16^th August

Nearly time to submit my assignment now. I have eight pairs assembled and am relatively pleased with the results. There is no doubt my confidence grew as the ideas and the work progressed.

How did it go?

Technical and visual skills: I worked hard to develop my observational, design and compositional skills in creating these pairings. The more I developed the ideas the more I found I was really looking into the images and seeing issues such as balance and focal points. I tried to incorporate the learning from the initial exercises – different focal lengths and depths of field, lighting, intimate images and wide vistas. I have also come to understand more about what Hunter et al (2012: 3) so eloquently describe as lighting being the language of photography, ‘patterns of light convey information just as surely as spoken words.’ Through developing this series of images I have become more aware of looking at light and thinking about how it conveys the messages I am trying to develop.

Quality of outcomes: I think the contrasting pairs improved over time and I was definitely getting into my stride by the end. They are presented in chronological order from more or less the first to the last shoot, although there was inevitably some iteration on the way as I changed different elements or built on an idea. I think the strongest pair is continuous/intermittent. I think it is an interesting interpretation of the concepts and the images are quite strong because of their use of colour, light and balance. The weakest pairing is possibly hard/soft as it is one of the most literal and neither image has a specific point of focus, they are both reliant on colour and texture for their interest.

Demonstration of creativity: I think I have demonstrated a degree of creativity in developing my own interpretation of the concepts and ideas. I deliberately tried out techniques I had not used before such as the dripping liquid and using the light tent. I also made sure I experimented with scale, lighting, colour and depth of field. I feel I am starting to develop my own voice, something perhaps playful, tongue in cheek even a little quirky and I’d like to see this develop more as I build my confidence.

Context: I have done some research in the last few months but possibly not as much as I would have liked. Looking at a variety of work, even if only in reproduction/on the Internet has proved very helpful – particularly the likes of Chris Nash, Anne Zahalka and Marion Drew.

I have tried to reflect as close to the event as possible and build my fieldbook but I have struggled with loading it online. It has all sat in a neat pile waiting to be loaded up leaving me with a lot to do at once.

Overall, I think I am happy with what I have achieved. It is my first attempt at a small body of  work structured around a theme and I enjoyed the process of building up the ideas and executing them. Inevitably, some ideas were better than others and some of the execution is more accomplished than others.

What have I learnt?

• Time is needed to let the ideas emerge and build my technical ability – more time than I might have thought
• I still carry a bit of mentality probably inherited from the days of film that you don’t take too many images. In both the oranges pair and ‘liquid/solid’ I took far more photos than I would normally do and this helped me have a wider choice of what to include
• My confidence has grown across the last few weeks as I found I could start to execute the kind of images I was looking for
• I definitely have a preference for close-up and detailed work but need to be careful to develop a wide range of approaches
• I am more comfortable with taking the camera off its ‘auto’ setting and playing with shutter speed and aperture manually. I still don’t always know which way to adjust to get the effect that I want but I am now very happy with experimenting

In terms of taking my learning forward I am becoming increasingly more conscious of framing and thinking through/about the image that I am looking for. I need to develop my technical skills further both with the camera and Photoshop so I can get closer to what I want more quickly. I also think I need to know when to take time and when to speed up dependent on the nature of the shots I am taking. I have been encouraged by Hunter et al’s (2012) notion of getting to a point where you can recognise when your camera is helping and when it is hindering.

Reference:

Hunter, F., Biver, S., & Fuqua, P. (2012). Light Science & Magic: an introduction to photographic lighting (4th ed.). London: Elsevier.

Some initial thoughts on the assignment (1^st August 2012)

I had read the assignment instructions several times before this point so it felt like I had been holding the list of contrasts in my head and thinking about possible subjects for a while. I started by looking at the published list and then listing my own ideas for each category – I soon found that ideas flowed easily in some areas whereas others needed more time to ponder. I also talked to family members and we played word association games with the various pairs.

I then went back through all the photographs I had taken since April to see what I could find there. A number of pairs quickly emerged and they also provided ideas for new images – particularly the canal in Birmingham. I found with a number of the categories I was already thinking in terms of colour and shape.

Once I started taking photos one idea seemed to spark the next, initially I thought  about using a lot of buttons or ribbons for the ‘many’ category, and that sparked me seeing the rug differently – as a possibility for ‘soft’ – I then moved onto its contrast ‘hard,’ and so on.

I also used it as an opportunity to experiment with my light tent and lights for the first time as a number of the initial ideas were relatively small subjects that would easily fit into the tent. I was however, also concerned with trying different styles and subjects and not getting too stuck in the small scale, close up, which I know is a preference.

Once I started the ideas and contrasts seem to jump out from all sorts of places. While I was out driving I spotted the lines of trees that have become the ‘straight’ contrast, they were so striking from the road. I am learning to have my camera with me as much as possible.

As the images and pairs were evolving it also made me wonder about the socially constructed nature of the categories and that their relationships with the visual were actually quite complex. So, for example, how do you see ‘sweet and sour’ they are after all in the sensory domain of taste, and is my sweet and sour the same as other peoples’? So even if I produced a representation of sweet and sour such as images of sugar and lemons it would not necessarily have the same meaning for every viewer. I could see how in future this might stimulate a project in its own right.

Assignment One – contrasts        Dawn Langley      510320

 This assignment required me to consider a basic design principle – that of contrast. We were given a list of possible contrasting pairs such as long/short; thick/thin; hard/soft etc and asked to create eight pairs that somehow expressed the essential differences between these qualities. Here is what emerged:

In this pairing I had the idea for the motorway as a ‘wide’ road first and that then led me to think abut the canal as its counterpoint. Using the tilted shot I tried to exaggerate the width of the M3, in the same way as the pointing of the lock gates seemed to emphasise the narrowness of this lock on the Basingstoke canal.There is no doubt that I was inspired by having recently been by the canals in Birmingham!

These are obviously more domestically based images and as such I wanted to create shots that were close up to the subject matter. I pondered about tidying up the zips and removing the cottons but as they have all been removed from old clothes this detritus seemed to me to be part of their story so I left them in.

I took the shots of the pylons when I was photographing the motorway. They looked to me like giants walking through the woodlands. I thought this contrasted well with the small Lego figure that I combined with the alphabet blocks to try and give a sense of scale. I was also starting to explore the differences between found and ‘staged’ images.

This pair was perhaps more difficult than I thought it might have been because it relies on cultural constructions to be able to make the meanings work. Soft and hard are sensory and generally based on touch so being able to convey them visually is more of a challenge. I am reliant on observers knowing that bricks are hard and the pile of a rug is soft.

I wanted to try an unusual combination for black and white using contrasts not just between black and white but also natural and man made. They are both close up shots in an attempt to magnify the differences.

This is a pairing where I wanted to play with the elements, cheese being a ‘solid’ outcome of processing the liquid milk. I had never photographed dripping liquid before and it took a lot of patience to try and get anything that worked.

This pairing was also a slight play on the constituent elements. The straight planted rows of trees contrasted with the curves of the turned wooden jar.

This final pairing came about as my confidence and ideas were growing. I wanted to play with the notion of circles being continuous and oranges came to mind this then led to thinking about cutting them into slices and taking out odd segments to create gaps.

This final image is my interpretation of two contrasts in one, those of opacity and transparency. Milk in a wine glass set against a dark background. I didn’t want to make the subject too obvious so worked on the framing, positioning and colour of the glass and its contents against its background.