EMMA PHILLIPS

A BLOG RECORDING THE RESEARCH AND PROGRESS OF MY FINAL YEAR PROJECT AT UNIVERSITY.

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Melancholia

The flower has featured in the genre of still life art since the 17th Century, when many artists painted them either in bloom or wilted to represent the transience of human life.  The tulip was a popular flower in the Dutch Golden Age, when prices of the flower reached high levels before suddenly collapsing a period which became known as 'tulip mania'.  Melancholia is a time-lapse that captures the movements of tulips, rising and falling, drooping in and out of the frame, evoking a kind of mania.

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Looped

Normal

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Final Touches

I spent sometime yesterday making some adjustments to my final piece, making sure the colours were to my liking.  I noticed when playing the time-lapse on a calibrated monitor that there was a slight red cast, so I corrected this using the Three Way Colour Corrector effect in Adobe Premiere Pro, and I also changed the brightness and contrast slightly.

I also experimented with the length of the video by repeating the time-lapse: starting with the flowers wilting and drooping, then returning to being healthy and standing up, to finally drooping and wilting again (shown in a separate post).  I am not sure which version I will have as my final piece yet.

I have also added a title frame to the time-lapse so that it acts as a beginning

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Last tutorial

My last tutorial for this project went very well.  I am glad that I do not need to change anything, apart from signifying a beginning and end to the project and possibly putting some sound on top of the video but it is really hard to figure out what sound would go with a piece like this.  I also had to change the title of the time-lapse, which was “Still Life in Motion” as it sounded too much like a description of the project.  I have decided to go with “Melancholic”, as the drooping and rising of the flowers represent to me the feelings of trying to achieve something perfect but never quite making it.

I have managed to reserve the 40″ screen at university, which I tested on the day of my tutorial.  I may need to edit the time-lapse in terms of colour and adjust the brightness on the screen, but I won’t be able to do that until it is in the gallery.

Although I have had a few technical problems I have enjoyed this project.  It has made me realise that a time-lapse photographer needs to be patient and plan their projects as best as they can, and using reliable equipment saves a lot of time and struggle in post edit!  It has also improved my knowledge of Adobe After-Effects and Premiere Pro, as I have learnt how to stabilise footage and I have attempted using masks to cover the sides of the footage where the studio is visible.

I would like to continue with this project but include other flowers to show the impact upon them when experimenting with the amount of water given, like Dr. John Ott realised after conducting his time-lapses.  

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A video showing Ori Gersht explaining his series Blow Up, with one of the pictures available to view in the exhibition Revelations at the Science Museum, London.  

It is interesting about what he says about the camera constructing its own reality, and the reference of the camera becoming an extension of the human body - all topics that Paul Wombell was covering in his guest lecture (emmaphillipsphoto.com/blog). 

Reference:

Revelations: interview with Ori Gersht [2015].  Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=135&v=f_RhGVbNxuE [Accessed 16 May 2015].

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I found this book by Michael Wesely, who is well known for taking long exposures of cities, buildings and landscapes.  Wesely applies his technique to bouquets of flowers, capturing their movements over a period of time giving them a ghostly look. I like how they are simply framed with the movements of the flowers adding depth and injects life into what is considered a still life subject.

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Tutorial and Testing

After my last tutorial I received very good feedback for my time-lapse.  I showed both the new time-lapse, which is currently in progress, and the version which had the flickering problem.  I showed it on a projector in one of the classrooms which improved the whole effect of the video.

I was instructed to find out about what screens the technical department had that I could use in the studio, who emailed me back with a few options, one being a 40″ screen which I would like to use, however I am not sure whether the walls in the gallery will handle the weight of the screens - I am still waiting to find this out.  See the email below:

Please see below the dimensions and resolutions of the screens we have.

The 5 NEC LCDs are very very heavy and will need to be mounted on the wall. We have the brackets but you must ensure you ask the gallery if this is OK and find out if the walls are strong enough to take their weight.

The Dell monitors can be standing on a table.

