My 4 Favourite Places:
Original Proposal:
Reproposal:
After
doing some initial research & mood boards on my original proposal, I
realised that I disliked the idea and it wasn't pushing me as much as I'd hoped
it would. It took me a while to come up with a new idea and for a few days I
bounced from idea to idea with no luck. Finally, after stumbling across the
work of Erica McDonald, I decided that I would photograph my four favourite
places. This is a mixture of documentary and location photography, as I am
documenting five different locations. The way I am going to do this is by doing
my shoot, best images, edits & development through photoshop as I normally
do for any shoot, but I will also create a mock up final piece for each shoot
as inspiration for my final piece. My final piece will be a collage, I will select
my favourite image from each shoot to create a collage of 4 images (shown
below).
Weston Super Mare collage
Research:
Erica McDonald:
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Erica McDonald is a photographer and educator who lives in New York City. She founded DEVELOP Photo to provide resources for the enrichment of the photojournalism, fine art and documentary photographer community. Erica began working in the field of the photography under the tutelage of esteemed photo dealer Joe Folber at Vision Gallery in San Francisco, a "mini-mecca" for photographers. When the chance came for her to manage the gallery at The Maine Photographic Workshops, she was rewarded with the opportunity to learn through the company of some of photography's greatest image makers.
The Pilot Light of Memory:
St Kitts:
Edward Burtynsky:
Edward Burtynsky (born February 22nd 1955) is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large-format photographs of industrial landscapes. His work is housed in ore than 50 museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Burtynskys's most famous photographs are sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles. The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict. His early influences include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Eadweard Muybridge.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Erica McDonald is a photographer and educator who lives in New York City. She founded DEVELOP Photo to provide resources for the enrichment of the photojournalism, fine art and documentary photographer community. Erica began working in the field of the photography under the tutelage of esteemed photo dealer Joe Folber at Vision Gallery in San Francisco, a "mini-mecca" for photographers. When the chance came for her to manage the gallery at The Maine Photographic Workshops, she was rewarded with the opportunity to learn through the company of some of photography's greatest image makers.
The Pilot Light of Memory:
St Kitts:
Edward Burtynsky:
Edward Burtynsky (born February 22nd 1955) is a Canadian photographer and artist known for his large-format photographs of industrial landscapes. His work is housed in ore than 50 museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Burtynskys's most famous photographs are sweeping views of landscapes altered by industry: mine tailings, quarries, scrap piles. The grand, awe-inspiring beauty of his images is often in tension with the compromised environments they depict. His early influences include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Eadweard Muybridge.
Pete Seaward:
Ansel Adams:
Todd Hido:
David J. Carol:
Eliot Dudik:
I will be using the same camera settings for each shoot to ensure that all of my images have the same effect, I will be using aperture priority with an f stop of f.22, and ISO 100.
Pete Seaward has been a photographer for over 30 years. He's travelled the world extensively working mainly on advertising campaigns. He has won many industry awards including being voted one of the best ad photographers in the world and won travel photographer of the year 2011 by the British Travel Press.
Ansel Adams:
Born: Ansel Easton Adams - February 20th 1902; San Francisco, California
Died: April 22nd 1984 (aged 82); Monterey, California
Ansel Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist. His black and white landscape photographs of the American West have been widely reproduced on calendars and posters, and in books. Adams developed the Zone System as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. He primarily used large format cameras because their high resolution helped ensure sharpness in his images. In 1927 Adams produced his first portfolio "Parmelian Prints of the High Sierras". Adams did not exclusively work in black and white, he also experimented with colour. His subjects that he shot in colour ranged from portraits to landscape to architecture, a similar scope to that of his black and white work. He preferred black and white because he felt that colour could be distracting and could therefore divert an artist's attention away from achieving his full potential when taking a photograph.
What I really like about Ansel Adams work is how detailed each of his images are, I think they look much better in black and white because colour would make them a lot less striking and effective.
"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence."
Todd Hido:
Todd Hido (born 25th August 1968, Kent, Ohio) is an American contemporary artist and photographer. Currently based in San Francisco, much of Hido's work involves photographs of urban and suburban housing across the U.S. He has produced a number of well received books, had his work exhibited widely and included in various public and private collections.
