Tristan Petts Photography

Coming Soon

2011-09-07T13:24:00.000+01:00

Currently I have paused my research and have not had enough time to post about my mini-project yet as I am actively seeking work and in the stages of moving house. On the 10th of September I will be a resident of the city of Bristol, and until then I am making sure I have a job and a social life by the time I get down there.

So please standby, as it could be another week before before I am able to post any more of my project work. In the mean time I suggest taking a look at my friend's blog and reading up about his photography. www.robpassmore.co.uk

Photography Today

2011-08-26T18:30:00.000+01:00

Photography has changed a lot over the past and from where traditional photography stood all those many years ago it now represent's three key areas, Social (Weddings, Social sites, Dating sites), Commercial (Marketing, Food and Beauty Ads), and Art.

Commercial photography is mainly a long line of professional photographer's who will work very hard to a marketing campaign brief, to create a selection of images that will make a target audience want to buy or invest in a product.

Art photographers are seen as the most creative photographers, and will normally want to dabble in traditional chemically based photography. Sometimes this category can mix with commercial photography, but at more likely on a freelance basis. The art photographer wants to innovate and post-modernise the conventional to play with our thoughts, thus in the scheme of marketing, making us more interested in a product.

These two areas have been around for the longest and have changed the way we look at our lives, but probably the most important type of photography to ever exist is Social photography.

A social photographer can be anyone, it starts with people who have no idea about photography and ends with the pros, so what has suddenly turned this profession in to socialism? The biggest most advance resource in the world was born in the 1950s, they called it the Internet and it would forever change our lives, yet it wasn't yet going to change it until a number of years later. In the last five years social networking started to really take off, the idea of being able to have your own space on the web that you and your friends can explore became a strong means of social status. Photography was only a link in to the social element at the beginning of social sites, it was only a means of representation of a individual, this soon changed as the websites became more established, and as we grew older and shared experiences online, photography started to create a timeline of our lives.

When everyone realised that they where now stamping posting there lives all over the internet for everyone to see, it was then that social photography really started to kick in, millions of photographs are uploaded daily as proving ground or as bragging rights to say from one person to another, 'My life is better than yours', it is fair to say that most people will deny this, maybe it sounds harsh but more than often most people won't even realise they are doing it. The most interesting type of photography to look at, that has been around since the birth of the first photograph, and it is wedding photography. The wedding photography of the past was collection of photographic objects that carried memories of a precious day, modern wedding photography is now a creative and decorative attempt to copy and paste this day of union on to the internet and share/show off to others.

Like I put it before bragging rights is a show off of 'my life is better than yours', but it is only the ground works of social photography, the rest is a mixture of documentary creative ability. The reason I have thought and explained this so much is because I am very interested to know if the future of digital imagery could have the same drastic influence on our lives like it has done today. What is in store for us, and what will it lead us too?

The Future Home

2011-08-26T16:12:00.000+01:00

I have decided to start my own research studies in my own time to look in to the future of photographic and even motion picture technology, I want to know what the future of images and the way we will be viewing them in five years time. The reason I want to look at the future of these technology is because I have a firm interest in digital imagery, and I believe most people in the world do to. I am going to study and attempt to communicate with people working on future digital imagery technology, and work out what its place will be in our lives.

Now with quite a few things to cover and go over I feel the best way to start to look at the future, is to look at the past. While searching on YouTube I came across a video that claimed to have the house of the future, there was only one thing, the house's concepts and ideas were founded nearly twenty years ago. Now as you watch the video of the house it is extremely interesting to see what we have taken from it and have put in to our home living already. The mention of touch screens, ordering day to day shopping from home and the general integration of computing in our house's looks very similar to the way modern day house's looks now.

Maybe we haven't got a kitchen that looks like something out of a old science fiction film, or even advanced towel dryers, but there is great evidence that the predictions of the companies involved were more than less right. Now I'm not going to go down the path of the future of domestic technology, but there is a distinct new integration of the world of photography with our day to day lives, such as social sites. Not even 5 years ago it was not possible to take a photo on a portable device and send it to the cloud almost instantly, it has changed the way we live and communicate forever. It gives another reason why I want to know what we have install down the line and we we will see in the future of digital imagery.

Shoot Ideas

2011-08-24T21:00:00.000+01:00

So I have been seeing a lot of these summery photos of girls in dresses running around fields from lots of different photographers recently, I think it's the fantastic orangey light we get in England at this time of year the provokes it. As it has been a while now since I have taken a real creative photo, I think its about time I get down to work on a new project.

The photo will be a summery type of photo, probably taken outside to get the orange colours of the sun at the end of the day. The model will be no less than my other half, the beautiful Vicki Beard. I have raided Vicki's jewellery box and her wardrobe and found these items that I feel will good for the shoot. I'm always looking for ideas to make my photos stronger than other photographers, the way I plan on doing it this time is to concentrate on a theme, as its just about summer still, I'm going to involve subject is 'summer love'.

Summer love can have a sad or happy ending to it, as we all know about, I don't want to necessarily limit my self to one or the other but I sure I might be influenced by my recent personal experiences of love.

Check back here soon to see how the shoot goes and what kind of results I get. Don't forget you can also 'Like' my Facebook page.

A New Dawn

2011-08-16T15:45:00.001+01:00

About three months ago I left the life of working on cruise ships to start fresh on land in the media or as a photographer, so far it it has been hard work to find work of any kind, at the moment I am living with my partner up in Doncaster where unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of work around.

Things are changing though and I have decided that it would be a fantastic idea to move back down to the south west of England and to the city of Bristol. Although I am applying for big opportunities such as jobs in "New Digital Media" I am very weary that because I will be starting from a fresh that I will need to find a foundation upon to start a new and exciting career.

I have signed up to every agency and have applied to every site, all I can really do now is wait for something to happen while keep looking out for anything new to crop up. One interesting opportunity that I found was the chance to join American Apparel as a sales assistant, the job application form found on there website was the first of its kind, it asked for links to personal online social spaces such as facebook, and it asked for photos of yourself wearing what type of fashion you like to wear. As a photographer with a lot of spare time on his hands I turned this in to my own mini-project and decided to come up with three fresh images for this application portfolio.

I had only just been shopping with my partner that weekend and was able to blend a range of cheap and expensive clothing brands to create what I felt to be the basis of my styles.

Three different looks but with an overall indie style to them I used different rooms in the house with there fantastic bright and varied colours.

What happens now

2011-02-03T14:32:00.001Z

About five months ago I embarked on a new job and a adventure! I have been working on the cruise ship the Ventura working as a photographer living on board. The stories and events that have taken place have been life changing and I will never forget how incredible the whole experience has been for me, so much so that I have applied to do it again and I will be heading to the Oceana later this month.

One thing about ships is that you are inside this steel can all day and that with the little spare time you have your imagination starts to be put to the side, so much so I believe my mind has completely been deluded from the course of creativity. Today the 3rd of February I had a experience on the train that I can only explain to you as a explosion of radical thoughts with intense images and ideas rushing through my head with vast integrity.

As my mind is now slowing down I feel it will be important to me to get as sets of photos done as I can before I leave, while still enjoying my at home.

So check back soon to see how my photos are developing.

Wedding Photography

2010-06-19T14:09:00.001+01:00

Last year a couple of my friends became engaged and asked me to be their photographer, I was more than happy to say yes to them and knew this would be a brilliant chance to build up a wedding photography portfolio if I ever needed more clients. Wedding photography can be a bit of a grey area to photographers as it can be a nightmare to organise, this is why it is key to prepare and arrange as much as you can before 'the big day!'. During my course I worked with freelance photographer Tony Cobley (www.tonycobley.com), he was generous enough to show me how he conducts and photographers a wedding.

The first thing is to be open minded, you have to remember than that this is your clients wedding, not yours, so if they want a specific image and you say it will look rubbish then you are taking away confidence from your client, you have to compromise with them, explain how the shot would work and how they could improve it, they will understand that you have the knowledge and experience behind you to do the best you can.

Like I said before preparation is key; you want to have done recce's at the place of ceremony, the reception and any other locations you plan to use during the day. To take a great photograph isn't as simple as turning up on the day and hoping for the best, if you have just as much knowledge in to the location of the shoot as the bride and groom to be, then you and your client will be rewarded with interesting and beautiful images.

Another important factor to go over is church rules, you want to be able to take great photographers all day without any hassle, unfortunately different church's, registry offices and registrars have different rules about who and how you can take a photograph in there setting, so before you run up to the table to take photos of the signatures remember to take the time to contact the registrar about what places, what flashes and what photos there will be.

There must always be a 'Plan B'; whether its starts raining and you need a studio set-up indoors, or you simply pack extra batteries, you must always remember that little chance of there going wrong most probably will do, if you have this kind of attitude then you have a stronger chance that the day will go a lot more smoothly.

Once you have you have everything organised with the bride and groom, you have found the best spots for taking photographs and you feel supported with a backup plan its time to get creative. A client will normally hire one photographer over another because of there unique style of photography, remember its good to be different! You want to offer something new and fresh that the client can be proud of, so as long as you have taken the most important images such as the group shots and the ceremony, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and get creative. You have to remember that these images are not just for your client, they are going to be selling you as a photographer and presented to other clients for future work. As long are you think big you will be fine.

Post production should not consist of days worth of Photoshoping, you should be taking the time to get as much as you can get done straight from camera and only doing light touch ups. Most of wedding post-production can be done quickly and easily through Photoshop Lightroom, this tool has been made for this kind of mass editing process, it will speed up all of your photo editing by almost 10 times as fast. Photoshop Lightroom supports sharping, colour editing, calibration repair, noise reduction and a lot lot more that can be synced to all your selected images, if you have not got your hands on this software yet then I seriously suggest you try it (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/). Another thing to consider in post-production is the matter of copyright, you have to be clear what your client is buying, whether its specifically digital data that they are only allowed to printed by you, or if digital data with a full licence to print themselves, this can all then be added into the image's metadata which can easily be added with Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Bridge.

Finally remember to have fun, at the end of the day if you come out with images that you are not as happy with the clients not going to know, as long as they get a happy smiley photographer whose going to be pleasant, friendly and even entertaining then they are going to like you for just that and you can still get more work through 'word of mouth'.

With all this empowering knowledge I hope to come up myself with some really nice photographers.

London

2010-06-15T14:04:00.000+01:00

Currently up in London after the exhibition waiting for our late train. My experience up here has been amazing! London is the next big step for me, if I get to go travelling in between then I will be very happy but after this week I feel inspired and excited to get ready to come up here. This is probably my fifth trip up here now and I think it has been a extremely successful one; our exhibition went really smooth and everyone gained a lot of attention, one review from 'Dont Panic' said that Plymouth "marks out considerably from the others", this is due to the strong background to our images, read the rest at http://www.dontpaniconline.com.

During the construction of the exhibition me and my colleague Rob Passmore recorded some HD video that I am going to post produce in the next week for our college to use at the another exhibition they are holding, whether or not I will be exhibiting there yet is still a decision I have to make. I will also uploading a copy to the the web aswell as a host of images of our journey.

Stay tuned for more London bits soon!

Evaluation of Final Major

2010-05-11T08:25:00.005+01:00

Over the last five years I have been studying photography; I have looked at its concepts, theory and technicality, and all of this has led me to this last year as well as this final project. At the beginning of the year I was full of ideas and ready to start shooting; our first project allowed us to experiment with different areas and concepts of photography, I felt compelled to try all the ideas I was thinking of at the time, this included infrared imaging, light painting, freelensing and CGI. All of my experiments interested me and inspired me to come out with several final images that I felt to be almost at a professional standard already. The next stage was to break down my experiments in to two areas so that I could concentrate more on the theory work behind the images; for this I choose to keep my freelensing experiments but also look to a professional output for my work through singer songwriter Alice Jemima. Both practices evolved and became strong paths for me to follow; my freelensing explored new cameras and concepts that altered the perspective on an image visually and mentally, my work with Alice led me to studying the stories in her songs and how they gave off emotions. This final project has been the concluding factor to my studying this year; it takes these developed concepts and turns them in to a visual demonstration of creativity.

From the start of the project I felt that one of the most important things I was going to have to do was to create a well structured plan for myself to work from, it didn’t have to be one hundred percent perfect, but it would allow me to budget and time keep my project. I did this by reading through the brief a few times while writing notes about what was going to be important to have in my project. I then showed these notes to Alice to confirm with her that she was happy with what I was trying to create, which then finally led me to turn out my notes in to a plan; this plan would then help me create a budget and a timeline to work from.

Rather than looking through hundreds of photographers like I had in past projects I just looked back to work that I had already done. Because I had that secondary research there it didn’t seem as much of a necessary factor. I did however conduct more of my own primary research which looked at new ideas and stories that I was trying to tell through the medium of photography, and because I had not really tried to create these types of images before I felt that it was important to practice and experience them before I got in to anything final. This helped me refine my ideas and images so that when I did get to my final shoots I was confident and happy that they were possible to achieve.

The whole project had new things that required me to practice and learn, but I think one of the biggest influences has been our visiting lectures; there passion, ambition and concepts for photographers were an inspiration, they were incredible people and they created just as incredible images. Juan Trujillo made the biggest impression to me as his passion and ideas were clever and simply, he really taught me a thing or two about fashion photography and the fashion photograph industry. The final images that I eventually came out with from this project are some of the best photos I have ever taken; I felt that each image had a story to tell and that if you study and look through each set you can see a range of emotion and drama that breaks apart each set from another. I feel that they have be planned and constructed and embraced by my creativity in such a way that they are almost exactly the way I had pictured them in my head.

In the proposal I mentioned how important it was working with Alice and although I never got to do a final shoot with her, her words and melodies from her songs were enough of a inspiration to allow me to create the photos I have now. Just as importantly I will now present these images to her and see what she thinks of the final results; hopefully as well as liking them she will be able to identify with them and feel that they are part of what she sings about.

From my ideas to my experiments to my development and then finally to my photos I have taken a lot of time to come up with a structure to these images that I feel isn’t quite the end for it all just yet. These songs and stories are just one part of a formula, with my new look on photography and it amazing ability to evolve with us, I can see me creating new structures and concepts with a never ending supply of creative ideas. This project and the entire course has taught me how to strategies’ the processes in to my own creative work and expand it with other people’s ideas, which in relation to my professional practice will allow me to offer my own style of photograph to my clients.

Overall this entire project has been an eye opener for me and I have come away with a lot more that I thought I would ever learn; I have practiced and experienced a vast and expanding industry that looks to art and science to create images that demonstrate creativity. I feel ready for anything, in photography and in general, this project and course has been an incredible experience that has started me on an amazing dream of a journey.

The Exhibition

2010-05-09T21:45:00.017+01:00

Part of my project is to present a set of images at the Free Range gallery in London, this is a amazing opportunity as hundreds of photographers and other media related organisations will also be there viewing our work; because of this it will be very important to create chose out of all my photos a selection that I feel I am particularly proud of and that I feel will show me off as a photographer. For more details on our exhibition take a look at our colleges site here:

http://www.free-range.org.uk/cgi-bin/exhibition.pl?yearID=15&exhibitionID=621

Alien Skin - Lomo Kodak Cross Processing Effect

2010-05-08T23:21:00.000+01:00

Back in my last project me and Alice's were going through photos and photographers that we thought might be suitable for my final images (http://tristanpetts.blogspot.com/2010/02/few-more-ideas.html) More recently I had heard of a plugin for Photoshop called Alien Skin, this plugin allows you to add film effects to your images. One type of camera we originally looked out was the Holga, not this plugin didn't have the exact effect of the Holga in it, but it did have a Lomo cross processing effect that looks simular. After I started applying this effect to my images I started to like what it was doing; here are some examples of the effect:

As you can see colours are more punchy, the contrast is a little higher and areas have gotten darker.

