Assignment One - Workflow - reflections

Assignment One turned out to be a significant leap forward for me.  This is the first conceptual piece of work I have done and was a distinct departure from my usual approach to landscape photography.  For that in itself I feel that it was successful although the quality of the photography would be improved with a greater understanding of processing and making light work in monochrome.  I also struggled with making the sky dark enough but not making the foreground too dark, so this is something I need to focus on in my learning of processing.  In general I would have preferred these images to be lighter, but the darkness adds to the atmosphere of imprisonment.

Looking at the Assessment criteria points:

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills

I think my observational skills were developed during this assignment.  As stated above, this was my first conceptual piece of work, and although at the start of the day I had originally set out to achieve landscapes that were aesthetically pleasing, I actually did the opposite and shot landscapes that turned out to be quite chilling.  The technical skills of the photography were standard; I think these would be improved by more advanced processing skills and learning how to alter the tones in black and white photography.  I think many of the pictures though showed quite graphic design and composition; there are a lot of prominent and horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines.

Quality of Outcome

I think this final piece of work showed a coherent approach to workflow and the presentation of my work in a coherent manner.  I have previously made subjective choices in my submission of assignments, so in this assignment I tried hard to be objective.  This was however made easier as I was photographing a subject that I was not at the time emotionally attached too, although I do now have very fond memories of my visit.

Demonstration of Creativity

I hope I have achieved this criteria point; this is an original piece of work for me.  While I was taking the images, I was very motivated by the discovery of the prison on the outside in a place that was accessible to me, but not accessible beyond.  The idea of the perimeters and boundaries created a mental juxtaposition for me, after the enlightening experience of the open cafe run by prisoners.  A while ago, I would have just taken an image of the fabulous view of Chesil Beach, so I feel that my photography has matured considerably since then.  I tried while I was shooting to find creative angles and symmetry in the images.  These I have described further in the breakdown of each image below.

Context


The context for me in this piece of work is very important.  Since starting the Art of Photography, and now Digital Photographic Practice, I have been trying to evolve away from making postcard shots.  While I was taking this set of images, I remembered the sequence I saw at the Light from the Middle East exhibition of the Israeli Watchtowers and the feeling of oppression and enclosure they conveyed.  Of course HMP The Verne on Portland is not that extreme, and it is about punishment and rehabilitation, rather than occupation and brutality.  Also my own experience in executing the photography was not risky or perilous, but nevertheless, the scenes I saw at Portland reminded me of this captivating collection of watchtowers that I documented in my Scrapbook earlier this year.

Critical evaluation:

1

Image one is one of my favourite scenes from this piece of work.  I like the contrast between the graphic lines of the  radar structure and the fluffy cloud.  Somehow in processing, I've created a halo effect, which usually I would not allow, and will correct if advised to, but it creates a surreal effect and almost looks extra terrestrial.  I would have liked to have darkened the sky without darkening the structure, which is something I need to learn.

2

I had many shots of barbed wire to choose from, some of them quite abstract, but I chose this one because I liked the fence in front with the structure sitting behind; this added to my theme if inaccessibility.  I also liked the sky in the distance.  The fence provides a strong diagonal line leading into sky and contrast between the barbed wire, which conjures up ideas of oppression and imprisonment and a sky which is often used to depict "free-thinking'.

3

When shooting image three, at the time I saw clean horizontal and straight lines, and I really liked the asymmetrical composition, with the bush and chimney pots and off-centre bay window.  The framing of the building with no edges gives a sense of perpetuity.  Afterwards I noticed the bird on the chimney stack, which I thought heightened the sense of solitude.  The boarded up windows and lack of doorway makes the building completely out of bounds.

4

This image is about the fence leading to the closed off structures behind.  In this one too, the sky would have benefited from being darker.  In this image there are many different shapes.

5

I think image five is one of the stronger images in this panel.  Strong verticals in the foreground with a diagonal leading contrasting background horizontals.  I also like the composition on the thirds in the verticals and around the centre with the horizontals.  The concept of an opening in the fence leading essentially leading to nowhere: another fenced off area - is confusing - and contributes to the theme of perimeters and boundaries.

6

Image six represents dilapidation and neglect, and again boarded off windows showing closed-off access.  Another image with strong vertical lines composed on the thirds.

7

The seventh image continues the theme of access to somewhere that is boarded off, essentially going nowhere.  Graphically, this image depicts many squares in different sizes and perspectives.

8

Jumbled composition in image eight, with again more fencing and restricted access.  Contrast of square and round shapes and the prominence of the radar communication tower.

9

Image nine shows another access point, this time quite wide in the image, but fenced off at the end.  The surrounding buildings are boarded up and look distinctly uninviting.

10

This image is quite hard to see at first.  The fence forms an immediate barrier to the structures behind, within which there are more barriers.  This is probably the weakest shot of the panel in execution, but I like the concept behind it. 

