Barry Island Final Images

Here are my final images from my Barry Island shoot. Honestly I am really disappointed with this shoot, and I really struggled throughout the day to capture the images in my head. Although I am very pleased with my final images, I'm unhappy that I only have 6 and that they are all very similar.

 

I spent all afternoon shooting along the coast of Barry Island and these images have been taken at various points along the beach and cliffs. I faced many problems during this shoot, the worst being the wind. Although I expected a breeze on the beach I didn't anticipate the gale force winds I was faced with all day. Because of this some of my images are very shaky and the long exposures I experimented with were a disaster. Even on my small Gorillapod tripod the camera shook, so all of my long exposure images are blurry. Even when I managed to find some cover from the wind my polarizing filter didn't go down enough stops for me to have a shutter speed of more than 1 second in the lighting conditions. Next time I want to take long exposure images I will make sure I've got the appropriate polarizing filter.

Another problem I came across was the amount of people on the beach and walking along the cliffs. The majority of my usable photographs were taken in the late afternoon when many people had gone home. This is also the reason many of my photos are taken in portrait as I was cropping people out. I do however quite like the look of Landscape photographs taken in portrait so I'm not too bothered about that. 

As usual I've tried not to edit my images too much, just a bit of cropping and turning up the contrast slightly. Before taking the photographs I had plans to change the colours in the sky to look more appealing but I didn't really feel like they needed it.

I am very happy with my final images, despite them not being particularly traditional. I would like to do another Landscape shoot as its something I really enjoy and I think I need some practise. 

I'd love to get some feedback on my images!

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Belbroughton Scarecrow Festival Final Images

So these are the final images from the Belbroughton Scarecrow festival and if I'm honest I am disappointed I only have 5 which I think are of a good enough standard to share.

I arrived just after the festival started and stayed until the end, running around trying to capture every element of it. If I had been a professional photographer hired specifically to photograph this event I think I would have gone on both days it was running as there was just so much going on.

If I were to photograph events again in the future there are several things I will do differently. I would definitely apply for a press pass or at least have some form of ID/ business cards on my to put the public at ease. There were several people who turned their backs on me or looked visibly uncomfortable as I was photographing around them. If I had a press pass or something similar to show them and explain why I was taking photographs they may have allowed me to take their picture or even pose for one. 

Along the same sort of lines I would approach people to take their photograph. It would have been nice if I had taken some photographs of people, families in particular enjoying the festival. I didn't really feel comfortable doing so and because of that I don't have many photographs with festival goers in.

I was pretty happy with the equipment I took with me, the only thing I wish I had was a superzoom lens to capture the air show in more detail. I didn't manage to get a decent photograph of the airplane and as that was a main event I probably wouldn't be hired again if I was a paid photographer. As these lenses are very expensive and I am not proffesional I don't own one but that if something to consider if I plan on shooting something similar again. 

I didn't really feel the need to edit these photographs too much. Apart from a bit of cropping and turning up the contrast slightly I havne't done anything else as I didn't feel that the client would want any 'unnatural' looking images.

I'd love to get some feedback on my finals!

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Witley Court

Back at the start of June we were taken to Court in Worcester to photograph the ruined stately home and the beautiful gardens surrounding it. Earlier that day we had been given a brief to follow so we knew what type of photographs to take even if that meant drifting away from the style we were used to.

The client, English Heritage, wanted some new advertising material and the brief stated that the images needed to appeal to 20-30 year olds. After a little bit of brainstorming I had come up with a few ideas as to how I would capture this place to entice a younger audience.

One of the ideas I had was to shoot through my iPhone camera. The majority of 20-30 year olds use a camera phone and share their images on social media, so I wanted to try and show that in my photos. I don't really think this worked too well as the difference in brightness between my iPhone screen and the background was just too much which meant I had to quite considerably overexpose my images to make my phone screen visible.

Another idea I had was to shoot instant photos on my Instax camera and hold those in front of what I had just taken a photo of. Although this worked quite well in practice I don't feel as though those images look that professional, as my nail varnish is quite chipped. I do however like this style and would definitely do something similar in the future.

As I wasn't sure I really hit the brief with the photographs alone I now needed to try and think of a way to do so with my editing. One style of photography I'm becoming more interested in is fashion and editorial style photography; I read a lot of fashion magazines and I've started to pick up inspiration from them. Although these photographs have nothing to do with fashion I thought I could apply some fashion inspired editing to them. 

One thing I see a lot in fashion photography is borders. I thought I could add some strong borders to my images to give them a 'young' feel. First I added a simple white border and although I did really like the outcome I still felt that the image looked too traditional. 

I did like the 'postcard' effect that the white border gave my image, however I needed to add a border that would make the image appeal to a young audience. I came up with the idea of repeating my image several times, meaning the border would just be that same image but slightly bigger. 

Overall I am very happy with my final images and I do feel that I have completed the client's brief. Although I haven't ended up with as many final images as I would have liked, the 8 I do have are of a good standard.

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Fashion Photography Workshop

Before May half term we all completed a Fashion Photography workshop with Talia White. I've never really done fashion photography before so to say I was nervous about shooting a professional model would be an understatement. Before the model arrived Talia showed us some of her work to get a feel for what she does and to get some inspiration for when we take our own photographs.

For this shoot I used my Nikon D5300. For the first part of the shoot I used a 50mm lens, then  I swapped over to my standard 18-55mm kit lens to see the difference. It was clear to me that the 50mm was the much better lens for this shoot as it gives the images a greater depth of field. I also feel as though it makes the images sharper and generally makes them look more professional. I did much prefer using the 50mm lens for this shoot and put it back on my camera to take the last few photographs.

One of the major problems I came across during the shoot is making sure the models clothes are perfect. As the model moves around so do her clothes and as a photographer without a stylist its my job to notice when this happens. The sleeves of her top came down a few times during the shoot and her hanging straps were also on show occasionally, luckily I did happen to see that at the time. Unfortunately I didn't always see when her clothes were out of place and since looking back at the photographs I've noticed that her belt is sticking out in most of the photographs, this is something I cant fix with editing so I will have to pay more attention next time.

Another problem I had was trying to make each photograph different. If I was shooting a series of photographs for a magazine the client would expect several images, all of which should be noticeably different. Next time I work on a fashion shoot I will be more prepared with ideas for how I want the model to pose. I will also do more research into my location so I can quickly move the model around to stand in front of different backgrounds. 

I have since edited my final images from the shoot using Photoshop. To edit these images I changed the levels, turned up the vibrance, and added some actions. I had never previously used actions in Photoshop, but as these images needed to be of editorial standard I had to utilise a more professional way of editing. I used two skin smoothing actions on the images to eliminate any fine lines on the models face, and any goose bumps on her arms. I then added the 'sweet sunshine' action to brighten  all of the images and give it a golden summer glow as I intended the shoot to be summer/ festival themed. To finish the images off I added a vignette to give them a bit more depth and to draw the eye towards the model in the centre of the images.

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