The effect isn't as harsh as turning up the contrast to high, but instead makes the colours stronger and more effective. There is a version with a grain effect too, but I have decided not to use that part of the effect as I want quite sharp images.

I think this is going to be a nice effect to have on the rest of my images so I have made the decision to add it to them all for my final prints.

Final Shoots - Favourite Song (CANCELLED)

2010-05-07T23:44:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately this shoot with Alice has had to be cancelled as she has fallen ill at last minute. This is a huge shame as I felt that her shoot was going to play a big part in the whole project. The most annoying thing about having to cancel this shoot though is the timing, because Alice was the most free I put her shoot in a very relaxed spot that I replaced a couple of times due to other models and assistants suddenly becoming unavailable, I can only do what I can though and hope that she likes the rest of the images that I am making for her.

Re-Shoot - All Those People

2010-05-07T10:53:00.003+01:00

I decided that the distort perspective image from the 'All Those People' shoot wasn't strong enough, so I had a bit more of a think about how I could create a new image. Eventually I came up with the idea to have my subject standing on a building or a post, I worked out that if I used a couple of chairs and a plank of wood I could have my subject lying down between these chairs, then flip the image and remove the chairs in post production.

It was important that I took two different images, one with my subject and the chairs, and the other with out so I could use the shot with out the chairs and subject to paste over the one with the chairs and subject. To add more to my distortion I got my subject to have her head hanging in mid-air so that her hair was still pulled down by gravity.

The final results came out really well, my subject managed to hold her head up long enough to allow her hair to fall and the two images spliced together perfectly. There's a bit more emotion to this image as well, she looks more upset which in relation to the story it goes with its a good final image.

Final Shoots - The Woman (Vogue Song)

2010-05-04T15:43:00.002+01:00

I got very excited when Alice showed me this song, it was only made recently and it was easy enough to be inspired with a few strong images. The song itself is about looks and style, and how you see people from magazines like 'Vogue' and want to aspire to there high fashion and look that the model has. I did a essay a while back looking at public image, and how we all want to look great more often for the chance to be aspired or admired to, so I was interesting having that previous study with and seeing if I could add a little something more to the story.

It was important they each character was very different, and although I wanted one to not look as glamours as the other I still felt it was necessary for them to both to be dressed smart. One model is dressed just as Alice sings about though and will be turning up looking like something out of a magazine. The other will still be looking pretty but a bit more casual to make it look like she is trying to aspire to something.

Shoot One

This shoot was my first idea and probably my favourite of all the shoots I have done so far, not just because of the conditions of the shoot were perfect be also because the end images were looking fantastic! Counter balancing the strong sunlight and removing any harsh shadows really shines out in this scene.

Although it took a few goes to get my models in the right places in the frame I eventually came up up with this image. If I could put a definition to my photography I think this is would go right beside it. I think I love every little thing about it, from the way my characters are dress, to the way they are acting and even how everything is perfectly lit to keep shape in my models figures but not casting to bigger shadows. Even the background goes well with it all, with its strong colours and strongly lit buildings.

Shoot Two

I didn't want any extra light for this shot because even the slightest addiction of light is too much, I went through a few different ways to take this portrait but eventually I had to move away from the script the the reflection element.

Even though I did have to remove the glass reflections from the background as a compromise over my light source I was still very happy with this image. It might not be as strong as it was going to be, but I felt as a portrait you really got to see that identity of a fashion model.

Shoot Three

Shoot three was more about someone going after that identity, but in this case as a act, I had one model stalking the other like she wanted to try to be like her. I came up wit quite a strong image for this but I felt it was important to play with perspective again so I decided to leave this image out and try something else later.

Shoot Four

A long time ago I worked on a mini project that looked at recapturing stills from movies, I remember one of though types of image was whats called a "Over the shoulder shot" which looks at a scene from over someone's shoulder giving the viewer more of their perspective.

It was quite hard to get the right lighting for this one but I finally came up with this image; again it is a perfect copy of the image in my head and looks at how one person can look at another. After looking back at it a few times I guess I wouldn't have minded getting my main model posing more, its just her hips look a little to vertical but that's being really picky.

Shoot Five

Lastly I came back the the stalking image again, this time I had the idea of altering the perspective to which they were on. To do this I used a very steep hill which made everything about the shoot awkward and hard to manage.

Never or less though I still managed to come out with this final image, it still may need a little more refining in post-production to make more of a illusion of the perspective, but I still really like it and it keeps its story link from before.

Another excellent and fun shoot; I think before I started shooting I had doubts and fears that things could go wrong and models might not been available but now I have quite a few good results I feel a lot happier about presenting these images to Alice and the public.

Final Shoots - Where Did You Go?

2010-05-03T15:42:00.000+01:00

Another sad story of love, though this one looks more at a someone who has been broken hearted for a while; too be more diverse over the last set of images I decided to use a male subject. Luke had done some modelling before for a friend of mine, and after seeing his photos I thought he would be a perfect model for this shoot. Why was he so perfect? For weeks I had tried to find someone who suited the part for this song, I basically wanted a innocent looking guy who did't look too fancy or smart, to emphasis this I got him too dress in quite casual looking clothes. I wanted him to look normal, but also a little quirky. There would be a lot less lighting in these shoots, instead of making my model looking too lit up I was more up for trying to have darker images that were just as dark in mood as they were in light.

Like before I gave my models and assistants lots of notice and explainable behind the the images to allow them to understand what I was trying to create.

Shoot One

The first shoot was based on another I had done for as a test, this time I went for a portrait image though as I wanted to narrow down my the view to more of my subject than just my background.

This image was pretty much as perfect as I could get in my eyes, it was an exact representation of what I had in my mind. Because of its darkness it does seem quite dark and moody, and with the gritty graffiti in the background I have made it seem even more dark.

Shoot Two

Another shoot that I really wanted to copy from one of my test shoots, I knew I was never going to come out with the same strong shot I took before but I used the same techniques and methods as I did before.

with the images spliced together again I have come out with this cool shot, still not as strong as my original from the test shoot, but still a good image. I really feel that my subject is feeling pretty scared, and uncertain of his position in his heart and even his life now.

Shoot Three

So a while ago I did a couple of test shoots in Plymouth central park, one of the shots I was trying to get was a shot of my subject looking over the city to show how my subject would be trying to find someone in such a big space. This after scouting around I found that the best place was at the popular waterside space of 'The Hoe'.

Slightly different to what I had tried to shot before I knew that I needed some sort of light on my subject in order for him to show up in the image better, so for this shot I just had a very focused light pointing at his neck from in front of him to bring out the figure of his head. Overall I think of as plain as it is, it comes out quite strong and while it keeps this darkness about the subject is still the biggest park of the image.

Shoot Four

The subject not becomes uncertain of his thoughts and is very tempted to contact his past love. He doesn't know what to do though and so sits in the park almost waiting for her to get in contact with him.

Unfortunately she never calls and the subject is left more uncertain than ever. I feel that there is a very strong connection to this series of images, I feel that the story has really come through just how I pictured it, and although quite dark and sad there is not crying or violence in the images, I wanted the light and composition to say more than the acting, to show its about my ability as a photographer to push forward these emotions, not the people in them.

Final Shoots - All Those People

2010-05-01T15:42:00.000+01:00

When talking to Alice at our last meeting she showed interest in the idea of having one of the shoots next to a pier, near a beach, she also wanted a fairest wheel next to the beach but unfortunately I was unable to find one as iconic and traditional as the one she wanted and when I did find something close it was simply too far away.

The song behind the shoot 'All Those People' typical looks at the story of how one person has broken up with there partner and hasn't quite taken it in yet. In this story I needed my model to act as though she was that person. Again as I am trying to keep the images as innocent as the songs I dressed Hannah in a set of clothes I felt appropriate. All my shoots are to take place in Teignmouth, which is by the water front near to Exeter. Its normally quite a tourist hotspot due to its pier and beach's so there were a lot of odd shops didn't look very attractive, when doing the shots in town I would have to be careful of what my background was. This was the first shoot where I had to pay for my assistant and a model's train tickets which was all budgeted from the start of the project, it was nice in a way for the three of us to talk on the way up, it was quite a good team social and allowed everyone to feel conformable around each other.

I had given a copy of the script to the model and my assistant a few days in advance and I had gone through the whole shoot with them so they understood what they would be doing. This was only a script though and as it was my idea in the first place I knew I could always change bits.

Shoot One

When we got there it turned out to be quite busy, one of biggest problems were the locals, unfortunately the local kids were around on there skateboards going back and fourth through the frame, I went with a few different lighting stages with this image before I finally made it quite focused towards my subject.

After tinkering in Photoshop I created this image, I decided that I wanted my subject to stand out in a crowd, so what I did was to used one of the images where my model was lit up then add several other images on top with more people in them; these images where also at a lower exposure which to edit was a nightmare, but in practice makes my subject really stand out in the image. In context to the story I got her to stare at her pendent, at this point you can't really see what's on it, but you know she's very interested in it.

Shoot Two

Using a much small depth of field I started of with the original image in my head, but as I started to move out I got to really like the more overall image with my subjects body in.

What really does it for me is her pose, I got her to too look away in to the distance like she was looking for someone, this coupled with the main focus on the word 'LOVE' is allows the audience of the image to make the connection that she is looking for her love, although they my not be aware yet that she is losing it.

Shoot Three

After the last shot of my subject being so successful this image was basically a copy of context, this didn't stop me from shooting the image but in the end I felt that it wasn't as strong as the last image and therefore not strong enough for the series. In addiction this shoot became quite awkward when I suddenly gained a lot of attention by the locals who thought the model I was shooting was more famous and that this was a really professional shoot. Though I was complemented to be seen as a professional I was not paying enough attention to the image as a whole which lead to the background not looking the way I wanted it.

Shoot Four

Originally in context to the song I was going to use a guitar, but I wanted to concentrate more on more of the story element. This photo is meant to represent my subject leaving her heart behind. I think my decision to use jewellery like this to represent her love comes out quite strong, because in parallel love is just a precious and delicate as something close and valuable like love.

This final image came out the strongest for me because you really get a sense of the distance between the subject and the jewellery with the small depth of field.

Shoot Five

In addiction I did one more final shoot; the idea behind this extra image was the ability to change a perspective, I wanted to distort the audience's view like I had with a test shot a while back by flipping the image.

The the image came out well, just like the other shots in town I didn't feel that it was strong enough, I needed more depth and drama to it and a real twist on perspective.

Overall I was very happy with the images I came back with, I felt that it had been a successful day and I had achieved a lot for the small amount of time it took. The only thing is I think it is very possible that I re-shoot the last image again with a better idea for its change of perspective and overall strength as an image.

Photo-shoot at High Cross House

2010-05-01T03:00:00.003+01:00

For quite a while I have been wanting to try and work with a fashion designer, not just to try and get some great pictures but also to have that experience of working with another team member who will have a very unique input to the shoot. Finally a opportunity arose that I could not turn down; once a year the college puts on a fashion week where are the end of it they get a bunch of photographers and fashion designers into a room and get the to partner up, next we go to a unique location and a brief to use our surroundings to complement the fashion designers clothes and our photos. We decided to work with fashion designer Stef Bunt; her designs looked spacey and cool, and more importantly unique. The space we were give this time round was a place in Dartington called High Cross House, its quite a modernist building with lots of strong lines and shapes to the building.

With limited kit me and my co-photographer rushed to get our hands on the best kit we could find, which in this case was a broncolor mobalite kit with a beauty dish reflector. While we were getting ready our fashion designer brought in a model and started to get her ready for shooting. Once ready me and my co-photographer took turns to photographer our model while also helping each other out.

After all the inspiration from Rob Mcgrory and Juan Trujillo Andrades I created quite elaborate lighting set-ups and epic post-production backdrops to make the images like more interesting and exciting. As you can see in this one I have added the lighting and electricity to scene to make the image really dramatic.

In this image I removed the view on the right had side and replaced it with a white wall, I then used the scenery to develop some additional objects to put in to the scene, again I think this adds more interest to the scene, but not to much to take away from the clothes.

These next to are my favourite from the whole day, I love the strong colours and and lines in the background, I think they really make the model and the dress come out of the image.

I especially like the way I got the model to pose here, the way her legs are positioned adds more interest to the whole image.

Finally a lighting set-up that Juan taught me, which was quite simply a beauty dish reflector with a grid attached above the subject; this creates quite a soft even light over the subjects face and hair creating some really nice dynamic shadows and contrast.

The whole experience was good fun and I learnt a lot about team work in fashion photography. Stef Bunt loved her images and so did we. You can see co-photographer Rob Passmore's images from this event here :http://rob-passmore.co.uk/

Advance Fashion Photography with Juan Trujillo Andrades

2010-04-30T19:18:00.003+01:00

I hadn't heard of Juan until he did a lecture in our college during our fashion week; he ended up being a very charismatic and passionate mate, he loved photography and had an amazing perspective of what it stood for. A truly fascinating photographer with images just as interesting.

http://www.truliphoto.com/

His work was really strong, all the lighting was perfect and made all his subjects like incredible. You could see how he used his personality in his photos, with his passion for beauty and fashion.

He used very dynamic light, but also knew that even with one light you could sauce in to a incredible image. The composure and pose for this image has these strong lines in the background and yet he some how manages to get the subject to look like she is part of the design. Juan also did a practical session where he showed us how he uses the studio and models, the way he builds his images with lots of different lights was inspiring.

I am certainly going to take away a few things from this lecture, starting hopefully with a bit more passion like Juan has for his photography. He is also going to be assisting us for a photo-shoot at High Cross House.

Advance Editing with Rob Mcgrory

2010-04-30T16:17:00.000+01:00

Rob Mcgory was a incredible retoucher, the portfolio of work he showed us was very impressive, he does retouching that I can only dream of. But like all great work it takes its time, Rob was telling us that some of his projects that he had done of the years have taken up to about three complete days retouching, roughly fifty hours per photo; the longest I have ever spent on a single image has been seven hours and I know for a fact that at that seventh hour I didn't even want to look at the image any more let alone do another forty three more hours of work to it. He spoke a lot about the retouching industry as well, and how the retoucher isn't really credited any more as they apparently seem a minor element to the whole image. Personally I felt that was madness I know for a fact that about 80% of images would look absolutely rubbish if they were never retouched.

http://www.mcgrory.info/

His work was outstanding and would leave you wanting more, for so much of his work you just question how on earth he has achieved these results.

Here's one of the before and after's of a image that he retouch for a client, what fascinates me is the hair, how has he managed to make more of it? How long would something like that would have taken, just with the methods I know that would have taken me days to come up with some kind of similar result, but it would have never looked as good as this.

One of Mcgrory's personal projects he discussed was this water dress one, he said he took hundreds of pictures of water being throw in front of a brick wall to come up with the images to sample from. Its just a incredible image! Which leaves me with a million more questions.

