[michaellarkinphotography]

A Music Video

Date Taken: 24/10/2013 Location: Skegness Equipment Used: Nikon D3200, Adobe Premiere,

Initial Ideas:  - Song from my band - Concert clips, Crowd shots - My singer's song, close ups of her playing and singing - Story portrayed in the video

Editing: Began with importing the music > Placed clips in the order I felt worked best > Cut down clips to decent length and fit to the song > Added other sounds to fill up video > Edited each different clip (Levels and Colour Balance) > Then applied a yellow colour matte layer in 'video 2', changed blending mode to soft light and opacity to 20% > Merged all clips together with yellow overlay, copied and pasted them to 'video 2' > Added circle over it, inverted and made bigger to cover edges only, feathered it, blending mode to overlay and opacity to 70%.

What do you like about this video? How well does it work? There are many things I like about this video but the main one has to be the order of my chosen clips as well as the timing between changes. I feel I have narrowed down all my recordings to the perfect clips and am very pleased with how they work with the chosen song. Like most of my videos, I'm happy with the edit on each clip as I spent a fair bit of time on each clip but only did the slightest of changes. I also like the technical side of this video which I managed to achieve with the different angles, depth and composition throughout the video. I feel this whole video works really well as if you listen to the song, you can see that I have considered the words and tried portraying them in the video, an example of this is the use of 'sandcastles'. Overall, I think this video works because it tells a love story effectively and keeps the viewer engaged throughout.

What did you learn from this experiment? If you were to do the video again, what would you do differently? From this experiment, I learned how to use the techniques I knew in a much more effective manner. Originally, I knew about all the techniques I have used throughout this video and didn't really feel that I learned something new, so instead of learning something new I decided to use what I knew to the best of my current ability. If I were to do this video again, I would try to have better clips within the video, by this i mean with my settings as some of them have very high contrast and some also had a bright white sky which I had to try editing and feel I didn't do it that well. Due to this, I feel this is one of the biggest things i would change of this video. A final thing I would consider changing is the start, I don't feel I portrayed that the couple had to get away from where they were because of circumstances well enough as I could and also feel I should've had a clip focused on what the letter says.

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For this task, I was asked to produce an image consisting of Irony and strong contrast, but not in the obvious sense of just raising contrast on an image, but by using word and image. To do this we were to use knock out text (Where you see an image through the text).  The top two images were created during lesson at college using an image from Google, therefor i cannot take credit for it. I feel this is quite effective as you can see the subject through the text (on both images) but with the colour of the mask and effects I've put around the text, it makes it harder to focus, which is the point of the text saying 'Focus'. With the last image, I took a slightly different approach by trying to have knock out text - which mostly covers up part of an image - in the image, if that makes sense? This piece is created with one of my own photos which I already had. As we were asked to create one with our own photos too, I simply looked through my images and looked fr one which I could think of a completely opposing word. One things lead to another in Photoshop and this is my final outcome. 

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Left - Not edited, Right - Edited.

For this shoot, the concept was supposed to be completely different to the previous, edgy, in-door one (Seen Here). We (Me, Joanna and Chloe) originally wanted our second shoot to be completely different by having soft lighting - in this case open shade lighting - with the model wearing nice colours. However, being in the middle of Nottingham with only half an hour to shoot, this idea needed to change instantly as we couldn't find a place which suited the soft, nature feel we intended. Alongside this, the model, Chloe, was also wearing black instead of colours meaning we had to think of a new idea straight away. This lead us to a close church and graveyard to capture a gothic feel, completely different to what we intended.  We used different locations within our main location to get the best lighting as well as using a reflector on occasions to help the image. 

What went well? I feel with this shoot, a lot of things possibly could have gone better, for me especially as I really struggled to be creative on this day in which I was mostly the assistant, not photographer. Saying this however, I feel we made use of what we had and still succeeded in using soft natural light instead of hard direct light like our previous shoot, which overall was our main aim.  The main thing for me personally though was to simply get my camera settings right, which I managed to do and also realized the difference it makes. Although I edited these images on the right, I felt necessary to upload the un-edited versions as my main focus was getting a decent photo with my settings. As well as this, I didn't edit my previous photo shoot images, making it fair to see the comparison. 

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Living A Fairy tale

This series of photos are a few from a collection of images i captured during a project at college in which we were asked to focus on 1 of 3 magazines; Vogue, Mojo or National Geographic. I chose Vogue as it meant I could look into fashion photography and working with a model in an interesting way. This project confused me for a long time as I couldn't decide what i wanted to do, this was because within the fashion genre, I then had to choose a sub genre (in this case a fairy tale) and then couldn't decide whether to have another one by basing it on Brothers Grimm or one particular Fairy tale. This unit gave me SO MANY ideas and although I am very pleased with the outcome, I'm still gutted I couldn't do some of my other ideas, but I guess we should see what the future has in store.  By the end of the unit we were to have designed a magazine including the layout and front cover with our photos. Again this caused confusion as to start off with we were told to look at it as an article in Vogue. As i Became very happy with a lot of my photos, I decided to have a special magazine which could be a mini one within the main one, a special edition so to speak. In this magazine, i included articles of my own, at first i was going to have information about the photographer (me) and model (Monica) and more articles around that, but then changed it so i had my project summary (intended idea and plan) and the start, in the middle I had my analysis of each image and at the back my evaluation.