11

I think this is one of the stronger images of the panel: a closed off entrance way that is underground.  The central composition draws you straight into the doorway, but you cannot go any further. 

12

For image twelve, I was lucky.  I sudden burst of sunlight provided the perfect shadows and contrast.  This is probably the strongest shot of them all and again shows a passageway that is inaccessible.

Assignment One - Workflow - final panel

Here is my final panel for Assignment One, entitled "The Prison Within": 

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Assignment One - Workflow - workflow

Shooting

My shooting for Assignment happened entirely by accident.  I had planned to make a series of seascapes on Portland Bill (point A on the map):

My plan for the final assignment for DPP is to produce a series of negative space/minimal seascapes, influenced by Mark Bauer and Trevor Cotton.

My initial workflow consisted of the usual:

1. Check battery, memory card, focus mode, matrix metering
2. Decide ISO (100 - bright lighting)
3. Check exposure compensation set to 0 for trial shot
4. Switch to aperture priority with a wide aperture
5. Shoot, check blinkies, adjust exposure to -0.5 ev

The weather on the assigned day was fantastic - sunny with a dark cloudy sky, but when I got to the rocks at Portland Bill, I had the photographer's equivalent of "writer's block" and for some reason couldn't put what I knew into practice.  I was also battling with a new tripod in quite windy conditions and not making any progress.  I ended up with blurred pictures and a splashed lens.  This was about the best picture I got:

I retreated to the Jailhouse Cafe for some lunch and a rethink.  Whilst walking around the cafe it struck me that although this was an open space, and an uplifting place to be, with the staff free being risk assessed prisoners on day release running the Cafe, and at the same time learning skills that would help them rebuild their lives after full release, there was a marked contrast with the area surrounding the cafe looking dark, foreboding, with restricted access everywhere I looked.  It occurred to me that in a sense I was the prisoner as I couldn't access parts of the prison freely which the prisoners on day release could.  There was also a sense of dilapidation, neglect and loneliness, which once inside the cafe is lost.  For some reason, and I was really drawn to the starkness and oppressive feeling the outside of the prison conveyed.

So wandering around the grounds I started shooting. At this point the light wasn't as good as it had been so I switched between average exposure and half a stop under exposed.  I also took photos on two separate visits during the same afternoon, so there is a difference in lighting in my images.  I didn't do any editing on the day itself, saving it all for later on my laptop.  While I was wandering around I had a sense of what they would look like in monochrome or at least very desaturated colours, with almost a sense of cold war bleakness in my mind.  Everywhere I looked there were boundaries, perimeters, and no entry points cutting me off from a world that most likely I would never experience.

Editing

I had 73 images in total, which I wanted to narrow down to 12 to make a panel showing the sensations I described above.  I copied them all into a separate folder.

Step One

I scrolled through the images and deleted any obviously faulty ones, i.e. those that were blurred or which didn't show anything interesting or the sense of foreboding I described above.  This left me with 69 pictures.  But in those 69, I had a number of duplicates, so I went through this selection removing those which were very similar.  This got my selection down to 45.

Step Two

The next stage was to tag all the images that I found creatively satisfying; i.e. those in which I liked the composition or which I felt really captured the atmosphere I had experienced.  At this point I had decided that I wanted to keep all the images exactly the same size and shape as if I was creating an exhibition panel, and so I wouldn't crop any.  Therefore they could be straightened but not cropped, which was a consideration in my selection.  This left me with 22 images:

Step Three

I next worked within the 22 images to refine my choice further.  There were still a few within this selection that were quite similar so I concentrated choosing between those.  The pictures I wanted to keep I gave two stars.  This left me with 17 images, from which to eliminate five:

Step Four

This next step was the hardest: eliminating five images.  I tried to be really objective about these choices changing contrast/exposure/picture control to try to see which would look best as finished items.  In the end, this turned out to be quite simple, there were five that I simply felt did not really convey the sense of no return and solitude that the others did.  These were tagged with three stars in my folder:

Although I really like the lighting and the chain as a symbol of oppression, this image would have been better had the light been more on the chains.

The dynamic range in this image isn't great; although I really like the oppressive sky, the doorway is too dark.  This could however be altered with processing.

The depth of field was not sufficient in this image to keep the wire fence in focus; this would have been better with a blurred background and sharp fence.

Light at the end of the tunnel, therefore contradicts my concept.

Although the focal point is dead centre (the gate), the composition is not great.  This would have been better if there had been more grass to the left-hand side.  Also I used the gate in another image.






Step Five

The remaining twelve images were processed using ViewNX2 including exposure adjustment, sharpening, contrast, shadow protection, conversion to mono and straightening.  Image One also required some blemishes cleaning up as these showed in the clear sky patches.

Please see my final panel for the finished piece of work.

Editing

Step One

I started with 81 images of a juvenile tapir shot at Lake District Wildlife Park (very cute).