David J. Carol:
David Jeffrey Carol (born August 23rd 1958) is the director of photography at CBS Outdoor and author of a number of photography books. He is a photographer first and foremost, currently working daily in the real world of commercial photography.
Eliot Dudik:
Eliot Dudik is a photographic artist, educator, and bookmaker exploring the connection between culture, memory, landscape, history and politics. His first monograph, "Road Ends In Water" was published in 2010. In 2012, Dudik was named one of PDN's 30 new and emerging photographers to watch and one of oxford american magazine's 100 new superstars of southern art.
I will be using the same camera settings for each shoot to ensure that all of my images have the same effect, I will be using aperture priority with an f stop of f.22, and ISO 100.
Weston-Super-Mare Shoot:
Why I Chose This Place:
Weston-super-Mare
is a seaside resort just outside of Bristol, it has all the traditional seaside
attractions, a grand pier, donkeys, lots of cafes, restaurants and
amusements/arcades, and lots more. I decided to shoot W-S-M as it's a place
where I spent a lot of my childhood, and I have lots of memories here. It's
also interesting to see how much the place has changed over the years, lots of
new attractions are now in W-S-M. I travelled to Weston on a bus from Bristol
bus station later in the afternoon with a friend, we had a walk around (taking
pictures along the way) and also stopped to get some lunch whilst we were
there- it's rude not to get fish & chips when you go to the seaside!
Contact Sheet:
Best Images:
These are my best images from this shoot. I like them all for different reasons however I do feel that all of my images were slightly overexposed. Obviously it's too late to change that now so I will fix this with Photoshop.
Edits:
This is the only image I did something different with. I duplicated the layer and set the blending mode to multiply, which made the image a lot bolder and darker, maybe slightly too dark but it looks better than the original.
For my edits I did exactly the same thing each time. Brought down the exposure and brightness, brought up the contrast slightly and also played around with levels to change the shadows and highlights. I also used unsharp mask on all of my images as I usually do.
Development Through Photoshop:
Firstly I brought down the exposure (Image > Adjustments > Exposure..) because this image was very overexposed.
Next, I brought up the brightness slightly and brought up the contrast a lot (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast..). This is because the lighting was quite dull and I also wanted the image to be really contrasted.
I also played around with levels, to give the image some more shadows (Image > Adjustments > Levels...).
Last of all, I went to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask.. to sharpen the image without making it too crisp.
This is the final image.
Final Piece Mock Up's:
Kings Weston Grounds Shoot
Why I chose Kings Weston Estate:
Kings
Weston Estate is a historic landscape just off of Lawrence Weston, covering
over 300 acres, with many historic buildings and garden features. I first came
here about 16 weeks ago (photo below!) and completely fell in love with the
architecture and peacefulness of this place. I have photographed here before
yet every time I come back I still manage to take
really different images each time. I came here at around 7pm with a friend
and was so surprised that it was still light! I regularly come for walks here
and never get bored of the grounds.
Contact Sheet:
Best Images:
Edits:
Development Through Photoshop:
First of all, I brought down the exposure down slightly as the image was slightly overexposed, (Image > Adjustments > Exposure).
Next I went to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast, and brought up the brightness up slightly but the contrast up a lot. This is because I like my images really contrasted.
I then went to levels (Image > Adjustments > Levels..) and played around to give the image some shadows.
I also changed the image into black and white by going into Image > Mode > Grayscale.
Last of all, I sharpened the image by using unsharp mask (Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask).
This is the final image.
Final Piece Mock Ups:
Blaise Castle Shoot:
Why I Chose Blaise Castle:
Why I Chose Blaise Castle:
As you can see from the images of myself and my younger sister above, Blaise Castle is a place where I spent a lot of my childhood and I have lots of memories here. We've always lived really close to Blaise Estate so it's really convenient for us as a family to have days out here. It has only changed slightly over the years, mainly by adding new playground features and also updating them. Blaise Castle is probably the one place I can photograph over and over without getting bored of the outcomes. It's not only a playground but a huge historical estate with a house museum, huge woodland, a small cottage, an old mill and so much more. It's the perfect place for a day out or even to just go for a walk in the peacefulness of the woodlands. I decided to come at midday on a weekday, this is because I wanted it to be mainly empty, as I feel having lots of people in the middle of your shots completely ruins them. It was very quiet and this also gave Leila (my sister who I took with me on this shoot) a chance to go on the swings! (Which she doesn't really look too happy about).
