Evaluation

Overall I was very happy with my outcomes of this project. I managed to create sets of photos that I thought were interesting and I pushed myself as much as I could get capture the best images and shoot as much as possible so I had a good selection to make my final selection from.

I feel this project has helped me appreciate that your initial ideas are just as important as your end photographs and that the concepts and technical side of photography come hand in hand.

I did struggle with the in the city project as I was finding it hard to select a subject to shoot. I didn’t want to photograph people as I had done this in the street portraits project and felt that if I did shoot people both sets of work would end up the same. Once I had a subject I did complete some research and found a photographer (Gregor Graf) who really helped me envision the photos I wanted. I would have really liked to follow Grafs work more and maybe use a neutral density filter and a really long exposure to capture as few people as possible and make the streets seem desolate as I think without the people and signs a city looses some of it's identity.

For the street portraits project I was happy with my final images as they all shared the same framing and composition, which was my ultimate goal. I didn’t want an underlying link between the subjects I just wanted 6 photos of strangers that shared continuity through composition and I feel I have achieved this. I would have liked to have shot a lot more people but I was finding it hard due to weather and commitments to other aspects of the unit. I will definitely take this project on again in my own time and see how far I can push it as I feel it was a great confidence boost and I really enjoyed meeting people and hearing a little about them and sharing a connection through photographing them.

People, On The Street

Sam From Liverpool

Sarah From Dorset

Lauren From Warrington

Matt From Manchester

Sammie From Cornwall

These are the photos I've taken so far for my third assignment 'People, On The Streets'. This was a very different project as we have to approach strangers in street situations and ask to take there portrait (in any way we like) and we also have to get there name and home town. I think this project is more about building confidence than it is creating amazing photos but obviously for a project like this they come hand in hand.

I didn't find it too hard approaching people but I was careful with my approach. I decided early on I wanted to photograph people of a similar age to me and I wanted each photo to keep the same composition so there was some links between them.

I was shooting on a DSLR with a 30mm f1.4 prime lens. All but one of these photos we're taken on cloudy days so I had my aperture around f2.8 to allow loads of light in and throw the background out of focus. This also meant I could use a fast shutter speed and capture shots in rapid succesion incase my focus was off in one. I always tried to take 3/4 shots of each person both in portrait and landscape so I had plenty to work with when it came to choosing my final photos.

Here are some of the raw files and photos I didn't select for my final set:

The reasons I didn't include these were because in some the focus was off and instead of focusing on the eyes the focus was on there clothing etc. This was due to my own errors and something I managed to keep to a minimal the more I shot. Another reason I didn't select some of these was due to the composition. I wanted my final shots to all share the same composition and fill the frame as much as each other but these shots just didn't work when placed next to others mostly because they were shot landscape or contained more than one person which just wasn't what I was looking for when I decided on my final look.

I wanted my shots to have the same style because the subjects didn't have much in common apart from age so I wanted the links between the photos to be shown in the composition and framing.

I am really happy with my final images because they are well exposed and sharp and this project was a great confidence booster and helped me refresh my hands at shooting on the spot. Shooting strangers on the street means you only have a limited time to get the shot you want but when you work with people you know you can hold them up for an extra 5 minutes if things haven't worked but it was nice to have to get it right before they had to walk away.

In the city

I have spent a few days going into Manchester and taking photographs for my in the city project. I have tried to take photographs that include quite a few aspects of signage or advertising so that when I edit them out in photoshop it's obvious what's been done. I had to be careful with what I photographed as certain things would have meant a lot more work in post production. If something was blocking a billboard it had be traced around where as if there's nothing between a sign and a camera I could just fill it in with a big block of colour. However sometimes it was effective to have something in front of the signs as it made things look a little more real.

I have tried to keep a constant look throughout my 6 photos as I wanted them to share similar styles and fit together. They were all taken with the same 30mm lens and shot around f2.8 on a grey day. There was little post production work done on the images apart from masking out the signs and a small curves adjustment layer to tweak the colours.

I would have really liked to follow Grafs work more and maybe use a neutral density filter and a really long exposure to capture as few people as possible and make the streets seem desolate as I think without the people and signs a city looses some of it's identity.

Here are my final shots:

Gregor Graf: Hidden Town

For my project ‘In the city’ I want to create a series of images that remove the advertisements we are bombarded with every time we go into any city.

Manchester is a city full of big corporations and massive amounts of advertising. We see billboards and posters so much they blend into the city because they are everywhere. We are used to seeing them and they seem natural. In my project I want to take photos from the streets but cover all the advertising within the shot and show that the photos look unnatural because we’ve become so accepting of corporate advertising.

