Monday 24 March 2014

Response to Tutors Comments for Assignment 4


Thank you for your feedback. I have to say that I was very disappointed with your comments.

After deciding that the original set of images did not gel, I went back to my notepad and looked over the previous notes I had made on similar ideas for this Assignment.

On reviewing the set of notes and ideas for Haddington, I then journeyed through the town to each of the locations that I had previously noted, discarding some as although I felt they fitted the brief, they did not make a cohesive grouping. The fact that I was lucky enough to gather over 20 suitable images during that day did not mean that I wandered around with no preconceived plan, the notes that I had made pointed me directly to the locations where I wanted to be. Due to my mobility issues, the actual journey was planned with almost military precision. I have to make sure that when I go out on a shoot, I do not overdo things and cause myself pain. My route is planned and timed so that if I am late then someone knows to come looking for me. As I was on my own for this shoot, I had to limit the equipment to that which I could feasibly carry and in this case, a tripod was too heavy.

For Image 1 I deliberately chose f22 as I was using a 11-16mm lens. Previous experience with the lens had already prepared me for shooting at f22 as I knew the camera speed could go as low as 1/20th of a second before I would introduce hand held camera shake. I used f22 as I wanted to keep everything in sharp focus including the reflection in the river. Had I used f/8 I would have lost definition and colour in the reflection.
Had there been extra notes in the assignment asking for a cover image I would have adjusted the setup and shot the image with extra space within the frame, however nothing was detailed in the brief regarding a cover image so that was not considered. Before undertaking this assignment, I perused other students’ assignment submissions to ensure I was not copying an idea of misinterpreting the brief. I was not aware of cover images or conclusion images in all the works I saw.

Image 2.  I used my knowledge of the camera and the lens for this image. Because the lens has built in shake reduction I could choose the f stop that I wanted so that I could get all of the subjects in sharp focus. Allowing the lens to assist meant that I did not have to select exposure mode and could instead remain on aperture mode. This enabled me to capture what I wanted rather than allowing the exposure to control the speed.

Image 3 I wanted to capture the quietness of the moment and the fact that the elderly gentlemen was sitting on the bench, keeping himself to himself. He was so engrossed in his reading of the newspaper that he did not interact with passers-by; which included the family going to feed the birds, the cyclist and the dog.

Image 4. I appreciate that this image is relatively common, however I felt it captured the common nature of the activity, which is carried out regularly by many different folk in the area, showing ‘people in action’. The timing of the shot was dictated by the starting time of the game.

Image 5 shows that the river path is no longer used as the main transportation path into the town and has now become a byway used by dog walkers and people undertaking exercise. It has gone from being a part of the town’s business to being part of the town’s leisure.

Image 6. This picture was not specifically planned. Although I had intended to take an unobtrusive, street photography style image (people unawares), I had not known of the charity event taking place, nor that there would be live cartoon characters would be in the town square. As such, I took the image as it arose, spontaneously. I took a couple of images in quick succession and the image chosen, was, in my opinion, the best one. 

DSC_0072. I chose not to include this image in the final six because I felt that conveyed emptiness and a lack of use which is not what I feel is happening in the area. I felt that the peace and quietness of the elderly gentleman in image 3 showed relaxed usage rather than abandonment.




No comments:

Post a Comment