HND1DRachelHasebe

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Structure Evaluation

For the structure brief I decided to use City of Glasgow College as my subject. At first I had thought about either going to the riverside museum or the royal children’s hospital as they are both interesting contemporary buildings but it would have been much trickier for me to get there multiple times to shoot, I would already be at the college so it made sense just to use that building.

For me 3 images of the outside of the building I to get completely different areas of the college, to do this I took a full wide angle image from the grass area to the side of the college, a low angle image from an outdoor garden just off the 7th floor of the building and a high angle image of the inner outdoor area surrounded by the college building.

My two indoor images are both taken from a low angle, the most interesting parts of the building’s interior are most visible when looking up towards the ceiling. One of them shows a large area of the college ceiling as well as the edge of a few of the floors.

One of the harder parts of this brief was waiting for the right weather, a dull grey sky can make a huge difference in how the exterior images look, I had to shoot over a few days to get the look I wanted. I also had to wait for specific times before shooting to try to avoid having too many people in the images.

This brief was the first time I had ever tried to correct distortion on an image, the wide angle image of the full college in particular was in desperate need of correcting. When it was first shot, a line that should have been straight was diagonal. At first I tried using the perspective tool on photoshop but I couldn’t get it to work at all, the image would always end up with strange curves. Eventually, I decided to try Lightroom instead, it was so much easier to use. The lightroom tool allowed me to manually fix the perspective but it also had an auto option. The auto option was okay with I decided manually fixing the image would be better. Lightroom also had a grid tool in the same section, this made it much easier to see whether the lines are actually straight.

Once I finished with lightroom, I imported my images back in to photoshop. One of them had cut out an area in the top corner during the distortion fixing, if I cropped the image to get rid of that area it would also have cropped out part of the “city of Glasgow college” sign which I really didn’t want to do. Instead, I fixed this using the “fill” tool in photoshop and setting the fill to “content aware”. Doing this filled in the empty area perfectly.

I think I would have enjoyed this brief a lot more if it hadn’t been given at the same time as the graded unit, its hard to think about much else at this time.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Illuminate Evaluation

For my illuminate project I decided to go to a park close to where I live, as this project involves going out a night to shoot I didn’t want to go anywhere new, I wanted to stick to an area I know well.

During the recce, I found a few areas I thought would work well for light painting but when I actually got there to shoot, I noticed a bench had been placed in amongst trees and decided I liked that a lot.

I decided to shoot in the evening rather than the morning, I wanted to have plenty of time to set up before I started shooting. I ended up getting there a little bit too early, it was a cold evening and I had quite a while to wait until the sky got dark enough for me to begin.

As I would be moving away from my camera a lot, I brought my grandpa along with me to stand with all my equipment while I lit the scene. For the lighting I used a cheap amazon basic speed lite. To light different areas I repeatedly pressed the “test” button on the speedlite so it would flash.

Rather than using a single extremely long exposure, I used multiple 10-30 second exposures, this helped to reduce noise and also gave me more control over the image.

When it got to the post production stage, I opened all the images in photoshop as layers and changed the blending mode to lighten, this let the lit up parts from each exposure show through until I had a full lit image. I also had the option of removing the light from some areas as I shot each section using different exposures, if I had used one extra long exposure my post production options would be very limited.

In some of the images that were blended together, I had the light source face the camera for a bit too long so it showed up in the image, to get rid of these I added layer masks and erased those parts of the layers, again, if I had shot the full image in one exposure, I wouldn’t have been able to get rid of these parts so easily.

Light painting is one of my favourite photography techniques. I’m not keen on going out a night with my equipment and I cant always find people willing to go with me but I have thought about trying this technique using an ND Filter during the day. I haven’t tried this but I imagine it would work, I don’t think it would be as effective as it would at night though.

I definitely would have spent more time on this and enjoyed it more if it wasn’t given out at the same time as the graded unit. Both Illuminate and Structure briefs are two of the most interesting ones I’ve been given all year so having them at the same time as the graded unit isn’t great.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Creative Industries Brief

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Live Brief

For my live brief I have used images that I took whilst completing the Catch Me brief. For this I decided to contact Glasgow Baseball Association and photograph the last game of the season. I was allowed to photograph the game in return for some images.

