Final Major Project.

Idea:

The theme behind what I would like to do during my Final Major Project will center around the subject of landscapes & nature, but I don’t just want to do pretty landscapes you find in the countryside, I want to do different kinds of landscapes likes cityscapes & possibly seascapes, looking at the differences between them.  When I say nature I originally mean taking photographs of wildlife & even plant life, which I would most likely use my macro & telephoto lens for to get detail.

I want to produce around 4 final image presented in A2 size on MDF board of 12mm thickness, I will hang in one the exhibition wall for the end of year show with batons, so that the images do not look flat on the wall & stand out from the wall. When placed on show they will be in 2 rows of of 2 across my stretch of wall. My aim is to have 4 final photos, 1 landscape, 1 cityscape, 1 seascape & 1 cloudscape.

As the work is being presented in the end of year show, I need to buy A2 paper, which for 25 sheets alone costs £50, which is why I plan to share 1 pack with a classmate so I only have to pay £25 for half of the pack. I also need to think about the printing costs, unless I need to I don't want to have to print out more than I need as an A2 sheet in colour cost £1 per print. Then finally there's the MDF, which is apparently fairly cheap to have bought & cut down to the correct sizes, so in theory it shouldn't cost more than £20.

I have 1 main influences behind this idea for my FMP, Adam Ansel & his black & white landscape photography. Some ideas I do have are based on the times of day, for example I could go to the same location at different times of day & take the photos of what the places look like at certain times of the day. 

For this project I would like all my other projects be using a digital camera to produce my final prints, just as I have always preferred to use digital over film, but I may also use colour film as I’ve never tried printing in colour yet, & with the facilities I would like to try colour film printing before I leave City College. I think this project will probably involve me creating more panoramas, which has become more interesting to me since properly learning how to create them on Photoshop.

Timescale:

Week 1 (16th-22nd April): Intro into project, ideas, FMP Plan, finding locations, possibly taking photos.

Week 2 (23rd-29th April): Research/blog, finding locations, taking photos, producing contact sheets.

Week 3 (30th April-6th May): Blog work, taking photos.

Week 4 (7th-13th May): Blog work, taking photos.

Week 5 (14th-20th May): Buying MDF board for mounting, taking photos if needed, editing photos.

Week 6 (21st-27th May): Final editing of photos, taking photos if needed, printing.

Week 7 (28th-31st May): Possible more final editing, final mounting to MDF board.

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Research:

Ansel Adams is probably one of the most known landscape photographers in history, being well known for his sharp black & white landscapes around America, most notably in the American West & Yosemite National Park. In terms of my own project his work relates to the landscape side of the project proposal. The Tetons and the Snake River is arguably one of his most popular American West landscapes, there is a  wide variety in the tonal range of this image, ranging from light greys to near blacks. If I wanted a landscape with a good tonal range & high contrast like this if I were using B&W film I would set a the filter in the darkroom to around 4 or 5 to get that good range of tones in the image.

The Tetons and the Snake River (1942), by Ansel Adams.

Another of Adam's photographs that relates my FMP is his photograph of Tenaya Lake in Yosemite National Park. It’s not just because of the landscape that I’m looking at this image, I’m also looking at the sky & the way that the clouds are presented in this image. They look very dramatic in this photo, they stand out in the photo, this shoot could have been a planned shot, i.e. Adams could have gone to this location on a regular basis until the landscape looked how he wanted it to, or it could have been the first time he went to this place.

Tenaya Lake, Yosemite National Park, California (1946) by Ansel Adams.

The one thing I would consider presenting my photos like Adams is to have them in black & white, as his photos look spectacular to look at, I could possibly make my own photos look more dramatic. However, even though I would consider this with my different types of landscapes, as I am taking them at sunset, I would prefer to capture them in colour. 

 

J. M. W. Turner was a British landscape painter, most commonly painting in the style of romanticism. His work that relates to my FMP include his paintings during sunsets, which in particular during the Industrial Revolution were symbolism for change in the world, his most notable paintings for this was Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway in which he painted the newly invented Steam Engine traveling across the Maidenhead Railway Bridge that was overlooking the east of London.

Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway (circa 1844) by J. M. W. Turner.

In the bottom right hand corner of his painting, Turner painted a small hare, running away from the train, over the years it has been interpreted by several meanings, the main 2 meanings being that the hare is either running in front of the train to suggest the limitations of the new technology at the start of the industrial revolution, the other to suggest that the hare is running away from the train in fear of the new machinery & technology.

The Fighting Temeraire (circa 1838) by J. M. W. Turner

In this painting we see the old war ship HMS Temeraire being pulled to its final resting place before being broken up & salvaged for other uses. Like Rain, Steam and Speed, The Fighting Temeraire also has a representation of the industrial revolution, with the tugboat pulling it to its final home in Rotherhithe in South East London, the tugboat symbolises the changes of technology that the industrial revolution brings with it, no more second-rate ships of the line. The sunset painted into the image also represents change in the world, the uprising of the industrial revolution, this is part of one of the meanings that I want to symbolise in my photos, as in recent years we have had several changes when it comes to technology, the invention of the portable tablet computers for example.