I would love to some day be up to the same level of post-production as Mcgrory, but I have a feeling its going to take a lot more time and practice to get this hardcore. Ideally I would love to join the retouching firm 'Happy Finish' doing a paid internship up in London, but for now I can only dream.

Model and Assistant Schedule

2010-04-29T01:26:00.000+01:00

Now that I have the songs and I am starting to write up my plans, I felt that it would be a good idea to draw up a Schedule of the availability of all my models and assistants so that I can work out who is available for what day quickly and easily.

At the bottem you can see that I am starting to get a good idea whose going to be doing what on what day. Having this Schedule also means if someone suddenly cant make one day then I can quickly see if someone else might be available.

Song 4 - Favourite Song (My Song)

2010-04-21T01:41:00.000+01:00

Lyrics

A song that I felt more suited to Alice, it speaks of a song that she listens to and plays; I like the idea of doing something a bit more personally for this shoot with the possibility of doing a couple of shots in her house playing the guitar and listening to the radio. I could also use her current home town of Newton Abbot for some of the images.

Song 3 - The Woman (Vogue Song)

2010-04-20T12:40:00.001+01:00

Lyrics

A very different song to the last two, to me this is about jealousy and admiration. It sounds like Alice is singing about someone she has seen in town who looked absolutely stunning and new it, to Alice she looked like someone from Vogue.

Song 2 - All Those People

2010-04-19T12:40:00.000+01:00

Lyrics

This song to me is another sad one; I think it speaks of someone who was in a relationship, has just broken up with someone but has not quite taken it all in yet, the character Alice sings about seems uncertain of what to do with themselves and is almost regretting what has recently happened.

Song 1 - Where did you go?

2010-04-18T12:26:00.001+01:00

Alice's songs are theses precious melodies and stories that are beautiful to listen too. The speak words that we can relate to and understand allowing a connection between her and the audience. In order to simulate this in my photographic medium I was going to have to listen and look deeply in to Alice's songs. Currently Alice doesn't have many songs on the internet as she is trying to record and create a more professional sound for herself, but it just so happens that one of the songs I am studying is still on the internet.

Video

Lyrics

If sound is the emotion presented in a song then words are the poetic stories that complement together to create a melodic and rhythmic conclusion. This song particularly talks of tragedy and lose, not as bad as death lose, but enough sadness to comprehend a breakup of a relationship. This sad and almost dark song will be a hard one to create because of the delicate nature of a relationship; I will have to make sure the character seems upset, but yet for the reason of a relationship.

Test Shoot 9 - Waiting For No One

2010-04-17T15:39:00.003+01:00

Following the theme of the last image I decided to have her on her own and still looking for this partner, but in this case she is starting to abandon hope and thinks that if she waits in one place maybe she will be found. Again I was hopeful to have this story in the image so I tried to stage just like I had planned and had thought about. This is where my models experience now came in; now that she had modelled for me a few times she was started to get very good at holding a pose I put her in for quite a long time, it fact it was now getting to the stage where I had to tell her to relax after finished shooting so she new when stop posing.

Contact Sheet

I was very happy with the results, I had to make the small sacrifice of keeping the light in the original image so I could get a really nice strong and even light. It was ok to have that light there though as I had my tripod with me, I was able to take two different images, (one with the light in it and one with out) and was able to splice them together to make the following image.

The quality was amazing and working with such a high resolution image with an amazing about of detail allowed me to join the two images flawlessly.

Finally I came up with this image, a bit more of a crop to the original, I was loving how the wind was picking up her hair so gently so I decided to get a bit closer to get this portrait.

Test Shoot 8 - Streets of Sadness

2010-04-16T15:37:00.001+01:00

This next shot I planned to do something a little similar to the last but the subject was going to be doing a little more acting in it. I basically wanted my subject to be walking down the street while looking back over her left shoulder, the idea was that they were expecting someone to be around and to perhaps appear at any moment. The story behind the photo and the song was the sad tale of a girl breaking up with there partner and wondering through town expecting there partner to appear and try and to patch things up again, but in this case he never comes and she's left to wonder on her own.

Contact Sheet

Unfortunately while shooting the sync cable stopped working and as you can see through the contact sheet it took me some time to expect the fate of calling off this shoot.

Test Shoot 7 - Graffiti

2010-04-15T12:49:00.002+01:00

This is the first big test with the new camera, I hadn't really used it yet with full flash, so it was going to interesting to be even more interesting to see what results I might get. I wanted a bit more grit in to my images so after scouring the city for graffiti I finally found some under the A38 road towards Exeter from Plymouth. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to get from this shot really, I knew I wanted her walking across the frame, and I wanted the option to be able to remove some of the more distracting graffiti.

Contact Sheet

The results were very good, though again being a test shoot I dealt with new problems with the new camera which I needed this shoot to help me practice and work out how to fix them. I was happy with the results but again lost with its intention, I needed to get more of a mood and get some more story in to the image.

Even though I it ended up being more of a practice lap for possibly something to come later on I was still very happy with this image, though to my preference I decided to flip the image so the subject is going from the left to the right rather than the other way round.

New Camera - 5D Mark II

2010-04-15T00:14:00.002+01:00

After I had finally got some experience with the Nikon D700 I found that due to its popularity I was never able to get hold of it again. Fortunately due to heavy budgeting and saving because of slow grant and loan money, I was able to afford a camera that I had seen and tested over the last couple of years. The camera was the 5D Mark II, a twenty one megapixel camera with a full frame sensor, just like the Nikon D700. I decided to go for it and was able to get hold of one the very next day, it was probably one of the most scary and exciting things I had ever done and because I was also paying three months rent that day it was also the most money I had ever spent in one day. Thanks to this new camera though I will be able to use my own lenses as well as have access to it at all times!

Test Shoot 6 - Dis-bodied

2010-04-14T12:48:00.003+01:00

After my last sucessful shoot I decided to move on to the next idea, this idea was to create a set of images from the subjects body and put them back together in disordered jumble to represent someone losing an identity with themselves. I decided to use another park but this time for the grass in the background, I also bought a stepladder to attempt to do this shoot from as a vertical position as possible so that the images had quite a 2D perspective.

Contact Sheet

Though the shoot went well I was less pleased about the results; the images came out the way I had imagined them, but they were a little too odd for my liking, I wasn't liking the idea any more, so I have decided that I will not continue with these images.

Test Shoot 5 - Central Park (Re-Shoot)

2010-04-14T12:48:00.001+01:00

So I came back to the park the next night, but this time armed with a flashgun.

Contact Sheet

The results were a lot better than the last ones, I started to finally see more of a type of image that I could use. Because of the colour in the background casted by the dusk light I have captured the feeling and emotion I was going for, which was more of this sad lonely effect.

This image stood out from the rest, this had a much softer light than the rest, which gave the light a more natural feel to it.

Test Shoot 4 - Central Park

2010-04-13T12:48:00.007+01:00

I wanted to try a shoot with just half of someone's face again as well as a shoot of the silhouette of someone looking down at a city. Like all my test shoots I had Hannah back again for some modelling; I decided to take the shoot at Plymouth's central park at dusk to capture the a the image from a hight over the city and to capture the colour of the late light on my subject.

Contact Sheet

As I was using my 50mm I thought that I would have a lot more light than I really needed so I decided not to bring a external flash, unfortunately I was wrong! I didn't have enough light in the end, even at f-stop 1.4, so I moved on and tried the second shot of the silhouette. This shot was a little but more successfully, but still didn't come out the way I wanted it. One of the biggest problems I had with the second shot was that I still wasn't high enough to capture my model with a decent cityscape, which ended up making the shot look like something from 'Out of Africa'.

My next step from here will be to simply come back and try re-shooting with a flashgun to attempt the first shot again and see if I can get it to look a bit more interesting.

Test Shoot 3 - Lost and Confused

2010-04-13T12:48:00.003+01:00

This was a bazaar shoot because it involved taking a assistant to carry my lights through town and my model to lye in the middle of the street, it was quite exciting though as it looked very professional and I had a few people come up and ask me what I was doing and what the photos were for. The idea behind the image was that I wanted another moody type of photo from her, I wanted to make her look lost and confused like the words from the song "Where Did You Go" make you feel.

Contact Sheet

Because of the strong light from the sun it required my lighting and my assistant to get in quite close, this then meant he was in the shoot, to compensate for this I took a second photo with out him there to be edited in the final image.

The final shot came out just how I expected, when editing though I noticed how if I flipped the image to its side it started to look like she was standing, with a little more of a crop I made her completely straight. I really liked this new perspective to the image, it added even more drama and interest to it, it made it look more like she was thinking rather than trying to sleep on the floor. As a test image I don't think I could have got much better, the only problem is that I would have to re-shoot the image in order to make sense to the rest of the words, "But you look so down boy". I don't mind this though as I feel Hannah is more suited towards another song I have yet to cover.

Test Shoot 2 - Cropped Face Image

2010-04-12T20:49:00.000+01:00

Just like in my script had planned to do a shoot of my model without her eyes in the shot, I did this because I wanted to direct all attention to her mouth and the expression she was giving, which in this case was meant to be very upset and alone.

Contact Sheet

Unfortunately this shot didn't work the why I wanted it too, I think this is partly because of the dull background and the absence of colour from the over exposure effect I was trying to get, I think the next step for this image will be to take it in a different location with maybe a dusk lit background to add more moody colours to it.

Plans for Test Shoots

2010-04-11T15:57:00.000+01:00

Now that I have spoken to Alice, listened to her songs and read her lyrics I have had a stream of ideas, with a lot of my ideas they come to me on the edge of sleep which means just as I'm about to fall asleep a few ideas hit me and I have to get up and write them down before I forget them in the morning. It's a odd way of coming up with my creative thoughts but it works for me, and means when I am trying to make a photo I'm trying to copy the image that is in my head. In this project I thought about these ideas through my head until I could write out a set of direction notes that could allow someone else to understand what kind of image I wanted to create.

Here are my directions to creating a few different images to do with Alice's songs; as these are my first unrefined ideas I couldn't narrow down each image too much as some of it was still stuck in my mind and needed me to photograph it to understand what I was doing. The beauty of having these notes is the ability to be able to show your model your idea, and if they have a specific role then they can practice and revise the notes to the point where they have a lot more of a idea about that they should be doing. With this practical approach towards the model they don't just get in to the frame of what they are doing, but they also become actors in a scene which takes out the mannequin judgement against models that photographers often put them on.

For this these test shoots Hannah has kindly offered to model again; I decided to that this time I would go round to her flat and rummage through her wardrobe to see if I could find some clothes that I felt suited the images. Out of all the clothes we went through I finally decided with this outfit, I felt it was looked quite free and modern, yet quite innocent like Alice's songs.

Test Shoots with Nikon D700 (with 300mm lens)

2010-04-10T23:25:00.000+01:00

While I'm still working on what I want to finally create I felt it was a good idea to do a couple of shoots with a camera that I am keen on using but have never used before. This was the D700, park of the reason I wanted to use this camera was for the high noise reduction, because the CMOS chip is as big as a normal piece of film there is less 'digital noise' in images; this allows the creation of some very sharp and highly detailed images, perfect for my final exhibition. Another reason for the sudden use of a Nikon camera was the ability to use my college's 300mm lens; now normally would you use this lens for sports or wildlife photography, but I was after some crazy distortions and an altered perspective in a more editorial type shoot.

Contact Sheet One

This first shoot was also for Alice as she hadn't had that much experience modelling before, I mostly wanted her to build up some confidence and be able to relax in a public space. The shoot itself went alright but I didn't have a strong enough idea to follow through in to a decent end image. Overall this shoot was good practice and a good warm up to what's to come.

Contact Sheet Two

The next shoot I got Hannah to dress in quite a sparkly dress to try and bring out slightly with a little bit of flash, unfortunately my radio triggers decided that it was also the day to stop working, which left me with natural light, luckily for me I decided to bring a assistant and a large reflector which allowed me to have a bit of control over the light. Then came a bigger problem, my lack of practice with this camera became my biggest floor, I completely forgot that with the extra ISO range I was able to take a faster shot with a brighter exposure, because I forgot this I ended up taking the images with a longer shutter speed making a few blurry and not as sharp images. This little problem was exactly the reason why I wanted to test the camera before I took it out on a more final shoot and so in that respect I was successful at testing the camera and learnt a valuable lesson.

Even after all the trouble I had with the shutter speeds I still caught this really nice image.

Test Shoot 1 - Hannah Farr

2010-04-10T21:06:00.000+01:00

After a lot of recent writing I decided I needed to take some photographers of something or someone, I had recently met another photographer who I thought would be a perfect model for one of Alice's songs. I started of by asking her to bring lots of different types of clothes and jewellery. Since I felt Hannah was well suited to the shoot I also wanted to find out what else might end up suiting the project style as well.

Contact Sheet

One of the first things I do with a new model is to go through a bunch of different emotions and poses to make sure they feel comfortable doing them, I feel this is a important process as if you treat the situation as more of a mess around you can often get a model pulling faces and giggling when you are trying to do a serious pose, this model and photographer relationship also means the model is a lot more confident in front of you because they will not feel like you are going to laugh at them if they look odd or too serious.

This first image has a lot more of a fashion style to it and although brings some kind of character, I don't think this type of look will suit my project.

This next image is a bit better; I wanted to combine a sparkly dress she showed me with the technique freelensing which worked quite well, but she also brought a hat with her which I felt was far more suiting to her kind of style.

Lastly I got her to wear a more casual style of clothes with the hat. This was my favourite image as I felt it showed off how young and beautiful she was with the added twist of a more arty over the top fashion using the hat. I also feel it's quite strong by the way she is starring into the camera, it really does feel like she is really staring at you. Finally the thing that really makes this image is the contrast, the strong blacks from the hat really pull her out front the image.

Overall I was very happy with the shoot and even more happy with the new model I had now found.

Meeting with Alice

2010-04-10T19:10:00.000+01:00

After a lot of communication over email I decided it would be a good idea to have our next meeting. This time I showed her what I had created in my last project and what I was planning to do for this next one, this included my 'Final Major Plan' which outlines some of the key things I wanted to do. Alice also brought some more lyrics with her for me to go through; there were a lot of new songs I hadn't heard before but she took me through a feel and answered my questions about them, this also gave me a better understanding of the songs for me to work from. So from the meeting we decided to do a shoot together to warm up Alice's modelling skills while I test another camera I am thinking of using, with a 300mm telephoto lens. One last thing she mentioned was the idea of me giving her some ideas for songs that she could then make up, so this will give me something else to do for our next meeting.

Budget

2010-04-10T00:05:00.000+01:00

A good budget is key to any project, it allows you to allocate parts of your own personal finances to your project costs. I find that it is always important to over budget, at the end of the project you don't want to spend more than you have planned to spend, in fact it's always a nice feeling to see that you have managed to save and budget your self so well that you have some left over money spare.

When I think of a photographic budget I think of printing and mounting, but for this final project there are a few other things to consider. As you can see I have accounted for such things as travel and props, money that I have and am prepared to put towards this project. You can also see the scary part of the budget at the end which is the total costs. Like I said at the start though this is the maximum budget, and in reality it will probably be a lot less.

