Task two; technical

Aperture:

I looked at aperture and decided to take a photograph with an object in the far background to concentrate on. Here you can see that I have focused on the table  I am taking the photo from and they key blurred out thing that we notice in the background is the yellow safety sign. I chose this as I thought that the bold colour stood out in the image well as all the other colours in my photo and very mute and earthy colours.
I used a narrow and a wide aperture of f3.5 and f22. The photo I took with a narrow aperture is very blurred in the background and the focus is on the middle ground. On the other hand the photo with a high aperture is very focused on the background making the hazard sign very clear.
Low aperture would most usually be seen in either fashion photography or advertising. The background would be blurred out to bring all the focus and attention on the main object or feature in the foreground of the image.
A high aperture would be used during landscape photography to make sure everything in the image is clear and level with all the details in the photo in focus.

ISO:

The picture to the right at the top shows a photograph from underneath a chair.  Due to the high ISO we can see that the photo is overexposed letting a lot of light into the lens making the image look washed out and colourless. The image is unclear and makes it difficult to see what the photo is of. The photograph underneath it is from the same place with a lower ISO as you can see the image is more clear and has colour to it.
The top image is very overexposed and too light to see the picture clearly, this was taken with the ISO of 6400. The image below shows the photo from the same place and angle however the ISO is set to 800 making the image clear to see.

Colour:

The three pictures to the left show me experimenting with colour by changing the white balance, the photographs are from the same angle of the same scene however none of them are set to the same white balance. The image at the top is taken with the "shade" setting of white balance this gives the image an orange tone to it, the image below it was taken with a white balance set to "tungsten light" as you can see from the image this gives the photo a strong blue tint to the picture, the image below is set to a white balance called "white fluorescent light" this also gives a blue tint to the picture however not as strong as the setting above. The lowest image is more purple toned than blue.

Taken with a high shutter speed of 1-500

 Shutter speed: 

Taken with a low shutter speed of 1-40

When looking into shutter speed I did some primary research using both a low shutter speed of 1-40 and a high shutter speed of 1-500 to see the difference. As you can see from the images to the right, the top image is a lot clearer than the image below and captures the movement of the person jumping from some stairs, the lower image is very blurred and doesn't have much detail to the person in the image. This is evidence that the higher your shutter speed the clearer the image will be and the movement will be captured better. Changing the shutter speed will help you to take a moving image the way that you want to for example if you were to take an image of a water droplet falling you could either use a low shutter speed to get a smooth photo of the droplet falling or you could use a high shutter speed to capture the drop almost as if it was still so you can see all the details in the photo.









composition:
This image shows The Rule Of Thirds The rule of thirds is a guideline often used when taking photos, it is when you add imaginary lines both horizontally and vertically to make 6 equal boxes to help you put the most important parts of the photo where the lines intersect.

As you can see in this image, the rule of thirds grid has been placed over the photograph so that you can clearly see how it helps when taking a photo. This is a very good example of the way the rule of thirds helps to make an image look good. This image here is a landscape image of a sunset at sea, as you can see the lowest horizontal line is parallel to the furthest part of the sea and also is in line with the sun perfectly, thanks to the sun being in line with the last horizontal line this means that the middle box is now filled with the centre of the clouds and warmest colours, this pulls all the attention to the centre of the image and makes the image have more depth and warmth. Both of the 2 boxes at the top left and right show a darker cloud running across the top of the image, the placement of the darker clouds are almost equal and both of the bottom left and right boxes have a rowing boat in them, again this draws more attention to the centre of the image due to it being equal elsewhere in the photo.

The image underneath shows my attempt at showing composition. I took a photo of a class member sat on a chair in the centre of the image. I used the grid over the image to make it obvious that he is central in the image, the horizontal lines go equally through his knees and half way between his elbow and shoulder. The top horizontal line is perfectly in line with the neck hole of his top . The 2 vertical lines also go through his knees and all of the lines when crossed in a grid formation split the image into 9 boxes. The boxes that pull in the most attention are the middle box and the middle top box, the top middle book has an equal shot of his head and shoulders. Also the middle box shows his body, this again is very equal and central with an equal amount of space surrounding his body.

Task 1 photography formats primary research

primary research on photography formats:

Fashion photography: 
The first format of photography that I looked into was fashion, as you can see to the right i have tried to recreate a photo of a model from a picture taken by a photographer called Ben Hassett. Although the image isn't identical they are very similar. as you can see in the original image below there is a small patch of shadow in the lower right corner of the image, you can see the in my recreation of the photo that a similar shadow has been created again in the lower right of the photo. There is also shadow on the left side of both images with the light coming in from the right. Whilst Hassett used a studio and a key light, i used natural light from a window and placed my model against a white background. My image is well in focus however if i was to do this again i would slightly change the position of my models arms to match Hassetts model and i would retake the image in a studio with a key light to create more contrast in the image. In addition to this i would also make my version of the image black and white.

Landscape photography:
I didn't do an exact replica of another photographers work for my secondary research on landscape instead i looked at what it takes to get a good landscape image. My image was taken in a "daylight" setting of white balance to get a good lighting and colour. The photo was taken from a window near the top of my college building. This helped me get an inters testing angle and the trees on the right hand side make the image look mysterious as if hiding something in the photo.

