Photography Project 5 - The Article Response

This was, in my opinion, the toughest project yet.

Even though I technically had about 5 weeks to do this, between completing work for other modules and travelling around Europe during Easter break, it was a little difficult to find time to 'perfect' this particular assignment, which is why I felt I could have done better, even though I wasn't really disappointed in what I currently have.

For this project, we were tasked to look for an article and use photographs as our response to it. Instead of 'responding' to the article, my project deviated slightly because I decided to take a series of photographs that were related to the article in some way, but the images do not directly respond to it.

Instead of having people pose for my photographs as my way of responding to the article, I decided to capture real moments that the article has made me consider/more aware of.

Photography Project 4 - The Perfect Stranger

As the project title suggests, we were supposed to photograph strangers, and I was tempted to play around with that idea, by challenging the brief and photographing friends whom I can 'control' and 'manipulate' to create the sense of perfection and at the same time, not be someone I know, thus making them 'strangers'. I eventually decided against it, and decided that I should just go out there and challenge myself by asking people that I've never met if I can take pictures of them.

I was going to look for people who stood out and/or caught my eye, but because 

I have decided to go with a more ‘professional’ look for my portraiture project because I wanted to capture the ‘perfection’ element. A close-up shot really shows how comfortable they are with the situation they’re in, and their expressions often reflect their mood as well.

I simply wanted to capture them in their moment, from how relaxed they are to what they’re doing at the particular time when I asked to photograph them; it is the true reflection of them as a person, as who they are. I feel that it is more natural capturing them as they are rather than telling them what to do, like not to smile or to pose a certain way, and I really like the outcome of my work because I feel like it is a glimpse into their personality, and because they are strangers, it is much more real to ‘know’ them in their natural 'state'.

Photography Project 3 - Movement

These are the 4 final images that I have decided to use for Project 3, and I have chosen 2 photographs that explore movements within space (clock and water) and 2 within landscape (gulls and train).

I wanted to go for a theme, to have photographs of similar styles, but I decided against it because I felt it would be kind of repetitive, which is why I have chosen to photograph completely unrelated things, though they do have a link that ties them together.

1. MOVEMENTS WITHIN SPACE

The idea behind photographing the clock came when I remembered how the second hand is consistently moving as time passes by and ticks away. I felt like it was the perfect way to capture ‘movement’ of the physical needle (and of time) within the confines of the path it moves along. Using a longer shutter speed and lower light intensity, I used it to capture the visible movement of the second hand needle so that the movement can be traced. It definitely helped that the second hand was in red, which made its movements trackable.

As for water, I wanted to capture water as something that is always flowing. Water is almost never still, and its shape changes with the path it moves in. It is difficult to catch a stationary frame of flowing water, which made it a challenge, and I decided to photograph it from a slightly elevated angle so that I can capture the different shapes and the freedom in movement of water.

2. MOVEMENTS WITHIN LANDSCAPE

The photographs of the gull and train weren’t extraordinary, but I wanted to have some of movement in the human landscape, and there is nothing more fitting than flying birds and a moving train.

In a similar way of using ‘animate’ objects with the freedom to move, I photographed gulls as a way to connect it to water. I like the blur effect that came with the gulls flying, it a contrast to the focused and unmoving background, and I felt that the perfect way to capture this was through a shorter shutter speed. The effect that came from it was more effective than leaving it for a longer exposure, and the crisp juxtaposition is useful in demonstrating movement.

As for the train, I went with the idea of a moving ‘inanimate’ object travelling along a fixed path, much like the clock. In the same way the second hand needle orbits the face of the clock, the train passes to and fro on its tracks. It is a typical way of showing movement, but like the photograph of the flying gull, the blur that came from the passing train was effective in showing movement against a still landscape, which effectively captured the idea of passing time.

Photography Project 2 - The Found Object

These are the final images that I have decided to use for my triptych. I found a variety of different materials, from bottles to cans to bottle caps, and because most of what I have found were related to beverages, I decided to go with that as a theme.

I chose a glass bottle, a metal can and a plastic bottle because I wanted them to contrast each other. The concept behind this still life triptych is to display three beverages side by side, each of different alcoholic content and stored in containers made from starkly different materials. I wanted the colours to match, so I went with a green foreground to match the tone in general, and having the yellow background not only compliments it but also brightens the photographs, and it was a suitable background for the shadows to be cast on in my opinion, which was why I kept it.

I shot the items in various angles under different light conditions, but I like my final compositions the most because of the shadows (or lack of, for the can). It started off as an accidental occurrence when I had my light source diagonally in front of the objects (except for the can), but I decided to employ it as a ‘technique’ after a while because I found it interesting to see the details in the shadows cast on the background, 

and for the photograph of the green glass bottle, the details on the bottle itself could be seen just slightly from its illuminated shadow, and I liked it, so I recreated the effect using the plastic bottle with the light source on the opposite side.

Having done my first triptych, I realised that I didn't particularly like the transparent plastic bottle, so I went ahead and got a green one so as to keep the work consistent in terms of presentation.

Essentially, I wanted the work to be a balanced one, which is why the objects are placed on different ends of the photographs, and the shadows of two items are moving in towards the shadow-less metal can. I have thought about creating double shadows for the metal can, but it hasn’t been as successful (but I might try it again).

Photography Project 1 - The Cut Up

The image that I have used for the final submission

For this very first photography project, it is a simple task; all we have to do is go out and recreate the part of the photograph that we have been given.

Despite it not being graded, I feel that this project taught me something very essential to basic photography, and that is precision. It is the attention to details, no matter how small, that matters, and to create a good picture, I have to be aware of every element in our work.

Since this was 1/15 of a whole image, it became even more important to take a photograph and have it be as detailed and as similar to the original as possible so that the final product when all 15 images came together would look great, and that was what I tried to do.

Admittedly, it’s not identical enough, but I am pretty satisfied with my first attempt, and this project was like a taster for what photography has in store for me, and it is quite exciting.