Time-line

2010-04-09T23:42:00.024+01:00

I decided to create a rough time-line of all the things that I needed to do in the time that I will have. I say rough because it is impossible to determine what might happen in the time of this project. I have tried to keep things spaced and organised so that there is little margin for error, I'm basically trying to expected the unexpected.

This file is another one that will be going up on my wall to help me determine what I should be doing towards my project.

The Plan

2010-04-09T19:09:00.002+01:00

From my proposal I was able to build a more specific structure of what has to happen in order to make my photographs.

Create four separate images
• Each song will have 4 different photos
• Each song will have at least one photo that will be abstract
• Each sequence of images must suit the song and have a similar type of style
• Each song will have at least one new model

Plan and map out the timescale for research and shoots
• Create timeline/schedule
• Add shoots, construction and research to timeline
• Create a budget and come up with an estimate of how much this project will cost
• Book all equipment in advance
• Book models in advance
• Book transportation in advance
• Book assistants in advance

Creatively construct and detail my images
• Create lighting plans based on composure
• Look at details, clothes and props that can be used
• Decide on subtle locations for images
• Use post production to strengthen and enhance images

Document and evaluate methods
• Record the structure and methods I use to create and capture these images
• Evaluate my methodology
• Evaluate how I have applied my context

Justify the meanings of my photos
• What do these images mean to me?
• Is my type of photography normal for album art?
• What effect are my images going to have on my audience?
• Who is my audience?
• Who is Alice’s audience?

This will be up on my wall for me to religiosity study and remind me what I have to do to move my project forward.

My Final Proposal

2010-04-08T14:08:00.003+01:00

At the start of the term I looked in to a few different techniques that I had tried in my photography but had never before succeeded in creating a final image. Through my experiments and trials I was able to come up with a few different images that were beginning to look professional and unique. It was then that I decided to then narrow down my options to two single routes; one strictly looked at a technique known as freelensing which I was able to alter the plane of view through the lens creating a new perspective and a new way of looking at a image, the other was a concept of creating a series of images for singer/songwriter Alice Jemima, this would have more of a industry methodology and connection, looking at how the industry displays a musical artist. My development lead me on a journey of perception and identity, I studied how we see the world through different eyes and minds, how we are able to present emotion and character through an image, and how we demonstrate our communications to an audience through an image.

I had never wanted to be a band photographer or anything like that but I often daydream listening to music, especially the creative words and melodies from music, it would send me in a trance of visions and emotions that were personal to me, I felt that these visions would never be captured by using the musical artist in an photo alone because these were also stories and feelings that I felt were just as important as the sound created. I could see this possibly being presented in some new kind of parallel perspective photography; it would look at the sound just as much as the words and artist of the song. I felt inspired and compelled to take this spark of imagination and creativity I had and put it in to some sort of meaning for others to see and experience, and this project lead me on a path and to a singer/songwriter Alice Jemima. Her songs were beautiful and spoke of young love and lose that everyone could relate to, it was this strength of emotional familiarity and concept that got me wanting to specifically work with Alice and her songs, this would turn out to be a mutual proposition as she also required images to go with her identity as a singer/songwriter. This then make it very important that just as I was getting a set of photographers for my own portfolio, she was also getting a set to which to be idolised with.

Through this last part of my journey I hope to create a series of images that will represent me and my style as a photographer as well as my creativity and my professionalism. To achieve my goals I plan to be as organised as possible but making sure I go in to a shoot with an open mind; I will be organised by planning each shoot with as much precision and study as possible, this will include researching and locating locations, directing and writing up lighting plans for shoots, making sure models and assistants are well informed and know what they are doing, and that equipment is booked in advanced. The key for me will be to nail down on my ideas from previous projects but keeping it all to more of an industry standard look, my images will have to be unique but also professional. Test shoots will also be a major part of my research as I have a lot of inspiration and ideas to narrow down on, I will test as many ideas as possible and see what I feel suits Alice’s music as well as my own photographic style.

The overall final images will be the experimentation and development of a year’s work, I what to get images out of this project that will reflect that, images that have been thought about and contextualised, images that have be well designed and created, and most importantly images that I will be proud to put my name too. These images will be exhibited in front of a wide range of a media and artist audience who will be looking for images that show up against the rest, it is my plan to help my images stand out a bit better by printed them out as big as I can get them. As well as been presented in an exhibition I hope to post them on to the internet, in collaboration with Alice’s musical uploads, to her website to allow people to see how the images relate to the music, and to get more of a feel of what Alice is all about. I have also been discussing with Alice about the possibility of publishing my final images in to a album cover, along with a collection of album art to go with any possible album she might choose to realise.

The Final Major Brief

2010-04-07T19:08:00.002+01:00

The final major project has finally come around and this will be the conclusion to my university studies which will hopefully lead me to the start of my professional career. So far I have looked at the creation of a photograph and the context of a photographer. During this project I will be using all my necessary skills to collaborate in to a set of strong final images.

Here is my final university brief:

Break Down of the Brief:

Task One is the proposal to the project, here I will need to explain how I got to this point and how I am going to carry it forward through to this project.
Task Two is the bulk of the project, this is my supporting research that backs up and helps me understand what and how I will make my images. All research will be found here (tristanpetts.blogspot.com) and in a printed document which will be handed in to the university when completed.
Task Three is the PDP or the Personal Development Plan, this is a set of outright career goals, targets and achievements which must be collaborated in to well organised folder. This is to keep my career priorities on track and make sure my photography progresses.
Task Four is a formal presentation, this will most likely involve creating a slide show of images to present to my lectures and a brief explanation of our projects over the year and whole course.
Task Five is a combination of a final critical evaluation and my final proposal presented in a professional dossier.

The first step I will need to decide now is how I am going to approach this project, and then write it down in my own proposal.

Presentation and Updated Images.

2010-02-20T17:22:00.004Z

I felt my presentation went well, it only touched on a few of the things I had been looking at but I knew that they would be looking through the more in-depth stuff later. After the presentations I was also given some feedback from my tutors that even though I had now submitted my final images I changed a couple of them and altered there presentation.

Find better quality images @ http://tristanpetts.co.uk

No very different to the originals I felt that these images were cleaner and sharper, which ultimately I want for a more looking professional portfolio. The main image that has changed was the one of my model working, instead I have now gone for this image as my tutors were more keen to a more abstract look to them.

Like I said a little to late to be submitted but this is now moving on to my final major project and any improvement will help me make better decisions for later on.

Evaluation of Minor Poject

2010-02-09T15:31:00.064Z

This 'Minor' project was the start of my development towards my final 'Major' project using Alice's songs to create a series of images that will present the story and emotion of her music. To get to this stage I have explored new cameras, developed new techniques and tried to express emotions through landscape, imagery and colour. Though I have not been able to get certain images due to cameras not working and the lack of need of a hair and make-up artist, I feel that I have managed to succeed at reaching my aims and goals for this project. It has taken me a long time to understand the connotations and context behind other photographers work, and it has made me more weary of what is going on in my own images. Emotion was the theme I wanted to explore and I think I got a lot more out of it than just that, I think really putting time in to seriously thinking about images and what you try to express through a photograph has made me realise how much more information can be taken from a image, and how important it is to explore an change your methods to understand and create something more personal to yourself.

In conclusion I will certainly go in to this next project a bit more open minded when it comes to the connotation to a image, and try to make my whole photos involved in the process of emotion. I think I have started this method with my final images but it needs to be taken further. The next step is to shoot these final images, which will mean correlating all the information from this project, doing a few more test shoots, finding all my locations and having some more in depth conversations about Alice's music and what it means to her to get a full understanding of her words so that I can project them in to some amazing final images that will be exhibitioned in London.

Testing the Theory

2010-02-08T09:29:00.001Z

I decided to test one of the sets of images that I really wanted to do for the first song Alice sent me, each of these images have a significant purpose towards the song and what I believe is the songs purpose.

This first image is about the main character of the song giving away there guitar, like they just left it to some passer by. I decided to photograph guitar because it seems to be a significant object to this individual. My favourite thing about all these images is the lights, I just love the dotted lights in the background, to me they change the photo completely, not just because it beings focus to the main subject, but like 'Minor White' and 'Tom Laughlan's' work its all about how we saw this image in the moment. I didn't really use much post production on this photo but I did light the guitar with a flashgun bouncing of a umbrella. I also shifted the lens slightly which hasn't worked as well in this image because the point of focus is not as sharp which is meant to be the guitar is not as sharp as I would like it. To avoid this next time I might be a good idea to take a constant like so I can see my subject proper and possible a laptop to check the focus afterwards in case the photo needs taking again.

I took this image to represent the cold of the night and the blues that this main characters feeling. Looking back to 'Susan Derges' and 'Tom Laughlan' work again I have had it in my mind that its not all about the scene as a whole, its about what you make the scene in to, so I tried to get as close as possible and then unfocus the lens as much as possible with a slight shift to get it even more out of focus.

My first attempt of creating the character was to have someone walking like they wanted to get away from something, in Alice's music it sounds like they are upset about something and just want to get away from it in every way possible. I lit and tilted this image much like the first image and just like the first one I didn't quite get the focus right which was very annoying. I still love the tilt and shift effect though and I think when it comes to my final shoot I will take every precaution to make sure that plane of focus is perfect.

The next step is to find a more suitable location for final image, this like the song will probably be a pier with a few rides on. I think apart from the focus these images turned out well and I think it will be important to make sure these series's of images are colour casted correctly so that you can tell that they certain images are part of a certain series.

Anastasia Volkova

2010-02-06T12:21:00.000Z

Anastasia also known as Chiile is a Russian photographer is one of my favourite photographers, they are sort of dreamy and light, they look at the world through rose tinted glasses, seeing the beauty of the world. She even employs the same blur effects that I have been trying to capture but I feel she has been far more successful in her resolve.

Here are some examples of her work:

A amazing photo, I love the colour cast of a strong magenta through out the image, and the strong depth of field which turns the small flowers to white dots which also keeps you concentration to the subject.

A beautiful image which I think is much like the image I did up on Dartmoor, but it kind of has less connotation to the image and is more about the colour and beauty involved in it. The blurry background serves as a brilliant blend of colour and light which really brings out the strength of the focused flower, which with the added colour cast portrays this image as a very dreamy and fantasied image.

This self portrait is beautifully lit and focused, I love the light coming through her hair, and the way to the top right corner is just hair, the first thing your eye goes to is her eye, and it has been well edited to look stunning.

This one mostly interested me because its sort of similar to the idea me and Alice where having about how to present my final images. Though not exactly the same to how I would do it the images using a strong depth of field and a main image go very well together.

This image is much like the first but a lot more Summer'y, I love the focus on it though and its very shallow depth of field, I am a little curious to how she gets her blur effects and if its all pure or if its also edited in post production, so I decided to write her a e-mail which reads as follows;

Tristan Petts:

"Hello Anastasia, I'm a student photographer from south west England and I am a great fan of your work. I have just noticed your latest work on flickr and I'm loving all the new images you have put up there! I would be truely grateful if you could answer couple of quick questions for me.

In this image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chiie/4281540659/in/set-72157604674751712/
Was this all natural lighting? Did you use a tilt and shift method like free-lensing or 5x4 or a post-production method in Photoshop to make the bottom left corner out of focus? The reason I ask is because I'm currently doing a project that involves using planes of focus and your work is a brilliant example of this.

Hopefully hear from you soon.
Tristan Petts

email: photo@tristanpetts.co.uk
web: www.tristanpetts.co.uk"

Anastasia Volkova:

"hi!
i am a very bad person :) i've never answer in time! and sorry for my english :D

well, i used natural noon light without any reflectors or something, this photo is random actually. and soft focus in left corner is bluring in PS (it's really simple to do with quick mask), background focus is real (canon 50 mm 1.4, 1/2500, f/2.5).

i hope it helps you.
Anastasia"

I find it very interesting that she has the exact same lens as me but seems to be using a photoshopped blur effect rather than something more traditional. After looking over the image again and can sort of see that it has been edited to using a post production technique which I feel is a shame because it loses a bit of that pure effect of the photograph, saying this I think it is worth me considering to try this method to see if it can look just as natural.

Images taken from:

http://www.flickr.com/people/chiie/

Few More Ideas

2010-02-05T21:58:00.062Z

I recently got another email from Alice with some more images which she quite likes, though I'm not to sure on all of there origins I think they are good examples of what she was talking to her about the other day and I think we are getting quite a strong theme going.

Though I don't really want my models/characters to be in the middle of the image or looking at the camera I think there are some good ideas in this image, for example the location of a field is quite a nice idea and having her in a dress like previous fashion projects I have done would be another good idea, the bird cage could be alight but I guess it will depend of the connotation of the song Alice has written.

Probably using more a create film camera like a Holga you get some nice effects that you wouldn't normally get with a DSLR. It is possible to recreate some of these effects though, like the lens flare is could be captured by having the lens at a distance from the camera which could also create this dark patch in the lower left hand corner of this image. You can also see in the image that the light has bleed out some of the colours causing it to desaturate which is also possible to do in post-production if required.

Before I start visiting places to do the images for Alice's songs I want to make sure I have practised them before hand to make sure that they are all possible and that they will come out well by the end of the next project. This images is a very similar idea I want to do for one of my final's for major study so it might be worth doing a test shoot now to see if I can recreate something like this.

This next image is a bit of a interesting because of its use of how it have be lit, this was probably taken with either a spotlight adapter or a ring flash to get a very strong circular been of light making you look directly at the model. What is interesting is her body language and the knocked down light, this to me implies that she has got angry, hit the light, and then felt shameful and so is crouched and ashamed. Its a good use of changing the environment of a scene to alter your interpretation of a image.

Again similar to the the image I was talking about further up, this is very similar to a photo I want to test and eventually create professionally for my final major images.

Quite a cool shot of the sea with a model, I do wonder though if this was taken at the beach or in the studio post-produced and just pasted together with a water scene. If this image was done in the studio that also means that had to get hear hair wet which would be a little bit of a challenge to do with out damaging the studies infinity cove.

Though Alice really liked the pose she sent me this image because for one of the images that will include her she wants to use this dress in it which I think would be a really good idea.

It was good to catch up with Alice and I have now sent her some of my later research and ideas to help her understand how we are going to photograph these images.

Susan Derges

2010-01-27T15:20:00.115Z

Derges's work has interested me before as it is one of those types of photography that is very experimental but also very successful, she employs different techniques to her work to which can result in the making of a image that very questionable to what it is.

Here are some examples of Derges's work:

Its interesting to see how she has managed to get such a enlarged image of the moon with such small silhouettes, you might think that it was either post production trickery or maybe even a double exposure but its actually a reflection from a pool of water with some wild flowers floating on top. This effect changes the way you look at the image, you get no identity to where the image was taken or how it was made, instead you concentrate on the two main elements, the moon and the flowers. Personally when I look at this image, my mind is instantly draw to the idea of werewolves, or something lurking in the dark.

The first impressions I get from this image are mystical and cosmic, like it was out of some sort of sci-fi film or something because of its magical glow and odd detail, like there are red clouds of stars and galaxy's trapped in a orb but this images was actually created using a series of liquids placed in to a glass bowl and lit from behind.

