Final Evaluation Of Exam

FINAL EVALUATION

For the mock exam I was asked to create an outcome based on all the techniques we had learnt over the past few weeks to do with light manipulation, still life , portraiture and the photoshop experiments and enhancing we had done. We could look at any subject we desired  such as fashion photography, landscape and architecture etc, one it related to lighting and light manipulation. Originally when first looking at the brief I had no idea which route I wanted to take. I knew that landscaping had always been my strong point, however I was torn between doing fashion photography and landscape photography. I did some research into fashion photographers and I came across William Klein, Cartier Bresson and other photographers including an all time favorite Nigel Barker. 

(Nigel Barker)

( Cartier Bresson)

(William Klein)

These three were to be play a big influence on me if I was to choose fashion photography, and another photographer Ansel Adams as a influence to landscape photography. 

(Ansel Adams)

I had decided in the end that I wanted to do both landscaping and portraiture for my exam and combine the two ideas together to create a strong piece. It took a while to get there as I had a few hiccups in the process and finding the final outcome. My main hiccup was finding what action I should take with the photos. Whether I was to double expose the landscape photos and the portraiture photos together or let them stand on their own. In the end I decided to let each individual picture stand on their own and with a little help of photoshop using the curves tool to enhance the contrast and a play with the hue and saturation and the colour contrast tools, I'm really proud of the outcome. If I could change anything I would have changed the background for the outdoor photoshoot. Considering that both my models faced the college building instead of facing the distant snowy scenery, it kinda detracted from how great it could be.

I really enjoyed this project, my keen eye helped to utilise my surroundings to my advantage and create very promising outcomes. I'm extremely proud and I would definitely do this again. With some coaching on how to fully use my camera to get the best shots I can possibly get I would try this project again in my own time.

Progress

Progression in Exam

After much deliberation, I had decided not to do the double exposure, I also decided to do a few more photoshoots and take advantage of the lighting outside as well as setting up a shoot on the inside and controlling the lighting there aswell. Prior to taking these portraiture shots, I had also took some landscape shots as well during the middle of a sunrise on a frosty moring, using the natural light to my advantage. And after doing a little editing in photo I was left with some very strong photos that I could possibly use as final outcomes in the exam.

The landscape pictures and the two portraiture pictures at the top had been edited on photoshop, using the curve tool to intensify the contrast and adding a little hue and saturation and colour contrast to the picture.

Progress through my exam

After the first photoshoot that I had taken I had decided to take both the landscape pictures and the portrait pictures and create a double exposure, because I knew that on their own the original pictures 

I had shot didn't show much development and they didn't stand strong on their own. On developing on the mac I had taken a few screen shots to show my progress.

I originally needed to crop the photo in order to get rid of all the unwanted part of the picture, although i couldn't decide where exactly to crop it. Cropping it so the figure wasn't completely in the middle added a little more story to the composition, it added a little more mystery and there was a lot more space.

The picture above, where the figure is positioned more to the right, although keeps the mystery, adds more to the composition.

 All these pictures show the double exposures, I had moved and tweaked each picture, changing the opacity continuously and overlaying the pictures. I didn't know at the time if this was the direction I wanted to go but it was a start.
 
 

BackGround Pictures For Exams



 

Landscape Shots for the Mock Exam

All of these shots are pictures I took with my digital camera, a fujifilm finepix HS30 EXR. The location of this photos was at brockwell park, right at the top of the hill next to the cafe, which is in herne hill. The settings I used to take these pictures differed. Alternating from the pro focus mode (adv), SP1 which is especially for portraiture and SP2 which is especially for clear landscapes.