Evaluation.

Before this course I was a complete novice and apart from using an instamatic camera I knew hardly anything. I had never used a DSLR before. The first couple of weeks I was excited by the challenge but then missed some of the course because of a prebooked holiday to America. I did take my camera with me and tried to experiment with what I had been taught to date. America is an ideal opportunity for a photographer and in Arizona the weather lends a perfect clarity to the views. Arriving back home and attending a couple more sessions I became a bit overwhelmed and wondered if I had taken on too much, being behind and all. However I decided to bite the bullet and take one step at a time. Gradually I began to get a feel for the camera and what we learned in the lessons began to make sense. As I started to understand the mechanics I began to relax and enjoy myself more. The main concern I had was matching up the Aperture and Shutter Speed, but I kept on persevering and eventually it clicked.

My final pieces were based on Woodland and Trees. I have an affinity with woods and find them timeless and tranquil, although they can also be forbidding and mysterious places. It was enjoyable to travel around and find different scenes to photograph. I was going to base my work solely on these aspects but having seen the work of Josh Sommers and Helen Sears I decided to utilise portraits of girls superimposed on to the trees to give an added nuance. Helen Sears' work is very delicate and she uses layers incorporating female heads and lace. This gives it a very haunting feel to the photos. Josh Sommers run along a similar theme but are more powerful and direct and clearly uses photoshop to manipulate them. I feel that the faces enhance the mystery and serenity of the woodland photos without detracting from the basic imagery.

Before each of my travels I ensured that I had the correct attire, trying to cover every contingency as well as a fully charged battery, enough space on my memory card, my tripod and my cameras manual. I would plan before hand the area that I wished to view and would make sure that I had my map available. The camera  that I used was a Nikon D3100.

Problems that I encountered were mainly logistical, finding places that allowed a photographer to set up in safety and in public places. So many beautiful shots are positioned on a hairbend with no parking signs and traffic going at an amazing rate. Once or twice the days that I went hunting for good photos were also days that had gale force winds that stung the face and turned fingers to ice, let alone causing the tripod to shake dangerously making photography impossible. Solving these problems meant taking more journeys back to these places and investing in good quality gloves.

When I first started taking the photographs it was largely experimentation and trial and error but gradually I had a feel for Composition, Aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, White Balance, Focul Point and Depth of Field.

Overall I am pleased with the outcomes of the work although I always think I could do better. You can never have enough photographs to choose from, so I have learnt that always having a camera at hand and using your eyes to see things in a new light is beneficial.  I found it difficult trying to choose a theme within the context of Landscape. I do tend to be quite indecisive and I think sometimes it's better to make a decision rather than floundering around. The other problem was finding the focul point. If there was a path or a clearing in the wood it was easy, but if it was just trees and vegetation it was hard to get a focus. Photoshop almost floored me, I did find it quite difficult to come to terms with but after having some instruction and a lot of playing about I started to get the gist of it. This I feel is going to be an ongoing journey.

I have enjoyed this course thoroughly and I am looking forward to taking it further.

My Final Four Manipulated Images altogether.

I based my manipulated photographs on 'Time', because we had to chose a theme to link them altogether. Each photograph says something about the passing of time. Two of these photos are in a serious vein and the other two more humourous.

I started off by looking through my photographs to see if any would be good as a base and then wrote down a series a sayings about time. I then planned on paper ideas that I could use. Some of these I discarded and I was left with four ideas. This was the easy part. Getting to grips with photoshop proved more of a challenge, as the computer at college was an Apple Mac and the layout is quite different to my laptop at home. Also I could only afford to buy the Photoshop Elements and therefore I only had the basic tools at hand. I still found the layout pretty confusing. It was only with a great deal of experimentation and perseverence that I got to grips with it.

The equipment I used was my Nikon D3100 Camera, my tripod, a fully charged battery and lots of space on my memory card.

On all the photographs I have used various layers and used The Quick Selection tool and the Magnetic Lasso tool to lift the props from photographs. I have also used the blurring technique, distortion, perspective, Skew and Scale to position things appropriately in my pictures. On some of the photographs I have played around with Opacity, Saturation and Monotone.

