Landscape unit: Lights.
AO1: Contextual Understanding.
Developing ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical ad critical understanding.
Initial Brainstorm.
When brainstorming colour I had plenty of ideas that range through different areas of colours. I thought about ways in which I could use photo-shop to help with this landscape project, for example I thought about incorporating sweets into landscape shots, to represent buildings, however I didn't feel that there was a good enough reason and message from it through going through with that project. I thought about how seasons are exceptional at connoting their own colours. For example winter is associated with whites and blues, while autumn colours browns reds and oranges and so on, but as this project doesn't go on for a whole year that wouldn't be possible, so I would not be going through with that process either. I had the idea to do Photo Journalism with street art and graffiti an other times of colour expression, but after thinking through it I realised there was no creativity of my own within it, I would simply be taking photographs of other peoples artwork, designs and their creativity. I then thought of vivid and dull colours which led me to come to the idea of lights. I feel as though there are so many different routes to go with lights, the possible creative ideas can go into lots of different directions. |
Idea Sheets.
Photographer research.
Mauren Brodbeck.
Mauren Brodbeck was born in 1974 and since 1995 has done a lot of work with film and photography, she has also won many awards for her work and now lives as a filmer and artist in Geneva. Her 'URBANSCAPES' work in particular is what i look at and experimented with as it relates to my topic of urban and city scapes as well as colour.
This image shows a building influenced to be a bright and vivid orange colour while the rest of the image is in black and white, I think the reflections off of the building make this image quite interesting and this part of the image is what probably would draw the most attention at first look, as it is a strong colour itself, the use of black and white along with it exaggerates the colour.
I think the bottom of the image are parts from a construction site so there's probably something being built next to it.
Vantage point and I think maybe some use of line has been used within this photo, even though the lines don't really lead up to a certain subject at the end.
Compared to some of her other work, I don't hate this image. Her block coloured pieces i find boring and they don't tell me a story. Where as from this image i can create my own interpretation of whats happening in the photo.
This is an interior shot, obviously the colours have been altered to focus on the interior parts, but some dark parts on the outside are really bold and therefore are capturing too.
It seems quite peaceful yet mysterious as its not clear what the image is trying to show, also the fact that there is a huge hole in the wall may show this building to be disfigured, or unfinished.
There is a use of a sort of shallow depth of field, as the background isn't as sharp as the red foreground, also filling the frame as it takes up the hole image.
I am interested in this building as its not clear what its supposed to be used for. It doesn't appear to be like a normal building but that's how it may have been manipulated by Brodbeck. It looks as though the background has been photo shopped in.
Mauren Brodbeck Expermientation.
These are my attempts to create Mauren Brodbeck style images. I blocked out a part of the building on Photoshop and for the first one, used one simple block colour to hide it. The second image, i used different shades of one colour to show it in a 3 Dimensional form using the different tones in certain areas of light and dark. The third image is a bit different, i made it less opaque and more translucent showing a different look on it. |
Walter Berk.
This image is really bright from the lights, and creating and uplifting feel. The advertisements are all well lit up vividly, and clearly show the contrast between them and the sky. The dark sky contributes to bringing out the brightness and shine of the lights.
The vantage point shows that this may be on a hill, also with the contributing factor of use of lines that lead you on to the edge of the photo where the lights have become blurry, but are still quite vivid. I think the photographer has done this to show how busy the streets are at night, especially during this time period. Because Judging by the cars they remind me of the 1920s.
I find this photograph really simplistic, but the brightness and colours of the night scene normally would give the opposite effect. The busyness of the lights contrast with the dark, dull sky and the people, who look very small and motionless look very calm and all the attention goes straight to the advertisements, rather than the people.
This image, like the previous one shows a city scene at night time. But the difference between them which I think shows a secluded feel, is the wet floor, and the lights reflecting onto it. I'm not sure whether there are people in the image or not, but either way it creates again another simplistic tone to the photo.
The photo obviouslyhas a large depth of field, however many wirtten parts of the image are not seen very easily due to how far away the photographer has positioned the camera, in order to get all these buildings in the shot.
