also providing context as the rest of the photos are mostly small snippets and details shots. I also made this a double page spread to give the images enough room to be seen without being overcomplicated, I used the imagine in the middle to split between the two pages as it is a detailed image unaffected by being folded across the two pages.

Page Three

This was my original design however I felt the bottom left photo of a roll of rubber wasn’t quite right. The shadow was distracting and the lighter tone didn’t quite fit. To fix this I re-cropped the image and re edited the image. This made for a much better overall look.

Page Four

I kept this page the same as paper mock up as it worked well when I placed it onto the pages, I like the contrast of the full size black and white image with the two smaller full colour images.

Page Five

Again I tried making the page the same as the paper layout but the page appeared to blank with too much free space. To fix this I added an abstract detailed photo in the background with lowered opacity. I also made sure the colours in the three images worked with the background photo.

Page Six

As I had used the original photo on the left for the background of the previous page I needed to swap the photo on the left out. The photo on the right matches well as this is actually the same wall as the photo on the left just at different points, both are important historical points to the Jersey harbour. The photo on the it is a traditional Jersey arch with the three blocks sticking out as the style and the lamp acting as a ‘traffic light for boats’.

Back Cover

Front cover . Back Page

The final page I kept the same as the front cover, however I flipped the photo so if you opened the pages out it appeared one whole image rather than the same photo twice. I also put my name on the elastic band to keep it almost hidden.

Overview

I have now finished the zine and as above I have captured the process I went through to select the final version of the zine from a paper mock up to the final print out. By recording each decision I made allowed me to reflect on the choices and how I could change things to fit with each other as well as giving me an opportunity to understand my own choices and how well the narrative flows by how easy it was to explain in words. I found sometimes I was making connections only I would as I knew my work and photos as well as what I was trying to say so this gave me a point of comparison to reflect on. The zine captures the harbour well, I paired it with the title ‘Lobsters, lamps and lochs’ as I felt this was a simple overview of the zine and also harbour through an intriguing alliterated phrase. As the zine goes on the the history is more and more obvious highlighting further specific links to the Jersey harbour over any other harbour. I have shown this in the photos, for example on the second last page there is a photo of an arch and pump which is where sailors would have gotten fresh water from, but the arch is specific to Jersey as the design of three bricks sticking out on the non curved part.