Collaborative Practice

Joe Baynton. University of South Wales, Cardiff

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I was asked by a friend that works in a bar to take images for their companies website, advertising that the bar are showing the 6 Nations Rugby games in their bar. He wanted simple images that showed their flags and other decorations that they currently have in the bar so that they can gain visitors. Even if these images don't get published I'm happy that I did this as it allowed me to gain an insight into the way these companies promote themselves and it was not something that I have looked into before.

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These are the 7 images that I narrowed the 24 images (highlighted in black). I am going to look these into more detail and then send probably 3-4 images to Rhian Temple from Capital Times. These include close ups, and images taken from further away. Highlighted in red are the ones that I encountered problems with and then rectified and shot again. I think it was also important to take individual images of the people, as well as images of them together, as this would be the main image used on Capital Times. These images were submitted for publication.  

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When narrowing down these images, I am going to make sure there are different camera angles and lighting. I think this is important as then the editors at Capital Times can chose which images they find more suitable for the commission. Close-ups are also essential when capturing events like this, as it focuses on what is actually going on.

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These are the results of the shoot for the Capital Times at Bute Park, taken 1st December 2014. I found the shoot quite successful, and I am now going to edit these images down to chose which couple of images which I will send on to the Capital Times worker, Rhian. 

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Commission

I received an email from the Capital Times, which asked if there were anyone available to photograph an event that was taking place in Bute Park, Cardiff. I got in contact with a lady called Rhian Temple, from Capital Times, who informed me on more information on the event taking place. The Civic Society had donated trees to be planted around the city, and the first tree due to be planted was in Bute Park. Me and a fellow classmate decided we both wanted to be apart of this commission, so we put ourselves forward to do this together. As this was my first commission I'm glad that I am going to do it someone else as it will help build my confidence for future commissions.

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This was our brief, to be handed in on 24/11/2014.  1/12/2014. 

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These were the four images that I narrowed my work to. These are the ones I feel would be most suitable for publication in a newspaper or magazine. I am happy with the work I produced for this, and it's something I really enjoyed doing. If I were to complete this again, I would get more close up shots, as I feel I may have been lacking in this area. I will take this into consideration when working on future projects.

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I was very happy with the shoot that I did. I took over 30 pictures and these are the contacts sheet. We took these contacts sheets into Uni, where we narrowed them down 10 images we liked each (in groups of 4-5). This allowed us to get used to editing down our work and focusing on the best images that we have gone out and shot. Highlighted on the contact sheets are some of the annotations I made during the first editing session on these images that I completed. Editing work like this is vital to remove any images that don't completely fit the brief, to make room for the better images out of the collection.

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I created this mind map to look into the different things to look out for when shooting the Remembrance Day. This is the best way to get the idea's across and make me aware of what to photograph on the day.

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Running along the same week, we had a Remembrance Sunday brief, which involved us going to shoot Remembrance Sunday. We were advised not to do it in Cardiff, as it would involve too many people doing the same shoot. Therefore I travelled to a village just outside my hometown called Hay-on-Wye to do my shoot. Before taking my own images, I decided to research into past remembrance sundays and how they have been shot and the techniques that have been used in publication. In this example I looked on the Daily Mail website, which had a article entitled "Queen leads nation in Remembrance at the Cenotaph". The article included close up shots of members of the Royal family, including the Queen and Kate Middleton, which really captured the emotion on their faces to make the audience feel empathy for them and realise the importance of the situation. It also features an important establishing shot, which shows former and current armed service men at the Cenotaph. This is a great shot and is vitally important as it sets the scene of the event that is going on and is instantly recognizable. 

The final image I came across was really intriguing, the medium shot of the man makes the audience really empathetic with him, especially with the gaze he his holding down the camera lens. I am going to take all of this into consideration when doing my own shoot as I think this is vital, especially when shooting such an emotional and national event.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2496940/Britain-unites-Remembrance-Sunday-commemorations.html

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These are the final four images that I narrowed my work down to. I am happy with these results, however looking back on them and receiving feedback from Becky, I've realised that I need to use a higher shutter speed than I used, 1/80, into something more like 1/250. This will allow me to get rid of rid of the motion blur. Also, for better results I need to set my camera to manual, allowing me to set all the settings myself. I also wish I had moved around the pitch more, to get different viewpoints and angles. I think the shots that I got were good, the main thing lacking her may be that I needed to be closer to the action.

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As soon as I decided where and when I was going to do my shoot, which was a football match in Brecon on 8/11/2014, I began looking into well known Sports Photographers. I did this to get more of a feel for the work that I will need to be undertaking, and to look at the different styles in which these sports photographers take their images. I came across Mark Pain, a multi-award winning photographer, who has captured sports games from the London Olympics 2012, to rugby World Championships. These three images show how key the right shutter speed, focus etc is when taking such fast paced images. In the case of the first and third image, the shallow depth of field is key. The figures in these images stand out as the main focal point in the image because of this, creating a great picture. I will take all this is into consideration when taking my own photographs in the future.

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This was my mind map I made when looking into the different ways Sports games could be looked into.

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I began researching into looking what sports games were going on in my area so that I could plan ahead on timings and where I need to be. I decided to my home town to do this shoot, which is in the Brecon Beacons. I decided to do this as it would make it more personal to me. After looking into my options, which included a rugby match between to local teams, a local football match, and a boules game. Which I thought would be a different approach to the brief and may be quite interesting, but due to circumstances, I couldn't make that game.

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This was our sports brief that we were given. To sum it up, we had to photograph a sports match of our choice. These images must be a selection of portrait and landscape, therefore suitable for a sports page of a newspaper/website.