My Second Photoshoot

I travelled to Essex where my boyfriend lives in order to photograph him in his personal space with his belongings and possessions surrounding him in order to provide an insight into his life and nature, alongside his memory recall. 

The following are some of my favourite unedited photo's which I shot in RAW, on a Nikon D7000:

I like how in a lot of these photo's my boyfriend doesn't make eye contact with the camera. It shows that he is really deep in thought with regards the memory of a bad point in his life, in which he lost a lot of weight due to depression, and became anemic. The fact that his photograph is a black and white print-out reflects the fact that he didn't even have a physical copy of this photograph as it was such a distressing time of his life that bought back bad memories. Although not outwardly sad, it is possible to see little nuances of emotion in his face. As I have mentioned, I now aim to use two photographs of each of my subjects. One as a close-up and one that is contextualised amongst their personal sphere. In this sense I feel this photograph is lacking as the context-based elements are somewhat cut out as it stands somewhere between a closeup and a midshot.

I like this photograph as a close-up in terms of emotion. My boyfriend looks uncomfortable about answering my question and nervously scratches his head whilst looking downwards. 

I like this shot again as my boyfriend shields his face and looks rather uncomfortable. Clearly I underexposed the photograph, but this can be fixed easily in cameraRAW edit. Again, I wish I had taken it slightly further back to include the photographs beyond. The reason why I feel this is important is because it serves to support his story. His sister looks over him on the right hand side (the same one who is in the photo) almost like a guardian, and the symbolic Serbian depiction of st. George (my boyfriend is Serbian and his name is Djordje [translated as George in English])  struggles to sleigh the dragon, which represents Djordje's struggles at this point in his life. Djordje believes that this depiction of st. George - which he has had on every wall of every bedroom throughout his life - brings him good luck health wise, as his family was told by a Serbian doctor when he was ill as a baby, that the symbol of st.George would protect him if he kept it near him constantly. This therefore reflects his cultural beliefs and superstitions and is integral to his nature, and so is something that I really want to include in this photograph. This has also given me and idea for the caption of the contextual photograph: Djordje and the dragon.

I like the photo above as Djordje shields his mouth and therefore his expression is hard to decipher. It must communicate based on the viewers assumptions and ideas. I regret not using a tripod in this photoshoot and Djordje's bedroom has many lines, which highlight the apparent wonkiness and level of the camera, however, during a tutorial in class I now know that I can edit the distortion and rotation/horizontal elements of the photo and so should be able to correct these mistakes.

This is perhaps my favourite photograph of the collection as I really like the expression of Djordje's face mixed with the background elements that serve to make him him. The vivid colours of the duvet and bric a brac in the background contrast with the solemn facial expression and grey tone of the photo/Djordje's clothing. I also think that in terms of positioning this is the best example, as the photograph can be seen clearly and there is a symmetry to the room. The parralel lines of the bed invite the viewers into Djordje's personal sphere. However, the use of the flash in this photograph causes it to be somewhat fluorescent and overexposed and so I will have to correct this in editing.

Overall I am confident that I have some good shots that I can work well with in terms of editing.

Technical Experimentation in Editing and Shooting - Week 12

During this Friday's lesson we learned how to shoot in RAW files meaning that the photographs we take will not be compressed and averaged out (in terms of lighting/exposure/colour etc.) to form a Jpeg. We took some photographs in this format and used the editing programme CameraRAW to edit our photographs to a much better standard than we could have done on photoshop alone. 

I took this photograph during the lesson when we were experimenting with raw files and editing them. As we can see from the histogram in the top left, which portrays a visual representation of the tonal value (colours and tones) in the photograph, there is a large peak in the middle. If the tones are out of range the image is likely to be over or underexposed. In the photo below I have turned the right clipper on (press keyboard button 'O') to highlight overexposed areas in the photo in red. As we can see the lights are very over exposed. I had to turn the exposure, temperature and highlight settings down and the shadows up to achieve the more balanced photo beneath. You can do the same for shadows by turning the left clipper on (press keyboard button 'U') (press both 'U' and 'O' at same time to turn off)

By clicking alt+ dragging the sliders I am able to explicitly see in the photo which areas are overexposed or highlighted (I pushed the exposure up in the case of the photo below to give a better visual representation) The areas in white are the parts which need most attention in terms of editing exposure.

