Concepts for final photos

My first photo concept is to take a picture of a traffic light, portrait orientated CU, and change the Saturation/Hue lightly, maybe even desaturating the background to emphasise the colour of the light.

My second photo concept is to take a CU of a bus stop, and change the colour again, perhaps slightly, to make the look for the little change in the photo.

My third photo concept is to take a MS of traffic light crossing, changing nothing but the colour of the green man.

My fourth photo concept is to take a LS of a bus at a bus stop, subtlely changing the colour of the subjects, maybe even desaturating the background.

My fifth photo concept is to take a LS of road signs and change hues of them.

Focus for the final outcome

David DuChemin has inspired me with his use of vibrant and rich colours in his photography. I would like to use contrasting and complementing colour photography as well. In the upcoming weeks, I will experiment with colour in photography, take pictures with bright colours and also play around with it in PhotoShop. These photos will be set outdoors, focusing on what we see everyday on the street e.g. street signs, buses etc. I will develop my research into colour photography and photographers like William Eggleston that encompass the theme of colour, introducing image manipulation too.

My 'Photo Essay' to do over the weekend

My Photo Essay plan. I will change my first shot to a wide shot of Clapham Common.

1. Establishing Shot - Wide Shot

2. Medium Shot - High Angle Shot

3. Detail Shot

4. Moment Shot

5. Closer Shot

What is a 'Photo Essay'?

A 'photo essay' is a narration of a story in photographic form. Using visual language, a set or series of photographs tell a story and opens the viewer to imagination and emotions. This makes it a powerful way to expressing vision. These days, with electronic media becoming more prominent, photo essays are getting more powerful with ambient sound, interviews, video clips and music in the form of multimedia slideshows. In photo essays, there are usually these 6 types of shots, especially the first three.:

1. The Establishing Shot
2. The Medium Shot
3. The Detail Shot
4. The Portrait
5. The Moment
6. The Closer

• Establishing: This is a wide shot. These types of shots tell us where the story will take place, establishing context, setting and often mood.
• Medium: These images get closer to the action, showing what the story is about and who the characters are. However, these stories are not always about people; the characters could be horses, or weather, or boats, for example.
• Detail: This is a closer, tighter image of details relevant to the story. If the story was about horses, it might be the detail of the horse's saddle.
• Portrait: A tighter portrait or headshot - often an environmental portrait.
• Moment: A photograph that captures a gesture, an exchange, or the peak of the action. This is the "wow" shot.
• Closer: This one wraps it up, provides some resolution, or just provides a natural place to put the story to bed.

Examples of different types of shots

This is an example of a Close-Up (CU) shot. Close-ups are when the subject is in focus, showing detail, whilst the background is out of focus. In this case, this young girl's face is in focus and we can see the detail of her skin on her face.

This is an example of a High Angle Shot (HAS).  This type of shot is a shot from above the subject in focus and is usually used to lessen the importance of the figure, threatening it. This in turn can also make the viewer seem in power. However, in this example, the man reading his book, makes it seem like this could be the Point of View (POV) of a higher power like God watching him.

This is an example of a Long Shot (LS) or Wide shot. This generally is used to show where the place is, the setting. When there are subjects, this shows where they are and their size in relation to their setting.

This is an example of a Mid/Medium Shot (MS). This is shot at a 'medium' distance, generally, the showing the subject would show their body from the waist up. The camera is close enough to pick up details but it is still far enough away to be able to follow any actions. This can show what a story is about and the characters in the story.

These are examples of Low Angle Shots (LAS). This shot is from below the subject, looking upwards. Here, the left photo is a more obvious example of LAS. This gives the subject more significance. If we were photographing a person from a Low Angle, it would exaggerate their size thus seeming more important.

Colour Isolation Experiment: Selection and Manipulating Saturation & Hue Techniques

The original photograph I chose to edit. I chose this photograph because of the nice vibrant colours that are present.

To start editing this photo, I chose the Magnetic Lasso Tool to accurately select the business front signs and displays and part of the bus stop, one by one.

I selected the 'MEGABOWL' sign first and zoomed into the photo to accurately select only the sign also using the Magic Wand Tool to select and inversely select to refine my selection path. After I finished with my selection, I saved the selection which goes into my Channels palette.

By the end of carefully selecting specifically for half an hour, I had these 5 saved selections on my Channels palette. To get all these selections combined into one single selection, firstly, I made sure that there was already one selection path active on my Background Copy Layer. Then, going onto Select, I clicked on Load Selection and a window box appears. Here, I can select a Channel - my saved selection paths. I checked 'Add to Selection' for my Operation. This is how two selection paths combine to form a single layer of selection. One after the other I added to my selection until all my saved selection paths were in one whole layer.

I decided to change the Hue of the colours in my selections next. I clicked on the 'Adjustment Layer' icon to change the original Hue value to -150. Looking at the print screen on the right, the top colour bar in the 'Hue/Saturation' window shows the original colour range. The bottom colour bar shows the new ranges of Hue. This meant that greens became reds, reds became blues and blues became yellows. I also increased the Saturation to +25 to make the colour stand out a little bit more.