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This was my first ever photo shoot with a model. For this I asked a friend I knew to come with me to the local park which mostly takes 5 minutes to walk around, but this day it took around 2 hours.  As these were my first photos from a photo shoot, I was still a novice and edited photos a little more than I probably should have but feel a few of these photos work pretty well.  This was a HUGE learning curve but as they were taken for no other reason than experience, it was a massive success, and her mother really appreciated the images.

[michaellarkinphotography]

Wollaton Park & Cotmanhay

Me and a couple of other photographer friends from college decided to visit Wollaton Park in the holidays for both a catch up and also experiment to see how different we all are as photographers. We did this by all visiting the same place and capturing our own photos then comparing afterwards. This was useful as it showed our own unique style of photography as well as helping us see things how other people see them for the future. The final two images are two i captured while on a walk with another friend (also a photographer) around the canal area in Cotmanhay and as i only really liked these two images, I didn't feel it was worth giving them their own post. I feel these images are interesting because they include interesting composition or editing techniques which other people didn't think about when walking past the same thing, so for me this is a great set of photos as it helps me remember that my photos are different to other peoples.  

[michaellarkinphotography]

Attenborough

I went on a trip out with my college group to Attenborough, I don't think there was any specific reason for it other than just to get some nice photos and all get out in a group to be honest. Because of this there isn't really a lot i can say. Attenborough had plenty of things to take photos of if you have the creative eye, if you don't then you think it gets a bit samey. There were plenty of wildlife there to get pictures of - as i did - but i didn't feel they were as successful as these images above. Overall, I had a good day out and it was the first time I ever visited the place so it was a new experience for me. Going there gave me the opportunity to extend my skills in most ares of photography including close ups, location, documentary, wildlife and ever social realism. 

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Concert: The Waves Above Us

This was my first gig opportunity i which a local band - one i used to be in - asked my to come along to their Rock City Basement gig and get photos while they played. The members of the band are a close group of incredibly talented musicians who struggled to break onto the local music scene and unfortunately, this gig turned out to be one of their last. I managed to come away with a ridiculous amount of photos and it took a while for me to get through them as i tried editing as many as i possibly could for these guys. When i got the images i didn't really know a great deal about my camera settings if i'm honest and that's why some of them are pretty noisy but i have always been confident in my editing skills within Photoshop in order to create a nice photo. Unfortunately, a lot of my best photos are of the singer so it looks as though i only focused on him, which i didn't.  Considering my skills at the time, i'm incredibly happy with some of the final images.

[michaellarkinphotography]

Love Heanor - St James's Day

I was approached by a local company i guess you could call it named 'LoveHeanor' to capture some photos of their St James's Day event held specifically by them. This was my first opportunity to do some photography work as an official photographer and these photos are a quick example of what i managed to capture during my day out. they didn't specify what they wanted me to actually capture, so i didn't know if i was to get portraits, documentary or anything so i improvised and it turned out i got exactly what they wanted. They did have a couple more photographers around the event as we all know each other and these other photographers are more experienced. Saying this, because of my lack of experience, it helped me to get the photos they preferred from all the photographers as i got the event as it happened, where as the 'pros' only looked for nice looking photos and kept purely to what they felt look like a great photo instead of documenting the event.  Since this, I have also done a couple more things for 'LoveHeanor' as i have an ongoing relationship with one of the important people with in the company. 

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One Point Perspective

Date Taken: 12/10/2013 Location: Cotmanhay Equipment Used: Nikon D3200, Adobe Premiere CS6,

Initial Ideas: - Variety of one point perspective shots put together - Have subject in same place of every shot with different one point perspective - Simple train video on train tracks - Subject in one point perspective setting, create strange effect

Editing: Start of by importing my clip to the library > Select multiple different parts of the clip and import them to timeline putting them in an effective order > Right click the clips, ‘Speed/Duration’ and either speed up the clip or slow it down > Once i had this effect i found an aerie sound to import into the video > Near the end of the clip i began adding interference (Bursts of noise) to add effect (Add noise from video effects, Using key frames i increased and lowered the strength of each burst to last less than a second, i right clicked the key frames and changed them to ‘hold’ instead of ‘linear’, this made the noise levels go straight to what i set it to instead of gradually getting there > I then nested the clip (Highlight all clips, right click, nest) > After, i copied and pasted it into ‘video 2’ and placed it so it was about a second later than video 1 > I then overlayed ‘video 2’ (In effect controls under the opacity drop down) > I also did change some of the colour with some video effects > Finally i added a blue colour matte layer into video 3 and also overlayed it lowering the opacity to create a cold, dark, aerie atmosphere in comparison with how it originally was.

