P&P-Assignment Two; People and activity

Assignment Two; People and activity

Object of assignment two

This assignment is to plan and execute a set of images of people in some sort of meaningful activity and produce approximately 10 final selected images, which I can choose between depicting the same person (or small group) at different kinds of activity, or different people at the same single activity or event, I chose to do the latter.

I had to concentrate especially on two aspects; telling moments and ‘explaining’ the activity.

At first I thought about doing a wedding, but as I had done that in my exercises I decided against it. I wanted to try and photograph an outdoor activity, so to give me more light and more actual active things to photograph, rather than people sitting down doing an activity, as it may be to stagnant.

Thinking about outdoor activities at this time of year, there was really only one choice, ice skating. I also chose to shoot on a weekend at half term, so there would be a variety of people and I stayed there for about 4 hours, as the ice rink had change around times, so everyone would get a go, which was perfect for me as it created a lot of diversity for the shoot.

I used one lens for the assignment; - EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, so to give me the range I needed, to be able to capture people in different situations. I did try my wide angle lens, but felt the images where distorted and found it difficult to capture the ‘telling moments’.

I chose to shoot at the ice rink at the Natural History Museum, mainly because it was a prime location for a lot of different people choosing to skate there, there is a ice rink at Canary Warf and I went there but the light was not really able to reach the rink due to the tall buildings, also as the rink is in the business district there were very few family’s or children there. The day was a cloudy one, and there were a lot of trees surrounding the rink, so I managed to get some dappled light and some strong light at times.

 

People and activity

On researching the photographers my tutor suggested, looking throughout them all I decided to concentrate on two of them, these people both represent in their own right ‘People unaware’ and ‘People and activity’.

Rena Effendi; Rena is from Azerbaijan, her work to me represents people unaware; she has taken images by following the oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey, with regards to the environmental effect and people surrounding it. On looking at her work on her website, there are some pretty powerful images on there and interesting ones regarding this section of the module. Notably her images in her portfolio of “Last dance of Tarlabasi” where in some of the images people are looking at her and in others they are not, each images tells a story of the poverty which engulfs people, but she captures it in all its glory with strong vivid colours and people which I think links to this part of the module.

Paul Floyd Blake; Paul was the winner of the National Portrait Gallery’s 2009 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. Looking through his work, a few of his images are people portraits where they are looking at him, however, I was more interested in looking at his ‘Commonwealth Games’ images, with regards to people doing an activity, which in turn relates completely to this assignment, for which I was inspired by his work and tried to emulate it in one of my photographs fro this assignment, seemingly the panning images, like this one;-

“Commonwealth games; Velodrome-© Paul Floyd Blake 2002- www.floydphotography.co.uk”

I really love the movement in this image, the way there are there, but not and the black and white gives it a certain edge.

 Books used for this assignment;

• The Elements Of Photography; By Angela Faris Belt; (I focused mainly on one photographer in this book;- Adam Jahiel, he did a series of photographs called “The Last Cowboy” which produced beautifully powerful images of working on a ranch in the USA and he works with black and white because “it allows me to boil elements down to their very essence-shape, lines and light” (Adam Jahiel-The Elements Of Photography; By Angela Faris Belt) 
• Light Science & Magic, An Introduction to Photographic Lighting; By Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua; (This book always helps me understand lighting, I haven’t read it all yet, however, I used sections from it to help me with this assignment.)

Websites used for this assignment;

http://www.floydphotography.co.uk/ - (To research Paul and examine his photography)
http://www.refendi.com/ - (To research Rena and examine her photography)
http://www.visuramagazine.com/pipe-dreams-rena-effendi - (To research Rena and examine her photography)
http://photos.uk.msn.com/slideshow/photos/your-body-is-my-canvas/2xqugab4#10 – (To examine a photographer I found which I will mention on my learning log)

Observing; 1/100 seconds at f/7.1

Whilst on the balcony, I tried to capture the essence of the event, I was taking images of just the skaters, but then a father and child stood next to me and he propped her up to get a better view, I took a few photos of the skaters first, so to not arouse suspicion and then managed to get one of the little girl pointing and telling her father “look”, I focused on them for this image as I wanted them to be the main focus.

Round and around….; 1/50 seconds at f/11.0

Still on the balcony, I noticed these girls going round and holding on to each other and having a laugh together, it looked like fun, so I decided to capture that feeling with just the three girls; I focused on them and panned to get the shot.

Nearly!; 1/100 seconds at f/8.0

I went downstairs to get some close up shots, this girl was wobbling the whole time about to fall over, I just love the expression on her face of happy panic, that moment where you may or may not fall over.

Couples; 1/100 seconds at f/6.3

This was a sweet couple, they held hands the whole time and were always laughing and joking, I was lucky that the light came out for this one where she was smiling and the light was dappled, I decided to mainly concentrate on her as you could never really see the man’s face properly , due to his jacket.

Speeding; 1/5 seconds at f/22.0

Paul Floyd Blake inspired this image, I wanted to get a feel of speed in to this series of images, so I set a high aperture and slow shutter speed, then whilst taking multiple photographs I zoomed in and set the focus to the middle of the frame.

Professional; 1/100 seconds at f/7.1

This girl came on the ice in the third hour and had clearly been doing it for years, she had her own skates and helmet and whizzed around the rink with no trouble at all, I love the concentration in her face, she never changed or faltered in anyway, I had to pan quickly for this image as she was very fast.

 

Whoops!; 1/100 seconds at f/7.10

This girl kept falling over, but she gave it a really good try, I managed to catch her just at the right moment, when she was in the stance of, just fell forward but not wanting to go down all the way.

Family; 1/100 seconds at f/7.1

I just love the expression on their faces, you know he is telling the little girl something, possibly to look at her mother and with her hand slightly reaching towards his, needing the security, I think this makes for a lovely image.

Say cheese!; 1/100 seconds at f/8.0

I was surprised to see so many people being able to skate and take photos at the same time, (probably because I can not skate!) I took a lot of images like this but I think this is the best one, she is happy but forcing the smile to the maximum, I think this is a great image with the ‘penguin helper’ helping her along.

Blades; 1/100 seconds at f/9.0

I wanted to get that ‘moment’ that told the whole story and I think this is it, simple yet effective, I had do panning and take a lot of these images before I got the right one, I also wanted one that had different ice skates to the rest, so it would stand out more.

 

 

My tutor suggested that I include some contact sheets, now if I included all of the contact sheets on this assignment, it would be full of quite a lot a images that would not be up to par, so instead I have included the images that I liked but did not make the final cut.

 

I chose not to put these in as they lacked a certain something, however, I did want to include the backward panning image, but as I already had my zoom shot for the assignment, it was a choice between the two, I chose the other image as I felt it was stronger.