Sunday, 29 September 2013

Graffiti Photography

I went back to banksy's tunnel to do some artwork with a couple of friends and thought it be best just to bring my camera along to get a couple of photos. Here are a few I took of my friend while we painting a piece. 









Saturday, 28 September 2013

Brook Reynolds

Brook reynolds is one of my favourite photographers and also videographers. Born and working in the US the majority of his photos are portraits, but the thing that attracts me most to his style of photography is the way he uses light and the way a story is told in each one of his photos. 

For example looking at the photo to the write the first thing that we are drawn to is the perfect path of smoke that trails up the character lieing on the roof. We can tell the photo was take with a remote flash which points directly towards the characters head when looking at the shape of the light ring around his head. 

The characters whole attire, body language and the environment we are in connotes a carefree life still of comfort and pleasure. 













One of my favourite photos taken by Brook Reynolds is the one below of train tunnel entrance with a group of people silhouetted by the light from the outside. The shot is a low angle photo connoting power from the individuals and makes us as an audience feel vulnerable. However the thing I most like about this photo is the mystery and innocence depicted. The shot looks more like a painting or piece of concept art that something that actually has been captured through a lense. The way these three teenagers sit so carefree in an extremely dangerous environment sums up the theory and idea of "youth". 

Then the way the light flares naturally from the trees into the lense and lights up the really the stone texture of the wall just fits perfectly with in the composition. Everything in the image works from the slightly off centred characters to the way that the majority of the mis en scene is actually blacked out beyond recognition inspires me most about photography.




Every photo is obviously staged but they are overflowing with raw emotion and I found that the longer I spent looking at each photograph the more I began to appreciate the time and effort put into each scene.

http://blog.brooksreynolds.com

http://brooksreynolds.com/photo/

Tuesday, 24 September 2013

Fruit Photography

When we first started our photography weeks we were placed in groups and had to come up with inventive ways of photographing an egg. My group created a sort of halo effect and shot the egg on a piece of cloth with the light source coming from underneath to illuminate it. We were experimenting with light and how it bounces off the objects. Later on I took this a lot further and cut up some fruit while shining a light on them to see the shadows and highlights. There was no particularly deep reasoning behind this except the fact that the images showed a big range from light to dark. It also made the fruit look alot nicer. 












Sunday, 22 September 2013

Steel Wool Exposure

On the first early days of starting photography, we were experimenting with the shutter speed on our cameras. This is basically changing the time in which the shutter allows light into the sensor. The longer the speed the more light let into the camera. This means quite a few things. Firstly if you dont change any of the other settings it means the overall image is brighter. However there are a few other effects this has on the picture. If you reduce the ISO to as low as possible (100) and then improve the aperature to a high number such as F22 it allows you to take photos with a shutter open for multiple seconds. The pictures tend to come out a lot clearer and in focus in comparison to other shots, so these are perfect for landscape photography.

Another good thing this allows, is capturing light trails.  The photos below are myself and friends expecting with capturing the light trails of burning sparks. The pictures are created using sparks of steel wool being swung around on the end of wire, while being in a metal container (whisk), which would project the sparks in multiple directions. I can then set the camera on a long exposure and capture the trails and shapes it creates when coming in contact with different surfaces. 

Below are a few photos from several locations I did this in. The photos had to be dark areas or at night to make sure you could see the sparks. 





















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Abandoned Warehouse Thame steel

For the Brief of "Future Memories" in our photography project, I thought a good idea would be to look at some abandoned places. Places full of memories and have been left in a past time. Ive visited a few abandoned places before in the past but wanted to go somewhere new. After some research I came across Thamesteel, a recently abandoned steel making factory. A few of us went down there to look at it and these are some of the photos I captured while there. 

Im hoping to go back and explore further seen as there is a lot of the place I am yet to see. Especially as I spent the majority of this trip looking around instead of taking photographs. Its a great location, full of everyday objects that the workers would use left in there respective places. Then as time has gone by dust and dirt has settled on top. 

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