I tagged the initial faulty shots with a yellow star, which only removed four - these were shots that had failed on every level - the others were all technically fine, i.e. the exposure could be altered or the image could be cropped to produce a pleasing image.  So this step really wasn't much help.  I then deleted the ones I tagged with a yellow star, leaving me with 77 shots.

Step Two

I then worked through the remaining shots to pick out the ones which satisfied me creatively.  As this was a fairly simple subject, I wasn't looking for a complicated composition.  I wanted to create a couple of portraits of the two-week old creature showing it at it's cutest.  For this I worked instinctively, again tagging with a yellow star (which is visible from the grid view), so that my favorites stood out.  I decided I didn't want any pictures with any background clutter, and that a catch light in the eye was desirable but not essential.  This gave me 18 files.

Step Three

My next task was to make a selection of the next best ones.  I wanted to find the pictures with the best facial expression or ones that showed off the markings to the best effect.  I also liked the sequence of the the tapir playing with the branch.  At this point I was also thinking about the end product, so I was tweaking with exposure/contrast/cropping - just to see - but not saving.  I used a system of two and three stars to pick out images, ending up with 5 images with three stars - I then saved these in a separate folder (this is for ease of blog writing, in practice I wouldn't do that as it takes up too much memory):

2134 was chosen for the prominence of markings (although the bottom three also show these clearly); 2146 has a very cute face expression with the under developed snout crinkling up; 2147 has captured the animal in motion - both 2146 and 2147 have catch lights, and then the bottom three show some activity and clear markings - all fairly similar.





Step Four


I took a break and then looked back over the one and two star images to confirm that I was happy with my choice.  But by this time, I already knew my two favourite shots.

Step Five

Final selection  - the two best shots

2146

2146 was a clear winner for me.  I loved the awkward stance showing the wobbly nature of the two-week old animal and this view of his face clearly shows the very cute and yet to elongate nose.

Processed in mono, square cropped, increased contrast and sharpness, and added 1/2 stop exposure compensation.

2168

The other choice was a little harder to make; but 2168 was the better of the three as it showed both eyes, plus the markings and the nose.

Same processing as above.

Histogram

Three images: low dynamic range, average contrast, high dynamic range - shooting one averagely exposed, and then one that is one stop under and another that is one stop darker for each.  Compare the histograms.  Look at highlight and shadow clipping.

Low dynamic range

Low dynamic range - average exposure; scene is quite flat - indicated by the middle pyramid shape - no highlight or shadow clipping but lacks impact/wow factor (apart from the subject matter!).

Low dynamic range - one stop over exposed; scene is lighter, histogram taller and thinner and more to the right, colours less saturated and loss of texture.  Almost milky in appearance.






Low dynamic range - one stop under exposed; scene is darker, histogram taller but jagged on left (dark side) - colours more saturated and texture more apparent, but picture also clearly too dark.

For my final version, I first of all cropped to square to improve the composition and exclude the boring background (also to make the faces bigger), I retained the average exposure as this had the best balance of light vs dark, but increased contrast and texture to make the scene more dramatic and make the leopards stand out more against the background.  Also converted to mono to bring out the pattern of the leopards and helps overcome the low dynamic range.

The resultant histogram was more dome-shaped than the average spike (more resembling average contrast), with greater dark towards the left - but still no clipping.






High Dynamic Range

High dynamic range - average exposure; spiky historgram to the right showing the amount of dark in the background (although no shadow clipping) and there is a small spike to the right of the histogram showing some highlight clipping (which you can see in the edge lighting of the meerkat).

High dynamic range - one stop overexposed; histogram has moved towards the middle for the darker tones, but there is significantly more highlight clipping showing on the right-side of the histogram, which is also evident from the image itself.

High dynamic range - one stop underexposed; histogram further to the left for the dark tones, but there is no highlight clipping to the left and still no shadow clipping to the right, which suggests this is the right exposure.  To test this, I tried changing the exposure to see the exact point that the highlight disappears, and it is at one stop under exposed.

For my final version, I converted to mono and sharpened slightly (taking care not to create halos).  No other processing was required.














Average contrast

Average contrast - average exposure; histogram is dome-shaped with a fairly even distribution (slightly more dark); scene is fairly flat though

Average contrast - one stop over exposed; histogram has moved to the right as you'd expect, but there is now a more even distribution of tones.  But a tiny bit of highlight clipping has been introduced although this is not noticeable in the image.

Average contrast - one stop under exposed; histogram has moved to the left and is now a bit jagged with a top spike - indicating very dark patches, although no shadow clipping.  Image is clearly too dark.

For my final version, I used the average exposure (knowing that I would increase contrast), cropped to square to exclude the background and increase focus on the animal increased contrast and sharpened, and converted to mono to bring out the leopard pattern.

The histogram for this version doesn't look great...it's showing shadow clipping, but I think for the mono version with this kind of background, that's ok.  I double checked by also trying the one-stop over version, however I found that that one created halo (because of the small highlight clipping) when I sharpened it, so overall, the average one is the best option.