Exercise fourteen: Cropping

So, the final exercise before assignment one. The brief was to select three images from my library with a view to creating 'new' images by cropping them.


Mauritius

55mm, 1/400 secs, f/8, ISO 100

Each alternative corp is an improvement on the original.  The landscape alternative falls a little short because of the empty space down the left hand side of the image.  The portrait alternative, however, is much better balanced.

Burj Al Arab, Dubai

20mm, 1/30 secs, f/18, ISO 200

The obvious alternative crop (portrait) is too flat, and resembles a run-of-the-mill holiday snap.  Although I tend not to opt for (or even spot) a square crop, it works very well here.  The building on the right that's flooded with evening light and the boat in the right foreground gives the viewer a greater sense of context.


Holy Island, Northumberland

18mm, 1/60 secs, f/18, ISO 200

I do like the original shot, framed to some degree by the reed on the left of the image - without it, all points of interest in the shot would be on the right hand side of the scene.  The landscape crop arguably provides greater balance but it suffers from the loss of the grassy area in the foreground.  The portrait crop works extremely well; conforming to the rule of thirds - firstly with the horizon and the shoreline, but also with the boat sitting on one of the intersections and the castle on another.


In conclusion, this was a nice little activity. Of course, composition is part of the thought process before a shot is even taken.  Following which, in post-production I may tighten/straighten up a little or occasionally I'll seek to find an alternative to the original composition.  This exercise has taught me that one image can yield several alternatives.

Exercise thirteen: Vertical and horizontal frames

There have been a number of obstacles to maintaining the pace that I'd originally set, but in some way this exercise was one of them.  The thought of having to take 40 images seemed like a sizeable effort - certainly the biggest one yet.

To recap, 20 pairs of images were needed; each pair consisting of a vertical and horizontal shot.  Intrigued by this exercise I've trawled through my library and I seem to have a tendency to take portrait shots (which probably breaks from the norm).

Here are the images I've compiled for this exercise.

120mm, 1/80 secs, f/16, ISO 100

18mm, 1/80 secs, f/16, ISO 100

105mm, 1/125 secs, f/18, ISO 400

75mm, 1/125 secs, f/18, ISO 400

18mm, 1/1000 secs, f/8, ISO 800

20mm, 1/80 secs, f/8, ISO 800

10mm, 1/500 secs, f/18, ISO 800

10mm, 1/320 secs, f/18, ISO 800

30mm, 1/50 secs, f/22, ISO 400

30mm, 1/50 secs, f/22, ISO 400

55mm, 1/4000 secs, f/5.6, ISO 100

55mm, 1/1000 secs, f/5.6, ISO 100

22mm, 1/60 secs, f/20, ISO 800

22mm, 1/60 secs, f/20, ISO 800

18mm, 1/13 secs, f/22, ISO 100

18mm, 1/20 secs, f/22, ISO 100

18mm, 1/40 secs, f//22, ISO 100

18mm, 1/40 secs, f/22, ISO 100

18mm, 1/60 secs, f/22, ISO 100

18mm, 1/60 secs, f/22, ISO 100

55mm, 1/800 secs, f/22, ISO 100

55mm, 1/800 secs, f/22, ISO 100

15mm, 1/400 secs, f/16, ISO 400

10mm, 1/400 secs, f/16, ISO 400

18mm, 1/1000 secs, f/10, ISO 400

18mm, 1/1000 secs, f/10, ISO 400

50mm, 1 secs, f/22, ISO 400

18mm, 2.5 secs, f/22, ISO 400

45mm, 1/1000 secs, f/5.6, ISO 100

35mm, 1/1000, f/4.5, ISO 100

45mm, 1/160 secs, f/5.6, ISO 100

24mm, 1/160, f/4, ISO 100

55mm, 1/60 secs, f/11, ISO 100

55m, 1/60 secs, f/11, ISO 100

50mm, 1/200 secs, f/11, ISO 400

55mm, 1/200 secs, f/11, ISO 400

20mm, 1/160 secs, f/11, ISO 400

24mm, 1/160 secs, f/11, ISO 400

50mm, 1/160 secs, f/2.2, ISO1600

30mm, 1/125, f/4.5, ISO 6400

Conclusion
As the exercise brief suggests, by this point of the course most students will have a bias towards shooting landscape.  I on the other hand am probably guilty of the opposite.