Thomas Cole was an American Artist & Painter who is regarded as the man who founded the Hudson River School. He was most known for his realistic & detailed painting of the American wilderness & landscapes. His landscapes are what relate to my FMP, they are quite theatrical in terms the scenery, as they look like they are something from biblical times, as if God is controlling the weather, like in The Course of Empire: The Savage State.

The Course of Empire: The Savage State (1836) by Thomas Cole

In this painting we can see on the left hand side there is a massive storm, which looks as if the heavens have opened & God punishing those who live on or near this land, yet on the right hand side, its a bit less chaotic, the sky looks calmer, as well as the sea. What I would take from this & put into my own project is to Photoshop a scene like this, possibly make it look more modern, say in a city.

Claude Monet was the founder of Impressionism, the term being derived from his painting Impression, Sunrise. This relates to the time of day that I wish to take my photos, although instead of sunrises, I am photographing sunsets. "Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me." This is what Monet explained his title behind his painting. I think it explains how he created the art movement of Impressionism.

Impression, Sunrise (circa 1872) by Claude Monet

To me I think the main meaning behind this painting is a new beginning, to a new world, as this was just after the period in the uprising of the Industrial Revolution. Aside from the sun rising, the main feature of this painting is what appears to be a small rowing boat, & in the background we can just make out what looks like smoke that is possibly coming from chimneys from other larger boats or from on the land.

Location Photography is based outside at a certain location rather than in a studio at college. This type of photography is generally used for landscape types of photography, but it is also used for wedding photography & possible other types of portrait photography as well. The main reason I am looking at location photography is because for my final major project I will be shooting in locations that will relate to my my idea, so my locations need to be in a place where the sky & horizon is in clear view, as I am shooting sunsets. 
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Possible Location Ideas:
For my idea I need to think of several places that I could go to to take my photo, the locations would depend on what type of landscape I wanted to base then on, so for example if I wanted a cityscape I would want to go somewhere high up enough to survey over the whatever town or city I would want in the photo. For landscapes I would go into places with nice looking countryside areas such as woodlands. Seascapes is most obvious when looking for locations, I would find a location by the sea or with a view of the sea. And as for cloud & skyscapes I would go somewhere with a clear view of the sky. 

Cityscape Location Ideas:
Brighton from Racecourse - From the racecourse you can get some good views of parts of the city along the coast, but its a fair distance, so a telephoto lens may be needed. From here you can also get landscape photos of the surrounding countryside behinds Brighton on the Downs. This location is easily accessible to me, either by car or by bus.
Brighton from Wheel - From the Brighton Wheel you can get a lot more of a closer view of the city from above than you would from the racecourse, you could also get some seascape photos from there to with the piers in the background. This location is also easily accessible to me, more so by bus than car for this location though as its in the centre of town.

Worthing from Multi-Storey Car parks - There are several multi-storey car parks in which I could choose from in Worthing, but I would need to chose one that I knew was quite high up so that I could see a majority of Worthing in the photo. Also depending on what car parks I could go to I could also get some seascape shots there too.

London from London Eye - This would probably be one of the best options for cityscapes, seeing as London is the capital. From the London Eye you can see all over the city so there would probably be a variety of scenes you could shoot from up there. The only problem with this location is cost & time, it would cost a fair amount to get up there by train, as well as other train/tube fare to get there & probably somewhere between £10-£20 to pay for a ticket onto the Eye. For the timing I wouldn't be able to take photos at the time of day I want.

Portsmouth from Spinnaker Tower - Like the London Eye it another good option for cityscapes as its a very high up location & you can see many areas of Portsmouth, but it has almost the same disadvantages as London as well with timing, the Spinnaker Tower would not be open past a certain time, so I would not be able to capture the sun setting across the city, as for the costs to get a train there & a ticket for the Spinnaker Tower, they would be considerably cheaper than going up to London.

Landscape Location Ideas:
Shoreham Airport/A27/River Adur from Mill Hill - From Mill Hill on the Downs you can see for miles around, I've been there many times over the years, it was even one of the places where I did a shoot for my Contemporary Colour Project there. Its a particularly nice place to visit in the evenings, which is why I think it would be a good landscape to do a shoot at sunset.The easiest way to get there is by car, but if I wanted to go there on my own one evening than I would have to get a bus & walk up there or perhaps even cycle.
River Adur from Shoreham-by-Sea - The particular place I want to shoot for this by Adur Recreation Ground in Shoreham, you can get a good view of the river from here as it is right by it. If I shoot here the main element I want in the photo is the railway bridge that crosses the river & the hills behind it silhouetted & the sun reflected in the river as it sets. This is also very easily accessible by bus, & it doesn't take that long to reach there from where I live.

Friston Forest - I don't believe I have ever been to Friston Forest, at least not that I know of, I've only seen what it looks like in photos, which is why I chose to this as a possible location to visit. Although it wouldn't be an traditional landscape from a high up point looking over some fields for example, it would create a nice setting for a photo, I would make sure I went on a day with good weather, as a forest in the rain may not look so good as it would in sunlight. The drawbacks with this though is that its only accessible by car & only one bus goes there. I would also have the problem of not be able to go there in the evening.