Advertising photography:
For this photo I took a photograph of a bus, I feel like this would be a good photo to advertise the stagecoach buses. The image is well in focus and pulls in all the colours well. I used a very high shutter speed on this image so that even though the bus moved, the image looked still and you can clearly see the photo. I took the image at mid day therefore I set my white balance to 'daytime' so that the lighting in my photo would be good and all the colours would be clear.

Photojournalism photography:
photo journalism is the same as documentary photography, for my primary research I decided that I would look for something that we see in everyday life that we don't often pick up on. Here I have taken a picture of a young girl smoking a cigarette in central Manchester, just like the image above I took my photo at mid day so used a daylight setting of white balance to make the colours true to the camera. the girl is wearing mostly neutral colours however is stood against a brightly coloured door therefore making her stand out. To get the photo I wanted i took several images whist the cigarette was being smoked so I could capture the moment realistically, the photo wasn't staged therefore shows the realism of under aged smokers.

Task 1 photography formats secondary research

This post will help you to understand different applications of photography, In this blog post I will explain four of the most popular photographic formats; fashion, landscape, 

Fashion:

A popular fashion photographer I have chosen to do my secondary research on is Ben Hassett, He trained as an art and landscape photographer but transitioned early in his career to fashion and beauty. Hassett experiments with shadow, light, colour and form and takes almost all of his photos in a studio where he has full control of his lighting. whilst he recently moved from his London home to France to then New York, Hassett works often for Vogue magazines across the world and some of his advertising clients include Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), Burberry, L’Oreal, and Christian Dior.

From Hassetts work i have realised that when taking photographs its best to have full control over the image for example the lighting, background and angle of the image. I also discovered that a lot of fashion photographs use basic black or white backgrounds such as the 2 images above. There are many components in fashion photography that make it obvious what type of format the photo is,  for example the models used in the images above are the first clear indicator we see as to what format of photo it is, the poses and confidence the model help draw the viewer to the fashion and shown. The image at the top shows a strong contrast of light with a lot of light coming from the right hand side of the picture, this draws a lot of attention to the red lips of a woman in her early 20's, the classic red lip is a very common symbol to show girls being seductive. Photographs such as this would be very commonly seen in glossy magazines that are aimed towards women in their 20's or just under that aspire to look like the model in the picture.

Documentary:

photojournalism is the art of using photographs to tell a story, this is often seen in news papers or on line articles. Depending on the image used the target audience can be aimed towards nearly everyone, the image on the left shows a small baby from a third world country and was taken by a photojournalist called Senol Zorlu, this particular images would reach out to people who have children, The image shows a baby in a very murky earth toned photograph, the baby has almost a sad expression on his face and would instantly pull in a parents attention.
When looking through photographs i realised that a lot of photos used in photo journalism are for upsetting news story's, the image is used to help capture the emotions and feeling of the story. Particularly in Senol Zorlus work I realised that he uses very neutral and earth toned filters and colours over his photographs which instantly bring an element of sadness to the photograph, he also often has one main subject in the image that is key to the photograph and what its trying to say, for example in the picture above the key part of the image would be the little baby that is wrapped in a blanket.


Landscape 


For my landscape photography research I used a photographer called Michael Molloy who uses different tones and colours to change the atmosphere of the photograph, the photo at the top on the right shows a photo of a purple sunset fading from black to a light pink. The image has multiple trees that look like black silhouettes that stand out against the colourful background. The image is taken from a wide angel and captures the full scenery. The image underneath the photo of a sunset shows a landscape image of a large city, the photograph again is taken so that you can see the whole scene and everything in it. The main part of this picture is the 3 large buildings at the back in the centre of the photo, the two buildings on each side of the large central building are of similar heights and colours which give the image a sense of symmetry. The photo also draws attention to the large river running through centre of the city. The photo has purposely been taken slightly out of focus as you get toward the bottom, this helps draw al lot of attention to the top half and the centre of the image making viewers look at the certain part of the photograph.


Advertising 

photography is used very often in the advertising industry, in the image to the left we can see a photo taken by Jason Mitchell for a company called Nanotherm, the image is in focus and pulls a lot of its attention to the company name written on the staff members lab coat, there is also a lot of focus on the piece of scientific equipment in the top pocket. When researching i realised that a lot of advertising pictures like to keep the colours bold and clear, the photos are usually in full focus of only have the unnecessary background out of focus so that the viewers attention isn't drawn anywhere else. 

landscape photo

In this photograph I stuck to a very basic landscape photo, the picture is taken slightly at a birds eye view tilt at a wide angle shot. I set the camera to manual to help myself have my control over the camera so I could take the photo how I prefer it. 

Because the I took the picture outside at mid day, the camera was set to daylight and on high quality to capture detail and colour perfectly. I also put the auto optimiser on low because there was daylight outside and I didn't want the picture to be over exposed or too bright. When I first look at the picture I see the picture to be empty however if you closely underneath the red wood you can just about see a few people almost hiding from the photo, it makes me think about how sometimes you need to take a second look and look a bit closer in life to see the things you could miss. 

stairs

I took this picture as I liked the way the stairs looked, I took it from a birds eye from the right side towards the left. I think the colours in the picture are very bleak and colourless, the way the stairs flow and curve makes me feel like they lead somewhere important, they remind me of stairs you would find in a film about magical adventures. If the stairs went straight down I don't feel that the picture would have the same effect on the person looking at the image. I also took this picture because I thought it looked interesting and the angle makes the picture abstract. When I took this picture the auto lighting optimiser was set to low. I used manual focus and single shooting. It was set to a high quality jpeg 18M.