Assignment 1: Black

My first idea was to use a couple of, almost black, Nepalese containers. I put these in front of a plain black paper background and used a Maglite held by a clamp in a lighting stand for the directable, soft-ish light source (that was to the left, slightly behind the subjects), I also made use of daylight on the right hand side.

Assignment 1: White

This is my first attempt to convey White. Clean, crisp, soft, simple.

Assignment 1: Straight

Yesterday, my little helper (William, our 3 year old son) and I went kite flying, and of course, I took my camera (with just a 17-40mm f/4.0L lens, no tripod, cable release etc). It was great weather for kites, one heck of a wind and nice and constant. The light was poor with a thick cover of clouds. On the way to the flying location, we passed a farmers field and my helper waited whilst I took a few shots. I think this shot works pretty well for straight. The lines lead you into the picture, and the lighting does the same, becoming brighter the further into the picture you get.

I have another shot which might work. It's a tree lined path in a local wood.

And then a third candidate is a wide, tree lined grass path leading from Ashridge monument to Ashridge College. I was fortunate to find a number of deer on the path the day I took this one.

Assignment 1: Still

I decided to use this photograph to depict Still; for me it shows the still of the morning, the tranquil sunrise - so still through mood rather than anything else.

Rounded

I think I'm going to use the granite ball for rounded; shot 1 in the last post. I've re-cropped the shot and I think it works better.

Assignment 1: curved, rounded, smooth

The following shots are my first attempt at these three contrasts.
Curved

1.	2.
3.	4.

These are all based on a granite ball in the garden, it sits on a circle of pebbles and in the summer water flows up through it and trickles down it's surfaces back into a reservoir below. I think that 1,2 and 3 work pretty well. 4's not so good. 3 might be too abstract, with only the edge of the curve being in focus. At the moment I'm thinking that 2 might be the best.

Rounded

1.	2.
3.	4.

These are all taken in the same areas of the garden as the above pictures. The granite sphere is used in shot 1. I think this shot works well. Shots 2, 3 and 4 are 2 Scottish cobbles that I stacked up. Out of these, I think I prefer 4.

Smooth

1.

2.

Same location for these shots. They you go, a less abstract view of the granite sphere in 2. I think that smoothness is conveyed more in 1. I should try turning on the water pump to see if a flow of water over the sphere helps better convey the smoothness of the granite.

Assignment 1 - Continuous

I'm working on Assignment 1 - continuous today. I've gone for the age old symbol, a ring (my wedding ring) and have taken some shots on the table top studio in the lounge (the coffee table). I don't had a dedicated macro lens at the moment and so I'm using a Canon 17-40mm f/4.0L and I can fill a tiny bit of the frame with the ring, I could fit 80 or so on the frame! Here's the result of the first shoot:If I use one of the above, then I think I will use one with motion. The still shot is a bit too uninspiring. I particularly like the first shot, it's pretty abstract, almost like smoke. Maybe I should consider different lighting and backgrounds. More colour? Less contrast? I'll head out to the art shop later to get some different colours of paper, probably some pastels.

Open College of Arts - The Art of Photography

I started the course at the end of January 2008 and have been meaning to keep notes on what I've been doing - the logbook - however, thus far, my logbook has been kept to the bear minimum containing just project related notes and so I decided to keep a less tightly focused log in the form of this blog. I've completed most of the projects up to the first assignment, I've yet to complete: 8: Recording a sequence 11: Balance 13: The golden section 15: Cropping I'm collecting photos for each of these (apart from 8) as opportunities present themselves. I've also made a start on the first assignment, Contrasts, my progress can be seen on the flickr site. Here's a sample: That shot was taken at home in the lounge, a black umbrella formed the background, a clamp held the knife, and the camera was on a tripod. I played with the position of the knife until the light (daylight) caught it just right. The most recent work on the assignment was Curved. I decided to use the tracks left by car head/tail lights on a long exposure. Last evening I stood on a bridge over the A41 near Berkhamsted and waited for the light to fade. ISO 50, f/22 and 1 sec - that didn't yield the results I wanted, so wait some more. Whilst standing there, getting cold hands, along passed several police motorcycles with their blue lights flashing, their riders looked up at me :-(, thirty seconds later was another bike, and several unmarked cars escorted by a couple of regular police cars. After reading several articles in recent months about photographers being treated harshly by the police, I was a little concerned that I might get a visit on the bridge. Excuse the quality of the photo, I was trying for long exposures and didn't have the change to change the ISO (I was on 50) and exposure to the point where I might have gotten something sharper. Anyway, I didn't get a visit by the police and I'm still none the wiser regarding who was being escorted. I got a couple of nice shots out of the evenings work, this is "Curved" for my assignment:

And this is just the coloured sky through some trees - a pleasing silhouette.

Back to the projects, I've not really made a stab at project 8. The notes suggest going into the streets and taking 20-30 pictures showing how you approach and shoot a subject. You are to keep the camera to your eye whilst looking and developing the best shot, taking pictures as you proceed. Now, I'm a pretty introverted person, and getting out on the local high street with a camera clamped to my eye and taking pictures which include lots of people (who I've not asked permission from) does fill me with a certain amount of dread. I might do this at the local zoo, where people are expecting cameras.