Seascape Location Ideas:
Beachy Head - Beachy Head is probably one of my more interesting ideas for locations for seascapes, the main thing I want if I go here is to get the lighthouse in the photo from the top of the cliff at beachy head, or if the time of day way right walk & get a photo of it from ground level, but the problem there would be that I would need to go at a specific time of day at low tide to get there. If I were to go to Beachy head I would try & go there on the same day as going to Friston Forest if I chose that as a location, as they are quite close to each other.

Brighton/Hove Seafront - This is probably the easiest location to go to as it is near by & most easily accessible by public transport. The main area I think I would probably want shoot around is the West Pier, & I would most likely use a long exposure to blur the waves as they come up the beach, for this I would need my tripod as so the photo does not get blurred from the long exposure, I could also bring my remote timer shutter release so that I would not need to touch the camera which would also lead to camera shake.

Cloud/Skyscape Location Ideas:
Rottingdean Windmill - The main idea behind this location is to get a silhouette of the windmill against the sun setting. Its a reasonably accessible place to get to, there are only a couple if buses that go there & then walk from the bus stop to the location. From this location you can also see over Brighton, which may be good for cityscapes, you can also see the sea, so it would be possible to get seascapes, but for that I would go down to Rottingdean Beach.

Shoreham Power Station - This location had the same idea behind it as at Rottingdean Windmill, having the Power Station silhouetted against the sky whilst the sun sets. This is another reasonably accessible place to get to, either by bus or train from near where I live & then walk to the location. The possible problems with location though with restrictions around the area where the warehouses are.

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Risk Assessment:
Risk assessment is quite important for shooting in certain locations I plan on shooting at. Although possible events in these locations are very unlikely to happen, its good to have a risk assessment to avoid the possibilities of them occurring at all.

Risk Assessment Key:

Likelihood of Event Occurring:                          Severity:  
1. Very Unlikely                                                   1. No Injury/ Very Minor Injury
2. Unlikely                                                           2. Minor Injury
3. May Happen                                                   3. Injury
4. Likely                                                              4. Severe Injury
5. Very Likely                                                      5. Very Severe Injury - Risk of Death.

Assessment = Likelihood x Severity:

Low = 1-6        Medium = 7-16        High = 17-25

Risk: Falling over edge of Cliff.          Location: Beachy Head.
Likelihood: I would say this is at 2, unlikely, as where I plan to take the photos of the lighthouse at Beachy Head has fencing, although only a couple of metres up from there the fence ends & there's is just the cliff edge, the fencing is also not that high, so it could be a case of peering over the edge of the cliff & falling by accident or even the cliff edge giving way, both of which are still unlikely to happen.
Severity:  Although occurrences such as these are unlikely to happen, the severity would be high at 5. Very Severe Injury - Risk of Death, as lets face it, its very unlikely for someone to survive a fall down a cliff.
Risk Assessment: 2x5=10, so the probability of this occurring is at a medium level.

How To Prevent: Put basically, be sensible when photographing on cliffs. 

Risk: Car Related Accident.          Location: Anywhere.

Likelihood: The likelihood of this happening is at 2, unlikely, but depending on circumstances it could become likely.

Severity: The severity is hard to predict, say if you were hit by a car traveling at a reasonably high speed for some reason, it could be at 4 or 5, Severe Injuries, but it could be less, which is why I will put it in the middle, at 3, Injury.

Risk Assessment: 2x3=6, so the probability of this occurring is low, although could be higher depending on circumstances.
How To Prevent: Be safe around roadsides.

Risk: Falling Over.          Location: Anywhere.
Likelihood: Depends on the location you are photographing, if in the countryside you could trip over a mound or something, or if your in an urban area you may trip on the pavement, so I would say 3, may happen.
Severity: That can also depend on circumstances, you may only trip & stumble back onto your feet or you may fall & break a limb, so I would say between 1-4, No Injury/ Very Minor Injury - Severe Injury. 
Risk Assessment: 3x2.5=7.5, so the probability of this occurring is medium, but could be more or less.
How To Prevent: Wear suitable footwear (depending on locations) & look where you are going.
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Contact Sheets 01:

My contact sheets so far includes 3 of my original themes within my main theme, I've taken a vague variety of cityscapes & cloudscapes so far & have only really done 1 set of seascape photos. The two locations used in my cityscapes are currently looking out over Worthing & Eastbourne. The ones I have taken overlooking Worthing are taken from the top of a car park in the center of town, so I was a lot closer to the buildings than I was when taking photos of Eastbourne, which I took from a hill overlooking the town. I don't particularly like some of these photos, especially those taken in Worthing, which stick out from the over photos as they were taken in overcast weather, whereas all my other photos have been taken in clear weather.

Currently the only location I have taken photos looking at the sea & seascapes has been at beachy head. With these, as well as my current cityscape photos, I haven't been able to take photos of these locations at the specific time that I wanted to (which had been in the evening at around sunset/dusk) due to travel problems, which means it would be hard for me to get to these places at this time of day & also the added fact that as its summer sunset is not until between 8-9pm in the evening.