One of Derges's more recent images which I don't know as much about, she has created this uneven natural pattern which kind of reminds me of Damien Hurst's, having this un-ordered pattern of space and dots find there own way in to a space by there own natural accord. I looks like the image was taken using a plastic tray much like one you would use to hold and use chemicals to develop photographers, she has lifted to top right corner and you can see this water patten that breaks the image up a bit more.

Derges's work has some interesting connotation to them and there techniques are just as interesting because of there creative aspects. I think what I take from her work most is power of a very undefined modern image that lends it self to individual interpretation. When trying to show what the mood of my images is I need to make sure that the viewer is able to understand what's going on in it as well as its own personal theme and context.

Shifting Spaces

2010-01-26T15:28:00.126Z

As I never got to use the Cambo's tilt and shift outside I decided to go out on a shoot with my normal DSLR and use the freelensing technique in a landscape. I started to try to shift whole landscapes but I quickly discovered that because I had to use infinity all the time in order to get any kind of focus as so as I shifted just a little bit of the lens I ended up blurring the entire image which wasn't what I wanted. As you can see by the contact sheet I gradually started to use close landscapes and objects like rocks and trees, I found that these worked much better and give this very lonely feel to the images.

Contact Sheet

When I edited my images I started to think back to Minor Whites work and how he would try to make a scene represent his thoughts and feelings at the time and as I imagined myself back up on the moor I remembered how cold and quite it was up there and that when I was left on my own how lonely dark it was. I decided to put a very cold tone to the images using a mixture of altering the white white balance and shifting the hue of some other colour, the results were certainly not what I'm used to but I liked it.

This first image have a very odd view point, I have managed to shift the focus so that the right hand side rock and the tiny bit of grass is in focus, the background also becomes blurred from this very shallow depth of field. When I look at this image it makes me feel small, like I'm trapped on the ground and I can't see over the rock, like the distance seems so far away.

This image has both some tilting and shifting in it, as you can see the left side and more towards the top left hand corner are slightly out of focus, this is one of the images that make me more lost and almost panicking, like I am stuck in this very odd environment.

A little bit more of a scenic shot I decided to try and get a image with as much shallow depth of field as I could, with this image you can see that the wide aperture has made everything in front and behind out of focus, leaving my shifting motion to remove the left had sides focus, this then makes part of the foreground refocused again but is still very effective.

More of a macro shot I used the shallow depth of field of to bring only the tips of the branches in to focus and used a shift to make the left side go slightly out of focus. This image makes me think of the cold bitterness of winter and I the branches reminded me of the patterns you get from ice and snowflakes, with no blossom and moss growing over it there is this feeling that its its spreading and diseasing the image.

As the cloud cover got thicker and it started to rain more I decided to move to the forest near by, that's when I decided to look up at the branches, as I started to take images something quite cool happened the tilting and shifting got different planes of focus on different branches creating this very surreal effect. This and the next couple of images reminded me of another photographer I had previously studied 'Susan Dergers's' a successful experimental photographer who did a lot of work with very surreal natural images like this. This image makes me feel exactly how I felt when I was taking this image, cold, a little bit lost and uncertain of my surroundings, it was getting dark and the wind started blowing hard.

This next image was created in the same way as the last, but its slightly closer to the branches, and you can see more clearly how much the shifting is working, on the left you can the end of branch in focus, then there's a out of focus area of another branch which then becomes focused at the end of the image. With the blurry trees in the background this image kind of looks like it was taken of a water reflection much like a couple of images that 'Derges's' photography.

This final image uses a tilt far much more subtlety and is more about the wide aperture creating a tiny point of focus, I have tried to frame this focus spot with the trees and the light in the background to really bring it out. This image is again a very lost and confused kind of image, it feels very lonely and kind of like part of a nightmare.

To sum up, this shoot has been very enlightening and I feel like I have got somewhere with this project now, I have employed the techniques of freelensing, I have taken elements of Minor White's influence and I have used some colour theory to all set the mood and theme of the photographers. I think from here I will be important to reflect upon this style of photographer, possibly looking back to Susan Derges's work and start to come to a conclusion of my progress.

Encore

2010-01-24T23:11:00.000Z

Alice got back to me pretty quick after our meeting, she had remembered a couple videos that were similar to what we were discussing about the day before.

A Fine Frenzy - Almost Lover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_S_TbD1XFM

This video had a simular theme to the "Beep beep song" from my last post but I think it was thought about and constructed a lot better. The composition seems and focused, the lighting is mostly cast in a orange tone and the whole video has a kind of rustic feel to it. I think the rustic old look to the images is something Alice quite likes, so its worth looking in to how I might mimic this idea.

Jonathan Jeremiah - Happiness

Alice sent me this song because like the Plain White T's video for "Hey There Delilah" it uses a series of split images to give the overall theme to the story in the video, this is something I discussed with her the day before, and it could be a good idea to use a series of photos in to one image to get the feeling of a single song.

A interesting insight in to what Alice wants and I'm feeling very inspired to take some photos now.

Meeting with Alice Jemima

2010-01-23T16:49:00.006Z

I decided that it was a good time to meet up for a coffee and a chat about my future photos with Alice now as I'm starting to feel more comfortable with out my impressions of emotion through my photos. She has been brilliant to work with so far as she sort of noes what kind of images she wants. Before we met up she sent me a song and some lyrics for me to study and to help me understand what her music was about, since then I have tried to find similar musical artists and studied there album art and music videos for inspiration. So I uploaded these images and video to my iPod and got the train up to Newton Abbot for our meeting. She was again brilliant at communicating her thoughts about what she would like the images to be like, she also liked the ideas I presented her showing what kind of techniques and themes I would like to use.

Here are the examples I showed here:
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

The main thing I was trying to show Alice in this video was the cool effect of her walking through the streets with the lights all out of focus, but then she also quite liked the effect of the multiple images in one image. I then noticed that using images of the singer next too the person the singer was talking about made you see two different sides to the story, where on when side you have a girl dressed in quite a neat fashion you also see the side of the singer and how he looks sad and alone. Its possible I could use this technique to exhibit my final work. In the video they also have random images of close-ups on objects and landscapes that relate to the song, this is also something to consider.

Simone White - The Beep Beep Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTT8A_et1Lc
This video by Simone White was one of her favourites, I think it was what she is looking for from these images, she loved the pier, the Ferris wheel and the beach. The one thing I didn't like about the video was its amateur approach, I would prefer to do it in a darker environment and use more of a controlled lighting set up, I understand that I don't want to make her images look to commercial but I would still like my work seen from a themed and technical point of view.

Lisa Mitchell - Neopolitan Dreams

Another one of Alice's favourites, this and Lisa Mitchell's album covers star her as the main character wondering through the world, personally I would prefer to mostly use other people to act our the scenes to which I'm going to photograph because I want the stories and emotions to stay strong through out the whole series and I think using Alice through out all the images would be to repetitive and cause people to loose attention, but I do love the dreamy side to her visual work. In this video partially they use a blurry effect around the outside of the image to create the effect that you are looking in to someone's dream or fantasy, as I very fond of my tilt and shift technique I am very interested on how this works as a effect.

Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me

This video was a example of a couple of the kind of location shots and effects I would use. Though I don't really like the mirrors that much I do quite like the effect of someone's face being cracked like it was just a mirror, it could illustrate the cracking of emotion or even the cracking of the image you have of someone. I also love the out of focus lights in this video, its just really enchants the image and makes it seem a bit more like a fantasy.

The Submarines - You Me & The Bourgeoisie

I choose to show this video more because of its theme and funkyness more than for the illustrations and photos, its quite a light happy song and I think this video really brings that our of it. Interestingly enough the video has looks of things and objects that Alice had mentioned she quite liked, its would always be possible to recreate some of the simular themes from this video in photographic form, it could even be possible to illustrate or digitise some CGI in to the images if she really wanted, but with my preferred techniques I am not as keen on these methods.

During the meeting we talked about how her songs were coming on, how we might link all the songs together as a album and which songs she might want to use for a possible album. I also asked her to have a look for some examples of images that she might want from this project.

I feel it was a good meeting, we got a lot done and I feel I have more of a understanding of what sort of images I will end up finally producing. Feeling inspired I will next get to some test shoots, to see how effect some of these techniques will be.

Shifting the Studio

2010-01-14T13:53:00.111Z

I had never done a shoot with a model in the studio using the freelensing technique I had learnt and I really wanted to at least try it before I took someone out on location for a shoot, I knew the last model was very patient and was very good at giving poses so I got April back and got shooting.

Contact Sheet

I decided that I would take a collection of images that I had found on the internet of profession shoots with famous models, this went down very well and with a couple of addiction props I managed to get hold of before the shoot I managed to get some really nice images using the tilt and shift method on my camera. Something I hadn't really tried since the 1st year or University was not using the flash-heads for burst of strong even light but use the modelling lamps to light the scene, I decided to do this when I found out that a single flash even when bounced and at a distance was too much light for the wide aperture I was using to create the right effect.

I originally didn't intend to make her look naked but when I saw this image I loved how innocent and vulnerable she had become and so I removed any trace of her dress. When I was this close for a portrait the focusing was a lot easier to do as I had more lines I could see to focus on, in this case I managed to capture her eye perfectly leaving a small angled line of focus going through her hair.

This next image was a test to see of I could get half her body in focus and half out, this was a lot harder as I had to be quite far back and on the ground to keep myself steady and when trying to focus. Even though it took me a lot of photographing I was very happy with a decently sharp face and a blurred body.

Another pose I wanted to try was her laying down and to have one of her legs up, I think I had to be careful with this shot because I didn't want to look like a glamour modelling shoot and I what I think helps it look more like a editorial shoot is the concentration taken away from her bare legs by the blur and more towards her body and face. Finally at the end of the shoot I took out some of a black foreground and added more of a graduation to the top and bottom of the image.

My favourite image of the whole shoot was this one, I think it was partly to do with the light in the background shining through her hair by using a soft-box as a background the blur keys your concentration on her eyes and questions her expression. What was interesting with this shot is that instead of using a focus of infinity I took it back to about 0.3 to get more of her face in focus which seems to be only possible when you are this close to a distance to a person.

Using extra props really added more interest to the photos, I think this one works really well at bring more attention to her pose and expression. The only thing I didn't like so much with this image was the focus on her face, if you look carefully its not 100% sharp, in fact it could have been a lot better, but again from a distance this kind of image even when taken about 30 times tilting and shifting the lens is very hard to focus.

This final image was a last test of focus of body and facial focus at a closer level, I love her expression and hair, and how her pink dress works really well at showing some interesting shadows through the blur.

I feel that this shoot was very successful and I came out with some very nice looking images, and with more of a understanding of how to show images with a model with tilt and shift while using controlled light. I was very refreshing to get back in to the studio to test these methods again and I feel very inspired to take some more images.

Night Time

2010-01-12T13:50:00.054Z

I decided to make the next shoot a night shoot as I wanted to get a few images around twilight to get the colours of the sky and with any stars that would be out.

The results were brilliant I cant some incredible colours from the sky. One really odd things was the PhaseOne, as I had already mentioned the digital back's screen wasn't very good at previewing a image because of the camera trying to fit a large image onto a small screen, it seems that because of this when you have any digital noise in a image at all you get huge random dots all over the preview of your image, so when I took these photos I originally didn't think they were going to come out at all. Luckily they came out fine and with a little post-production to show how I saw the scene at the time I came up with a couple of good looking photos.

I love the amazing colours of this image, to me it feels mystical almost like some sort of fantasy. When I was editing this image I didn't just bring out the colours but I also turned the foreground in to more of a silhouette to put more concentration on the purple in the sky, I think this allows the viewer to be more focused on what I feel is the more important part of my image.

I think this is one of the best landscape photos I have ever taken, I love my gradients of colour and I think this impressive sky looks very cool. I think the tower really makes it, to me it looks like its part of a sci-fi film and the towers actually a rocket preparing to take off.

With these two image image's I have tried to think about 'Mclaughlan' work and how he used his environment of colour and grads to create his images, I think I have come up with a good balance between detail and light, and I think this really shows off the colour even more.

Tom McLaughlan

2010-01-11T15:25:00.062Z

I found McLaughlan on Flickr looking for more strong coloured landscape images, his work is very different to most others, he seems to mostly focused on the small areas in a landscape and photographs them to bring out the detail that you don't really notice. It's because of there strong colours that make them very powerful to look at, though he also has a few odd focused images that show that he's more about bring things you don't normally notice as much until they are photographed in a certain way. You can find more of his work here: http://www.wallgazing.com/daruma/home.html

This first image is more of a architectural photograph showing the high level of detail and structural design that went in to making this building, to appreciate and study the small parts of a building is to appreciate the entire structure and design. I love the colour and strong lines that go in to this image, its such a modern and sharp look to the image.

Another monochromatic image that is very clever at picking out lots of difference shades and tones of red, I love all the little gradients at all there difference angles and correlations. To me personal this image has a kind of dark feel to it, like the red it blood dripping down the windows, but that is also taken away slightly by the random yellow stained glass, which makes you realise how much such a small detail can have such a larger impact on the whole of a image.

My favourite image by McLaughlan and probably one of the most simplist ones he has in his portfolio, I love that I know its a landscape of probably a lake of water and a sunset in the sky but it has been completely changed to these two simple colours of orange and blue, the way they are broken up by what I think were silhouettes of some trees dividing the image apart. It's this simple act of blurring the image by having it out of focus that does this and it really makes you appreciate the things that a sunset really give and that's the strong enlightening colours that give you the epic feel to a image.

I love McLaughlans work and I am certainly going to take his work in to account in my next shoot, though I will probably try to do some more shoots up on Dartmoor rather than in a city.

More Snow

2010-01-10T13:50:00.046Z

I decided to make use of the recent snow again as I was so impressed by the landscape last time. I had finally given up on the Cambo and since I would not get any more assistance on it until after Christmas I decided that the Hasselblad with the PhaseOne on it would do for the time being.

I decided this time to not go for anything too epic like the last shoot because I wanted to see how well the PhaseOne could perform on a closer type of landscape, I also had in mind this time round that because the CaptureOne software could bring a stop of light high or lower I would take a very balance exposure so that I could post-produce it later.

Here is my first result, I still cant get over the intense amount of detail this camera produces, one thing that does come apparent when I got this image printed is that you will always get a far better image on a screen than in print. I really like this image because of how the ice and rock take over the wilderness and changes the green grass in to more of a blank canvas.

I really wanted to get more of the sun coming up from over the hill to try and capture a very light orange for this image but it never came over because of the very low sun at this time of year. I still really like this image however, the only thing about this image is that I couldn't create or change it to look exactly how the way I saw it. I love how the ground pierces the sky though, with the trees breaking through the strong blues.

Snowy Revolt

2010-01-09T23:21:00.000Z

The next shoot I decided to to take the Cambo 5x4 camera, after my recent tests I felt it was about time I get it a run out in the wild. Unfortunately so as I got to my destination and set up the Cambo it stopped working, I frustrated I tried my best to get it working again but like this old style kind of camera it just takes one little thing for it to stop working. Luckily I brought a Hassleblad to attach the PhaseOne too so I was still able to shoot.

Probably the most snow I had seen in my life me and a friend of mine when snapping around Dartmoor to try to capture something interesting.

I managed to come up with this image, to me this represents a amazing experience I had when I was on top of this hill, I thought it was one of the most beautiful landscapes I had ever seen and it was probably one of the most amazing experiences of my whole life, sure the wind was strong and it was stupidly cold but the scene was just truly biblical to me.

