Week 8 Portrait/Street photograpy

Homework from Dave this week was people (street photography or portrait).  I think street photgraphy is one of those areas that when you try to do it, it becomes a lot more difficult than when doing it by accident or simply not trying.


I ventured out into the Christmas Markets at Manchester and trying to capture people without them knowing was tricky, I did manage to get some shots but have simply deleted them as they weren't very good at all.  I think nerves and paranoia kicked in here with some gruesome looking people, shovelling burgers and hotdogs down the throats, giving me the evil eye and looking very wary.  I will simply have to try this again and next time round be a liitle bit more blunt and just ask these people if I can take their picture.


Portrait Photography, this is a lot easier than street photography only you need people who are willing to have their photo taken.  When you do find somebody willing, why do they do nothing but pull silly faces and look ridiculous!


I came accross this description below which explains portrait quite simply:


Portrait photography or portraiture is the capture by means of photography of the likeness of a person or a small group of people (a group portrait), in which the face and expression is predominant. The objective is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is the person's face, although the entire body and the background may be included. A portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the camera.
Unlike many other photography styles, the subjects of portrait photography are often non-professional models. Family portraits commemorating special occasions, such as graduations or weddings, may be professionally produced or may be vernacular and are most often intended for private viewing rather than for public exhibition.
However, many portraits are created for public display ranging from fine art portraiture, to commercial portraiture such as might be used to illustrate a company's annual report, to promotional portraiture such a might be found on a book jacket showing the author of the book.


Capturing somebody's personality is one of the objective's of portrait and with not being able to get out and about to much this week I decided to shoot some images of my partner and then some more of my families children.  I find that when using children as subjects it is a lot easier to capture their personalies as they are not concerned about how they will look in a way that adults are.


So here is Dan sleeping which is soemthing that definately represents his personality and like most people must have a cup of tea before getting out of bed in the morning.  I have used aperture priority using various Fstops with an ISO of 400, I have edited these slightly using B&W and adding light/dark vignettes to create a sleepy feel to the image.

F/4.5, S 0.5sec

F/11, S 1.6sec

F/4.5, S 0.5sec

F/ 4.5, S 0.5sec

F/9, S 1sec

F/9, S 1.6sec

F/7.1, S 1/4 sec

As i said above using children as subjects seem to be a lot easier and I find the images appear to be more natural with no staging as with adults. Here is my niece and nephew playing with the family pet, again I have edited slightly by cropping, adding vignettes and using B&W.

Week 7 - Photomerge (I love you)

Panaoramic views, this is something I have tried to achieve in the past when making picture books.  As a rule I would take several shots moving the camera slightly each time and then using BLURB software and templates have spent so much time time trying to alighn images, although they have looked ok they were not seemless.

I cannot believe I was not aware of something so simple like photomerge, I have been using photoshop for years and for the life of me did not know this existed.  Thank god I do now as I love taking panoramic shots and capturing whold landscapes.

So with my new found knowledge I have put it to the test in my Mams back garden, the images are not great technically as I wasn't to concerned about camera settings at this time but really just wanted to see the results of the photomerge.  I did this a couple of times and as also used my niece and nephew by getting them move around the garden to 3 different areas to see how this would work in the final merge.

I absolutely love this feature and cannot wait to get back up to the Peak District to try this out using a more planned approach.  Using a tripod, a large aperture and a great view I could get some great panoramic shots to use towards my final set of images for my first theme.

I have also re-visited some of my old images taken before the cousre when on my travels and again this has worked beautifully.  The images below were all taken using a sony A230 in full Auto mode.

Week 6 - Long Exposure

During the class we were looking at long exposure's, using a long shutter and the BULB setting that some cameras have.  To create the light streems in the images we used torches, mobile phone lights and added gels to change the colours of the light streems.

Here are a couple of the pictures taken.

S 30 secISO200,  F 11

S 30 SecISO 200, F 11

And here are the images merged in photoshop using layers.

I really enjoyed this session and think this is something you could have a lot of fun with, i do however feel as a subject it could be quite limited!!

Long exposure can also be used for motion panning as explained in the hand out from Dave.  I really like this effect and by using a long exposure and moving alongside your subject, this should keep the subject in focus whilst blurring the background, I found this diagram below showing how its done.

How to make a panning shot with a motion-blurred background:

Panning diagram, top view

I had a look at some images in google to see how other people have used this technique and have added a few examples below;

I think this could be really effective when using wildlife as a subject.

Week 6 (homework)

Homework this week was "Where I Live" so I have taken some shots from my flat and have tried to be a little creative.




Candles - With winter comes the dark nights and candles where I live.  I placed a black wooden table, behind the table I have the candles on to create the dark surroundings.  I hoped that this would highlight the flames and the glass holders in the way that they look in the dark.  I have used a small aperture and manual focus for these shots to create a shallow depth of field to achieve a blurred effect in the background.

