Exercise 3.6 Mixing Genres

The image above was inspired by my love of travelling by bike and the joy of exploring new places on two wheels. If the bikes don’t go on holiday with us we will usual hire them. The view from a bike is very different from travelling by car, giving you a different perspective on the area, whilst allow you to travel faster than walking.

The image blends landscape (pictures of places, in this case the back of my house), with still life (the bike/cycling gear/suitcase), and I printed photographs to represent a narrative of some of the places where we have cycled. The influence of Duane Michaels (Oxford School of Photography, 2011) can be seen in the use of my hand written text on the border of the image, in this instance strengthening the personal connection with the subject.

This was a challenging exercise to find three genres that had a connection. Though I can see the appeal of this if the subjects work together. One recent photo taken in the Lake District, where a dog was in the corner of a landscape photo, transformed it into a comical and more powerful image.

In creating this image the printed photos could have been larger. Viewed from further away the image was confusing and too busy. The closer images were more successful, but lost the wider view of the back of the house. Converting the image to black and white also removed distractions from strong contrasting colours, particularly the red brick work. I do like the space at the right hand side of the house with the sense of a new journey starting. The bikes also mirror the position of the bikes on the beach in the only photo displayed in full.

Though this exercise could have been completed using Photoshop (I have viewed several other posts that have done this very successfully for this exercise), I wanted to plan and mix the genres with just one shot.

The challenges in this exercise, and in particular the problems faced have made me more aware of the different genres in photography and gave me a new insight into planning and composing an image.

Bibliography

Oxford School of Photography. (2011). Duane Michaels Sequences [Online]. Available: https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/duane-michals-sequences/ [Accessed 8 October 2019].

Creating an action sequence composite in Photoshop

For the work on exercise 3.3 Sequence, I wanted to create a composite of the images of two BMX riders. two BMX riders from Mobile Bike Events (2017) performing in the Fun Zone at the recent UCI Road World Championships held in Harrogate. The sequence shows one rider jumping over a second stationary rider. The image was produced after trying out a number of methods. The technique still needs practice and the notes below are for my own benefit.

Photoshop offers different ways of achieving the same results and creating an action series sequence in Photoshop is no exception. What all the methods have in common is the use of masks. The following steps are taken from reading and watching range of online sources, which varied in quality. The sources I found useful are listed at the bibliography for this post.

Import and Align the images

Select the sequence of images in Lightroom,
Right click and select ‘Edit in’ and ‘Open As Layers’ in Photoshop
Select all the layers, then select Edit/Auto-Align Layers
Crop the layers if required

These steps could also be done by selecting File/Scripts/Load Layers into Stack and tick Attempt to Auto Align Source Images

Layer Masks method 1 (Quick and Easy for straightforward images) (Nichols, 2017)

Add a layer mask on the first image
Use black as the foreground colour
Set brush hardness to 50%
Select Layer/merge down
repeat the process for each layer

Layer Masks method 2 (for more complex images)(@adorama, 2013)

Draw around the moving object using the lasso tool
Add layer mask, The object will be selected with the background removed.
Fine tune the mask using the brush to paint in or out as required
Repeat for each layer

Bibliography

Hoey, G, 2013. Shoot an Action Sequence and Combine It In Photoshop [Online] Available: https://www.adorama.com/alc/0014281/article/Shoot-an-Action-Sequence-and-Combine-It-In-Photoshop Accessed 20 Oct 2019

Mobile Bike Events, 2017. Mobile Bike Events | UK’s Leading BMX Stunt Team [Online]. Available: [Accessed 14 Oct 2019].

Nichols, B 2017. Tutorial action photo sequence in Adobe Photoshop – photoshop cc tutorial – YouTube [Online]. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3iTuLllvpE Accessed 20 Oct 2019

Last edited 20 Oct 2019

Exercise 3.2 Series

My choice for a specific subject was flowers. To achieve a unified visual strategy, these are all cropped to a square and use an aperture of F/4 to create a blurred background. These images were shot on the same day for consistent lighting. In Photoshop a fibres filter was applied at 50% opacity to bring consistency to the background. The images are all closeups rather than a wide view of the garden. To take this a stage further, the series could have featured different varieties of one type of flower. The presentation in a grid (see learning log post, Creating Image Grids in Photoshop, for the process) is influenced by the work of Michael Wolf’s My Favourite Things discussed below.