My cloudscape photos are currently my favourite out of all the ones I have taken so far, in fact, I've felt a lot more motivated when taking my cloudscapes. The first 3 & last 3 photos were taken whilst out walking around my neighbourhood one evening, The others were more chance shots taken when I saw some interesting cloud formations, but most apart from one set of them were all taken at the time. Currently I have two favourites out of this set, the 2nd & 4th photos on the 1st row.  

Images that came out well:

This photo was taken looking over Worthing on top of a multi-storey car park. The main reason I like the look of this photo is down to that the road is in the centre of photo, it gives a kind of symmetrical feel to the photo. Although it is not directly what I would call a cityscape as it is not shot in a city, to me a cityscape would need to have taller buildings on the horizon, & also possibly have the photo taken on a higher building to get a better look over the city. It would have been nicer to take this on a nicer day, but during these first couple of weeks of the projects it has been quite overcast weather, this, along with the location makes this photo look a little dull.

This photo was taken on a cliff looking over the sea, lighthouse & other parts of cliff at Beachy Head near Eastbourne. This image stands out from other good photos from this idea as its the only portrait photo, which does not fit in with the rest of my landscape shots, although I do have some landscape shots of this particular location, they don't show the sky as much as this one does. Originally I did not mind what type of weather that my seascape photos were taken in as I thought a seascape might look good in the rain or misty weather.

This is one of my favourites from the entire contact sheets, it was taken from a railway bridge down the road from my house whilst on a walk around the neighbourhood one evening. I thought this may be a good place to capture the sun setting as you can see a fair way from the bridge. Due to the season we cannot see the sun properly setting on the horizon as it is beyond the right side of the photo, however I think that the blue sky fading into orange behind those distinguishing clouds makes for a somewhat dramatic & romantic scene.

This was another of my favourites from my contact sheet, I would describe it as a lucky shot, as it was not planned & it was taken from a window from my own home one evening when I saw these beautiful clouds in the sky. Although I love how it looks I don't particularly like the setting, the house roofs are a little too dominant in this photo as they are so close to where shot.
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Change In Idea:
After taking my photos on my first contact sheet, I've decided that now I want to focus more on the sky & clouds aspect of my original idea,I still plan on using the same idea to link them all together though, which was taking them at the same time of day, around sunset. So far my favourite images from my sky & clouds set are ones that have been taken over urban areas, usually looking over buildings etc., so I think I will stick with that idea, which leads to my predicted meaning to these photos, interpretation, as to different people, sunsets can mean different things, so for some it may be a calm or relaxing time of day, as the day is finished you can finally unwind, for others it can sadden them, but another meaning behind it could be change, as in recent years we have had several changes when it comes to technology, the invention of the portable tablet computers for example.
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Contact Sheet 02:

This shoot was without a doubt was my favourite location to shoot at compared to the other locations I have shot at so far. The location is Beacon Mill, aka Rottingdean Windmill, the first reason I chose this location was because I wanted a silhouette of the windmill against the sunset, which I achieved during the shoot, but whilst there I also got a spectacular view of the sun setting across Brighton. I had chosen a good evening to go shoot at this location too, as although it had seemed overcast earlier that day, but by 8pm the clouds were very striking against the blue, fading into orange sky. Out of all of these photos I have one particular favourite, it was a very lucky chance shot whilst at this location, of a man jogging up the hill by the windmill, at the time I was currently standing on a picnic getting a photo of the windmill as a silhouette whilst the sun set behind the hill. When the jogger reached where the sun was setting, I quickly snapped a shot of his own silhouette against the sun.

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Contact Sheet 03: 

For this shoot I visited Shoreham-by-Sea, it was to carry out one of the ideas I had when thinking of possible locations, in which I wanted to get photos of the sun setting behind the hills of the downs & the railway bridge that crosses the river Adur. I got a couple of fairly decent images from this shoot, including some photos of the climbing frame silhouetted in front of the orange sky. I liked some of photos, mainly the ones looking out over the river, my favourite of these being the photo below, I like this one as it was pretty much the photo I was aiming to take, with the sun about to set behind the hills of the Downs, some reflection of it in the river, with the bridge silhouetted against them, the only problem I have with these though is that there are no clouds, which has been one of the main features in my other photos.

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Final Images:

F/stop: f/5.6 - Shutter: 1/80 sec.

F/stop: f/10 - Shutter: 1/125 sec.

F/stop: f/5.6 - Shutter: 1/250 sec.

I decided to title my work Days End. A sunset is defined as the daily disappearance of the sun beyond the horizon, so the main meaning behind these photos is simply just natural beauty, a beauty which is often taken advantage of by many photographers, including myself. But as well it just being a natural & daily phenomena, the meaning of a sunset can purely be down to interpretation of the viewer, for some a sunset can mean a calm time of the day, their work is over, the day is finish & they start to relax & unwind, whereas for others it can bring sadness, maybe from personal experiences in their life. Then for others a sunset could even mean change,  whether that be change a change in the viewers lifestyle or perhaps even in the world.
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Evaluation:
My Project Proposal has only been altered a small amount since it began, first starting out with wanting 4 different types of landscape for the final result & end of year show, which changed to just sky & cloudscapes. I found that over the course of the project the best way to capture photographs of this nature would be better in the light of dawn or dusk instead of in the middle of the day, as then the light may seem to harsh.

