Work record 3-The Shard

Work record 3-The shard

Plans for shoot

This shoot is the last of my exam shoots and so i wanted to do a similar shoot to my seventh preparatory shoot  which was my final preparatory shoot. Like my last preparatory shoot i wanted to try and sum up all of the shoots within this shoot, which means if i could take some photos of buildings with reflections which would link to Ernst Haas and take photos in the same low angle or perspectives like Alexander Rodchenko. 

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

After taking this shoot i realised that compared to my other two exams shoots, the photos in this shoot does show similarities in the styles of both Alexander Rodchenko and Ernst Haas, because i did capture a couple of photos with reflections and the majority of the photos were taken from a low angle.  However the links to the artiest are not as strong like the first and second exam shoots. However for this shoot the amount of photos that i took did not equate to my previous exam shoots, which may the reason why i cant see the sting influence. On the other hand i have still been informed contextually by both artiest because i used their techniques, reflections and low angles, which are present in my work.

Contact sheet

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

My intentions for this shoot was to make sure that i showed how i have progressed throughout my whole body of work. That means that  would need to use the same themes, angles, perspectives ect that i did in all of my previous shoots. From the straight images that i have chosen i think that the photos do show the development that i ahem made because i have used the same angles and techniques that i would normally use in my previous shoots. I also made sure that i used a tripod for this shoot as well, because that is something that i lacked in my preparatory shoots, so in order for me to progress my work further i needed to use a tripod, which i did. Also comparing the straight images from this shoot with the shoot that i based this one, my seventh preparatory shoot, they are similar but these photos are more developed than those from the preparatory shoots. This is mostly because of how i enhanced the quality of the photos in this shoot, by editing the contrast and clarity so that more tones and detail/texture stand out. For example the second and sixth straight are highly detailed, but i think that it adds more to how the photos are architectural.

Straight images 

How i edited my straight images 

To enhance the potential of my straight images I used the camera raw editing section on Photoshop to tweak certain aspects of my photographs. Whilst I was taking the photographs on my shoot, I realised the majority of my photos were partially over exposed, even though I would change shutter speed sometimes due to the direction of the sun the surrounding area around the buildings would be very white. So to overcome overexposure in the photos I would normally decrease the exposure, but I would have to balance the lighting of the photo out by decreasing the blacks so that the photo would not be too dark or adjusting the highlights and shadows on the photo so that the lighting was still natural and not too dark or light. I would also increase the clarity to emphasis the texture and contrast of the image. I also increased the clarity on my photos because after doing research I realised that adding more clarity and contrast to photos of buildings and architecture in cities like London was a common theme that some photographers would use. And so because my shoots for this component are based on London architecture and buildings I thought that it would be beneficial for my photographers to use a common editing technique for photographs like the ones I have taken.

AO2 Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

For this exam shoot this i used my Nikon D3100 camera that i used in my previous preparatory shoots, along with a camera RAW file instead of jpeg so that I could capture better quality images and so that i could edit my photos in more detail. I also ensured that i brought a tripod with me for this shoot, so that the photos can be steady and it would help me to capture some different angles and perspectives that i hadn't been able to achieve whilst holding the camera. For example because i used the tripod i was able to get lower angles that captured the whole building, and slanted angles. Just like my first exam shoot, i did have some trouble with getting the right exposure, even though i was on manual mode, i found that the majority of my photos were over exposed, even though i would change the shutter speed, but i couldn't change the aperture because i needed at around f/20 to have a large depth of field for the tall buildings. As usual i used manual mode with an aperture of f/22 which would allow everyone in the frame to be in focus, an ISO of 100 and normally a shutter speed of 1/30s. However  due to the photos being over exposed i edited them to fix the exposure and the white levels using photoshop and the camera file Raw filter for more precise editing.

Edits 

With this edit i also based it on the concept of mirrors and reflections, because i think that mirror edits are interesting and unexpected so it fits with the theme of my work. Also these type of mirror edits allow me to show how i can develop the concept of unexcited perspectives further than jet taking photos from unusual angles. To create this edit i used photoshop, first i edited the original photo because i needed to crop the image so that i could create the best reflection, so i used a guide line at 50% of the page to spilt the original photo in half, then i duplicated that half and flipped the duplicated  image to create the mirror effect. 

To create this edit i used photoshop and i wanted to do a mirror like edit, similar to what i did in my second exam work record. So to make this first i opened up a new plain document, so that i would have a document to put the four photos on. Then i duplicated the cropped version of photo 4 times, flipped the photo horizontal twice and paired the flipped horizontal versions with the normal version on the new file. I then ensured that the four duplicates were in a row back to back, so that it would appear as a double mirror effect. I think that this edit is relevant to unexpected perspectives because its linked to Ernst Haas' reflections and because i flipped the photo horizontally i transformed the photos into an unusual and unexpected perspective.

AO4

Due to the fact that i didn't take as many photos as the other two shoots, meaning there was less variation in the types of angles and framing used, because the majority of photos were of the same buildings. I don't think that this shoot is as good as my previous two, but i do think that edits helped me link my work back to Ernst Haas' theme of reflections. Overall i think that the shoot was okay and again i had trouble with the amount of exposure in my photos, but i did use a tripod which was a something that i did need to improve upon. If i was to go back and improve the shoot, i would try and take more of a variation of different angles and perspectives like my first exam shoot in the Barbican area.

(Preparatory shoot)

(Exam shoot)