Whilst doing this I was asked to specifically focus on one of the pitchers as he was nominated for player of the year and would need recent photographs of him playing.

Also myself and Monika were asked if we could photograph their end celebration when the Glasgow Galaxy’s won the season even though it didn't fit in to our Catch brief.

Once I finished optimising the images I took that day, I sent them to Glasgow baseball association and they have since been used on Glasgow Galaxys facebook page. One of my photos of the pitcher was also used when he won the player of the year award.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

STRUCTURE RISK ASSESSMENT

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Illuminate recce

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Illuminate

I plan to shoot my light painting image at a park close to where I live. I will be going at dusk rather than dawn as it will be easier for me to set up my equipment while it is still light. I will be taking multiple images of the same scene, lighting different parts each time, then combining them in photoshop later.

To allow me to move around my scene to light from different angles, I will be using the built in WI-FI on my camera to connect to my phone, meaning I can start an exposure using my phone whilst being in the right position to start painting.

 Equipment

·       Canon 6D

·       Phone

·       Speedlite

·       Flash light

·       Tripod

  Avoid/Correct digital noise

Digital noise happens when the cameras sensor begins to heat up, causing the pixels to register colours wrong. This tends to happen when a camera is set to a high ISO or a long shutter speed of more than a few seconds, making digital noise particularly noticeable in images taken at low light, like night photography.

 1.       Keep your ISO as low as possible, some cameras can handle a high ISO better than others before digital noise starts to become a problem, but generally it’s a good idea to keep the ISO low.

2.       When shooting long exposures, particularly something like light painting at night, split the final image in to multiple shorter exposures. To avoid the noise caused by a long exposure, maybe take 4 separate images using shorted exposures and combine them in post-production.

3.       Depending on the camera model, the camera may have a build in noise reduction setting for either long exposure or high ISO noise. Turning this on can help avoid digital noise while shooting.

4.       Shoot using RAW rather than JPEG. JPEG files are already compressed, meaning some digital noise will already be in an image that would have none if shot in RAW. Shooting in RAW also gives you more control when editing the image later, allowing you to better handle any noise that is present in the image.

5.       Lightroom, photoshop and camera raw all have built in noise reduction functions that can be used during post-processing to help correct any noise in the image.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Illuminate research

Darlene Hildebrandt

This is a very appealing light painting, it was taken using multiple exposures, lighting each part of the scene separately, then later combining them in photoshop. The orange sky was most likely caused by light pollution, perhaps the image was taken too close to a city, but as it matches the colour of the truck quite nicely I think it works better than perhaps a blue sky would have.

I particularly like that the photographer took the time to not only light the inside of the truck, but also the headlights, it really shows how much she paid attention to even the smallest details of the image.

Catalina Anastase

This image also has a slight orange twinge to the sky caused by light pollution. This light painting has a less even lighting than most of the others I’ve researched, I think the photographer must have had quite a small light source and held it close to each part of the scene as she painted it.

I think the slight uneven-ness of the light actually looks quite nice in this image, it makes the scene much more interesting to look at.

Ron Matson

Out of all the light paintings ive seen during my research this is the one that stood out to me the most. The sky is the perfect shade of blue in my opinion.

I love the composition of this image, with the low angle it’s been shot from allowing the tree trunk to come in from the lower left corner the eye is lead in to the photo, following the interestingly lit line of the tree.

I particularly like how the tree trunk has been lit from both above and below, I would like my light painting to turn out something very similar to this.

 Larry Lefever

This light painting appears to have been started a bit early, it works well but its clear that as well as  having colour in the sky, there is also enough ambient light to partially light the background, I don’t think this would work well in every image but here it looks good.

The photographer used a small LED flash to light the scene, The flash was used from a distance, covering a large area and giving a pretty even light through the whole image.

 Harold Ross

This light painting was created using multiple exposures. Although only a tiny part of the sky is visible, the images first exposure was still taken at dusk to give the sky some colour, then once it was completely dark, the rest of the scene was painted over multiple long exposures then combined during post production using photoshop.

Quite large light sources were used in this image to achieve the final look.