In the end, instead of having 4 photographs of the sun setting, I now have 3. The main reason for this is because of the weather, I know it sounds weird, but in the last week & half of the project, I found that the sunsets were not really what I was looking for, there were no dramatic clouds, just plain blue skies that faded to orange whilst the sun set, & also in the early weeks of the project it was near impossible to get photos of the sky & clouds due to the continuous rain we had in Sussex. But apart from the weather not being directly to my standards for my photos, I just think that these 3 photos looked a little better as a trio, by adding another photo it might spoil it by looking a little out of place, which is why I will probably not add another.  

My favourite photo of this trio of photos is still of the jogger going up by Rottingdean Windmill. The only editing made to my photos on Photoshop was increasing the contrast to make the clouds appear more orange than they were originally, & to make the foreground more silhouetted against the sunset. In all 3 images there is at least one distinctive object that is part of the silhouette in the photo, in the first photo it is slightly hard to see but there's a pylon in the distance, in the second it would obviously be the windmill, & in the last what appears could be a radio or transmission tower.     

If I had to criticise anything one this it would be that I could have to gone to a more of a variety of places to capture these sunsets, which could have lead to having 4 final pieces instead of just now 3. Also if the time of year had been right, say in the winter when it gets darker a lot earlier, i could have taken long exposure photographs of star trails in the night sky.

Overall I am happy at the way my project has turned out, I am glad i chose to display my images on A2 size paper, as I think A3 just would have been a little too small for my own liking.

Panoramic.

For this small project we are asked to create a panoramic with a narrative behind it that we would need to stitch together on Photoshop, whether done automatically or manually.

Examples of Panoramic Photographs:

Five Revolutionary Seconds XI, by Sam Taylor Wood.

Sam Taylor Wood creates her panoramic images using a special camera which creates a 360° panoramic photograph in one continuous shot with a 5 second exposure.Taylor Wood likes to use this technique of panoramic to capture the whole environment she is shooting, & to capture everything happening within that environment.

Belfast, by Johannes Hepp.

Johannes Hepp shoots his panoramics to show daily routine, usually in areas which have been effected by terrorism. In the photo above we can see that this panoramic is taken of children playing in their neighbourhood, it kind of shows it as new & old in this area, as there are newer looking homes on the right & left sides of the image, then in the background we can see more older looking houses, & an area that could have been houses that has been demolished & flattened.

Apollo, by Kahn & Selesnick.

Kahn & Selesnick's panoramics are not at all like the ones above, they create more imaginative panoramics that are completely out of the ordinary. The photo above shows a strange moon landscape with a variety of characters, including a dog & an elephant in space suits. This is not even the complete panorama, the complete one shows even more including space & the Earth.

Image File Formats: 

 JPEG: JPEG (Joint Photographic Expert Group) is the most commonly used image file format, nearly every camera is able to shoot photo onto JPEG format. However JPEG compression is lossy, meaning that the more the image is used the more data from the image it will lost from it, which can lead to the image becoming pixelated. It's usually not recomended to print from JPEG files.
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TIFF: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) image files are like JPEG's but can be saved & compress photos from Photoshop in a lot higher quality but does take up a lot of space.
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RAW: RAW is one of the top recomened file formats to have your camera set at, it captures the image you photograph in the highish quality & has a very high loseless compression on files. RAW files are generally a lot smaller than saved TIFF images, but do need to be converted as they are not processed to be edited.

Making the Panoramic:
To create the full panoramic first a series of images are needed before they can be stitched together on Photoshop, this is usually done using a tripod & taking the series of images in a 180° or 360° sweep of the place you want to take the panoramic of. For my final & practice panoramics I did both 180° & 360° shots but I did not use a tripod.

Creating a New Panorama.

To create a new panoramic photo out of your series of image you click File > New > Photomerge Panorama, this is the method on Photoshop Elements 9 (on CS5 it is File > Automate > Photomerge), which then lead to this:

Adding Images for Panorama.

There are several options you can use to create a panoramic from here, for all of mine I used Cylindrical, because I did not want my image to look straight, wanting to give it the full 180°/360° feel to it.

Stitched but Un-Cropped Result.

The result after stitching is this, as we can see it needs to be cropped down into a straigh rectangle to be a complete panoramic.
Practice Panoramas:

Creating 360° Panoramas/Planets:

The first thing needed to do to create a 360° panorama, you need to adjust the image size so that the image is square, for this you need to unclick the constrain proportions on the image resize & make the width the same as the height of the image.

Then after that the image needs to be rotated by 180° so that the image is upsidedown.

When rotated its finally time to make the image into a 360° panorama, to do this you need to go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates, which will leave you with your final image.

 The best results for create 360° is too make sure that the top corners of the image are the same-ish colour, like the sky for example & that also the bottom quarter-half of the photo is the same texture (for example something like grass). You could also try not rotating the image 180°, as this gets some interesting results too.