There are lights within all the compositions in the photo. The foreground being the wet floor; the mid-ground - the focus of the picture - the very lit up buildings; and the background containing a few more buildings into the distance, which show blurred lights and not much line but we are able to figure out what these buildings look like, from the use of very faint lines to create the shapes.
Sam Gallagher.
The photographer has used a long exposure time to create this image, as well as being out of focus. I dont know how long but I think maybe about 3-5 second shutter speed. The shape the photographer has created with the lights shows a very romantic feel because they look like hearts.
The few in the front are clearer in showing the main shape that the photographer has created, while the background shows very blurred lights, which all seem to form together to create there own line of blurred and smooth colours.
The image, I find is very relaxing, however I'm intrigued as to know what the lights are sourced from, whether they're car lights; Christmas lights; or from a very high point looking down over a city, like her other photos.
The few in the front are clearer in showing the main shape that the photographer has created, while the background shows very blurred lights, which all seem to form together to create there own line of blurred and smooth colours.
The image, I find is very relaxing, however I'm intrigued as to know what the lights are sourced from, whether they're car lights; Christmas lights; or from a very high point looking down over a city, like her other photos.
The photographer again, has played around with the focus in this image as to make the image blurry. The use of line is not directly straight but it is obvious that you can see the lines through the image, coming closer together which show the perspective of how large this landscape is.
The different colour lights show the image to be not as tense, as if they were all either a yellow or orange colour, it would give off a more tense environment and look quite eery, as if sticking to a social norm.
The sky starts of black at the top but as it gets closer to the lights it starts to fade into the colours of these lights in the image, showing an orange-like sky and then showing the lights to have collaborate into a sort of line of colour, showing different tones within it. Getting closer to the bottom or front of the image, the lights become more individual and show the colours as they are instead of blending into each other.
The different colour lights show the image to be not as tense, as if they were all either a yellow or orange colour, it would give off a more tense environment and look quite eery, as if sticking to a social norm.
The sky starts of black at the top but as it gets closer to the lights it starts to fade into the colours of these lights in the image, showing an orange-like sky and then showing the lights to have collaborate into a sort of line of colour, showing different tones within it. Getting closer to the bottom or front of the image, the lights become more individual and show the colours as they are instead of blending into each other.
Sam Gallagher Photoshoot.
To try out Sam Galaghers work, I went to a busy road and changed the focus on my camera to achieve this blurred light effects. I altered the focus alot to make the circles either lighter or darker and I really like how the pictures came out. I think its interesting to see the difference between if the image were focused as to when it is not. In a more focused image, the lights are further away from each other, but through blurring the image, the lights get closer together as if mixing an blending in with each other, and I found this very pretty and creative.
Sam Gallagher Experimentation - Using Photoshop.
To make my work reflect Gallaghers work more, I photo shopped my images from PHOTOSHOOT1 to create the bokeh effect. Using the shape blur tool I then used different shapes, such as hearts and circles, to blur the lights in the same image to show if there is much of a difference.
I also experimented with the brightness, contrast, hue and saturation to create a different kind of experimentation of her work. Again, using photoshop. In doing this I blurred my images with a lens blur effect, and thought as Gallaghers work shows different coloured blur lights, I thought to experiment this in my own way, by infact changing the hue and saturation to show a brighter, more colourful effect.
PHOTOSHOOT : Lights.
Because my chosen area is light and colour, as well as doing long exposure shots, i also took photos of interesting or colourful lights. I started off in Piccadilly Circus, and started walking around in near-by streets such as Carnaby street, Berkeley Square and Charles Street. While looking around I came across different kinds of interior and exterior lights, which gave me a good aspect of how many different lights there are so close to each other. Again i was inspired slightly by one of my artists, Walter Berk, taking pictures of colourful lights, but not exactly in the night time scenes of advertisements like he had done.
AO2: Creative Making.
Experiment with and select appropriate resources,media, materials,techniques and processes,reviewing and refining ides as work develops.
Camera Techniques and parts.