I think this is one of the prettiest light paintings I’ve seen, the light looks soft, not over powering at all.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Structure recce

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Structure image research

Randy Scott Slavin blends together loads of images to create one unique cityscape that, rather than avoids distorted perspective, accentuates it, giving a completely different look to his subject.

Slavin lit all his images with the sun in front of the buildings, meaning all the details of the buildings are shown. The sun appears to be quite low for a few of them, giving the final image a nice warm look.

A mix of angles have been used in the images that have been merged to create the final photograph. It looks as if the main, largest building was shot from a very low angle, whereas some of the furthest away buildings in the photograph appear to have been shot from a higher angle, slightly looking down on the buildings.

Bas Princen chose a rather dull day to shoot this image, normally I don’t think this would work well for architecture photography but in this case I think it really does. The dull sky and surroundings allow for the focus to be completely on the building.

I’m not very good at spotting slight perspective distortion in images but I would say this photo has probably had some sort of corrections applied to it.

Princen uses reflections off of the building to carry the horizon line right through the image, integrating the building in to its surroundings whilst still keeping the focus completely on the building, I think this was very cleverly done.

This image by Adam Mork really appeals to me. He’s chosen to use a long exposure to interestingly light the interior of a building whilst also showing a bit of sky. The blue from the sky, most likely dusk rather than dawn, adds a nice bit of colour in to the image.

I really like the angle Mork chose to shoot at. The thick black lines are very striking, they really make the image stand out.

I know the image was taken from a low angle looking up but the more I look at it the more I can sort of see it as if it was a high angle looking down, the floor being the balcony area, the windows being at the side rather than the roof and almost like a modern art display of pillars and side stairs.

I imagine this is exactly the way the architect would like his work to be viewed.

 Helene Binet chose to photograph this rather interestingly shaped building on a sunny day, with the sun shining on the front of the building, this allowed her to capture the texture of the building and all its details.

Binet also incorporated part of the buildings surroundings in to the image, the shapes on the road in front of the building are very similar to the building itself, as well a being the same colour and probably made from the same material, this ties the building and its surroundings together nicely.

It looks like Binet has used some sort of distortion correction on this image.

The composition of this image by Hufton + Crow is really nice, all the lines from the building lead the viewer to look further in to the centre.

I think this was taken midday, meaning the sun was high enough to throw light on to every part of the building, it also meant that some parts of the image are slightly hazy. I think the sun would have been somewhere in the top right of the image, slightly overexposing the very top curves on the left side.

I like that the image has so many people in it, not only is it showing off the design of the building, but having the people in the shot also shows it has a function.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Structure

For this brief I plan to shoot outside and inside City of Glasgow College. Not only is it the most convenient location but it is also one of the most interesting contemporary building designs I’ve seen. I had thought about possibly shooting the Riverside Museum building as the outside is a very unique shape, but it didn’t make as much sense for me to shoot there as it would be much trickier for me to travel there multiple times.

 Equipment list

·       Canon 6D

·       Sturdy tripod

·       17-40mm lens

·       100mm lens

·       50mm lens

·       Light meter

  Avoid/Correct Distortion

1.       Try to use a prime lens if possible, prime lenses tend to have less noticeable distortion than zoom lenses.

2.       If possible, to avoid using a wide-angle lens, use a prime mid angle (50mm or similar) lens to take multiple photos of sections of the subject then merge them together later, this also allows you to have a sharp subject all over.

3.       When using a zoom lens, aim for a focal length somewhere in the middle of its range, this is where a lens will perform at its best with the minimal amount of distortion noticeable.

4.       Some cameras have a built-in lens distortion correction option, this can be used during or just after shooting to correct distortion, depending on the camera model.

5.       When shooting, the position the camera is in relation to the subject can affect the distortion in an image. Moving the camera up or down, or changing the angle can help to reduce distortion.

