Work Record 3

Third record of photographs

Planning
Shoot Ideas

In my shoot, I will be focusing on Helene Binet; a photographer from Switzerland with a primary focus on the development of architecture and the shapes from it. She photographs a variety of man-made structures to tell a story through the photos of human endeavour. Many of the photos find very interesting structures and give an abstract feeling to them. To respond, I will attempt to go to central London (hopefully - if not then Harlow) to take photos of some of the modern architecture in the city centre. Skyscrapers, statues, stations, etc. 

Image Bank
Inspiring Images

The photos shown are taken by Binet in a series of modern architectural photos, each part of one series. They each interest me because of their angles which give the viewer a great view to piece up the intricate design of each structure. It's very appealing to the eye, too, as it takes advantage of the angles, lines and curves in each to make the curves feel much more seamless than they might originally be.

Contact Sheet
All Photos Taken

5 Best Photos
The Top 5 for Final Piece

2 Photos to Improve
The 2 that Failed to Reach the Requirements

The photos shown are my 5 best and 2 worst photos. I've taken these over a single shoot, where I intended to capture curves and architecture in Romford, while acing my new aspect, where I take an urban, grunge shoot. The best photos I believe captured accurately what Romford looks like in 2019, with a massive mix of old and new, all incorporating curves. The worst photos are in my opinion salvageable, however they aren't as nice as I want them to look. The odd lighting in both images would impact the photos even after post-production, so there is no point using them.

Potential Ideas & Experiments
Exploring new Ideas

In my opinion, these photos take a new perspective on Binet's work, spinning the idea of it being clean modern architecture. I've taken the idea of modern and curves, however I've decided to go with an industrial theme to link to how much of the UK looks. Concrete, metal, etc. For the editing, I've decided that it'd be a good idea to make each photo in black and white, with a much higher contrast than in the pre-production photos. I want them to look very grungy and urban, as said before. Using black and white along with interpreting curves to a high contrast would improve the photos in composition. Furthermore, I believe I could experiment with the tint of photos, especially with the spiral carpark. This is because the road might look a bit bland after made black and white, so giving it a cooler tint might bring out the features a bit more.

References
Photos to Link to Ideas & Experiments

Camera Settings
How I Took the Photos

The photos I took were mostly taken with the Canon 1100D, with an exception of photos 4654 - 4659 being taken with a Canon 5D using the same SD card. Both cameras featured a detailed variety of settings, with shutter speeds ranging from 1000 to 80, aperture hitting around f5 to f12, and ISO ranging between 1600 and 400. Each photo took around a minute to take, as we were taking lighting, angle and composition into consideration.

Edits
How I Edited them in Post

In my edits I went for b/w, much like Binet's way of creating the photos. Furthermore, I gave the photos a very high contrast to create the definition that can be found in the artist's photos. As well as that, it also is quite aesthetically pleasing. To begin I edited in Camera RAW. I've found out that in mid-editing you can use CTRL+SHIFT+A to open up the RAW editor, but it's much easier just to do the editing at the beginning and then change other pieces of composition afterwards. I digress; I edited the photos with a high exposure and contrast, while increasing shadows significantly. Clarity and hazing were edited in turn with how the quality had turned out for the photos. In this instance, it looked better with mild dehazing and clarity.

After this I made sure the photo was in black and white via the vibrance and saturation sliders. However, there is also a setting above the exposure where you can automatically set it to B/W instantly, so I might start doing that instead of the former. When I opened the photo I also found that I didn't quite perfectly match the contrast I wanted, so I both opened the RAW editor again and then more accurately fine-tuned it via curves. The reason I did this was because I couldn't find the perfect medium with the sliders alone, so I decided to edit via the curve graph too.









Final Piece
Final Photos and Future Improvement

One of my favourite shoots of recent, I took a trip a couple miles out to Romford to photograph the Mercury and the town centre surrounding it. The photographic potential of the area is plentiful, with many areas that have a perfect angle or view which could make a piece like the car park or the curved wall. However, we're not here to talk about that. To actually improve further when it comes to my future photography, I believe I should focus on a variety of things, including the time I take photos, as well as where the lighting is implemented into each photo. Furthermore, I believe I could further improve my work by taking more time on my photos, making sure the focus is accurate and on point.