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.
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.
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