Final Panoramic:

 The narrative behind this photo is based upon events that we here in the news every so often to do with teenage gangs & violence, so I went for a teenager just after they've been attacked by an enemy (not litterally, obviously), in this day & age these such events can be caused by rival gangs in schools etc. On the right hand side of the image we can see a figure lying down on the ground dying from blood loss & on the left hand side we can see a figure in the far distance, looking back towards the victim. To make it look a little more real I used water to try & create a blood trail leading from my model, which I had later planned on turning red to be more blood-like in Photoshop, however I was happy with the way it looked without editing. Also in terms of editing this as my final panorama, I increased the contrast slightly & also decreased the saturation of the photo. Since I've made this panoramic I have noticed some area that are not joined up directly, but they are not that noticable. My location for this photo is in a tunnel that goes underneath a main road near where I live in Hove, its a fairly isolated place on most occasions, so it seemed the perfect place to stage a murder or attack. This photo was taken in the morning, which has given a very nice effect of shear white light at one end of the tunnel, which to me makes it look like a little like a gateway to where we go after we die.

Studio Portraiture.

The term portraiture means to take photos of individuals or groups of people in a photograph, the subject has been around since the invention of the camera & photography. There are many type of portrait photography, the one that need to be focused on in this project though, is studio portraiture, which consists of taking photos in a studio, whether it be a fixed studio or portable one on location of a client.

Initial Idea.

My initial idea for studio portraiture is to photograph one of my friends, she is a great lover of everything Japanese, so to capture this love I thought I would photograph her in one of her many Kimonos.

For this project I really want to try using the 5"4" cameras, as I've never used one before & this would be a really good experience, I'd also, if available, want to shoot in film in colour, not just black & white, the only problem being that we cannot develop & process colour film in college, meaning I would need to find somewhere that did process colour 5"4" film. I would also use the Canon 5D camera in this project to take the colour portrait & to back up my images in case my film comes out wrong.

The portrait to be taken with the 5x4 camera will be just a straight forward portrait, no movements are going to be used in it, so everything will be in focus & the shape will not be changed. I want the portrait to be either (or both) head shoulders & torso or full body portraits, as so I can get a good majority of my friends Kimono in the frame.   

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Research:
Walter Schels is a German photographer who started his career in 1966 when he moved to New York, then 4 years later moving back to Germany to work for various magazines & in advertising. He is well known for his portrait photography, photography various different people including politicians, celebrities, artists & even animals, but possibly one of his most well known his Life Before Death series. 

Elly Genthe, 83.

First Portrait: December 31st 2002 - Second Portrait: January 11 2003

In this series Schels along with Beate Lakotta asked 24 terminally ill people if they could document the last months of their lives & photograph them before they died & after they died. Schels wrote that "Elly Genthe was a tough, resilient woman who had always managed on her own. She often said that if she couldn’t take care of herself, she’d rather be dead. When I met her for the first time, she was facing death and seemed undaunted: she was full of praise for the hospice staff and the quality of her care. But, when I visited again a few days later, she seemed to sense her strength was ebbing away." 

Heiner Schmitz, 52.

 First Portrait: November 19 2003 - Second Portrait: December 14 2003

When with Heiner, he told Schels that his friends did not want to see him sad, they came round to see him often & sometimes acted like he was going to get better from his illness, but for Heiner it was a little saddening, saying "But no one asks me how I feel. Don't they get it? I'm going to die!”. After the people that he was documenting died, he didn't just photograph them lying down, he made it so they were propped up, as to get them to look more like they were in the first photos he took of them.


Richard Avedon started his career as a photographer in 1942, when he was tasked with taking identification photographs for the Merchant Marines using a Rolleiflex camera given to him by his father. After this he went onto advertisement photography, which got him noticed by art director for Harper's Bazaar fashion magazine, Alexey Brodovitch. He branched out from fashion & began photographing a variety of subjects ranging from artists to musicians, including getting to photograph famous faces along the way, which included The Beatles, Marilyn Monroe & Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock, New York, March 16, 1956.

Aside from these examples, Avedon was also interested on the working people in America, leading to his exhibition later turned photo book, In The American West. It focused on those who worked in jobs such as miners in their dirty work clothes, the unemployed & teenagers growing up at this time. Avedon was interested in the soul & personality behind his subjects & he liked to make the photo simple, which is why his portraits are usually with just his subjects standing in front of a shear white background staring at the camera.

Sandra Bennett, 12 years old, Rocky Ford, Colorado, August 23rd, 1980.

However when the exhibition was first publicized people viewed it as being a pained view of these areas of America, some even criticized that he had treated his subjects with the attention that was thought to be should only shown towards political figures & celebrities.

Steve Pyke originally started out his photography career after a photographic experience during his first career in the music industry, in which he had made a collection of Instamatic pictures which he had taken whilst on a motorcycle tour of America, which he Xeroxed & coloured on his return home to the UK. This lead him to buy a Rolleiflex camera & drop his career in music to divulge into the visual arts.