Once done adjusting Hue and Saturation, I decided to edit to the background. To do this, I simply right-clicked/alt and chose the 'Select Inverse'. In this case, everything outside the previous selections of the business signs and displays were now selected. Repeating the same step, I changed the Hue and Saturation of the background this time. I changed the Hue to +51 and the Saturation to -51.

After changing Hue and Saturation, I wanted to add an effect to the background. I decided to 'Posterize' the background which gives it an oil-painting effect. I gave it a Levels value of 9 for Posterization.

Here is my finished edit:

Text in images

A photo I incorporated text in

Inspired by Jim Goldberg and Barbra Kruger's incorporation of text in photographs, I used Adobe Photoshop to add text in this photo and I played around the effects and warping. As an example, here is how I put "STOP!" into my photograph. To do this I chose the Text tool. Once selected, I typed in the word I wanted, in this case "STOP!" using a stencil font. Once the text was added, it was time to style it. To do this I went to the layer palette , whilst the text layer was still selected, chose the 'fx' icon to add a layer style:

From here, I clicked on 'Blending Options...' to see the wide variations of styles available. A small window came up with showed specific styles:

Here is how the text appears after choosing my styles.

Finished with styling, I warped the text whilst still selected on the text layer. For "GO!", I just duplicated the "STOP!" layer and changed the colour of the font.

My Choice

The type of photo or a photographer I was interested in finding was one that composed with colour.

I found a photographer called David DuChemin and here is a photograph of his that I have chosen:

Jodhpur, India

I like the colour in this photography. The main light source coming from a tungsten street lamp. Its radiant yellow is falls on the scooters. It seems like a normal and natural street setting. The range of colours in this photo are not so spread across the composition: lack of proportion. However, the main focus on the right-hand side of the photo, a third of the photo is full of colour. The blue contrasting to the red, especially the red figure, catches our eyes. On the left half of the composition, the railings and small window is a sky blue is in conjunction with the warm orange: a classic and by no means uncommon combination. As it is such a contrast, the cool blue colour is distinct compared to the warmer colours that surround it, especially the red. It is somewhat odd that there is such a cool temperature colour in a warm country like India. The yellow and orange shades give the composition warmth emphasised with the warm lighting. As the composition is working with buildings, there are strong lines through the rule of thirds and there is an opening down into the alley which shows the sense of perception to us. The corner of a building creeps into the composition.

This photo links to my earlier works where I focused on what colours I could see in the street and also the geometry and lines that are often strongly present in any street setting. This photograph says to me that as great as the composition looks, this mysterious fast-paced red cloaked figure is why this photo exists. Without the figure, this composition would just be a landscape of a random Indian street with some contrasts of vibrant colours.

A summary for what I see everyday on my journey home

The 417 that takes me home. I took this photo because it is a significant bus to me and I regularly take this bus when it is available. There is a lot of reds, oranges and browns (similar hues) in this photo and the colour theme is red as I see a lot of this colour everyday, especially on my college journey.



The bus stop that I always wait at when coming home from college. I took a photo of the bus stop sign as it is a significant part of my journey home. I like the lines and geometry in this photo and these lines are really defined.




The street that I always pass, whether on the bus or walking.




I past this mailbox often and its bright red colour stands out against the less saturated colours around it. I decided to take a midshot of the mailbox rather than a closeup to show how the vibrant mailbox stands out.




I took this photo because of the colours that consisted. The primary colours in the photography colour circle is present: red, blue and green. I positioned the sign to the left side and tried to put the sign into a third of the composition.




I took this photo because the lines that consist in it. There are a lot of parallel horizontal and vertial lines. Even inside the house, there are lines for example from the art piece that is displayed. Again, attempting to use rule of thirds compostion, lined the outdoor lights across the top third.



I decided to take a photo of these signs as I liked the sense of depth and colour. The apeture was a bit too high. However, I feel that I showed effectively the sense of perception and made use of the range of colours present. I composed this photo in thirds again, having the closer signs on the right side of the photo and the further signs on the left.



Here, the dark blue and dark red complemented each other so I decided to take a photo of it. I centered the photo between the two businesses. Also, I liked the lines present from the businesses with the lamp posts and street crossing posts being perpendicular to the horizontal lines.



I was appealed to the colour range again, with the cooler green and blue complementing the red around it.

Here, there is a lot of red and similar warm colours. I took this photo as it shows people waiting at the bus stop: something that you would see everyday out on the street.

Everyday Assignment: Photos

I feel that my photos are successful in a way. I wanted the photos to look natural but thinking about it, putting a camera in front of your friends, especially a group of guys they would pose intentionally. The group photos really showed my aspect of everyday: friends. I can see how my friends and I united, playfully express ourselves in front of a camera. There is a lot that I could have improved such as more attention to composition detail. However, overall, I feel that these photos are fairly successful to my intentions: to document my friends that I would so everyday.