I want people to realise how much advertisement there actually is in a city and that because we are so used to it streets look strange when they are all covered up. I want people to see the photographers and then take notice of just how many signs/advertisements there are on one street. I think people use them as a point of reference and landmarks to remember where things are but if they are removed people are forced to look at the city more. They would be more aware of the people and buildings around them and could even possibly be more social.

In modern day society people are detached from the world around them and often rely on advertising to get information about what’s happening in the city. Walking through Manchester you are bombarded with offers from retailers, banks, travel agencies and much more and so people are always aware of when a high street retailer is having a sale. If these advertisements were to be removed I think people would people focus more on the city, the buildings around them and the people they are passing.

Gregor Graf is a photographer who has produced a series of photographs with a very similar message. He has traveled the world photographing popular cities but he then removes all the signs and people from the photos to create a somewhat unnatural setting. The tagline of his project was “How can we read a city without signs?”. He looked at the effect visual advertising has on cities and how they look if they are completely removed.

His final shots are phenomenal and much more technical than I could achieve with mine as he obviously has a lot of experience with postproduction. Instead of cloning out with signs like Graf has I will just be masking over the advertisements with solid blocks of colour so you would still be able to see a billboard but it would be blank.

His photos from this project seem empty and fake because everything with associate with a busy high street has been removed, the identity of the city has been removed as he has taken it to the extremes and removed the names of shops and all evidence of human life to create some what apocalyptic shots.

http://www.gregorgraf.net/warschau.html

Street Photography

After being given a brief to take portraits of strangers in the street I wanted to look at a few street photographers for a little inspiration.

I've dabbled in street photography in the past for personal work and I really enjoyed it although it was mostly candid work without asking the subjects permission or without them noticing as I like the idea of them not changing for the camera. I feel you get a true representation of someone when they don't know a camera is there.

However for this project I have to interact with my subjects, ask to to take there photograph after explaining I've got to photograph strangers and make a note of there name and where they are from. This exercise will be a new one for me but I'm looking forward to the challenge and hopefully talking to people about my photography and learning a little about them.

One photographer I really like the work of is Danny Santos. He is actually a graphic designer 5 days a week and only a weekend hobbyist photographer but he has gained exposure for his street photography over the past few years and has been taking a lot of time out of his day job to photograph on the streets of his current home, Singapore. His shots are pretty candid and he doesn't interact with his subjects but I like the composition and use of light. This sets him apart from a lot of other street photographers. He likes to have his subject in the centre of the frame and they are usually only visible from the waste up. This is a style I think I want to employ in my own portraits as I think full body shots will mean a loss of intimacy between me and my subject.

http://www.dannyst.com/

Colour Swatch

This was the second assignment we've been given an in some ways it's quite similar to the first. We were each given a colour swatch and told to create images that use that color. Alongside this we had to still keep the key words in mind and try and get both a key word and a colour into one photo.

This one was much more of a challenge but was great for opening your eyes. I found myself walking around and being much more observational. 

These are my 3 final images and as you can tell, my colour was green! I found myself focusing on more natural environments as that's what I associated green with but I didn't want to have 3 photos of trees or plants so I ventured back into manchester and snapped the below shot after hours of searching!

The above shot was my favourite by far and was actually a happy accident. I was lying on the floor experimenting with points of focus between the foreground and background and settled on a mid point and was just off to one side enough for some flare to leak through the brick wall and acted as a rim light for the plant.

The feedback I got from the group critique were helpful. People picked up on the fact my colour swatch was an emerald green but my photos were a much lighter shade. Again this was the best I could do as it was really hard to match something to the shade of green and have it still convey a key word!

Keywords

This is the first assignment we've been given and it's a really broad one. We were given a list of 'keywords':

 Vibrant, speed, reflection, reflective, form, shape, texture, rough, light, dynamic, still, calm, cool, cold, urban, decay, natural, speed, slow, heavy, playful, relationship, link, communicate

We were told to go out and take photographs that represent a certain keyword either in a literal or conceptual sense.

I chose to go into Manchester as there's so much diversity there I was confident I could create 5-7 images in one shoot. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on side and it rained for the entire day but none the less I got some shots and I'm really happy with them. I tried to take a conceptual approach to my photos and wanted the audience to make up there own mind on what the word could be as some photos seemed to fit for 2-3 key words.

I'm really happy with how these turned out especially for my first assignment. I think I've got a good range of subject matter and I tried a few different things like shooting from the hip in order to get some of the shots. I gained a lot of feedback from the group critique and people really seemed to like the last photo of the 3 business men. This was my favourite photo as there's a real sense of emotion between them and they are obviously linked through work and something appears to be bothering them!