Horace Ham, London, UK. May 1993

In 1993 he started to photograph the veterans of WW1, the war to end all wars, which had happened almost 80 years before hand. He photographed veterans from the UK, America, France & Germany. On the subject of the veterans, Pyke said "They all had clear memories of their time at the front and shared some of them with me. In most cases it had taken a lifetime for them to be able to recount their experiences". One of Pyke's on going photographic projects has been taking photos of his two sons, Jack & Duncan. On his website he said "Photographing both my sons Jack and Duncan from twenty minutes old and consistently since, I have been mapping the way human faces evolve." These photos are not just simple family snapshots, they are of a single person, looking at them evolve from infant-hood to adulthood.

Jack & Duncan.

In an interview during 2006 in the Observer, Jack told us what he thought of the photographs, saying "The really strange thing about these photographs, apart from the most recent ones, is that I don't remember any of them being taken, I might vaguely remember a shirt I was wearing, or a haircut I had, but that's all. Sometimes my dad will say to me, "Oh, that one was taken in Ireland or London in such and such a year," but I don't remember anything about the time or the place. It's odd because they're evidence of me growing up but they're also a bit unreal. The more I look at some of them, the more it feels like it never really happened." I liked this quote because it is plainly true, for all of us, we don't really remember much about what we did in our childhood when we get older unless we're told about it by our parents, we remember stuff vaguely, but that's usually about all.

Yousuf Karsh began his interest in photography when he was sent to live with his uncle in Canada at a young age, he helped out in his uncle's photographic studio & became interested in the subject. When his uncle saw the potential his nephew could have he got him an apprenticeship with portrait photographer John Garo in Boston, but returned back to Canada 4 years later wanting to make a mark in his career. 

Winston Churchill, 1941.

One of his most famous portrait photos was that of Winston Churchill, who was at that time in history, the British Prime Minister. The image was taken after he had given a speech at the Canadian Parliament during the early years of WW2. In this photo Churchill is seen very much like Isambard Kingdom Brunel, being very impatient & wasn't very interested in having his portrait taken with a cigar in his mouth, only allowing Karsh 2 minutes of his time. Karsh didn't want the cigar in Churchill's mouth, & on his website he says "I waited. Then I stepped toward him and, without premeditation, but ever so respectfully, I said, “Forgive me, sir,” and plucked the cigar out of his mouth. By the time I got back to my camera, he looked so belligerent he could have devoured me. It was at that instant that I took the photograph."

Humphrey Bogart, 1946.

Aside from Churchill, one of my other favourite portraits Karsh took was of Humphrey Bogart, an American actor between 1921-56. My personal favourite bit from this photo is of the smoke from the cigarette in Bogart's hand, we can see a slightly slow shutter speed has been used to capture the movement of the smoke. I also like the lighting in the image, coming in from the right-hand side of the image, casting some shadows on right side of Bogart's face. Bogart's pose to me also has a sort of thoughtful impression to it, the ways his hands are posed & his facial expression make me think this.

Bettina Von Zwehl is well known for her somewhat unsettling portrait photography, over the years she has photographed people in numerous ways from drenching them with water to her subjects laying down on the floor. One of her most notable series was entitled Alina, in which she gathered several women to sit in a darkened studio & be photographed.

Alina Series, 2004-05

However, instead of taking the photo straight as they got into the studio, Von Zwehl made them wait, in this darkened room in which she was using as a studio, so she had control over their manner of representation, so that they could not give her false smiles etc. Although the room was darkened, the image we see before us looks like it is taken in a white room, she gained this effect by taking the photo using flash lighting.

In this series of photos, Von Zwehl came up with the idea of capturing the image of someone just as they've woken up from sleeping, to do this she set up a studio in her models homes & told them to go to sleep as usual, but she wouldn't tell them when she would be waking them up, so it could've have been 30minutes after they had gone to sleep or 4hours after after they had gone to sleep. After waking them she got them to sit down in her little studio space & take their photo.

Chuck Close is an American photographer & painter but is best known for his photo-realist portraits of people & self portraits of himself. Probably one of his most known pieces of work was his self portrait of himself in 1967, to a lot of people who have never seen the photos before they will usually always think it's a photo, but it is actually a very detailed drawing.

Self Portrait, 1967.

Although Close seems like a very talented drawer, most of his work of celebrities & politicians are paintings on canvases & painted in a grid system, in which he painted the squares individually. He has used this system throughout his career, but more so after he was paralyzed from the neck down in 1988, since then he has gained a little movement back in his arms, in which he strapped a paint brush to his wrist & painted these portraits with.

Bill Clinton, 2006.

Close paints these image from photos on his subject & when the images are finished the grid system that he always uses makes the image look like pixels but viewed from afar they usually look like one whole image.

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Camera, Equipment & Studio Set-Up:

For this project, the camera I will hopefully be using is a large format camera, more specifically, a 5x4 camera. There are 2 types of large format cameras, the 1st being the monorail camera, more usually used in studio & the Technical camera, a more portable version. The one I will be using is the Monorail. I've decided not to use this to take my colour image now though, & instead use the Canon 5D.

The 5x4 is named this for a very simple reason, because the negative are 5x4inches in size, unlike 35mm film, large format films are single sheet films, so only 2 photos can be taken at a time as the film holder can only hold 2 sheets of these negatives. Large Format cameras are used for a variety of different reasons, for example quality, the film negatives are larger than say 35mm so there's more detail, another reason being that the camera has movements, you can move the front & back standards to enable you to change the plain of focus & even the shape of the image.

