Tony

La Jettee

A complete film using still imagery that was based on post nuclear war. It used a full gradient black and white with a lot of noise on the images. The narration on the movie sounds like an old radio and even though no-one speaks or moves, you can still sense emotions like pain, fear and horror. The images are very shadowed and gloomy, they also look very flat and old. Throughout you can tea a lot of sound effects like thudding and whispers in a different language. A lot of the images are silhouetted and have very distinctive shapes as well as a lot of detail. The dream sequence is a major example of this. The actual images from the dream sequence compared to the rest of the film, is more 3D. Which adds to the idea of a dream being surreal and less real. This is intensified by the flat dark look of the 'real life' images. The imaging is detailed enough to know what is going on without having any narration over the top, and on a whole the images were easier to follow than the story, as well as more interesting. Here are some shots from the film: 

Dervyn, Dark Room

We have been working on developing tim with Dervin these past few weeks. Our negatives were of a practice shoot me and Katie went out and did inside college. Not many of the images came out, but we were pleased with the ones that did. 

Next we made a contact sheet by just putting all the images on the photo paper and exposing it. 

We then did a test strip to see what exposure would be best for our image.

We then used the best exposure for our image and put or best image from the negative in the enlarger and exposed it.

I then upped the contrast to sparpen the image and make it a bit more interesting.

New Assignment!!

Darkroom Practices:

Research into B&W photographers:

There aren't many photographers who work in black and white film anymore, most black and white photographers use digital now because it is easier to get the perfect shot every time. Instead of researching into the film photographers, i had a look at digital photographers who base themselves in black and white to get some ideas and see how I cud use their ideas in film. It's interesting to see how different photographers use something simple like black and white to create something completely different to everyone else, because at the end of the day black and white images are so easy to do, its hard trying to find something no-one else has done before. I tried to go for 3 completely different photographers who all focus on different styles and techniques as well as basing their portfolio on different themes. 

Nick Brandt:

I've had a look into Nick Brandt, and his images are spectacular! He mainly does nature shots, usually on wild animals in places like Africa, e.g.. Lions, elephants and giraffes. He prefers the larger, more dangerous animals, focusing mainly on the big cats and elephants in Africa. His images are always perfectly composed and highly detailed, with a mysterious element to each image. The way he has photographed each image gives each animal a separate personality and each picture a different feel. His images are shot in black and white and by the looks of it have a HDR look to them, which would probably be very very difficult to do in film. Here are some of his images that really blew me away:

Rodney Smith:

Rodney's images are all very bizarre and really interesting. He uses a range of black and white and color (even though i have only used his black and white images as examples) with his main focus on people in odd situations. His photographs all have a feeling of being in the right place at the right moment even though they are all probably staged. Even though they are weird they are photographed in a such a way, that it feel natural or normal. He uses mainly natural lighting as well as using natural setting as much as possible. His photos aren't as spectacular as Nick Brandt's but in a way they are more interesting, because you don't know what is going on in them and you have to think about it. His photos are very well composed with the model always standing apart from the surrounding as well as having an almost surreal look to them. 

Vanessa Kay:

Vanessa Kay is a general photographer that does all sorts of shoots and images but i got an idea from her. She did a lot of pet images which got me thinking about capturing people with their pets. Animals have a lot of character and expression in their face which may be hard to capture but looks amazing when you do get the perfect shot. Her images don't have a certain style or theme, but she focuses a lot on what makes up personality. She does this by looking at traits of the animal or into their eyes and face in such a way that it shows expression. Her black and white images are well lit and composed, with a lot of contrast even though she uses natural light. She doesn't just shoot in black and white, however i think her black and white images look the best because they aren't distracted by colour which means the viewer can concentrate on the image itself. Here are a few of her best images in my opinion:

Proposal: 

For my final project I want to base it on pets and nature. I want to use natural light and shadows to make aesthetically appealing images that focus on pets and their owners. I think it's sometimes hard to show emotions on animals in photos, so i want to capture the characteristics and expressions on people and their pets and try to show the relationship between them. I want high contrasted images as they tend to look better in black and white and can sometimes show more detail. I would like, if possible, to have a go at trying HDR in film, but i think it would probably need a lot of research. 

Film HDR:

I was looking into HDR with a film camera and i honestly don't think i would have the patience for it. If i were to used HDR in film i would have to take a few negatives with different exposures to expose all the parts of the image correctly. Then once i had developed the film, enlarge all the negatives and cut out the bits of the image i'd want to keep. This is very expensive and honestly would take forever to do. I'm a bit of a perfectionist at time and if the slightest bit went wrong i'd wanna redo it. And it would look amazing but at the end of it doesn't seem worth the time and effort for the project i want to do.

Ideas for shoot: 

Models;

Gash and her Labrador Tyke,

My cat Tiger,

My rabbit Cookie

My sister and her cat,

and Robyn B and her horse Winston.

Settings; 

Outside,

Nature,

Well lit,

High contrast to models, 

Mostly Macro shots.

Tim Location Techniques

Spotlighting: 

For our first shoot with Tim we used a flash gun that was mounted on a tripod to make the subject stand out from the background, As if it was done in photoshop or in studio. To do so, you need a low iso and a high F. number. With the flash gun mounted onto a tripod it gave the image depth and we also saw how easy it was to use the flash externally. Here are some examples:

Lesson 2: 


In studio techniques. The first technique we used was the silhouetting. We lit the background and stood the subject in front of the background out of the light.

The second technique e used was lip lighting, where we put the light behind the model in a way to just show the outline. 

Here are some of the other techniques we used.

I tried some more of the studio techniques in one of our other lessons and I think they came out really well. We used the red head lights and tried to be bit more experimental with it. 

Natural Light:


For this lesson we used natural light and a reflector to get the most out of people's faces and images. I think it works well with the right techniques and with the reflector in the right place. 

With this i placed Lily side on to the sun then used the reflector to light up the dark side of her face. I think it gives a nice shadowing as well as lighting up her face enough to see detail.

Here, i put the sun in different places and used the reflector to light up Lily's face again. Although she doesn't look happy, I think the technique is still working well.

We tried this in the shade as well. 


HDR:


HDR is one of my favorite location techniques. Its pretty easy to do when you use programs like photomatix, but we tried it in raw on photoshop. I prefer how it came out when we did it by hand because it is more detailed and more interesting. 
  

We opened the raw images into photoshop and adjusted them to suit how we wanted the final image to look. We then opened the image again twice, over and under exposing it ready for the next stage. 

After we had done this, i over layer the three image and rubbed out the sky on the over exposed photo lightening it and emphasizing the clouds in the background.  This is the final image i ended up with: