Exercise 19 - People as an Accent

What: The main brief of this exercise was to photograph a person or persons who were surrounded by the environment making them an accent to the image

Where: Greyfriers Kirk Graveyard, Outdoors

When: Afternoon on a mild overcast day.

How: I walked around the graveyard watching people until I found a suitable location and waited until I saw someone walking in the distance.

I chose the graveyard for its personal connection to me as my father took me there often as a child and he told me the story of "Greyfriers Bobbie" the dog who mourned its owner and stayed at the grave within the graveyard for years until it itself passed away and is buried in the graveyard.. The graveyard is one of Edinburgh more well known historic locations and was used by photographic pioneers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson as a background for their own portraits of family and friends. It can be clearly seen in the image “Martyrs Tomb”


I used my own personal knowledge of the graveyard to head over to the back of the graveyard which is hardly ever visited and is a much quieter and sadder place than right beside the Kirk gate which is full of noise and bustle.


I set up a camera and waited as I knew that at some point someone would eventually walk along the path at the bottom of the graveyard and would pass completely through the frame. I chose to frame the path and the bottom graveyard wall for background and ensured that the top of the frame contained the rooftops of the city.

I took a number of shots as people passed through unaware that I was present, I chose this particular shot as the person only had a spot of colour on them, their dark clothes almost matching into the stone of the old city graveyard.

DSC_0018

Nikon D80, Aperture Mode Manual, focal length 55mm (35mm equivalent 82mm), aperture f9.5, speed 1/350 second, ISO 3200, Auto white balance, Spot metering, Tripod Mounted camera, 18-70mm lens,

I really like the final affect as the person is almost not noticeable in the image until the eye comes across the red colour, at that point the person is easily spotted and the eye is drawn to them. I liked the fact that the small person is overshadowed by all the buildings making them small and insignificant in the universe of the city and even within the confines of the graveyard.

In this exercise I really got what I wanted which was to only have a small figure accenting the larger space around them, so much so that it almost is swallowing them up.