In preparation for this series I looked at Gerhard richter’s Atlas. In this collection, Richter assembled collections of images, sketches, and newspaper cuttings that are related on to loose sheets of paper. Searle (2003), describes Richter’s collection as images that shock, chill and amuse as they range from family images to cities to concentration camps. The collections of images provide an insight into Richter’s thinking and inspiration for his art. There are many similarities to a composer (such as Beethoven) keeping sketch books where themes are explored, elaborated, and revisited as part of the creative process.

Another collection of work that uses a series is Michael Wolf’s My Favourite Things. Here the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, as collections of seeming mundane objects such as mops or string, provide a photographic documentary of the streets of Hong Kong. The uniformity of the grid and similarities of layout support a cohesive visual approach.

Bibliography

How To Make A Grid Collage In Photoshop (n.d.). Available: https://effectphoto.blogspot.com/2015/10/how-to-make-grid-collage-in-photoshop.html. Last accessed 6 October 2019.

Richter, G. (n.d.). Atlas. Available: http://www.gerhard-richter.com/art/atlas. Last accessed 6 October 2019.

Searle, A. (2003). Slow Developer. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/dec/09/photography. Last accessed 7 October 2019.

Wolf, M. (n.d.). My Favourite Things – Groups. Available: http://photomichaelwolf.com/#my-favourite-thing-groups-2/1. Last accessed 6 October 2019.

Last updated 7 October 2019

Exercise 2.12 A day in the life

Here is my day of selfies, taken on a weekend. All taken with an iPhone and many made good use of the timer and whatever stand I could find. One of the purposes of the exercises was to discover if I use photography to tell the truth or to lie. Naturally, people (myself included) usually want to present a good image of themself.

The images are all shots of part of my day, but I did pick and choose, and redid the photo if I didn’t like it. It is also an edited snapshot of a day presented for public consumption. They do reflect my preference for photos of people to show them doing something rather than an obviously posed shot.

Project 4 Three Techniques

2.10 Dodging and burning

One of the most used techniques to lighten (dodging) or darken (burning) parts of an image. It can be used to draw attention to or away from parts of an image. In the following example the face is lightened and the background foliage darkened. Having experimented with a couple of images, the challenge was to make a subtle change.

2.11 Split contrast

This exercise was more challenging and felt that the guidance had been written by someone who was an experienced Photoshop user, but didn’t fully consider people who are new to the programme. I felt like I was following the instructions without fully understanding the process. Photoshop is a powerful programme and using layers and masks allows you to edit whilst retaining the original image, though time and practice will be needed to master the techniques

Flower Photograhy

I attended an evening course in Flower Photography run by John Arnison. The evening was an interesting mix of looking at the work of other photographers, practical work, and processing using Lightroom and/or Photoshop. Due to another engagement I couldn’t stay for all the course, but thoroughly enjoyed the session and came away feeling quite inspired.

Photographers

We looked at several photographers, but the following were my favourites.

Anna Atkins (1799-1871)produced the first book of including photographic images. She used the cyanotype photographic process where the subject is placed onto the paper, which has been treated with ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. After 10 to 40 minutes in the sunlight the paper is washed in water. The mage appears as white on a cyan coloured background.

Karl Blossfeldt (1864-1932) is a familiar name from exercise 2.1 https://karenfip.home.blog/2019/04/08/exercise-2-1/ and I felt that I had more insight into his work from my previous research

I was intrigued by the beautiful images of Dain Tasker (1872-1964) created using an X-ray machine. Something I won’t have access too! It could however be interesting to take several images of different parts of a flower and then reassemble in Photoshop, probably a project for a rainy day.

Tessa Traeger (1938) creates stunning still life images, often based around food. They can be playful and draw you in as you realise all is not what it seems. The imagery on this one suggests rockets taking off.

Practical Work

The importance of a suitable background was emphasised. We were shown an elegant and inexpensive solution with a translucent plastic sheet bought from an art shop. These are available in different colours. We started with the white sheet attached to the window with masking tape, which produced a beautiful back lit effect

We also looked at the effects of different coloured card used as a reflector to bring out particular colours in the flower (e.g. red). There was a lot of experimentation showing the effects of different shutter speeds and the effect on the colours.

To achieve a completely different look, we looked at using lighting and also considered the direction of the light. Though this is perhaps more conventional, I preferred the softer look of the backlit flower.

We also considered how you present the flowers and accessories such as jugs or bottles

Unfortunately, I had to leave half way through the workshop, but left feeling inspired to try new ideas and went shopping the next day for translucent backgrounds in white, orange and blue. I can’t wait to find time to put these into use. What I particularly enjoyed about the course was the emphasis on how easy it is to create stunning pictures without spending a lot of money on equipment.