The shutter release determines the amount of light the shutter lets into the camera by being kept open for certain amounts of time. The pentaprism reflects the image from the mirrors to the view finder. The f-stops (apeture) allow certain amounts of light into the camera depending on what its set on. The smaller the apeture, the bigger the hole letting in the light. From this the shutter speed is short, and there is a shallow depth of field. This setting is used for portraiture images. In contrast, the bigger the apeture, the smaller the hole letting in the light. And from this, the shutter is speed is long, and there is a wide depth of field. This setting is used for landscape photos. However this image is exposed so that the face is visible even though here is a light background. This is done by going close up to the face, holding down the AE-lock and the shutter half way, then moving backwards ad taking the picture. Panning is used to show the movement within an image, this bus for example, driving from one place to the next. I have showed the movement within the image by moving the camera as the bus moves, therefore creating the background to be blurred and out of focus, while the main subject, the bus is more or less in focus. The ISO means the sensitivity of the shutter, and how much light is needed to expose an image. There are 4 ways to how an image is shown through changing the ISO: -Resolution - How fine the image is -Grain - again, how fine the image is -Noise - how fuzzy/pixelated an image looks -Lossy - how blurred an image is The smaller the ISO number, the more light is needed to expose it, for example 1/60 means that more light is needed. Therefore the image comes out finer, with a high resolution and good grain. For 1/1600, as much light is needed, but the picture becomes lossy, noisy and grainy. This image has been created by a small apeture, an f.stop of about 1.4 or 2, meaning that alot of light is allowed into the camera. From this, only whats in the foreground is in focus obviously meaning the background is blurry. This creates a shallow depth of field. For a larger depth of field, the camera would be set on a bigger apeture, for example of an f.stop of about 16 letting in less light, so then the whole image is in focus, this is mainly for use of landscape shots. |
The mirror inside the camera is behind the lens. It reflects the image to another mirror above it and then to the pentaprism right at the top so that what the lens can see is then visible through the view finder. The shutter is the part of the camera which lets in the light. The amount of light depending on the image you are taking is important as you wouldn't want a landscape picture which was over exposed, a portrait picture which was not exposed enough, or a night time picture which also didn't have enough exposure. This is the exposure dial. The different icons allow you to take the perfect photo by adapting to the lighting and the surroundings of the image you are about to take. Some settings allow the image to be lighter or darker, and others capture movement or create an automatic depth of field. This image is back lit, so the faces aren't as visible or as exposed as the background. Another way to lighten the face is to just use the flash when taking the image. This exposes the face just as much as using the AE-lock. Long exposure- a long exposure allows for a lot of light to enter the camera, as the shutter speed is quite long. By playing around with the zoom, and manipulating the movement of the camera, different lines can be created. This image is also created by having a slow shutter speed, about 3 seconds. A short shutter speed, such as 1/4000, is used for bright scenes, and moving objects, so they are not blurred. However, a shutter speed of 1/125 means there is no camera jog. But on other settings, camera jog shows that we can't get a clear picture of lights, so a tripod and self timer is needed so that there is no camera jog and therefore the picture is not blurred. The Exposure compensation is about making the image lighter or darker, this can be done by moving towards one end or the other on this scale. The minus numbers make the image darker, where-as on the positive side it makes the image lighter. It allows the image to be kept on a shutter speed that doesn't make the image blurry and so 'compensates' to make it lighter.
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6 Rules of Photography.
Filling The Frame.
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To frame a subject, it more or less has to touch nearly all 4 edges of the frame. It captures the object(s) in which you want the audience to look at. Theres no point in taking a picture of a leaf, if it will only reside in for example, the bottom left corner. For small images, it would be helpful to use a macro lens, so that the picture willl come out in focus, but for other larger objects it isn't really required, however the image would have to be in focus otherwise there is no point to it really, unless that was what the photographer was intending. |
Framing The Subject.
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Filling the frame is a way of focussing on an object without having to fill the frame. It is done by having something that can 'frame' the part you want the audience to focus on in the image, for example a person, an apple, a tree e.t.c. The frame or foreground can be in focus, it doesn't really matter much, however I think it is more effective for the frame to not be in focus, and have the priority of the photo in focus, as the frame is not particularly what you may want the audience to look at. |
Vantage Point.
