Presentation; Environment Unit

The Environment




Critical Appraisal 

For this Project I had the idea of using something or the space in which i lived/grew up in as a teenager to use.
I wanted to do or base my concept on agriculture or the man made environments that are a part of agriculture. Because of the time of year there wasn't much activity on the farm where I lived, and so I drove around a few other farms that I knew of to see what I could see, not having a clear idea on what I was going to shoot.

I had an idea of showing what once was or what was, by that I mean show how agriculture has changed and formed the landscape into a productive profitable business but in the early stages of growth i.e. after a field has been ploughed and sub soiled.

Research

There as it turns out are not that many photographers that photograph agriculture or who specialise in that particular field of photography.
After a tutorial I was informed of a guy by the name of John Darwell who has published many books, one of which was called 'Dark Days' the book and his images are more about documentation, documenting the Foot and Mouth disease that took over and brought many farms to a standstill, even closing some for good.

The Burial Site - John Darwell

This image in particular caught my eye, it has different meaning It still shows the man made landscaped shaped by recent events

Contact Sheet

Photo Prints

Pastiche - Jem Southam

I chose to shoot my Pastiche on Jem Southam.

I researched into various locations on where to go to base my pastiche, I initially shot one on my 35mm slr camera, but even though I wait for people to move and took my time, I went at the wrong time of the day for the position of the sun, I got the tide times right which Is an important thing to remember.

The Sun was almost in front of me and so I had lens flare which is unacceptable in what I was trying to achieve, I at the time used my hands as a lens hood which worked, or so I thought, but when it came to the development and printing stage it was rather evident that it hadn't.

Once my camera arrive, I had recently purchased my own Bronica. I got up early and drove down to the Seven Sisters country park, I had been checking over and over, weather and tide times so that I would get caught out un expectedly.

The weather reports where a little out, the lighting was ok for what i wanted to achieve, but the wind was far greater than i was led to believe.

In turn this proved a challenge in itself, holding the camera still even on a fast shutter speed but my tripod isn't as good as it could have been and promptly broke.

Evaluation

Overall My project is a success in that I have achieved the desired result in final images but as for the quality of the images I personally think that it lacks quality somewhat, having said that I am happy with my pastiche as I waited for the sun light to shine on the cliffs emphasising the colours of them and the effort I put into getting to the location and the fact that I came quite close to drowning at one point, but I find that thats what its about putting your self in sometimes dangerous positions to achieve your desired goal, but making sure you read all the necessary information and taking precautions before hand. 

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Urban Space




Critical Appraisal

I wanted to base my concept on inner city spaces, places where people walk through every day and possibly think nothing of their surroundings 

various walk ways that people use within their journey from place to place.
I went out a few times on my bike searching for various locations and once I had some in mind packed up my camera equipment and set off.

Research

Research led me to one of my photogrpahy books again, the Photobook cropped up and found this artist Ed Ruscha


It drew my attention because of all the lines going on, its not the same message behind it that I want my images to show but has or contains some similarities such as its a space that we use regularly with out actually thinking any more about it.

Image by Eva Besnyo c.1931


This image stood out mainly because it was sparsely populated, just a few people walking and one vehicle.

The image has a strong visual pathway guiding you through the image from bottom right to top left.

Contact Sheet

The images are on the right hand side for this project.

Photo Prints

Pastiche - Brassai Paris at night


This was taken in Maidstone, Bank Street I had to wait aorund for the street to be almost empty an free of people, Martin and I were shooting further up into the town and we had a few people ask if we were filming and wanting to be on tv, whilst this was funny, it made getting the right exposure all the more difficult as we only had small windows where there were no people in the shot.

Evaluation

I really enjoyed being out on my bike and making images, combining my two passions in life. 
I found the Lines, horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines quite interesting and tried to show this in my images.


Day to day we see many many things but its not until we look closely at an area or space that what we see is made up from various shapes.


The pastiche was a little harder to achieve even my final image isn't quite up to the standard of what I should be achieving.
I tried a few shots at 4 seconds and some at eight, according to my lightmeter reading. I did do a multiple exposure on one shot to get a higher exposure time I shot one at 8 seconds and another shot on the same frame at 4 seconds giving a total of 12 seconds this came out correctly exposed but I couldn't keep the camera still whilst cocking the shutter again and so had camera shake!