NEC LCD4000 Resolution: 1280x768 Dimensions: 1125 (W) x 770 (H) x 261 (D) mm Weight: 33.5kg Number of: 3

NEC LCD3000 Resolution: 1280x768 Dimensions: 840 (W) x 640 (H) x 360 (D) mm Weight: 20kg Number of: 1 Problems: The fan is audible

DELL 2408WFP Resolution: 1900x1200 Dimensions: 559.7 (W) x 396.8 (H) x 207.6  (D) mm Weight: 9.58kg Number of: 2

I have arranged to see and test my work on the screens next Tuesday 5th May, but just incase the gallery walls are not able to stand the weight of the screens, I booked the studio on Thursday (30th April) to test the time lapse on the projector and edit it for colour balance and brightness.  I edited a few frames in Lightroom and saved the settings as a preset so I can apply it to the total number of frames if I need to

Projector vs Laptop

My next tutorial will be my last for this project and for university.  I have learnt a lot from doing this time lapse - it has improved my technical knowledge along with skills acquired through using Premiere Pro and After Effects.  I have also introduced myself to a new piece of software, LRTimelapse, which will come in handy for future projects.  

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A video showing the editing of the time lapse frames in Adobe Lightroom to reduce the occurrence of flickering by changing the exposure values.  

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Guest Lecture 28/04/2015: Russell Boyce, Reuters

The guest lecture for this week was delivered by Russell Boyce, a photographer and global editor at Reuters. Boyce started his talk by showing a slide show of the kind of images Reuters deal with, news pictures both breaking news and in-depth visual stories, along with business news.

Reuters has been in business for 160 years, with 600 photographers globally (contractors, freelance, staff) who contribute to the 2000 daily pictures delivered to Reuters clients - making editing an important skill here. The photographers are journalists, they report what they are seeing to news journalists who are not necessarily at the time of capturing the photos, or when the news event is happening. Reuters have a code of conduct and rules they abide by to deliver unbiased news in an integral way.

I found Russell’s talk very interesting and I was too focused on his presentation that I forgot to write down many notes. One thing that did stick in my mind is that the edit and curation of news stories is so important now, especially since printed news is facing a decline, with many people accessing their news online through hand held devices, which in turn has seen a shift in how many images are included in a story, however mobile devices and the rise of social media and its instant nature has also had an negative effect on Reuters business, with non-professional photographers being able to get the first images of a news story.

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Following my last time lapse I was having a lot of problems with flickering.  For this time lapse I made sure that no natural light was coming through, covering gaps near the window with black bin liners and I set the camera on a custom white balance setting instead of tungsten.

However, on reviewing the new images I noticed that the flickering was still occurring.  I researched into ways of fixing this as I really liked the display of flowers and the movements they created, and I found a piece of software called LRTimelapse, I used the tutorial I included in my last post.  However, it did not eradicate the flickering completely.  

I decided that manually fixing the exposure in Lightroom may fix it, and it did to a certain extent, but it took a rather long time - 2 days for editing 5000 frames - going back and fourth between frames when making adjustments (there will be a video in my next post showing the process)

I then researched further on the problem of flickering, focusing on the D7000 itself to see if there were known issues with this camera and the 50mm lens I was using.  I came across a video on YouTube (below), which discusses how the aperture sometimes causes flickering, as each time a shot is taken the lens starts with the aperture fully open and then closes as the frame is taken.  The problem with this method is that the closing of the aperture is not consistent and so results in a flickering effect caused by differences in exposures between frames.  The video suggests disengaging the lens slightly from the camera mechanisms so that the aperture stays fixed.

I have decided to get new flowers and try this method, which will hopefully fix the flickering problem, along with the other changes I have made.  I still need to figure out how to eliminate the camera shake, caused by changing the battery and memory card in the camera, I hope to find some tutorials to help me with this.

Reference:

How to solve aperture time lapse flicker (2011) [Online video].  Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-82mtqkoQK8 [Accessed 20 April 2015].