To learn about using histograms in cameraRAW I watched the following tutorial:

Technical Tips and a Photoshop tutorial - Week 11

The following bullet points are tips and information shared during this weeks lessons which I have noted down:

• Change the spot meter setting (shown below on the D7000 top screen) to one with a small dot for portraiture photography to focus on a mid-grey surface and to get the best exposure.

• 5 is Mid grey on "The Zone System" exposure scale. To get a white/whited-out background for portraits use zone 8 or 9. 
• Green Grass is a mid grey - remember if shooting outside so that the sky isn't too over exposed and bleached out, causing a lack of detail. 
• Work out how far away your skin is from mid grey or carry a mid-grey card with you also to that you have the right exposure value. 
• Camera raw edits raw files non destructively. Always set your camera to shoot in RAW to get the highest quality photo's which aren't compressed.
• If you edit on Jpegs in PhotoShop, get used to using layers to edit non destructively. 
• You can straighten lines in buildings to make it look more realistic as the D7000 tends to curve lines, or alter perspective to make photographs appear less realistic. You can use rulers on the screen to adhere to the blue guidelines. 
• Command 'T' for free transform. 
• Can put different effects such as brightness/contrast/saturation etc. into new layers to be non destructive using the adjustment pallette.
• To duplicate layer drag layer to blank page symbol at bottom of layer section.

• You can take parts of the photo to cover up other sections that you wish to eliminate.
• Magnetic collection picks up on contrast and similar tones. 
• Select something go to layer and press copy to layer - it copies what you selected to a new layer. 
• Control Z = undo. 
• Using the clone stamp tool: Choose size of brush, alter the opacity and flow. Hold down alt and click an area to paint from. (make sure you're on the correct layer) 
• Save as tiff for final photo to print from as it is highest quality (jpeg compresses quality)
• Check out patch content aware tool. Is quickest form of removing parts of the image/photograph, if you know how to use it well enough. 

I have watched this tutorial and experimented with the patch content aware tool in CS6:

I have previously used content aware before when aiming to create an idea of a faceless photograph of myself and my boyfriend. I also used it to eliminate the glare on the photograph that my mum holds up to the camera:

As you can see the left photo has a slight glare on the right which I have selected using the selection tool which gave me a rough content aware replacement. I then used my patch tool to make it fit better and look more realistic. The results can be seen in the photo on the right. There looks like there is a slight smudge from the photo onto my mums neck but that is a strand of hair.

Using the following tutorial, I created a blended image. I have used gradient masks and blends before when attempting tilt shift photography...

This is the image I created when following this tutorial:

I blended rich golden corn with dry/dying pond plants to symbolise life and death simultaneously.

Discussion with Tutor about idea

Upon talking to my tutor, Paul, about my new project idea, we decided together that it would be a good idea to include some context/background within the photograph. The reality of the background gives weight to the emotion felt or the expression represented into the photograph by making it seem natural unstaged and real. I aimed to show more of the persons world and personal sphere, thereby contextualising them against their own possessions and life. However, I am still also providing close-ups with less contextual information to really hone in on their expression and thus their reliving of the memory. Both of these types of photographs still portray elements of the Portraiture discourse such as pose, background, expression and clothing (David Bate, Photography: The Key Concepts) but also now ties in with the work of Nan Goldin and Tina Barney who depicted their close friends and family in their environments, whilst still alluding to the project Dear Photograph and the reenactment of memories referred to by Irina Werning in her photography, as well as Newsha Tavakolian from the Light From the Middle East: New Photography exhibition at the V&A, and Eolo Perido, whose work I stumbled across on the website 500px.

My Inspirations