The shoot was a eye opener to say the least and I certainly enjoyed my experience of the amazing amount of snow on the landscape, one thing to note though is that I have used some post production to make the scene more like how I saw it, I don't know if you could call this cheating or innervation to 'Minor White's' ways but it certainly enhances the image.

Landscape with the PhaseOne

2010-01-08T13:49:00.000Z

I wanted to get a first basic test with using the PhaseOne digital back to get a feel for the controls and to see how well it would perform on a shoot. This was a quick trip one evening up to Dartmoor on one of the most wintery nights we have ever had, even though it was very cold and icy I braved this extremely expensive piece of kit, holding on to it like it was my life over this icy hazard-is environment. The first thing I noticed when taking the photos was that the screen on the back of the PhaseOne was really terrible, I think I could see what it was doing because I have seen images do it before and its a effect you get when you have to much information or pixels trying to cram them selves in to a small viewing space. Not a brilliant start but I managed to get some images.

This ended up being the final result for this shoot, I choose this one out of all of them because I really like the reflections, the level of detail in the water and the strong blue which reflects calm and quite. This shoot was just like that calm and quite and the ducks were happy to put on a show, for my first shoot with the PhaseOne I think it all went pretty well.

Tilt, Shift and the Cambo

2009-12-25T13:52:00.096Z

The Cambo is a 5x4 camera with a adapter on the back that allows you to add a digital back to it and enable you to take images using movements, tilting and shifting the old fashion way. There are many advantages to using an old style camera like this, one of the most important ones is the ability to be very precise and accurate in measurements of tilting and shifting. You also are able to see the image you are taking far more clearly and brighter than if you were to use a SLR camera allowing more chance to get a more focused and well tuned plane of focus.

There are however many disadvantages to this camera, its probably the biggest and more importantly most heaviest camera you will ever come across, its weight means you are limited to the distance of your own strength which when you are taking to place's like Dartmoor or Mothercombe you have to more prepared to carry down this heavy equipment, I personally recommend taking a assistant to help you carry it all.

Another one of its disadvantages is its complexity, like its style of this thing is fully old skool manual, you have to make sure every bit of it is attached in the right way, that all settings are cocked and zeroed out, and you are prepared to look at the world backwards, that's not a metaphor either, when you look through the viewfinder you will find that everything it shows through the lens is upside down and back to front.

The most modern part about this camera is the attachments you stick on it, in this case we have the PhaseOne locked on the back, its a odd connection that attaches from the back of the camera all the way to the front lens.

Before I embarked on any tests myself I had a quick look through Flickr to see if anyone else had used this camera for the same purpose, there I found a couple of photographers who didn't give there name but are know as "TypicalFish" and can be found at: www.typicalfish.com.

This first image you see has been taken through the Cambo with a digital back attached to it in a long exposure of a street.

This next image is an example of the camera fully tilted and shifted, completely changing the way the image has been focused. I love this effect and its the same type of system as freelensing but only more accurate with more of a higher success rate of getting a image sharp in the right area of a photograph.

Setting up the camera takes a bit longer than if you were to set up a DSLR and there are things about this camera that not even the staff at my college really knew about so it was a bit of a all round experiment. This first image was a setting set up wrong in the menu, in fact I didn't even get a image until I searched the internet on this camera and the digital back set up and in order to take a photo digitally it has to have some very precise settings. This also lead to another set back which was that in order to take a photo you had to cock and fire the shutter twice in order for the PhaseOne to recognise that it had taken a photo.

Finally I got a image, and it was super crisp! But it wasn't about it just taking pictures I needed to test the tilt and shift to make sure I could get a selective focus, so I set up the camera at exactly 20mm shift left, and 20mm tilt downwards.

And here is the result, what's interesting is that it has moved the composition of the whole image to accommodate the new plane of focus. The next step is to take this outside and use if for a proper landscape image to see what kind of image I can get out of this camera.

CaptureOne - Sharpening and Noise Reduction

2009-12-24T14:08:00.001Z

As a test to the CaptureOne software I decided to screenshot a few images with and without treatment from it to prove how much of a impact it has on its images.

This first shot was done at ISO100 at aperture f11

As you can see there are a few odd looking pixels around the darker more grey areas of the image, this is basic colour noise which when using the noise reduction tool should remove this.

This is the treated version, its hard to tell from this distance the difference but there is less noise in this image.

As you can see the noise in the darker areas have gone down but there are still a few bits there which shouldn't be. In this instance the software has worked but not as well as it could do.

This image was taken at ISO800 with a aperture of f2.8.

As you can see in this zoomed area on the dark details again we have colour noise, in this case its a lot worse because of the higher ISO.

Again its hard to tell from such a small image on this page but if you click on it for a larger preview you can see what the software has done.

The noise its pretty much all gone and has still kept a lot of detail, this is very impressive as I know Photoshop struggles to get such good results.

This last image is a test of sharpening in extreme noise, the image was shot at ISO800 at f5.6.

Again you can see the noise which oddly is a very noticeable bluey colour.

Then with I when I turned on the noise reduction and sharpening you get another interesting result

All these cropped images are at a 100% close-up crop and as you can see the software has done extremely well at processing this image and making it look like there was no ISO noise there originally, the only problem is that the sharpening has crispened up some of the anomalies of colour which has lead to some odd random pixels.

This software is very clever and I have been completely impressed by its engenuity, but now its time to get some real shoots in to the software!

CaptureOne - Introduction

2009-12-22T13:49:00.000Z

CaptureOne is a piece of software that comes with the PhaseOne for its specialised IIQ files and allows you to edit and sharpen image. The software also allows you to tether the camera using a firewire cable to instantly transfer image to your computer.

So here is the basic layout of the software, its not so different to another program made by Adobe which is Lightroom, there are some key different's between these pieces of software though, where one is made for all round viewing, meta data input and more advance editing, CaptureOne is only for basic viewing and editing. If Lightroom could read IIQ files you would still want to use CaptureOne though as it is very advance at how it caches and buffers its images to allow you to view very large images quickly and easily, it also is able to sharpen and reduce noise from the image better because its specifically tailored to the PhaseOnes colour data.

The very first thing you are going to want to do to your images is sharpen and remove any noise from them, the "Details" tab allows you to do just that. The functions are very similar to Photoshop and its just as easy to adjust them to the right setting that is going to make your image look clean and sharp, one of the key different's is the variables of the settings, where Lightroom and Photoshop only go up to a variable of 150, CaptureOne goes up to a whopping 1200, I don't its just because you are dealing with larger images so you need more sharpening, I think its also a more precise and spread variable to allow professional accuracy.

Here we have the 'Quick' tab which allows for any quick edits such as adjustments to alter your white balance, contrast, brightness, exposure and saturation. When working with a very advance and colour bit heavy file making these types of alterfications are going to be very uncontrolled and unfocused to the image, I think for my own benefit I will do most of the colour editing in Photoshop.

Finally you have the exporting process which although was confusing at first to understand because of its use of the word "Process" rather than "Export" is exactly the same as Lightroom, as you can see here exporting a single image as a 16bit file is not only huge in dimensions but also massive in file size, which I have also discovered when edited and saved as a PSD (Photoshop file) this can increase up to around 900MB, that's nearly 1GIG of data for a single image!

CaptureOne may be confusing on the surface but I after a bit of fiddling around with the interface I can now see that's its a very professional piece of software and its complicity is made up for in its advance programming.

Minor White

2009-12-21T15:26:00.135Z

A while ago I studied Minor Whites work on a landscape front, I was so impressed by his infrared images that I tried to create a set using my inspiration from his photos. Unfortunately these studies and images were taken at a time where I was purely using film photography and sketchbooks and over the years have disappeared. I do remember a few things about him being a religious man who loved to take landscape image of a moment of calm, it was almost like he used it for a a state of meditation to concentrate on his own life and the world around him. I decided to look over his old photos and see if I could dig up any more information on him. I manage to find a old essay about him written by a man called "Peter Marshall" and can be found here: http://www.vasculata.com/minor_white.htm

It first talks about him in general and how he inspired many on his 'spiritual journey', though 'White's' work was always above everyone else's because of his strong devotion to his religion. One thing I never notice but what Marshall seems to pick up on was the sexual connotation to a lot of his work, more specifically referencing his private journals he had a thing for men, but because of his religion he decided to only hint at it through shape and composition of his landscape photos. I find it funny that this probably slipped under every ones noses without them noticing and when I now look back I do see some of this sexual connotation.

When you first look at this image its hard to know what to think of it, it's interesting because you never see clouds like that, you don't how he's up so high or what's really going on in the image, what 'White' makes you do is not look at the detail of the image but to look beyond that and see the light and shadows. If you study the image long enough you can see unusual and dramatic this image really is. Another interesting thing about this image is its name 'Devil's Slide', this then alters you perception one again to the image, what I feel he's making reference to is that this dramatic waterscape is like the pool to the cloud which is a giant cloud. It could be intereparted as more of a group of shapes put together to make more of a sexual connotation, and that 'Devil's Slide' has more darker biblical reference.

'Marshal' talked about how 'Minor's' lust for men lead him to add objects in him image like this one penetrate one another. I can see what he's saying but I think there's a lot more to it than just his sense of erotica in his images. Taken at a very closed aperture this image is supremely sharp and focused, the amazing amount of detail means it lacks focus to the composition but you see some very strong lines of light and shape. Its quite a bazaar image and to me I see a giant tap randomly cutting in to another pipe like it wasn't meant to be there.

This last image is one of my favourites but 'White' because of its amazing contrast and subjectivity. This image would not work at all if it was taken as just a normal black and white photograph as it would have then been a lot darker and a lot more grey, instead this brilliant use of infrared takes advantage of the coloured areas turned in to white. This image is what got me in to 'Minor White's' work, his control and perception over a image is so well done the entire photographer just looks beautiful. To me this is a moment of absolute peace and serenity, perfect for a form of spiritual meditation.

Minor White's perception and ideas have started to make me think about my ideas of how I see a landscape, how I can use his same ways of looking at the world and then making it my own by putting my own personal feelings and thoughts in to it. Showing a theme or connotation in a image has always be hard to me because I see the world with young wide eyes looking to take in information rather than handing it out, I think I feel like this method of pushing my emotions in to a image would really be a good thing for me, but I will use my own methods of perception and use more modern techniques to embark on my own journey.

PhaseOne P45+

2009-12-20T13:51:00.002Z

A high end industry camera, I have been waiting to have a go on this piece of kit for a few months now. With a whopping 39! mega pixels It can take some seriously big photos, but like any camera its not about you mega pixels its about what you do with them and this camera just happens to be a very colour accurate and very high resolution camera. Now I keep saying camera but essentially this is only a sensor without the body or lens so you have to attach it to something else. Its has what's called a V type fit, this means it will work on any conventional Hassleblad body which normally has a medium format film reel attached to it.

Before I took out the camera I decided to look in to the sort of images it could produce. On the official Phaseone website they refer two several different photographers that use this camera, looking on one of those site I found a photographer called Adrian Weinbrech.
Here are a few images from his site taken with the P45+:

As you can see there is some pretty high level photography here and the P45+ has really brought out the detail in these images making them overall look stunning, if I can get my work to look this then I would be very pleased.

First Impressions

I was one of the first students to take out this bit of kit and I was aloud to have it over the whole of the Christmas holidays which meant I had a lot of time to play around with it.

As you see it come in a nice heavy duty, waterproof pelican case which made it pretty impossible to cause any accidental damage, but one thing I didn't understand was why did it have "PHASEONE" printed on the front and back of the case, its like screaming out that you have at least £12K on you.

This peace of kit it self was pretty basic, it worked like any normal camera but it had a few extra features that let it work with certain types of cameras like the Cambo. If you at this top image you can see all the bits it comes with, to the left you have a fire-wire cable that allows for instant transfer to you PC or MAC, just next to that us a USB stick with the CaptureOne software which I will look more in to late, you have the digital back it self in the middle, then you have a instruction manual with a viewfinder restricter to the right. The viewfinder restricter was for attaching to a Hassleblad, because the sensor isn't as big as the viewfinder you can have it there to see what your true image would be.

So here it is attached to a Hassleblad, as you can see in order to get the digital to sync with the camera you have to plug a sync lead in to it which also records your shutter speed. With this model I also used a prism with a light meter in it to help me decide on what settings to set my camera up in.

As kit goes this thing is quite practical and easy to use, I can see me using this a lot in the next few weeks but first I will conducted a few tests using the Cambo and the software that comes with it 'CaptureOne'.

Looking Back

2009-12-17T15:27:00.101Z

I decided that it would be a good idea to look back at a project I did back in the first year called "The Language of Light", it was a quite a complicated module as it looked at taking photos equipment I had never used before and themes I had never tried. Part of the module was to look at a series of emotions and create a image for each one of them (Passion, Anger, Serenity, Harmony, Tension, Melancholy and Happiness), The way I went about attempting to understand these emotions was to first define to understand there true meanings and then to categorise them in to what I though were relevant subjects, such as having happiness with sun and smiling. While putting these emotions in to groups I started to define some of them to colours which got me thinking about colour phycology and what each colour is meant to represent.

I managed to find a basic colour phycology guild which no longer exists but it came from a site called www.infoplease.com, and this is what it read:

"Colour psychology

Black

Black is the color of authority and power. It is popular in fashion because it makes people appear thinner. It is also stylish and timeless. Black also implies submission. Priests wear black to signify submission to God. Some fashion experts say a woman wearing black implies submission to men. Black outfits can also be overpowering, or make the wearer seem aloof or evil. Villains, such as Dracula, often wear black.

White

Brides wear white to symbolize innocence and purity. White reflects light and is considered a summer color. White is popular in decorating and in fashion because it is light, neutral, and goes with everything. However, white shows dirt and is therefore more difficult to keep clean than other colors. Doctors and nurses wear white to imply sterility.

Red

The most emotionally intense color, red stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing. It is also the color of love. Red clothing gets noticed and makes the wearer appear heavier. Since it is an extreme color, red clothing might not help people in negotiations or confrontations. Red cars are popular targets for thieves. In decorating, red is usually used as an accent. Decorators say that red furniture should be perfect since it will attract attention.

The most romantic color, pink, is more tranquilizing. Sports teams sometimes paint the locker rooms used by opposing teams bright pink so their opponents will lose energy.

Blue

The color of the sky and the ocean, blue is one of the most popular colors. It causes the opposite reaction as red. Peaceful, tranquil blue causes the body to produce calming chemicals, so it is often used in bedrooms. Blue can also be cold and depressing. Fashion consultants recommend wearing blue to job interviews because it symbolizes loyalty. People are more productive in blue rooms. Studies show weightlifters are able to handle heavier weights in blue gyms.

Green

Currently the most popular decorating color, green symbolizes nature. It is the easiest color on the eye and can improve vision. It is a calming, refreshing color. People waiting to appear on TV sit in "green rooms" to relax. Hospitals often use green because it relaxes patients. Brides in the Middle Ages wore green to symbolize fertility. Dark green is masculine, conservative, and implies wealth. However, seamstresses often refuse to use green thread on the eve of a fashion show for fear it will bring bad luck.