Contact Sheet:
Best Images:
This
is probably the first shoot I have done where I can't complain about the images
I've taken. Usually most of my images come out slightly overexposed or blurred
and I have to use heavy Photoshop but I'm really happy with all of my images,
which is probably why I haven't taken as many as I usually would.
Edits:
I am aware that I went totally overboard with the edits for this shoot, but I couldn't make my mind up between images so just edited all of my favourite images. I basically did the same thing for all of them, brought down the exposure, brought up the brightness and contrast and then finally sharpened them.
Development Through Photoshop:
First of all, I brought down the exposure as the image was ever so slightly overexposed (Image > Adjustments > Exposure).
Next, I brought down the brightness but brought up the contrast. (Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast).
I then duplicated the layer by going to Layer > Duplicate Layer.
Then, on my new layer I set the blending mode to Multiply, this makes the layer really dark. I did change the opacity slightly so it wasn't so dark.
Last of all, I sharpened my image with unsharp mask.
This is the final image.
Final Piece Mock Ups:
Minehead Shoot:
Why I Chose Minehead:
Minehead is where Exmoor meets the sea. One really well known place in Minehead is Butlins seaside holiday resort, which is where I was actually staying at the time of these photo's. I chose Minehead as I have a lot of memories here as a child and as I'm getting older I actually appreciate it more now than I did when I was younger. I stayed here for 5 days with my family and boyfriend and also spent a lot of time at the beach exploring on this holiday, but I took these photos over the course of 1 day.
Contact Sheet:
Best Images:
This is
my favourite shoot out of the 4 that I did. I'm really happy with all of my
images, especially the beach shots.
Edits:
I did the same thing each time with all of these edits. I brought down the exposure and brightness quite a lot, but made them a lot more contrasted and sharpened.
Final Piece Mock Ups:
All of my Final Piece Mock Ups:
Final Piece:
Mock up 1:
Above are 2 mock up final pieces I made when trying to decide what images to use for my final piece. I always knew I wanted a collage for my final piece, and I was sure that I wanted a collage with a photo from each shoot in, but when I created that collage I realised that it just didn't work. As you can see from the collages above, they just look really messy and ineffective, because they are all different places. Therefore I decided that my final piece would consist of a few different collages, 1 collage from each shoot.
Above are 2 more collages I created during my final piece production process, I have taken all 4 collages from each shoot and put them together to create one big collage. I really like this, a lot more than my 4 image collages in fact. I made one colour and one in black and white, as I was unsure on which material I wanted to use. After looking at both collages I was drawn to the coloured collage much more than the black and white, so that is the collage I will submit as my final piece.
FINAL PIECE!
I have also submitted 8 A4 mounted prints for this unit.
Below are the photos showing my display for the City of Bristol College Art & Photography end of year exhibition. I was really happy with the way my display looked even if I did go completely against the advice of my tutors! Most students displayed one unit on their display boards, but as I chose location photography as the theme for my final major project, I decided to display both my final major project and my location photography unit together. I also used a lot more images than other students as you can see. As the other students boards were white they placed 4-8 mounted prints on their display, but as my board is black I thought a black frame would look silly on the black board, so decided to take my images out of their frames and just place prints on my display.
My entire display
Location photography
More location photography
My final major project board
That's me!
I decided to display my photography logo and contact details as a bit of self promotion, because why not?!
My portfolio was laid out on the table in front of my display in a ringbinder, on the Monday 6pm private viewing I also had my iPad set up on the table with a slide show of all my images, both personal and college.
I decided that placing a book on my desk for people to leave thoughts, views, opinions, messages or criticism would be a great opportunity for me to see what I've done well and what I can improve on.
I only got 7 messages in this book altogether but was really happy with the really nice messages people left me.
Overall this is my favourite unit I have completed so far and I am so happy with everything I have worked so hard on and submitted. There are only 2 aspects of this unit that I can fault myself on, the first being the time it took to get me going in the first place because I couldn't make my mind up on an idea, and the second being my timekeeping as this is definitely something I need to work on improving. I'm especially happy with my artist research for this unit as this is something that I usually struggle with, and even though I could still improve on this I have definitely improved a lot since my last unit.