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(This is a slideshow) Vantage point shows everything in different points of view, mainly within the use of angles. For example looking up from below, which can create an overpowering effect of perhaps a building, or down from above, to show again an overpowering effect, but from the photographer, and even the person looking at the photo, perhaps from standing at the top of a building. Other vantage points can be created along the side of something, creating a longer stretch from one place to the next. |
Rule Of Thirds.
Depth Of Field.
These images are created using a fake depth of field on Photoshop, by using the blur and sharpen tools i was able to manipulate the photo to create a shallower depth of field, by looking at the before and after images you can see the difference between the foreground, mid ground and background.
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(This is a slideshow) Depth of field is used to create more of a 3-dimensional look of an image, it is also used to further influence certain things and the subject of the photo. A shallow depth of field provides the subject closest to the lens to be in focus, while the background is blurred, sometimes there may be a busy background, so a use of a shallow depth of field would be vital in terms of capturing the main subject. However a large depth of field would be used when the whole image is needed to be in focus, this would normally be used for a landscape photo, to capture ever part of the scene. |
Use Of Lines.
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(This is a slideshow) The use of lines in a photo increase the impact that the image is giving. Sometimes the lines can be used to draw you to a subject of the image, by the viewers eyes directly following along them. There are different ways in which the use of lines can be captured. For example, vertical lines create a peaceful mood within a photo, while horizontal lines show a stillness within the photo. And lastly, diagonal lines show perspective and movement. |
PHOTOSHOOT : Lights at night in richmond.
I decided to experiment with how lights show a scene to be lit a lot differently in an image than we see with our own eyes. Especially at night. The orange artificial lighting, doesn't look this orange when you look at it in person, but the camera catches it and lights up the whole scene, and I think this creates quite an authentic look. Some images are blurred and I played around with the long exposure, and I like how the exposure shows use of line, to create a simple but interesting look, and how it can also show chaos.
I chose some of the best images from the Richmond shoot and cropped an enhanced some brightness and the saturation of these photos on Photoshop, therefore creating the images to be more focused and look more professional. By changing these certain aspects of the photos, i realised how an image that probably wasn't very strong can actually become very captivating and interesting by changing minor details through cropping or even changing the hues in the image.
PHOTOSHOOT : Long Exposure.
These shots are taken in regent street at night. Based on my two artists researches of Sam Gallagher (blurred lights) and Walter Berk (Lighted city scenes at night) I combined both their ideas together in my mind to create long exposure scenes of many lights at night. To create these images i set my camera to a 3 second shutter speed and then manipulated how the images would come out. For some, as the shutter was processing, I changed the zoom at the same time, creating lines that go from inwards to outwards. For others, i simply moved the camera around, in circles, or other swirly shapes.
AO3 Reflective Recording.
Record in visual and/or other forms ideas, observations, and insights relevant to intentions demonstrating an ability to reflect on work and progress.
My First Idea.
For my final piece I came up with using long exposure shots as through my AO2 work i have done a lot with this technique and i really enjoy creating imagery like that. I came up with an idea to incorporate these 2 following photo shoots together. I will be connecting these buildings from different ares of London with the lines i created, as though it were a tube map connecting them all in a circuit. The buildings will be in black and white to influence the brightness of the tube map colours. The idea that these simple routes take you from one place to a completely different place shows how the area that i live in is so accessible. I want to show the simplicity of traveling from one place to the next, the excitement of the journey and I think this will achieve an effective final piece. In doing this I will be using Photoshop.
This idea didn't work as on photoshop the glow stick effects looked to eerie and creepy and didn't look satisfactory enough to be used as a tube line. It did not create the effect I would have wanted to show and I feel that now I could possibly think of a more creative final piece.
My Second Idea.
String Theory.
String theory is originally formulated in the early 70s and is the theory that if you looked at a particle under a very powerful microscope you would see it as a loop of string, not an actual point. They are considered very microscopic but scientists say that they may be bigger than we think. They also vibrate and rotate in different ways, so they all look different from each other.