Yellow

Cheerful sunny yellow is an attention getter. While it is considered an optimistic color, people lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies will cry more. It is the most difficult color for the eye to take in, so it can be overpowering if overused. Yellow enhances concentration, hence its use for legal pads. It also speeds metabolism.

Purple

The color of royalty, purple connotes luxury, wealth, and sophistication. It is also feminine and romantic. However, because it is rare in nature, purple can appear artificial.

Brown

Solid, reliable brown is the color of earth and is abundant in nature. Light brown implies genuineness while dark brown is similar to wood or leather. Brown can also be sad and wistful. Men are more apt to say brown is one of their favorite colors."

From all this I started to make my photos, here are a few of the digital images I created:

If you haven't guessed it already this image is 'Passion', I decided I wanted a image about love and beauty, in order to bring that out in this image I bought a silky red background, shiny and soft the gradual gradients of light on the material I feel really brings out the emotion of passion.

This one was 'Serenity' and was partly based on the film 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", I remember a scene of meditation that used light coming through the trees to show that the character was at a moment of complete peace in a act of serenity.

Melancholy was about the blue to me, its sort of a calm sad colour that doesn't cause a very strong emotion but a gives the image more of a private, keeping something to yourself kind of feel, that and with the way I had my model pose I felt this summed up melancholy to me.

Three very powerful colours and used correctly give 3 completely different moods and connotations to the images. I think looking back at these images have made me realise how important colour is to a image and if I want to create certain moods to my final images with Alice and I think testing there power once again would be a good first few shoots to get my head in to the thoughts and ideas behind emotion.

Model Mayhem

2009-12-16T13:20:00.000Z

I recently heard of a site called "Model Mayhem", at this site you can find photographers, hair stylists, make-up artists and models in your local area. When I first signed up I was a little unsure if I was going to get anything out of the site, but after a few searches I found a local make-up artist/hair stylist who looked quite good.

I decided to get in contact with them and told them about the photo shoots I was planning on doing soon, at first she was quite casual about it and probably didn't know enough about my work to be impressed, but once I mentioned the London exhibition and how I was on my final year she suddenly got more interested and gave me her details and website. Here is her website http://www.cuttingedgehairdesign.co.uk/, I was pretty impressed with her work form the site, in fact the site itself wasn't that bad either and I look forward to working with her.

So far my experience with Model Mayhem has been a good one, and there are new people signing up everyday for you to browse and find. I would like to find a couple of models that are well suited to the images I will be taking soon through the site at some point too, but at the same time I don't want to want to be to dependent on the site as I don't know if I can trust people I have never met, so I have my own personal contacts just in case.

Back in to Landscape

2009-12-10T18:49:00.004Z

As I have not been able to have a induction on the PhaseOne digital back yet I decided to go out on a landscape shoot to get myself back in to landscape photography as I think that there are certain moods and themes that can only be described using the medium of landscape.

I set out to the moor with my friend Chris Davies who is a professional when it comes to landscape photography, he has taught me everything I know when it comes to this type of photography.

So here is the contact sheet; as you can see there are a couple of images that I have used a infrared filter on, the reason I decided to use this filter was to see what effect I could get from some longer exposures for certain shots.

This was one of my favourite images from the shoot, I don't know what it is, but with a little post production I managed to make the image look a lot more dramatic and moody.

It was good fun doing some landscape again and I'm glad that I've at least done this test shoot before I get in to it more.

Alice Jemima

2009-12-05T15:15:00.000Z

I met Alice after helping a lecturer do a photo shoot of her for her music before which you can find here:

Alice is a talented individual at the beginning of what I feel to be a very successful music career, you can find music, videos and more at:http://www.myspace.com/alicejemima

Here's one video that her parents made, though its nothing special you can see and hear the light happy songs she's used to making, I think for as someone as young as 16 she is very impressive!

I plan to create a series of images using her and her songs to be a dedicated collection of album art by the end of final major. I do not wish to rush in to this blindly though as I want to create something that has good context and theme as these images will be use in my final show in London. In order to do this I will be forwarding things from my experiment project and attempting to develop them in to a more themed and contextualised piece of work. I will be working close with Alice to make the end result of my images as I want her to be able to use them for a future album.

Print Auction

2009-12-04T21:23:00.001Z

Statement of Intent

2009-12-02T12:26:00.044Z

So my first deadline was the 27th of November which required us to read through the brief and come back with a idea for this next project. I decided to that for my final major I wanted to create a series of images that would visualise songs created and sung by solo artist Alice Jemima (http://www.myspace.com/alicejemima). In order to get to that stage I need to develop a technical skill and a theory based skill. I decided to look at a advance piece of kit called the Cambo 5x4 Monorail with a high end digital back (The PhaseOne) to shoot my images with, using this kit will allow me to take more controlled and advance images using tilt and shift to create a shallow depth of field and key focus in my images. I feel that the technique allows the exploration in to the feeling a image can present, therefore I will be looking at the theme of emotion.

Its an exciting time and I cant wait to start taking some photographs.

Development Brief

2009-12-01T17:52:00.006Z

So here is the new brief! At this current stage I'm not to sure exactly what I want to do but I'm thinking more tilt and shift work as well as the full production of photo shoot. When I say full production I mean picking up a couple of new contacts including a hair stylist and a make-up artist, I don't really want to be paying anyone at this stage so I'm going to have to get the student card out again and just get them to work for a copy of my images to show their own work. More on that later...

Development Brief

Couple of New Things

2009-11-16T20:18:00.000Z

Just a couple of updates from last week, I have finally got my email working! So my new email is photo@tristanpetts.co.uk, I also created a model selection page on Facebook which I already have some members for. I hope to use this page in the future to ask more people for some more modelling. Its currently a secret group and can only be seen by members but the way I have designed it is so that it is a verification that a person is happy to be used as a model. As a example what I would do is give them this card:

Then if they get in contact with me I can simply add them to the group, I think this is a good temporary way of doing this but for my site I am going to design a dedicated page that will allow a selected model to apply to be a model, rather than having to add them myself, this way I can get the model to upload a decent image to make the selection process easier. This also means that random people will be able to apply but I will also have a more private admin selection.
Here is the Facebook page:

The Future of Three Dimensional Imaging

2009-11-09T23:17:00.009Z

I tend to follow a lot of technology news these days and I have recently been hearing more and more about some sort of new 3D technology. This got me thinking what makes 3D so special and why is it getting so hyped again now when it didn't really take off before? Still fresh in research mode I started my search!

As far as I am aware there were only two ways to see in 3D; the first is to wear a pair of glasses that have two separate lenses, one is red and the other is green. I have no idea what they do but they seem to make specially made images to look like they were in 3D. The other way I have experienced 3D was at a IMAX cinema, they again had a pair of glasses but they used some sort of polarisers for lenses.

So the first method of the red and green glasses has been around for a long time, basically you create whats called a anaglyph, this is two images that are taken of one subject but one image is positioned slightly to the side of the other one, this distance is typically 6.5cm. You then change one image to channel only red and the other image to channel only green, then they are merged on together to create what looks like this weird looking picture that looks like it has heavy chromatic aberration, but when you wear the red and green lenses you only pick up each corresponding colour to each eye creating the illusion that you are seeing the image in 3D, this imagine is called an anaglyph. This can also be done with other coloured filtering too, but red and green were selected because your eyes pick up these colours stronger than any of the others. Though this technique is old and starting to become outdated its weirdly about to be used in the media again, this time in a series of programmes that are going be broadcasted on live television on Channel 4. All you have to do to enjoy this event is to collect a pair of special 3D glasses from a selected Sainsbury's store and tune in to one of these specially altered shows to see it in 3D. The first 3D broadcast will be the film "The Queen" on the 16th of November at 9pm. More on Channel 4's 3D week HERE.

An Example of a Anaglyph

You then have polarisation, this is a very similar way of creating the illusion of 3D to the red and green glasses method. Just like the other method you capture your scene using two images right next to each other, but instead of then producing a single image using two channels of colour you actually project the images from two separate projectors using (orthogonal) polarisers to send the images to the screen at a certain frequency of polarisation. The glasses then pick up the light with each one corresponding to the frequency of left or right. With each eye picking up each corresponding image via the polarisation the illusion of 3D is then given. The problem with this technique up until now was that the cameras capturing the images have not be developed enough to come up with some outstanding results, but that has all changed and one of these new technological advancements has been the improvement of these systems. Though there are a couple of movies out now that are using these new technologies supposedly James Cameron's new film "Avatar" will be revolutionary in cinematography. More on the technologies behind "Avatar" HERE.

The last type of 3D technology I have been hearing about is the invention of 3D HD TVs, this is still being kept quite quiet on how it really works, but its basically the same technique of using polarisers. The TV is sent a signal with both left and right images and presents them as one, you then just have to wear the corresponding polarised glasses to see the 3D effect. "Sky" have recently announced how they will be supporting 3D TVs and how they believe that the future of TV is more to do with the immersion of the audience into its media. Heres a example of how it works:

This 3D polarising technology seems like it has a good future ahead of itself. I'm starting to wonder if it is worth getting in to this 3D world and what kind of depths can it go to. I think I'm am going to have to do some more investigating and possibly some experimenting.

Work Handed In!

2009-11-06T18:19:00.000Z

Well today was the deadline for this project and I got it all done with plenty of time to spare, I have to say it got a bit stressful towards then end but I am very happy with what I came up with. During this project I also got a commission to do some more photos for a children's animal attraction business, the images will be used on there website to help market the clients self employed business, the website itself doesn't go live for a while but here is a preview of some of the images:

The shoot went really well and I was really pleased with my results!

I also did a image for Halloween :)

Presentation

2009-11-06T17:00:00.004Z

Its a very basic presentation where I mostly talked about what I was doing, but I thought I would put it up here anyway.

Presentation

View more presentations from Tristan Petts.

End of my Experimental Journey

2009-11-04T21:38:00.000Z

So this is it, the end of my experimental module, I have to say at the start of the project I didn't really want to go outside my boundaries, I had some key ideas and things I wanted to that I practised before. However that has all changed, I feel reinnovated and excited about what this journey has taught me, I feel like I have truly pushed myself the best best of my potential of experimental work. I have found and used new ideas that have equipped me with ways of seeing the world and changing to the perspective I want to give to it. All the areas that I have studied I have gained a great amount of knowledge and skill in, and I want to take forward as much as I can in to future projects to create successful and imaginative images. I can see myself creating a lot more polished and creative images with more of a understanding where I want my work to lead, which will hopefully help me guide myself into what aspect and job I want to get in to.

Overall this has been a very fun project and although it has been stressful at times I have loved every minute of it. I think its now time to take things to another level!

Final CGI Result

2009-11-04T12:27:00.000Z

CGI has always been one of though areas I have wanted to get in to, partly because there's a higher paid end game from it, but also because it can bring so much more to your photography. CGI has shown me that there are no boundaries to the results you want to get and that if you take the time you can come up with some amazing results. I know my chair wasn't much but in order to get to that stage of building the chair was a huge learning curve and now I would feel very happy to attempt something even bigger, but only time will tell. Overall I can see myself using CGI again for future projects as it was really happy with my end result and even though it was a long process I enjoyed learning a new skill.

Experiment 3 - Importing to Photoshop

2009-11-04T12:12:00.000Z

Lastly I wanted to see how my chair would look in a photo that I had already taken.

I first had to export the 3D render in a different format for Photoshop to read the object, then I had the tricky job of getting the chair in the right perspective.

After I played around for I bit I finally got it to look right but I had to do a bit of retouching to the chair still, this means you have to rasterize the object which basically converts your object to a image. This also means that this is no going back to the 3D level of things when you do this, so it was important to make sure it was 100% correct.

Here is the final image, though its not perfect I don't think its that bad, and I think the only way I could take this further is to get more in to the lighting options in Photoshop, but that's a whole different ball game.

I'm really happy with this and I'm surprised how well my first proper ever 3D object looks next to the real world.

Experiment 2 - Creating a Chair

2009-11-04T10:34:00.000Z

I basically found a tutorial that created an object that I thought I would be able to follow along with, the object I was going to create was a chair. Now it doesn't sound very hard so I though id give it a go.

Tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/user/DigitalArtsGuild#p/c/8ADECCBF17DF3EAE/0/NGBPeK_TsBs

First you had to create the base of the chair and part of the bottom frame, this used new tools that I was unfamiliar with but I managed to get the correct shapes to move on.

The next stage was about making the legs and body of the chair, now this doesn't sound too hard but in practice was very difficult as you had to get the correct edges to be smooth and bendy.

Once you get one side done you are able to create a parallel, this basically mimics one you have done from one side the other, this feature is also live so any of changes you make will be done to the apossing side.

I than had to put in the back of the chair with a curved shape to each piece.

Finally you add your cushion and then your textures and to create a 3D object that you can plant in the real world.

This was a very long and complicated process, I decided that I wouldn't write about about all of it otherwise I would be just repeating the very long tutorial I had just watched, It was to some extent enjoyable, I certainly loved the outcome and now I have my very own model to put in my pictures!

Experiment 1 - Building Blocks

2009-11-03T23:46:00.000Z

So you start off with 4 screen with 4 different perspectives each one allowing you to view your creations.

As you move on you can then create primitive objects from one of the tabs.

You also have a tab that allows you to transform your objects, in here you can find a tab labelled modifiers.

Modifiers allow you to bend and distort you image in to the shape you want it to look like

The main set of tools work with the modifiers to allow you to bend and meld the object to your will.

Using a series of tutorials I started to create a Icecream cone using primitive objects.

I then applied on of the modifiers which allowed me to get the ice cream to look a bit more realistic.

Finally you can render the object and save it as a image or 3d object to be imported in to Photoshop.

In this case I exported it as a image to see the results of my 3D ice cream cone.

This whole stage was more about getting to grips with 3Ds Max and building the confidence to take on something much bigger!...a chair.

Computer Generated Images

2009-11-03T22:09:00.000Z

CGI has been around for a while but because it has got to a stage where we cant tell the difference between reality and digital creations I thought I would look in to 3D designers to see what they have done and to understand what I'm really getting in to.

So these first two images are by Jesse McClear, I think they look very real and but almost like toys, it will be interesting trying to make my work look real and not just like its been produced digitally.

Another interesting 3D design is someone who seems to only want to be known as 2create (http://www.redbubble.com/people/2create) his work looks fairly advanced and very clever. The top image is quite a fun picture but 2create also does serious CGI like this render or a glass of wine below.

Its amazing how real this is, I think its party down to the lighting shaders he's using to render his work.

One of my favourite digital companies out there at the moment is 'happy finish' there work there is amazing!

As you can see they have a amazing reputation to be working with large companies like Sony and and Aston Martin.

CGI is out there and obviously there is a lot more out there, but you will find that most of it is still stuck in games and films. CGI in photography is only just booming and so I think this project is a good excuse to get a taste of some CGI goodness.

What is CGI?

2009-11-03T16:19:00.000Z

CGI or Computer Generated Imagery is the digital creation of real life objects, this process lets us manipulate and move the object within a scene which we might not be able to do in real life. CGI has been around for a while now but its not until now that the creation of CGI objects has truly pecked. CGI is one of those areas that would normally only cover moving images rather than photography, but it seems there is a trend of more photographers getting in to CGI. I which to experiment and create a object and then place it in to a image that I have taken. In order to do so I am going to have to learn some 3D software called '3Ds MAX. I was luckily given the opportunity to have a few lectures that could teach me the basics of the software. My experiments are going to based partly on what I have learnt so far and what I'm still learning.