What do you like about this video? How well does it work? There are many things i like about this video as so far i feel it’s my strongest vignette. I like the overall effect that this video gives and how i have managed to create something really interesting from a video which i didn’t feel was that interesting, by this i mean i took a clip and used it to it’s full potential. At first i thought i ruined the video by not setting the camera up on a tripod and having the vanishing point in the center to create really obvious one point perspective, but instead i feel that the movement from the camera adds much more effect to the video, especially with the double exposure effect almost making the viewer feel as though they’re dazed. Like usual, the thing i like the most about my video is the edit instead of the techniques used while recording. I feel this video works really well in portraying a certain mood on the viewer and really sucks them into the clip so hey can’t take their eyes away. I feel this is one of the most impressive aspects as it was such a simple clip and when you think about it not much actually happens, but for the whole minute or so, you are engaged in the video. I also feel the atmospheric sound works incredibly with the vignette as there isn’t so much sound that it takes focus off the subject, but enough to create an atmosphere.

What did you learn from this experiment? If you were to do the video again, what would you do differently? From this experiment i figured out a lot more techniques which i feel are at a more impressive level than previous videos. One of these techniques include using key frames to add particular effects at certain times as well as deciding whether they fade in or burst in. Another technique which really made this video come together was the use of overlaying one video onto another as well as changing the images with the video effects provided to benefit the intended feeling of the video. If i were to do this video again i don’t think i would do much differently, i would maybe add more bursts of noise throughout, or at least experiment with it to see how it looks. I would also maybe look at having the two videos overlayed at certain times and then at others just having the one video (which i would do with keyframes). Other than that, i can’t say there is much i would change about this as i am pretty happy with my outcome.

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Children's Party

These images are ones i captured during a party for a first birthday. One of these kids are my nephew and others are his friends. All of their mothers asked me to capture nice photos of their children and these are some of what i ended up with. 

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Abstract photos

A photographer should be able to see things, not just look at things. By this i mean see the potential in everything and really take in detail of items or products which most people probably wouldn't realise. It is our job as photographers to reveal the natural beauty of things through our photographs and make people realise what they are missing when they don't actually see things.

As i have just started this blog from scratch again, i uploaded all these in one post. I know this means i probably won't get many reblogs fro doing this but for now i'm trying to get all of my work on my blog and if anybody wants any images just on it's own, speak up and i will post! 

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Portrait Task:

The original point of this photo shoot was to capture an edgy image with harsh contrast in Black & White using natural window light. We (Me, Joanna and Chloe in our group) started out with photos of myself in a leather jacket which we agreed gave a quite rebellious feeling into the image. As i needed to also capture a few photos to prove i am capable, i had the opportunity to take photos of Chloe, and although she wasn't wearing clothes similar to me, i decided to use the same style image as originally planned for me so i had the same experience as both Joanna and Chloe. Her clothes worked quite well as they are baggy and although nice, gives the impression of a slight bit of a rebellious nature. In some of these images i asked Chloe to look annoyed as if she didn't like me, meaning she would give the camera a deadly stare which i felt also worked with the rebellious theme.  As the room we chose to take the photos in was actually a life drawing room, i felt we should take advantage of the easels around the place and maybe go for a more creative style photo instead of rebellious as Chloe's clothing is probably better suited to creativity instead of rebellion.  With the room being used for life drawing, it was very high up in the building meaning surrounding buildings (As we were in the city centre) didn't block any sun light coming in the windows which surrounded the whole room. To create a harsh contrast, as well as changing my camera settings, i placed Chloe close to the window meaning there would be harsher shadows which gives the image more impact on the viewer. 

What went well? I feel that during this mini shoot, a couple of things went well but a couple of things could have gone better. One example of the things that could have gone better is being more prepared (as we didn't know i would need to have photos for this theme too since i was the model at first). On the up side though, i feel my final images are really effective and i adapted very well to the problem in changing the theme and taking full advantage of the props surrounding us. I feel i have used leading lines effectively in some images, framed nicely in others and also captured some effective detail in some of the close ups. I feel this series of images gives a real impression of Chloe's personality and creativity. 

How can i improve next weeks re-shoot? Next weeks improvements are easy for my notice and conquer. With this shoot i didn't pay much attention to my settings (Such as my focus not being on single point and ISO being too high) so that is certainly the biggest thing i aim to improve. I also aim to use my histogram more during shoots to see if any of my photos of under/over exposed. Finally, when going through these factors with my teacher, i realized there is still a lot more i need to learn about my camera and it's abilities, so that is also another small task for me to learn about over time.