F/4ISO 200, S 1/160

F/4.5ISO 200, S 1/50

Salt & Pepper - Using the same dark background to simply capture the subject these shots also captured the shadows on the chrome. Again I have used a small aperture and manual focus here to show a narrow depth of field.

F/5.6ISO 200, S 1.0

F/ 5.6ISO 200, S 0.6

Mam's back garden - When not at home I spend a lot of time at my mams house which is my second home, not only for me but for my brothers and sisters who are always there with their children.  I decided to take a few shots of the children and have added vignettes using black and white to show the different impacts these can have.  In addition to the vignettes I have changed the shots to B&W in lighroom and altered the tones.

F/5.6ISO200, S1/200

F/5.6ISO 200, S1/250

Shutter Priority used for these two pictures as my nephew does not keep still.

 S 1/160ISO 400, F/5.6

S 1/6ISO 400, F/5.6

Week 6 - Make a decision on a theme

Ok so the first thing I learnt this week was that the homework last week was not "Moorlands" and the post on Dave's blog was just an example of a theme!!! Doh!!!

Anyhow I managed to get some great shots and also decided that I would definately choose Nature as one of my theme's.

I have decided that I will spend the next few weekends visiting different parts of the Peak District in the hope of being able to get a really good collection of shots that will show the different landscapes that make up the Peak District.
I've been looking at the a collection of photographs taken by profesional photographer and award winner Stephen Elliot and found the following information about him.


"Based in the heart of the Hope Valley, Stephen has always admired the beautiful scenery that the Peak District has to offer and has had a passion for photography since buying his first SLR camera at 16.
Stephen has a love for a great sky with dramatic clouds and will take any opportunity to be on a hillside with his camera.
Having enjoyed working with film, Stephen has since embraced the change to the digital age and the inclusion of computer technology with great enthusiasm.
Stephen also works close to his home at the Lafarge cement works and appreciates not being subjected to the daily grind of commuting into one of the nearby urbanizations. Thinking about his next walk and the chance for photography whilst driving to Hope is inspired by the surrounding hills.
Stephen supplies a range of prints and greetings cards to several outlets in and around the Peak District and holds one to one photography tuition for photographers of all abilities"

Facebook album:http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.172353576141139.48258.141174685925695
Looking through Stephen's pictures it clear that a variety of settings have been used in regards to Aperature and Shutter with some showing movement in the water  and others showing a detailed landscape.
Using a close up focal point to enhance the landscape in the background has also worked really well in some of his shots,  giving more depth oppose to a flat look which can sometimes happen with landscapes.
The enhanced colours in his shots give them a dramatic feel and compliment the great sky that he manages to capture.
These pictures below I have taken from his website where you can purchase his images in a number of formats.

The Peak District also proves to be a really interesting place in the winter so lucky for me its winter and hopefully we will soon have some snow.  Here is a couple more shots taken from Stephen Elliots gallery during the winter on the Peaks.

Panoramic views and dramatic black & white shots are also other methods used by Stephen which fits in well with last weeks session where we were looking at taking lots of individual images and then stitching these together using Photoshop.

All the images above can be found at http://www.stephenelliottphotography.co.uk/

Week 5 - Moorlands

I missed the session this week and had a look through Dave's blog to try and catch up.  Delighted to see the theme this week was moorlands and this gave me a good excuse to drive over to Buxton (Cat & Fiddle pub) where there is a public footpath taking you deep into the moors up to Shining Tor which is the highest peak in Lancashire. 

I decided to go over on Friday and after checking the weather it looked set to be quite a dry, sunny day with a chance of rain.  Along with my camera, zoom lens and tripod I decided to borrow my son's fishing umbrella which would have allowed me to still take some shots if the rain did appear.

One thing I love about the grassy moorlands (other than the chance to see a Kestrel) is the mixture of autumnal colours due to the change in the season, hopefully I have managed to capture this.  I have also tried to capture the landscape using a wide lens, aswell as getting in close to show some of the detail in the grass.  Where getting in close I have tried not to blur out the backround too much so you can get a feel for the layers in the grass showing the texture and the landscape in the backround..

I used Aperature Priority for the images below.

F/5.6 ISO 400, S 1/500

F/4ISO 200, S1/250

F/4ISO 200, S1/320

F/5.6ISO 400, S1/500

F5.6ISO 200, S1/400

F/5.6ISO 200, S1/160

F/5.6ISO 200, S 1/640

F/4.5ISO 200, S 1/640

F/5.6ISO 200, S 1/400

F/5.6ISO 400, S 1/640

F/4.5ISO 200, S 1/640