A Dull Day - 7-11-17 (Shoot 5)

7-11-17 - Dull Day 

Photographer Research - Charlie Waite 

      Above is a few of Charlie Waite's photography, one of the worlds leading landscape photographers. In order it goes from 'Inle Lake, Myanmar', 'Rydal Water, England' and 'Autoire, France'. I really like the work of Charlie Waite as these images focus on wintery, frosty scenes. They have the signifiers of winter such as the dull skies, frosty trees, fallen leaves showing bare branches all of which I am looking at in my work. As I want to record the change of season I need to include the obvious signs of winter arriving, Charlie's work has inspired me and helped me to recognise how I will include this in my own work. 

Contact Sheets 

Best Images (Edited) 

Below are my 4 best images from shoot 5 'A Dull Day'. This shoot was inspired by the photographer Charlie Waite as when looking through his work I came across a few images that looked like they had been taken on dreary, winter days something that will be a running theme in my work. These images have been edited in Photoshop, I shot them raw as NEF files in order to achieve the detail you can see in the sky. I believe this has worked well because compared to my previous images I feel I was able to gain more detail and edit my images more effectively without loosing the shadows or making the exposure go off balance due to the NEF setting.  

Images requiring improvement 

      The two images above are the main two that I believe require improvement. As you can see the first is underexposed and the second is overexposed. Both of these photos were taken at the beginning of the shoot therefore I was getting used to shooting raw and using a tripod so having a low ISO to counteract noise. The first I believe needed a longer shutter speed, I used 1/30s for this image but I think 1/8s or 1/2s would have been beneficial. I think this image was dark as I took it looking up at the sky so directly behind my subject was almost bright white sky making my subject look dark and lacking detail. The second image is overexposed, therefore I think I should've tried a shorter shutter sped of around 1/125s, which may have worked much better. I also think that as I used zoom on the lens for this photo that contributed towards the overexposure as I found this throughout my shoot, not just this particular setting. 

AO1 - Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding. 

      As I mentioned before this shoot was based on the work of Charlie Waite. As I was looking through Charlie's work I noticed that some of his images are taken in the English countryside showing a wintery or a dreary scene. His photographs focused on the dark clouds in the sky or the bare leaves and shapes of the tree's that showed the season of winter approaching or already arrived. This is what I tried to take into my own work. I found the composition of Waite's work very interesting, especially the one of the solitary tree, the whole image occurred around it as it occupied the centre. 

AO2 - Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and reining ideas as work develops. 

      For these images I decided to try out shooting raw using NEF files. I decided to use this setting as in previous shoots when it came to the editing process I lost a lot of detail in the sky and in darker areas of the image. whereas, when using the NEF setting I have managed to keep that detail when editing which I am very pleased with as it has improved my images. For this shoot I used a tripod as I wanted to use an ISO100 in order to minimise the noise in my photographs, therefore my shutter speeds needed to be longer requiring a tripod to avoid blur. 

Editing -

       By shooting in the NEF setting, it allowed me to have another step when putting my images into Photoshop, as you can see from the first screenshot below. I found this useful as it helps me to achieve the level of detail I want to in the sky especially.  I used nearly all of the bars in order to get the best picture that I could. I decided in majority of my photographs to take the 'highlights' bar right down to get the dark, grey sky. This also helped me to achieve the greyscale effect as Ansel Adams Zone System suggests should be in most images. 

       When the photograph was the taken into the main part of Photoshop I used curves most of the time, some of it was just slight adjustment in order to again really add emphasis to the clouds and detail of the sky. However, I still paid attention to making sure there were no dark areas that lacked detail as this would've made blank areas on my photograph that brings the quality down. I find curves a useful tool to use when editing images like this one as I can be very precise with what I adjust.

       For most of the images in this shoot I used dodging and burning, again to help with the detail within the image. I mainly used the burning tool around the top of the image and the dodging tool around the main area so that it appeared bright and draws the attention of my viewer in. For this particular image I used the dodging tool down the middle of the path and just where your eyes head up at the end, this made a tunnel appearance that adds a distance from where the photo was taken to the end. 

AO3 - Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress. 

      This shoot was based around the work of Charlie Waite, he photographs landscapes that are very interesting and original compared to some of the others I have seen. In particular I liked the dreary, grey appearance of the sky in some of his images, something I wanted to include in my own work especially as I am trying to record the change in season from summer to autumn and winter. I feel that the grey sky really indicates the dark days that winter brings, the same as Waite's work does. 

      This is one of my photographs comparing to one of Charlie Waite's photographs. The top image is by Charlie, it features a solitary tree in the centre of the image with only slight detail on the ground next to it and it occupies most of the image with majority being the sky. This is extremely similar to the photograph that I took and I think it works really well, I like the composition of the images despite the tree being a lot smaller in my photo I still think it works really well. The composition is similar as the tree is the centre however it only occupies the bottom third of the image so the rule of thirds still applies. 

AO4 - Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements. 

       I believe i have produced a good piece of work with the shoot as it shows a clear progression with my idea and carries on the story of my project. I also believe that it is a good response to the work of Charlie Waite as he was my inspiration for this shoot. Lastly, I think this shoot really shows a good progression in the technical side of my work. It shows that I am learning new techniques within my work that are helping me improve and produce better images. This was my first shoot with a tripod which allowed me to use accurate settings such as ISO100 and F22, in combination require a longer shutter sped that wouldn't be possible without a tripod as the images would be blurry. I also shot raw for these photographs as this helps me maintain the detail I needed in the editing process.