Eric Johansson, an artist whose work I enjoyed, influenced my western photograph. His work ranged from clever to humourous and is always thought provoking. I enjoyed the fact his pictures are quite surreal and I have tried to get the same effect in my pictures. Another artist whose work I liked was John Goto. His style is like collage work where he brings things together to make a quirky photo. This influenced in particular my 'Time of Their Lives' Photograph. I found his style to be quite light hearted and as I like collage as a craft in itself I was interested to combine this with photography.

On the whole I am pleased with my final manipulated pieces especially as I had never used photshop before. I had a distinct learning curve and am quite proud that I managed to come through it and now I don't find it so scary. I found that manipulated images really awakens your imagination and I look forward to experimenting on a larger scale. As always, when I look at the photographs I always feel that I could have doen better but I feel that will always be the case. Manipulating Images is quite time consuming and it is easy to get carried away and very difficult to know when to stop. Sometimes it ios a case of less is more.

Here are my four final images:

'Winter Time'

'Tempus Fugit'

'Time of Their Lives'

'Sands of Time'

Fantasy Landscape Number four (Manipulated Image).

For my fourth image I decided to use some of my american photgraphs with the idea of time passing from the cowboy era to today. Before manipulating my final image in photoshop, I used to Picasa to chnage the colouring to sepia. This gave the photos a more aged look.My first layer ( the background layer ) was a picture of part of an old western town looking our onto the horizon. I then added another layer containing a modern day cowboy in role play. I lifted him off another picture by using the Quick Selection tool and then copy and pasting him onto the second layer. Also I used the blur tool to smooth in the edges so he was more moulded into the picture. I used the same method on the next three layers containing the egg timers. I rescaled and used the opacity to get a transparent look. Finally I flattened the image.

'Sands of Time'

I liked this picture until I added the Egg Timers. I think that the wooden surround is too heavy therefore the egg timer bit doesn't come to the fore. Egg timers are quite difficult to get hold of these days and I could not find one with a finer surround. Being restricted to photgraphing our own props made this quite difficult. I still like the idea of this photo but am dissatified with the main prop.

My final Images.

I had difficulty deciding what to do for my final images. I kept changing my mind and fluctuating from images of forests/woodlands to juxtaposing my american images with those taken in Britain. I've had many outings taking pictures of forests and landscapes but still was no nearer to deciding. It was only when researching various photographers that I came across the work of Josh Sommers and Helen Sears. I loved their work and felt really inspired. Although they had similar themes i.e. faces superimposed upon pictures or vice versa, the effects were quite different. Helen Sears' work is more ethereal and delicate whereas Josh Sommers' work uses stronger colours and is bolder. Most of Helen Sears work shows the back of people heads as though they are looking towards the view and as though you, the viewer is looking towards the view. I decided that I would like to use them both as my muse and was lucky that I had two people willing to sit for portraits. I wanted the faces to be almost incidental to the background, a case of the viewer being viewed.

Having collected both sets of images I experimented with layering one on top of the other and altering the opacity so that both pictures could be seen. I also used the overlay effect and also played around with the colours and contrasts. I cropped all the images to square format as this is the shape I envisioned for my presentation. I duplicated the six images into black and white and then altered the tones. So altogether I have twelve images. I did this because it alters the mood and gives it a softer look similar to Helen Sears.

Here are the original photos of trees I used:

Shutter Speed: 1.3 Sec F/10 ISO: 100

Shutter Speed: 10 Sec F/22 ISO: 100

Shutter Speed: 1/125 Sec F/7.1 ISO: 400

( I used this image twice, but cropped a different section on the second photo )

Shutter Speed: 1.3 Sec F/5.3 ISO:400

Shutter Speed: 1/60 F/5.6 ISO: 100

Here are the Portraits that I used:

Here are the trees and portraits combined in colour:

Here are the pictures converted into black and white:

You can see from the above pictures how the work has evolved and how the images created become more mysterious and tranquil. I enjoy the effect of all the photos, coloured and black and white although the coloured ones are my favourites because I like the mood that they inspire. 