The Infra-red Verdict

2009-11-02T23:19:00.000Z

Infra-red was a interesting process to say the least, I do love the quality's of the image and its certainly a new creative process that I am more awake to now but with all the other experiments that I have done this was probably the least enjoyable out of them so far, I think its because the amount of time it takes in order to create a image, and if you don't get your exposures right then you can end up spending a good amount of time waiting on single images to expose. I could have taken this another way though, I could have used Infra-red film instead but I didn't get motivated with the results I got from these image to do that and I don't think I will be doing much infra-red in the future. Still it was good to explore the technique and revisit some of my old methods, I also feel like I can see how to relate some more conceptual elements to my work, but at the moment it feels more by accident than on purpose.

Experiment 3 - Portraits

2009-11-02T10:18:00.001Z

Finally I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to create a portrait using infra-red. Now the biggest drawback that has come up so far is the need for long exposures, but I am able to enhance an image in post production to kill time off the exposure.

The first thing I decided to do was a 30 second exposure in a daylight balance room to see what I would get, the results were poor to say the least, I actuality just got left with a blank image, but I decided to keep it and see if I could bring back a image using post production. Success! Although really very noisy I still managed to get a image out of it.

This next exposure was roughly 3 minutes long with some digital enhancement to bring up image, personally I found this quite a creepy image. I think its the mixture of the high level of noise and the lack of eyes scares me

a little.

In order to make the image less creepy I decided to add some additional light into the image, for this image I popped a flashgun near my face and wirelessly fired the flash in to my face 25 times. The result is still surprisingly dark for the amount of light I pumped in to the image, but it is still interesting to now see a proper infra-red image with out as much noise and with my eyes now there.

This final image was my attempt at using a even longer exposure and even more flash light to finally get a image without as much noise. I had to stay perfectly still for quite a long time so I decided to lye down on my bed before I started the photo. This photo took roughly 5 minutes to take and 40 flashes from the flashgun.

As interesting as it was I decided I would not put someone else through the painstakingly slow process of taking a photo with infra-red as I did not see a future outcome from this process.

Experiment 2 - Landscape and Colour

2009-11-01T17:07:00.000Z

I next got up high above Plymouth and did some shots looking over the cityscape. I also wanted to to try some more editing to my images, I decided the method that I would use was to be using the colour balance of the image to warp and distort the single colour red in to many different colours over different areas.

Here is the first image I came up with, its a really weird image and to be honest I don't really like it that much, I think its because its quite dark below the horizon and green didn't have the effect I wanted it to have, it could be argued though that the colour and dark green represents the smog of Plymouth and shows how we are polluting our skies.

This is one of my favourites, I'm not sure why but to me the colours match a lot better than some of the images that I have made, I love the warm glow of the sky but I also like how the blue comes out from the trees and highlights in the reflections, to me this is a really different way at looking at Plymouth, its almost like some post apocalyptic world.

My last image looks are the edge of the city, this to me is where Plymouth end and I have tried to enforce that with the composition. I love the light coming through the clouds and I have tried to bring that out more with the use of colour and contrast.

A interesting experiment, but I'm starting to get a little frustrated over lack of post production control over a image because of its long exposure process.

Experiment 1 - Starting Off

2009-11-01T12:31:00.000Z

I started off going round town and looking for composures of things that had been done before in the past, but with my own twist to them.

The lighthouse must have been photographed a million times, but I don't think anyone has ever taken one like this, I wanted to use the old fort behind it to make it seems really out of place, and topped with the infra-red the image looks really old and bazaar.

I wanted to get in and around the city to see things from a new perspective, just like this image here I have used a very low perspective to look up, and down the main street. This image didn't come out as well as I would have liked though, I think its because of the lack of post production control I have over super long exposures and I was not able to get the right amount of contrast.

This next image was roughly a 10 minute exposure looking up Royal Parade, I quite like the image because of that slight glow that has been made naturally across the pavement as well as the light trails from the near by traffic, because its such a long exposure there are no people in the image and it feels very desert. The thing that most makes this image though is the one bike that you can see leaning on the lamppost. There could be a hidden message to this photography, I think its something to do with pollution.

My exploration went very well and I came back with a couple of interesting images, even if I haven't caught anything like the infra-red Litcht was catching I'm still happy with the long exposures effect of making places look quite artistic and desert.

Who Else See's Infra-red?

2009-10-31T10:11:00.000Z

Infra-red though has its drawbacks can Isn't a very difficult thing to produce, wants you work out the length of time it takes to get a image then you can photos just like they were a normal image. One photographer that I have been watching on Flickr is Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Licht, he uses infra-red in a lot of his landscape work.

Though Litch's work doesn't warp the world of photography, it does look at landscape in a new way and bring new aspects to the table.

When composing a image its important to have a lot of colour in the frame because this will show of the greater effect of infra-red, like as you can see here the trees leafs have turned white. In face this image reminds me of a similar photograph by another great photographer 'Minor White'.

As you can see in this image he has fully made the use of colour and create this scene to almost look like it has been snowing its so white. One thing to notice here and though I'm not sure how he has done this but the flare from the sun is in colour white the rest of the image is in black and white. Photoshoped?

This last image has defiantly been edited, similar to what I was trying although I'm not sure on his technique to this image, I think the colours could have been more in place than how he has done this image.

Its going to be important to be choose interesting landscape/cityscape to make a good looking image, but I must also remember that I want to edit some images later to have the strange colour effect what you can get with this type of image.

Looking at Infra-red

2009-10-31T00:31:00.003Z

Infra-red looks at a separate spectrum below normal light, in order to understand it more you have to think of infra-red in a different way, here's a diagram I found that explains what I mean.

As you can see as you move out of the visible boundaries of what we can and cant see you fall in to infra-red

In practice this is what a image will come out like, this is a image I took last year with my infra-red filter which removes all other visible rays of light and just filters in infra-red. There is one problem though, because digital cameras don't want infra-red they have filters to stop the rays from going through to the sensor, but they are not perfect and by simply extending the exposure of a image you get pick up quite a good image. The image above took roughly 5 minutes to get the right exposure, this does mean you get some noise and possible motion blur but refitting a camera to let in infra-red is a in-expensive for something I want to just experiment with.

What I next did with the image was change the colour balance in Photoshop to altar the hue of colour in the image, this can really change your image, in this case I've made the image very dark and strange to make the image feel very surreal.

Here is a example of what a image looks like with and without a infra-red filter. This top image is done without the filter and is just a ordinary black and white image.

This image though was done through the infra-red, you can see its removed all the density from the coloured objects and made them look like they were white.

As you can see in these two images that means in a landscape photo all the colour disappears and you are left with what looks like snowy backgrounds.

I'm going to use the same filter that I used last year but this time I'm going to change my perspective and play around with cityscape too see what I can get.

Final Thoughts on Tilt and Shift

2009-10-30T23:48:00.000Z

In conclusion to these tilt and shift experiments I have to say I haven't been excited about photography since I first got in to it. Tilt and shift is such specialised technique that it takes a lot of confidence to go out to do a shoot with it and I feel like I am at a stage where I ready to define my work and truly stand out amongst the crowd with it, but unfortunately what's going to pull me back from tilt and shift is the issue of equipment. I love tilt and shift a lot but I couldn't stand how little control I had over it, If and when I continue this type of photography I will have to get hold of a tilt and shift lens to become more of a expert and expand my understanding of warping the world to my will.

To sum up I feel like I have found more of a passion for my work and hopefully I will be able to produce some photos in the future that will push the boundaries of modern photography.

Experiment 4 - Making a Scene

2009-10-30T18:16:00.001Z

I wanted to try something a little more prepared, in this case it was a fashion shoot. I had recently found a few more people who were up for modelling and I thought this was a great excuse for getting out and doing what I love doing!

So here's is the model I decided to use:

And here is the dress I decided to pick out for her, for anyone who has followed any of my previous work you will know that I like a bit of glamour in my images to make my photos look different from other photographers.

At first I planned to go to a do the shoot at the top of a car park, but then when I picked up my model I noticed how perfect the light was, so I decided to make the most of the scene, got a flashgun out and popped it on a tripod to use as a key light and start snapping away.

Here is the first image I selected, I love the over the top tilt and shift effect and how your attentions goes straight to the expression on her face. I choose this composition to also highlight the colours of her dress which the background.

The margin for error was still pretty high and it was a pain to readjust my lens constantly but when you finally got a image in focus it was amazing how much the subject stood out when I went overboard with the tilt and shift effect.

This one is probably my favourite images and just before I post here I have already got it live on another site where I have got some interesting feedback which I think covers why I prefer this image against the others. Though I love going really exaggerating the tilt and shift effect this is probably the most subtle image I have done out of the shoot and its because of that its the most effective. Looking back at my research towards tilt and shift I got the screen grab of a scene from the TV series 'Heroes' where they were really subtle with the effect and I think this just does that.

The shoot was great fun I my model was brilliantly confident, I have to say I'm really enjoying tilt and shift and its tempting me towards buying or renting a proper more accurate lens to improve my image quality for a series of final images in a future project.

Experiment 3 - Tilting Horizons

2009-10-28T17:01:00.001Z

Although I always wanted to focus on people for this project I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a go at some landscape and cityscape.

Now to be fair you could say this isn't really a landscape, you have a subject and point of focus to the image, but I didn't put him there, weirdly he just walked right in to the shot while I was getting my focus ready and it just turned out I was enough focus to make the left side of the image be shifted and out of focus and the right side completely in focus, even to recreate a image like this would be extremely hard as getting that perfect field of focus is a nightmare because its so hard to till what's blurred and what's not after you stare through the lens for long enough.

I then got on some higher ground and pointed my camera down at the locals, I quite like this image because it makes the people look like that have come from a greater distance, this is the effect that created that 'Bath Tub' video and makes them all look like part of a toy village.

Once I started doing more and more of these types of images I found that because you got a more in focus image from getting at person in the corner on a image I would automaticly move my subject in to the corner of my image, this also then brought out the tilt and shift effect out even more. I really like the way this one person was standing be the sea, his attention was solidly place on the open waters that I thought would make a great capture. Its funny how my landscape is bring people into it which could be argued is now turning more in to a documentary.

Another image that looks down and focuses on a subject closer to the edge of my lens and composition.

I do love the effect but at this stage for such a demanding type of image my eye for getting what was in focus and what was tilt and shift blur was going, I still really like this image, like the one earlier its turns more in to a documentary as its recording the events of something thats going on.

I really enjoyed going around taking these pictures and it it really got me back in to my landscape again. It was interesting because not only was I learning more about how to compose tilt and shift image but I was also learning how to get a good looking landscape image which a point of focus though quite a cropped lens.

Experiment 2 - Shifting People

2009-10-27T21:39:00.001Z

I wanted to get more of a idea if I was able to get just as successful images as Guillaume Kayacan had gotten with his tilt and shift lens so I moved onto people and portraits. Tilt and shift changes the way you look at a image, and I need to make sure that I also can create the mood and effect that I want, this might not be possible at first but its something that will be going through my mind while taking these all images.

I first attempted to do a self portrait that focused mostly on the camera, I wanted to do this because I feel that cameras have become a greater part of me that my own being, in the background you can also see all my work that I have been doing and previous images from the past. The image is also lit up by the light in my room which is daylight balanced.

A couple of my friends were sat down on a sofa in the living room so I decided to try and capture the mood of the room by focusing on one of them, I think this has the best focus I've gotten from a tilt and shift image yet.

I then went up stairs to see a couple more of my friend who were playing around on the drums, here I've attempted to be more subtle in my approach, if you look at the image you can see the I have tilted the image so that the point of focus is on the drummer and teacher. Commercially if someone wanted a image to demonstrate the bond between teacher and student you could use the same effect to focus on them both.

I then decided to go down in to town where I got a bit more creative, I wanted to get some shots of people but I wanted them from a really low angle, so I got down on my hands and knees to take this shot, when I was down there I was expecting to get more of the person in the image but because I'm using a 50mm lens on a cropped sensor this was the best I could do, but I still really like it, I think it completely changes the perspective on the image and makes you question what the rest of this figure looks like. Its weird because she's wearing something quite bright and flowery yet she using a cane. The plane of view really distorts your view on the image which I quite like so I took another shot like this.

Here's the next shot, I quite liked the how this couple really stood out from the crowd and I love the union of the feet hitting the floor at the same time, I thing the distortion works well at focusing at my subjects and really forces you to look straight at them.

This has been a very successful experiment and now I'm going to take it in to another form, landscape!

Experiment 1 - First Attempt

2009-10-26T15:37:00.001Z

So I started off was some basic tests as you can see on the image below I was having to have my lens disconnected and tilting in the direction I wanted in focus, this is much like what happens with a 'Lens Baby'. One thing that I suddenly lose control over is the aperture, focus and light meter, because I'm disconnecting the electronics from the camera to the lens it means that everything that was in the lens no longer works. Certainly a drawback but not a problem as I want as smaller aperture as possible and manual focus in order to create more of a shallow depth of field.

It takes some playing to keep the lens steady and the subject in focus but here is my first attempt.

Its not much but as you can see I have managed to create a single focus on the 'Lynx' can that brings out this single object on my cluttered desk.

This next attempt was simply looking at if I could focus the attention away from the subject and to make the audience look towards the keyboard, from a advertising point of view something that can show the full context of a products uses but still keeping focus on the product itself could be done this way.

Well my first attempt was a success to say the least and I'm very impressed that this method of tilt and shift even works, but its time to start testing this method out properly.

Tilt and Shift Photography

2009-10-26T14:42:00.001Z

Tilt and Shift is one of those techniques that have been out there for a very long time but only now has really taken off on a creative front, the reason why I want to get in to tilt and shift is because I very rarely see it used and when I do I'm astonished on how well it can generate a type of mood and concentration to a image. The best example I've seen so far has been the use of tilt and shift in the TV show 'Heroes', in the show they manage to use cameras and lenses to there full potential with all sorts of bazaar depth of field and focusing. Although because its used so subtlety its very hard to find but here is an example:

If you study the image you can see that they got this characters hand and face in focus but the back of his head is out of focus, now normally this would be impossible but the camera they are using is set to shift so that only the far left is out of focus.

Another good example I found that uses tilt and shift is a form of landscape photography that creates an image that weirdly makes things look like they are part of a model village.
In this time-lapse you can see just that:

Now there arnt that many portrait tilt and shift photographers but one that I am partially fond of is

Guillaume Kayacan. Guillaume is a very experimental photographer and come up with some great results, here are a few examples of his tilt and shift work:

I love these images, I love the whole effect of what tilt and shift has done to them, you are pushed through the focus to look at her face and it instantly grabs your attention. In this image he has simple shifted the the lens to

I think Tilt and Shit really changes the way you look at photography, its creative blur mixes the focus of the subject and the landscape, for instance in this image you can see her face is in focus as well as the ground, but the sky and her body are out of focus. Its such a new perspective that is so unconventional, yet so pure as a photograph because of the lack of any retouching.

Though I'm not sure how accurate I can be with the technique I'm using over a actual tilt and shift lens if I can get anything close to these images I will be extremely happy.