When the theory of the black hole was discovered, it was considered to have enough mass hence it has a great gravitational pull, pulling all matter inside of it but nothing is able to escape it, not even light. Therefore light is bent around inside of it, so its very dark, hence it being a black hole.
String Theory was developed by Stephen Hawkings. He found that through quantum mechanics (the idea that its impossible for anything to be in exactly one spot - everything moves around.), particles and light can boil off the surface of a black hole meaning that it shrinks down and eventually disappears.
While before it was believed that black holes contain nothing, string theory explains how they contain strings which store information about the universe around us.
From this, the string theory states that every particle in the universe put under a powerful magnifying glass would be seen as a string. Applying this theory to the idea of lights, I wonder whether this means that the light entering black holes can also be seen as strings. What would they look like?
At night, we think nothing is visible, but if we were to test string theory we would see strings. By using my camera I can demonstrate how I think these strings would appear. By experimenting with long shutter speeds and manipulating the zoom while the image is in process of being taken, I can create light waves which are a clear representation of my theory as to what string theory would appear as in a black hole.
When the theory of the black hole was discovered, it was considered to have enough mass hence it has a great gravitational pull, pulling all matter inside of it but nothing is able to escape it, not even light. Therefore light is bent around inside of it, so its very dark, hence it being a black hole.
String Theory was developed by Stephen Hawkings. He found that through quantum mechanics (the idea that its impossible for anything to be in exactly one spot - everything moves around.), particles and light can boil off the surface of a black hole meaning that it shrinks down and eventually disappears.
While before it was believed that black holes contain nothing, string theory explains how they contain strings which store information about the universe around us.
From this, the string theory states that every particle in the universe put under a powerful magnifying glass would be seen as a string. Applying this theory to the idea of lights, I wonder whether this means that the light entering black holes can also be seen as strings. What would they look like?
At night, we think nothing is visible, but if we were to test string theory we would see strings. By using my camera I can demonstrate how I think these strings would appear. By experimenting with long shutter speeds and manipulating the zoom while the image is in process of being taken, I can create light waves which are a clear representation of my theory as to what string theory would appear as in a black hole.
The images here are taken with a 2 or 3.2 seconds shutter speed, some taken on a footbridge, while others down by the roadside. It was interesting to see how the layout of the streetlights create shapes within the image, like in some almost a rectangle comes to shape. I think in contrast with the long shutter speed images in the previous slide show, it displays a more chaotic view of lights and how beautiful the colours are when put together.
While these lights and colours may look insignificant as they don't show particular everyday objects, they in a way represent the mystery and contradiction which scientists found in strings. which create the black hole.
While these lights and colours may look insignificant as they don't show particular everyday objects, they in a way represent the mystery and contradiction which scientists found in strings. which create the black hole.
Photoshop Editing.
I edited some of these photos by raising the brightness and contrast and darkening the lightened areas. I think that the glow the lights create help to make it look more bright and like lights rather than just colourful lines. However more work needs to be done on editing these images so that they don't appear to be on a road, and as if they were inside of a black hole.
I realised that even though my string theory idea is a very unique idea in itself, its not powerful enough to stand on its own. As the buildings are in black and white I will be combining those images with these long light exposure images to display a contrast between daytime and night time in the city. By this I mean that during the day, the city can in some areas be quite serene, as everyone is at work, therefore indisde, but when it turns to night time - when everybody goes home - then it is easy to see a chaotic atmosphere and I would like my images to show this juxtaposition of the same area, but different aspects of it.
Third Idea.
I started by using different filters on Photoshop after layering them, to explore which filter would appear best through them all. I then continued on to do this for more of my best building images:
I experimented with this building image and this light image because I thought it would be satisfactory enough, but after experimenting with these different techniques I realised that these images were not up to standard. However the light image I think is a good one as its different to the other ones, and therefore displays a different sort of chaos in the area compared to the others. So I tried it with a different building image which I find more successful:
I feel as though in some of these images, the creation of pixels and noise in the lines of light help to create more of a chaotic tone to the image.