Movements of the 5x4 Camera:

As I just said, the 5x4 camera allows movements to be used with this camera, there are 3 types of movements; sliding, swinging & tilting.

The Slide movements allow you to slide the standards up & down or to either side, with these movements the shape & focus stays the same on the image but depending on which way you slide it, you can either see to the left, right, top or bottom of the subject & when you slide back & front left (or vice versa) you cannot see the subject (if there is a subject).

Slide Movements

Swing movements allow you to swing the standards either left or right. Unlike the slide movements however, the focus is changed, & we get a vertical band of focus (which can be moved left or right). When you move the front standard the image stay the same, but by moving the back standard you can change the shape of the image to get converging & diverging horizontals.

Swing Movement

Tilt movements allow you to tilt the standards in around the same ways as the swing. By tilting the front standard you change the focus & is a horizontal band of focus, which can be moved up or down. By tilting the back standard you can change the shape again, this time with diverging & converging verticals.

But if changing the focus to just vertical or horizontal bands of focus isn't for you, you can combine the swing & tilt to create a diagonal band of focus on you photograph. Despite all these really cool movements at my fingertips though, i plan to just have a straight forward portrait of my model with no movements what-so-ever. I also plan on only taking one photo with this camera, for the black & white portrait required. For my colour portrait on the other hand I plan to use the Canon 5D, this will allow me to take several photos instead of just a limit of 2 at a time given to you by the 5x4, another reason for me using the 5D would be so in case something goes wrong with the film for example it over/under develops or the exposure & aperture were set wrong.

Lighting Setup:

Basic Setup for 5D

Basic Setup for 5x4

My lighting setup in the studio are as followers, I will be using a low key setup for both cameras against a black backdrop, there will be two lights, both with soft boxes on them (this however may change on the day depending on the results of the test photos on the 5D), & when using the 5x4 camera I may use one tungsten light, there would also be black reflectors on either side to reduce the amount of light hitting the backdrop.

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Contact Sheet:

After my shoot my final contact sheet came out a little like this:

These are my narrowed down digital shots, in which I thought were the best shots of the whole lot. When shooting I did have some problems at first, but that was soon fixed when the shutter speed was adjusted. All in all though I believe the shoot was a success, at least using the Canon 5D. The lighting in these photos came out just the way I wanted it to, bright enough to light up my subject & give full detail on her, but with the background quite black.

I'm also happy that I did decide to backup my shoot with digital photos too because when shooting with the 5x4 camera my colour print did not come out, it was suggested by the man who developed it that I may have accidentally left the dark slide in the camera when shooting the colour film & the more & more I think about it, this seems to have been very likely.

5x4 attempt.

This was the black & white film I took on 5x4 film, the reason I don't want to use this is because I have to admit I wasn't looking to see what my model was doing when I took the photo, I was too focused on setting the camera up, the other reasons being that it came out under exposed when developed & there are also marks all over the film. I really liked how my digital photos came out, which is why I don't plan to re-shoot & try using the 5x4 camera again for this project, I admit a film print as my final image would have been good, but I'm content with what I shot on the Canon 5D.

Possible Finals:

F/stop: f/8 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

F/stop: f/8 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

F/stop: f/7.1 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

F/stop: f/7.1 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

F/stop: f/7.1 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

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Editing & Photoshop:
For my final 2 portraits one needed to be in black & white, which meant I needed to edit them in Photoshop.

Cropping.

First I cropped down my photo so my model was reasonably centered in the frame & also to crop out a slight showing of one of the reflectors I used during my shoot.

Adding a New Adjustment Layer.

Usually after cropping I would edit the contrast of the image to make it a little more contrasty, but with these photos I felt I didn't need to do that, so I went straight to adding a new adjustment layer to make the image black & white, I did this by going to Layers > New Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer. Between using Channel Mixer & Black & White layers i chose Channel Mixer because I felt it was a little easier to use, however the Black & White adjustment layer does give some more options/colours to adjust on the image.

Channel Mixer.

Before & After.

After adding monochrome to the image & then editing the tonal range this was how my image came out, before the photo looked quite dark but by increasing the red & green tones & decreasing the blue tones I managed to make it a little brighter on the right side.

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Final Images:

From 5 possible final photos, I picked my 2 favourites from them.

F/stop: f/7.1 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

Looking back at my contact sheet I could have seen a lot as my possible final photos, & it was a hard choice to make. I was a little disappointed when my 5x4 negatives didn't come out very well, but at least I can say I tried using a large format camera, as this project could have been my only chance to ever use one. Over all I would say that this was a good project, although I admit, I don't like using the studio that much, it was nice to learn how to use a large format camera.

F/stop: f/7.1 - Exposure: 1/100sec.

I really liked how my final prints came out, out of the two of them I would probably say that the colour print is my favourite, as we can see most of the outfit from where my model is sitting down, I think that the colour bring out the photo more & we can see a bit more detail in the kimono, but then you can see more surface area of the kimono on my colour print. Out of all my over possible final prints, my current black & white one probably looked the best, I really liked the tonal range after editing the photo.