6.       Both lightroom and photoshop have functions that allow you to correct distortion of images, from what I’ve seen they both work well but tend to crop the images quite a lot so it’s a good idea to photograph your subject smaller in the frame to give the distortion function room to work without ruining the image.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Movie Poster Evaluation

I think as a brief this was the most complex and exciting in portfolio 2. It took me quite along time to come up with an idea for my movie poster, the possibilities were practically endless, but in the end I decided to try a 1930’s gangster style movie based on the tv show Peaky Blinders. At first I struggled to find a location that would match my movie idea, I originally took photo of a half torn down building as my background but it didn’t really work with the movie idea. I then went to the transport museum and photographed their replica of an old street, a much better fit. The hardest part of getting the background photo right was that it was indoors and the lighting was very poor, the museum had tried to recreate a night lit by street lamps. This meant I had to use flash, which didn’t look very good bouncing off the metal cars. When it came to the studio portrait, I struggled to get a white background but at the time I didn’t think it very important, the model was going to be cropped from the background and placed on my location image anyway. Although I managed to take the subject from the off white background I realised it would have been much easier if I had taken the time to perfect the white background in studio. My subject on the day wasn’t feeling well so I only had a short time to shoot with him, luckily it was enough time for me to get poses I was happy with. This brief relied on photoshop skills more than any other so far, personally I really like photoshop and found this a great way to practice using it. I decided to combine both my location photos, the old street and the torn down building in to one background image for my movie poster using layer masks. I then added my studio portrait, positioned it how I wanted and changed the colour of the whole image to fit my theme. To tone down the highlights left by my flash, I created new layers and went over the highlights with a low opacity brush of a similar colour to the objects, this really helped with the overall look of the image. It wasn’t until I added the writing to the image that it really became something I was proud of, the writing tied the whole thing together. Overall I found this to be the most time consuming but also the most fun brief in portfolio two, I definitely improved my photoshop skills and my attention to small details. I usually don’t particularly like portraiture but this brief made it more fun than it normally would be.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Recycle Evaluation

For the recycle still life brief I did a lot of research in to still life images using interesting backgrounds, rather than plain black or white. Usually I would use a black background for my still life photographs, so this brief took me out of my comfort zone and made me explore other possibilities. After looking through a lot of still lives from other photographers I realized that both food and miniature toys/figures were common subjects. The food photography was often photographed using a wooden background of some sort, along with soft lighting, giving the image a rustic look. For the miniatures photography it was often little models of workers of some sort doing their jobs on life size objects, making an amusing photo. My first idea for this brief was to combine these ideas and have miniature animals as the subject and food as the background. I first tried to create a still life of a chicken pecking at corn on the cob, the corn being the background, but the paint work on the chicken looked poor close us, I wouldn’t have been able to salvage it in photoshop with the spot healing tool. I then tried a miniature penguin surrounded by ice and a ladybird placed on ice cream made to look like dirt but neither of them really appealed to me. When I realised none of these images were working I had to rethink, I realised it would be much easier if I focused on basing my photo around something important to me, my son, so I decided to use his shoes that no longer fit him as the subject. After deciding on the subject, it was much easier to come up with a background, a rug. Shoes are used for walking, we walk on the ground, rugs go on the ground. To light my image I used a canon mr-14ex macro ring light, but rather than mounting the light on the lens I held it at different angles until I got the lighting how I wanted it. Overall, I do think my final image is quite a simple, basic idea, especially as the brief allowed for a lot of creativity but I like how it turned out. In this case I would rather have a simple final image that I like a lot rather than a complex, creative image with no meaning to me.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Cheap Evaluation

For the cheap brief, I had to find an object for £1 and photograph it highlighting a single attribute. I went to Poundland and after looking at quite a few different objects I decided to settle on crayons. The first thought I had when I saw the crayons was “colour”, that would have been the easiest and probably the most boring attribute to focus on. The word I ended up going with was “waxy”, I decided to look at what the crayons are made of and highlight this. To do this I decided to melt the crayons to show what they were made of. The first issue I had with this idea was the background, I needed to find a material that wouldn’t catch fire as I melted the wax and also wouldn’t be ruined by melted wax. The background I used for my images was a large black ceramic tile, it ended up bring the perfect material for my needs. I think I would have settled on this background even if I hadn’t needed something very specific, I much prefer black backgrounds to any other colour. I think the crayons really stood out against the background and the melted wax ended up looking exactly how I hoped it would. To light my image I used two speedlites diffused with tracing paper. The light set up definitely would have been easier in the college studio with a light and softbox from there but I don’t think I would have been able to create the final image that I have if I had shot the whole still life at the college. Overall, I like my final image and I think the “waxy” texture is the focus when I look at it but its possible anyone else that doesn’t already know the attribute I chose would think it was colour. I’m not sure how I could get around this short of turning the image black and white. This was one of my favourite briefs from portfolio 2, it was fun to try to look at ordinary objects in new, interesting ways.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Recycle Research