Third Manipulated Image.

Here I am again with another manipulated Image. I have decided this time to be a bit over the top. I have always had a soft spot for the old horror films with Chistopher Leigh and Vincent Price. They always had a theatrical humourous side and were very tongue in cheek. I have taken some photos of our local graveyard and also purloined some halloween items from our pub and took photographs of these to use as props. These included small plastic skeletons, a crow and a clock.

'Time of their lives'

First of all I used the graveyard shot as the first layer and I changed the colour in Picaso to make it appear to be twilight. I also sharpened the image. I then opened up the photo in photoshop ready for manipulation. I set up the skeletons in a pile of soap powder so that when I took the photograph it would appear that the skeleton was rising out of the ground. The soap powder would not be seen once I had used the Quick Selection Tool. I also took single photographs of the crow and the clock. I positioned all of these props using seven layers making sure that I set them to scale. I also used the opacity tool on the layers of the clock and skeletons to make them look more ghostly. The last layer that I used was a close-up of a picture of a large fake cobweb that I had previously taken from a halloween party. I placed this image onto the whole of the background image to give an eerie aspect. It almost looks as though you are looking through a veil. I also used the Opacity tool so you could see through to the background layer and then after some experimentation I used the exclusion effect.

This manipulation still had the theme of time so we used the clock as an ongoing reminder.



Presenting my work with no limitations.

Given free reign the way that I would like to present my pictures would be inkeeping with their ethereal and surreal nature. Rather than having them hanging on a wall I would have them superimposed upon large semi-transparent material suspended from the ceiling, with each picture curved into a semicircle and at different angles to eachother in a low lit room (not pitch black) , each one being uplit. This would give the sensation of becoming one with the photo.  I would also like there to be a very gentle breeze to make the material sway slightly. I feel this would add to the dream like quality. Sound such as birdsong, babbling brook or the whistling wind piped in as a gentle background noise would add to the atmosphere.

I feel that this way of presenting the work would allow people to feel as though they were actually standing within the picture which would be of a life like size.

The location I would choose for my presentation would ideally be in a large building such as a dock side loft with all four walls being made of glass. Viewing would only be allowed at night when it's dark. This would allow the photos the feeling of having no boundaries. There would be nothing to distract the viewer and it would give the impression of being in the open air. In a perfect world I would have the restriction of only one person in at a time to make it a truly personal experience. I realise however that this would not be practical on any level due to time and that very few people would ever get to see it.

Fantasy Landscape (Manipulated Images).

After a few disappointing attempts at photoshopping, I finally came up with another time related idea that I could work with that fits in with my theme. My grandfather always used the phrase 'Tempus Fugit' (Time Flies), so this is sort of in memory of him. I chose a picture of two small boats on the sea with an atmospheric sky above. I enjoy crafting and at the moment I love the Steam Punk genre. I found some metal clock faces and wooden wings and decided to take photos of the two together. This rather looked like birds. My idea was to have the birds flying towards the viewer being smaller in the distance and gradually getting larger towards the foreground. I was a bit dubious at first but having looked at the finished result I'm quite enamoured. I also enjoyed the manipulating and started to understand what I was doing more. I wasn't so afraid to use the different photoshop tools.

'Tempus Fugit'

First of all I started with the background layer which was the ships on water and then used another four layers for the individual clocks. On each of these layers I used the Quick Selection Tool to pick up the outline of the clock/birds. I then manipulated each one by using the tools such as Skew, Distort and Perspective. This gave the effect of birds flying into the front of the picture from a distance. To perfect the picture I played around with the scale and position of each bird/clock. I decided to have the closest one slightly off view to make it more lifelike. I then flattened the image so I could save it.

It might have been a good idea to have had a few extremely tiny birds in the background to give more depth, but then I was worried that you may not have been able to see the clock faces. The original picture was quite a simple comprising only sky and sea with just a few boats in the distance so I'm glad that I kept the bird/clock idea quite simple as I feel that in this case less is more.