It still proved to be a valuable experience.  Very few shots only work in one of either landscape or portrait, and breaking with convention can work very effectively (both portrait shots of the Tudor buildings are a prime example).  Granted, a change of focal length, composition, angle of view and/or altering the distance from the subject may be necessary.

Toughest challenge yet!

It was with some trepidation that I agreed to take on my first piece of commissioned work recently – a music gig. To date I’d only taken shots for my benefit, not for others'.

It was an incredibly valuable experience and I’ve captured the key learning points below.

Before lifting the camera

Asking the right questions was critical.  Before the event I made a point of speaking to the band to understand what exactly they were looking for; whether there were specific shots that the band wanted; the light conditions that I could expect and how they intended to use the images.

This insight prompted me to research low light photography, specifically ISO and shutter speed settings.  This preparation removed much of the anxiety.

Manual vs. Shutter Speed Priority vs. Aperture Priority

Throughout the evening I chopped and changed my approach, but kept coming back to shutter speed priority.  Through advanced reading and initial experimentation, it became clear that I needed a shutter speed of at least 1/125 (if not 1/160) in order to capture the band members without motion blur.  Fortunately the band stayed relatively still throughout.

The light conditions were so changeable that shooting in manual mode was too tricky as I needed to be able to capture images instantly. The only exception was when I used my fixed 50mm lens, where shooting with shutter speed priority produced an aperture of f1.8 - resulting in the depth of field being too narrow.  I therefore experimented with aperture priority and manual.

(Throughout the evening I opted for an ISO of 3200/6400 and relied on reducing noise during post-production.)

Next time I'll start with shutter speed priority and be willing to improved but I've some further reading to do! I guess it also depends on the lens that I'm using at the time.

The more the merrier?

Over the course of the evening I shot 900+ images by using the burst function.  At the time this gave me the reassurance that it would increase my chances of getting a greater number of acceptable shots.  

In hindsight I should have had greater conviction and trusted my ability as it meant far much more work post-shoot and has brought about a couple of different problem... post-production workflow and storage (I shot RAW).

As for my chosen workflow, I tagged the images, sifted through them and picked out the stronger ones to work on before uploading them to my Flickr photostream. My mistake was not deleting duplicates and shots out of focus/poorly composed.  Next time I'll delete those surplus to requirements first.

For now, I've been able to delete a significant number of RAW files but it won't be long before I need external hard drives.


So, in summary, consulting with the band helped immensely but I need to find a more efficient workflow.

Fear not, I am still alive

Well, it's fair to say that the past couple of months haven't been the most productive as far as TAOP goes.

It doesn't seem too long ago that my tutor emailed and suggested that he'd be expecting my first assignment by 3rd October.  That was in September and I was motoring along.  It's now mid-November and it's fair to say that there won't much progress this side of Christmas.

Far from it being all doom and gloom I have taken a few decent shots that will form part of an exercise or the first assignment - one of which is this:

55mm, 1/125 secs at f/22, ISO 100

posted on Flickr, it's been viewed 335 times (far more than any of my other images), commented on 23 times and added as a favourite 18 times.  Lesson learned?  Find relevant groups and get your photos seen.  Not only was it a surprising response I've made some great contacts that will undoubtedly lead to more views and feedback on future images as well as inspiration.

I have done some reading of the recommended texts and I'll endeavour to do more over the coming weeks in the absence of getting the camera out.  Watch this space for more.

I'll sign of with details of one field trip in the next couple of weeks.  I've been asked to photograph a music gig; something I've never done before.  So whether or not the images will come in handy for an exercise I'm hoping to learn plenty.