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I returned to doing a time lapse of tulips as I received good feedback for the test that I did a few weeks ago, when the tulips drooped off the frame.  I have exported the video at 60fps instead of 24fps, just to see what effect it would have on the movement of the flowers and it does appear to be a bit smoother.  I have also added a black fade in and fade out effect on the video so the viewer knows when the video starts/ends.  I have also reversed the time lapse to fit in with the theme of life and death and renewal.  There are still some technical issues I have to solve in terms of the footage flickering, I have found a piece of software, LRTimelapse, which works with Lightroom to edit keyframes.  Here is the tutorial which I will use to help me edit my work:  https://vimeo.com/gwegner/lrt3deflicker

I have started another time lapse using different tulips which better match those found in the 17th Century Dutch paintings.  I have also made sure that no natural light is coming into the room and I have used a manual white balance to help eliminate flicker.

It seems that the rising and falling of the tulips are symbolic of my attempts at this project and the technical difficulties I have had to analyse and overcome

Reference:

LRTimelapse 3 - deflicker tutorial (2014) [Online video].  Available from: https://vimeo.com/71484282 [Accessed 15 April 2015].

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Hammer Projects: Shirana Shahbazi - Hammer Museum

A link to an essay about the work of Shirana Shahbizi, who's still life work references to both Dutch still life paintings and the imagery produced in commercial photography

Balaschak, C. (2008) Essay. [Accessed 15 April 2015].

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Research

Excerpt from an article on the Daily Mail website about tulips, referenced as bewitching

Potter, J. (2013) Inspiring, beguiling, heady – even deadly: the allure and power of just seven flowers transformed our world and the way we live, says garden historian Jennifer Potter.  Available from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/.  [Accessed 15 April 2015].

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Gill, S. (2007) Hackney Flowers. Nobody Books. 

Hackney Flowers is a book by Stephen Gill, which is a follow on from his project, Hackney Wick. The book includes many images that have been re-photographed with dried flowers, seeds, berries, and objects, which were collected from the East London borough. Gill also buried some of the images in Hackney Wick to allow for the place to leave a trace through the process of decay. 

I found this project interesting as the flowers in these images have been put into a "still" state - it's the image that has partially decayed and not the flowers.

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Work Experience: Picture Library Internship - The Kennel Club

I had my interview for a picture library internship with the Kennel Club on 1st April, which went really well.  

I enjoyed meeting the Digital Assets Manager and Photographer, Heidi, who has offered the internship to me, starting on 6th May, with a commitment of 2 days a week for 5 weeks.

I am really looking forward to working with the Kennel Club and finding out what projects I will be helping with.  

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22/03/2015 - Revelations: Experiments in Photography

In the April issue of BJP magazine, I read an article about an exhibition currently on in The Media Space at the Science Museum in South Ken. , which explores the long history of photography and scientific discovery, from the mid 1800s up to modern…

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Guest Lecture 24/03/2015: Esther Teichmann

The guest lecture for this week was presented by Esther Teichmann who is an artist working within the mediums of photography, text, painting, collage and video, which focus on the topics of autobiography and fiction with a painterly style to create alternative worlds based on experiences, questioning the ideas of loss, grief and homesickness.

Teichmann spoke about how she revisits work and reconfigures it to produce new work, exploring different possibilities within an archive. Some of her pieces have included painting on some of her images to create imagined landscapes but also leaving some elements which are real, blurring the autobiography and fiction.

She also spoke about how she was able to work with Rankin, a fashion photographer, on an internship during her BA degree and was able to continue working in the realms of fashion as a producer to help fund her MA degree. I found this quite interesting as she mentioned that through doing this she was able to make contacts and was able to develop skills she can use now within her own work. This seems to be a common theme with contemporary artists and photographers, whereby they will build skills, networking and funds in order to concentrate on publishing their own work.

Teichmann also runs the second year of the Photography BA and third year on the MA. She also teaches theoretical topics at the Royal College of Fine Art and also supervises dissertations. She is currently working on a solo exhibition which is to be held in Germany and showed some of the work that will be on display. I realised that it is important to not forget work that you have produced, that it can be re-arranged with other pieces of work to create different meaning, and useful to do for a solo show.

Here is a link to Esther Teichmann’s website: http://www.estherteichmann.com/