by Gudren Ruf

I really love this still life, the use of music sheets as a background was a very clever idea, not something I think i would have thought of when photographing a shell but it works very well. I like how the shell is lit and also the depth of field used, just enough of the music notes are in focus. The image brings back pleasant memories of trying to hear the ocean in a shell as a child.

by Wieteke de Kogel

The lighting in this still life really appealed to me. Back lighting the subject really helped give the whole image character. The use of wood and what looks almost like parchment paper as the background helps give the image a rustic feel, the composition of the image is simple yet effective.

by Victoria Ivanova

This still life really stood out to me. The black pan against the black background with just a hint of light on the rim is great and the use of origami paper to recreate an egg is very fun. I think the whole idea was very smart, the photographer turned a very simple thing, an egg in a pan, in to a very artistic looking still life.

by Elena Eremina

The composition and choice of materials for this still life are great. I really like the background choice, the greying wood that almost matches the fish and metal helps give the whole image a very traditional rustic feel. The use of oranges to match the small flowers and bring a bit of colour in to the image is very nice. The whole still life is nicely put together.

by RamonaG

I think the photographer was very smart to turn this image black&white, along with that and the torn , broken edges of the book it really does feel like a very old image. The choice to use a very shallow depth of field also works well, it almost makes me think of the blur from the shallow depth of field as time, slowly moving forward, until eventually the book will no longer exist.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Moving Image Evaluation

For my artisan moving image project I ended up going to a local bakery. I contacted 10+ people/companies, this bakery was one of two to reply, the other person politely refused to let me video them creating their work, everyone else simply ignored my request. I would say the hardest part of this project was getting someone to agree to be filmed by a stranger, it’s not something most people are comfortable with. Before I started filming, I went along to the bakery to look at the area and see what I would be working with. Even at the bakery there were people that didn’t want to be filmed at work, luckily someone agreed to let me video the process of creating empire biscuits, from working the dough, right up to being iced. The kitchen at the bakery was very large with quite a few people working there, it was suggested to me that using a tripod could be a hazard with so many people around so I improvised by placing my camera on as many flat surfaces as I could and hand holding the camera whenever I could. Not having a tripod definitely made it harder to get good shots. Putting the film clips together was the simplest part of the project. I wasn’t able to stick to my original storyboard exactly, a lot of frames of the storyboard had to be cut out but I think I was still able to create a clear beginning, middle and end to the video. Overall, I didn’t really enjoy this project. Getting people to agree to be filmed by a stranger, whilst at work, with no real benefit to them was just too hard and I really didn’t like having to ask people to do that. It also made the time spent filming quite awkward. I understand the idea of getting people out of their comfort zone, contacting strangers, but I personally don’t see a scenario where I would ever have to contact someone that had no intention of being filmed and asking them to let me film them at work. Although I have nothing against video projects and even quite enjoy the editing process, I think this brief would have benefited from options for the subject of the video.

[hnd1drachelhasebe]

Movie Poster Research

For my movie poster I have decided to go for a gangster / mafia type movie. 

At first I thought about replicating this movie poster for The Godfather, I really liked the lighting and the focus on the person but I decided the background was a little too dark and plain, it wouldn’t really fit the brief of a movie poster requiring a location image, not enough of the background would be visible.

I quickly realised there was a recurring theme running through most gangster movie posters; they were very dark. I liked the layout of this poster and the lighting of the people goes well with the movie theme and would be interesting to try to achieve in studio.

I’ve decided my movie poster will be more similar to these Peaky Blinder posters, particularly the second one as I will only have one model. For the location I’ve decided to go the the Riverside museum of transport, there is a replica Glasgow street in there that would work very well with the idea I have in mind.

I have asked my model to wear a flat cap, white shirt with fake blood stains on the sleeves and a waistcoat for the studio shoot.