New thoughts..

Having spoken with a lecturer about my idea, it seems that my idea is too outside the set brief. I have decided that I will try my idea anyway, but try various things such as take the picture of the flower before it's picked, lay it down on grass etc and experiment with more layering and textures along with it.

My mock up..

Using the influntial images from Susan Derges and a couple of the words from my little list, I decided to play around with some images. I used ice cubes as a texture because it's more of a representation of time from Winter to Spring. I used an old image of a flower and overlayed it on top using Photoshop. Of course I know I could do better with this. Though the more I look at it, the more I'm a bit drawn to it weirdly enough.

I may use this type of colouring in my final image. I am looking to pick a flower and put it in some water, freeze it, then melt half of it so that the flower stick out the melted side - both representing the change of Winter to Spring but in a less obvious way. I hope that it's not too Wintery though!

The thing that sparked my idea..

No this isn't the original image I found a while before this project, no I cannot find where I'd seen it and yes this particular subject is more suitable for Autumn/Winter!

(Source: Google but apparently somewhere on Blogger!)

However! I feel that ice just represents more of a transition than a season, it gives off a really nice textured effect just like in Susan Derges's photos. Using a flower in a similar way I feel that I could achieve this for Spring.

Susan Derges

We were recommended some photographers that may influence us for this Seasons project. Susan Derges being one of them, her work stood out more to me on the list of references because she is experimental. She uses paper and exposes it underneath water, well to gain these ones she did anyway. I like the textures and tones it's brought out in these images.

I also am a fan of her darkness and colours, though they do not quite fit my theme of Spring, they certainly are nice to look at.


(Source: Google and http://www.susanderges.com/)

Before I try more shots..

I've been given a new brief associated with the season Spring.

So, what represents this season?

Flowers

Green

Pink/Purple

Water

Easter

Blossom

New

Life

Air

Time

Change of idea

I have decided to set myself a target. Since shooting upwards has become a strong viewpoint for me, I have decided to do a shoot based on this angle on regards to anything interesting I can see. I will do architecture and nature since they are also a strong point for me.

The First Assignment

I must admit, taking photos of generic scenes/objects of anything isn't my sort of thing, I feel like I'm not really strong in that area. But I gave this a go. Of course, my mind was pretty closed on this project and hardly inspired enough. The week deadline and no inspiration wasn't great, but I managed these outcomes!

This was the colour swatch and word I was given*. I had to use the word for one photograph, choose 4 other words to photograph about, then using the colour swatch, photograph 3 different things that also fit another 3 different words!

My approach to this task wasn't the best, I used only the space of my flat to do these as I'm not too familiar with the area just yet.

(ISO - 200) f22 1/60

 I thought this was a pretty nice start to finding such colours from my swatch*. The word 'Light' fits well to this because there was a lot of sunlight when I took it and it brings out the definition of the building.

(ISO - 400) f7.1 1/30

 My initial thought was that this would be easy to photograph, but the exposure in this area was actually challenging, I even had to brighten it up in Photoshop just a tad. My word combination was pattern.*

(ISO - 200) f9 1/20

This was when I started to give up finding colours to match on my colour swatch*, simply because there were not many places in my working area that actually had this. Perhaps I wasn't looking properly and perhaps I just need to stop restricting myself, so this is something I've learnt from this.

(ISO - 1600) f5.6 1/50

 Moving on to the words alone. I literally saw this lens cap laying there on top of my cardigan and thought it would make a good 'Text' picture. But the response was that it was too literal as a photographer, which I didn't think of at the time. So I shall make sure I photograph text to a different context in the future.

(ISO - 1600) f5.6 1/50

 This was my response to the given word 'Tone'. I admit that it wasn't my initial response, I tried different things like tonal gradation/contrasting tones, visual and more literal things..but then my boyfriend suggested this idea which I thought was perfect for me since I adore music, it's my second nature to photography as you'll find out soon enough!

(ISO - 1600) f5.6 1/50

 I had experimented with a lot of jewellery close ups to see what I could compose and I thought this actually quite demonstrated my love of animal print (and stars!) quite well, so this project almost turned into a self-themed project. So my word was initially 'Pattern' but thinking about it, why not 'Animal Print' or 'Own interest'? This could easily spark into more ideas.

(ISO - 400) f5.6 1/60

 I had trouble with the exposure here as I found that my overall settings for the lighting conditions in my room were actually more false in different areas of my room. So once I had it right, the flash decided to come on! I was going to turn it off and try again, but I thought that in fact, the flash highlighted the theme of 'Shiny' for this image. I don't think it was a strong image, almost like a snapshot, so if I was to re-shoot these pieces of jewellry; or any shiny jewellry; then I will try without flash and take more time on the settings a bit.

(ISO - 800) f5.6 1/25

This one was a little tough to get in focus to get the framing right at a lower level without anything stable to stand on. I had to play around with the exposure too since different areas of the same lit room is actually different when you least expect it, so that's quite a big thing that I've learnt! The lecturer found the angle and almost abstract way I photographed this, personally I agree to a certain level with that. Perhaps it's just because I don't like those curtains? Anyway, since I've been advised about continuing this theme of upward angles, I've decided to take this on board when I re-shoot this. My word for this was 'Repetition' as I'd used Pattern before, there could be more words to suit this though I guess!

So, overall, I will shoot upward, maybe choose different words slightly, not photograph the obvious, choose different locations and add a bit of a theme to make it more directive. I will also put myself in the picture and even research a little!


*Please note that the colours shown are not true, the real life colours are more truer as opposed to in the photographs.

Welcome!

This will be the blog that I will be using for my module called Professional Frameworks. I will be talking about the assignments and my responses to the 'live brief' set assignments.