Exercise 17 - The Users Viewpoint

What: The main brief of this exercise was choose two locations or spaces which are designed for a particular activity and to capture an image that attempts to capture the users point of view, taking into account height, orientation of the image and the lens focal length. 
Where: At the museum and at work. 
When: Two differing points in the day; at the museum it was mid morning and at work it was in the early evening. 
How: After making a couple of notes and examining a few locations I decided upon the two locations as they are vast spaces who are solely dedicated to movement of people from one location to another and they are almost ignored by the users on a daily basis. 

Museum Stairs Attending the museum I had to move in a non linear fashion into the buildings due to my limited mobility, therefore I get a unique point of view of the establishment as I am mainly routed through less used locations.

I wanted to capture these stairs specifically as they have been designed at an angle which you cannot see when you are using the stairs directly, it is only when you are about to descend the stairs that you notice the odd angle that the stairs have been built into.

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Nikon D80, Aperture Mode Manual, focal length 29mm (35mm equivalent 43mm), aperture f9.5, speed 0.7 second, ISO 100, Fluorescent  white balance, Matrix  metering, Hand held camera, 18-70mm lens,

I chose this location and angle as it is at this point of time as I approach the stairs that the oblique angle of the stairs first defines itself to my eyes. I did not use a wide angle lens as this pulled in too much of the background and when orientated into portrait the wide angle lens still distorted the final image. I wanted the aperture to be wide enough to show that there was something at the bottom of the stairs but at the same time I did not want to blow out the whites of the tiles nor did I want to lose the grain of the wooden steps.

Link Bridge

I wanted to capture this space as it is a special space solely built to allow movement between buildings while still being a secure break between buildings to prevent fire moving between the buildings. Its design as a security feature as well as a transit space is ignored by most users.

I wanted to capture the amount of space dedicated to the “room” and I wanted to capture it in the dark as the sides are made of tough glass and during the day the amount of light coming into it can be blinding. At night however the space becomes a bright route between two dark spaces.

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Nikon D80, Exposure mode manual, focal length 11mm (35mm equivalent 16mm), aperture f9.5, speed 1/10 second, ISO 640, Fluorescent  white balance, Spot  metering, Hand Held camera, 11-16mm lens,

I really wanted to use the wide angle lens to capture not only the width of the bridge but the length. The bridge space spans off into the distance and the exit doors can be faintly made out in the glare of the lights as they repeat off into the distance. I also wanted to capture the Fibonacci like repetition of the light reflections on the floor.

 I am very happy with the final choice treatments of the spaces, I had a few attempts at spaces which in my mind made good choices and examples but when I visited the areas I could not capture the final image treatment that I wanted. I also had a few problems with low light in a few areas as I could not always get to the locations when the natural light was best.