Shutter Speed Experiment

During my shutter speed experiment I used three different speeds: 4", 2.5" and 6".
The longer speeds worked well to capture all of the light and give the clear shape of the triangle and Kurt's name but it let more light into the frame therefore the background is much lighter. Unfortunately, the backgrounds were also blurry because due to the lens being open for longer, it recognised all of my tiny movements. If I were to do this again, I would use a tripod to minimise the movement making the background blurry and find a totally dark space so as to not have any light interference.

Composition Photography Experiment

 

In this photograph, I was experimenting with line composition. From this, I learned that using shadow to lead to a subject works well as a feature but in my photograph, my subject needed to be much further back as the shadow carried on behind him making it seem as though there was more to come in the picture behind him. 

I experimented with upward tilt and eye line in this photograph to make my subject seem more powerful and dominant. With his eyes being above the third line and the tilt, it makes the photograph seem as though he is towering above everyone and is thus, more in power and control. 

 

Downward tilt is the feature I was trying to achieve in this photograph to make the subject seem weaker. Downward tilt is a particularly hard feature for me to achieve as I was too close to his eye line and had to have him looking down to achieve the desired affect. From this experiment I have learned that I must work on this element of photography to be able to get the composition correct. 

Within this photograph, I experimented with the frame shots idea of composition. I decided to make the focal point of the photograph the centre of the diamond within the mesh and put my subject off centre and blurred in the background. I enjoyed playing with the idea of frames and focusing the image on different areas so that the attention is drawn to different features. I learned that it is hard however to get the camera to focus on such a tiny detail as the mesh because even with using manual focus, the camera wanted to focus on the bigger aspect in the picture, i.e. Joe: my subject. 

With this photograph, I decided that I wanted to play with the idea of thirds. The aim of this photograph was to have my subject in the centre of the picture with his eye line on the third line. The use of the rule of thirds is much more difficult than I first anticipated as I have him too far over to the left and his eye line is much further down than it should be. From this exercise, I have realised that the rule of thirds is something that i should work on before my final photography project. 

A long shot is what I was trying to achieve here with also another attempt at the use of line composition. The shadow due to the backlighting leads into the focus of the picture but in the case of this, my subject should have been much more central than as far off to the left. The use of backlight and the raking light coming from the sun works well in this however to produce the texture of the grass. I am proud of my use of backlight but again, I must work on my rule of thirds composition and line composition.

Induction Project

Induction Evaluation

While doing the photography for my front cover, I used manual focus on the cameras. The focus rings and zoom are both fairly easy to use and get into focus however it does take concentration. I feel that my photograph was of good proportion and clarity for a first attempt. The ‘T-stance’ is useful for photography because it helps you to keep your balance and hold the camera more still. This helps for a clearer image. The ‘T-stance’ helped me a lot with my photography as normally I would be unable to keep proper balance and my hands would be shaking a lot making the photo unclear. Portrait and landscape mode is very helpful for taking a photograph in context. With creating a magazine front cover, my photograph needed to be in portrait mode. By taking the photograph this way, it fitted better into the page and looked more professional. If I had taken it landscape, the image would not fit properly into the page and would look very badly prepared. My image was in focus but it took a couple of attempts to get it there. This was because I have never used manual focus or zoom on a camera before but I think that I have done pretty well with it and using manual focus and zoom will not be a problem in the future. Lighting is very difficult to get in to a photograph, especially with never having to consider it before. The lighting style I used was side lighting but I also put my subject in a sort of ‘box-like’ section of the building to get shaded background and the brickwork. I feel that the lighting could have been better and I was stood too close to the subject as the flash effected the lighting choices and I thought it was going to be a problem but in the end, I chose to work with it and it did actually make my photograph look professional. I tried my hardest to comply to the rule of thirds and for my photographs to turn out well composed but my eye line was slightly too low. In order for the picture to be better next time, I will need it to be in better lighting and to move the eye line slightly higher. My subject listened well to how I wanted him to behave and helped me form a professional image. The fact that I already spoke to my subject and the fact we were already friends helped also as it made the whole experience of my first attempt at photography enjoyable.

            On Photoshop, I used a range of tools to make my magazine front cover. I used the transformation tool to resize my image; the fx button to add drop shadows and effects; adding and removing layers; leading and kerning/tracking and finally, the elliptical marquee tool to create a button sell line. Personally, I found resizing the image using the transformation tool quite difficult because I kept removing my finger from the shift key too early and getting a stretched image. Finally, I did manage but it took a few attempts. Using kerning and leading was easy in my opinion and I enjoyed getting the different effects on my text. I think that my texts were well controlled and their placement looks professional. I do however think that I can improve by making my front cover a bit more full because it feels as though it has a lot of empty space. I added effects and drop shadows on a few of my texts and that was to make sure they stood out more on the page. I edited the opacity and length of the drop shadows using the fx tool to add depth to the image. The font I chose to use was a preset Photoshop font and this was due to the feel I wanted my magazine to have. I wanted my magazine to seem edgy therefore I chose a serif font that has lots of straight edges to add to the feel. I chose a green colour scheme to fit in with the image I was using as my subject is wearing a green shirt in the picture. This was to make sure that all of the colours fit together.

            In my opinion, I like the colour scheme of my magazine cover and that it fits all together nicely with the image but I think that it could be improved by adding more into it as it has a lot of blank space.