Landscape
London's environment
In my weekends I take series of photographs around London to give me an idea for the theme 'My London'. I just used a fast shutter speed for them because i do not want my pictures to be blurred. Furthermore, I took these shots because when I'm in the centre of London I feel like I'm an explorer looking around different parts of the capital rather than hanging out in the local area.
formal elements
texture
D.O.F
Pattern
Perspective
Contrast
Tone
Colour
Negative Space
Balance
scale
The wood, cemetery and the school allotment
My next task was to go to the local wood and graveyard to take photos, where I have to find something interesting. My classmates and I went around the area to find subjects that represent the formal elements such as texture, colours etc. Also, we had more time to go to the school allotment on the way back from the wood and the whole class had to take more pictures linking with the elements again.
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Nadav Kander
Nadav Kander is a photographer who was born in Tel Aviv but now lives in London. He is best known for his abandoned environment photographs called "Half-life". I think that gave it that title because when he went to his destination a-lot of people seems helpless and they felt that were dead. Kander was inspired by the situation in Tel Aviv: "Home to more than 40.000 peoples,the apartments, schools and hospitals that were hastily left following the controversial evacuation are stark reminders of past lives, leaving a disturbing sense of quite. An uneasiness that I had never previously experienced". Also, Nadav Kander wanted to represent how much he feels sorry for the environments being devastate. His images have low saturation to create a lifeless emotion plus tries display in large of the scene. Furthermore, he uses a mix of perspective, balance and colour formal elements.
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my response to Nadav Kander
My classmates and I went to the school abandoned swimming pool, which was repulsive because every single corner of it was rotten, dirty and wet. I took these photos because when I was in primary school everyday I use to walk through a local park in Tottenham and would see another outside swimming pool, which is also abandoned.
David HockneyDavid Hockney is a English Artist born in Bradford and he studied at the Royal College of Art in London. Hockney didn't really have a particular topics that he liked doing in art because he was always interested in any form of it. In his own word he said "I'm interested in all kinds of pictures, however they are made, with cameras, with paint brushes, with computers, with anything". In the early 80s he started produce his most popular photography work that, "joiners". Hockney chooses a landscape and takes 10-20 photographs of it. from different viewpoints. He created these image by using a photographic technique photomontage and I thought it was pretty clever because it reminds me of the Cubism movement. However, David Hockney didn't initially do this on purpose, it was by accident. However, later joiners did included a nod to Cubism. For example a photomontage of a desk included an open book about the work of Picasso.
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My response to David Hockney
Instead of using collage to create the photomontage, I used photoshop. For each of these images that i've made I took 10-30 shots, standing in the same position at all times. Furthermore, I had to adjust each of the shots that I did so it could fit into an A4 paper. Also, placing the photograph can be a bit tricky aswell because we can't just place the pictures anywhere we want and every part of the landscape has to be in a same position. I did these David Hockney landscape style because I feel like that I'm doing art GCSE again making collages.
Light painting
Edits
Tokihiro Sato
Tokihiro Sato is a japanese photographer born in a city called Sakata and he had graduated M.A. in Art Gakushuin University in Tokyo 1983. Sato is best known for landscape picture with lights in it and the series of his work is named "Breathing shadows" . The Photographer managed to do it by using the light painting technique Furthermore, Tokihiro wanted to represent what he tends to see in the night of japans landscapes. Also, he wanted the viewer to have a strong sense of space and depth.
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My response to Tokihiro Sato
This photographic technique involves a person using a light source in front of the camera to move around with it while the camera is shooting with a long exposure. First, I had get to myself a tripod for my DSLR to avoid getting blur during the process of light painting and adjust the aperture to f16 from to prevent it from being overexposed. I was at home at night trying out light painting with a simple LED flashlight and edited them into black and white with photoshop. I took these shots because when I surf the internet I always have my inspirational to try out shooting stuff in long exposure and i thought it looks amazing. I will continue to respond to the images of Tokhiro in my next set of observations.
These photographs of the light paintings are just too simple to make and its so repetitive to look at in general. It would be better if I make something more interesting rather than just plain lines. I could try out shooting snow in a long exposure at night if the weather forecast said it would snow.
Furthermore, I will experiment with different shapes with the light and shoot more movements in the streets of London.
Furthermore, I will experiment with different shapes with the light and shoot more movements in the streets of London.
Development of my ideas
My next move was to create more long exposure shots. I wanted to light paint objects that we would see indoors such as the electric guitar and a television to try something more recognisable instead of the same line hitting the line. Also, I went to central London at night to look for more locations and found an amusement park in Hyde Park. Some of the pictures that I've taken in the park are blurred because using the tripod was prohibited and I had to keep my hand steady for it. Sato had a large format camera that holds the exposure for one to three hours, but I had my DSLR shutter speed on bulb or 1-30 sec to give time for doing the light painting.
Michael BosankoMichael Bosanko is a welsh artist that had 10 years of experience in Photography and he was born in Cardiff.
Bosanko is famous for his light painting landscape photographs much like Tokihiro Sato. Unlike the japanese photographer Bosanko was inspired by another photographer named William Eggleston. He said "The man was absolute genius. He can transform ordinary to mundane locations and topics into complete works of wonders". Bosanko had to shoot these images in a long exposure in 10 seconds and he has to do the painting quick when he's in the urban environment. I researched this artist because he gave me the inspiration of creating different shapes of light painting and I intentionally used the idea for my development as you can see the pictures above. The photograph on the right that Bosanko took shows a glowing orb underneath a building in the outdoors. I think its underneath a car park or in a petrol station because of the roof. Also, the colours of the orb are green, blue and orange. The lines are very detailed too. The lines and the colours, as well as the natural environment are all in-focus. The process of the orb painting was quite challenging because you need a specific light source to able to make it, therefore the artist is showing a lot of technical skills. The important part of the photo is that the roof captures the light of the orb and it also emphasises the buildings in the background. Without the roof it would be difficult to have the building in such good focus, it would completely change the composition. |
best edits
These photograph were my favourite ones through my ideas and I love the orb painting because it was one of the biggest challenge to make it. It is not as easy as you think because it takes time to practice spinning the LED light and after all the error's that I suffered I had to keep going until I got it just right.
Three Strands
During the past few weeks I have completed many different experiments with capturing light. These could be divided into three strands.
1. Light trails: Photographing traffic or fairgrounds at night.
2. Light paintings, the orb experiments etc.
3. Blur and movement in well lit places (see the tube train image above).
I am now going to develop my preferred strand, light paintings, particularly the orb idea. I feel that the light painting has more opportunity for development. Whereas the others might become too repetitive.
1. Light trails: Photographing traffic or fairgrounds at night.
2. Light paintings, the orb experiments etc.
3. Blur and movement in well lit places (see the tube train image above).
I am now going to develop my preferred strand, light paintings, particularly the orb idea. I feel that the light painting has more opportunity for development. Whereas the others might become too repetitive.
the light painting set
The starter set
Before I got started doing the orb painting process I wanted to develop more of my ideas for the light painting technique. To begin I tried to light some objects to give myself a little brief and I even tried it with a model. In conclusion, the photographs with my classmate worked quite well because I managed to drawing around him successfully whereas the object pictures are a bit of a mess because they were too small.
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The Orb: set 1
As you can see the LEDs light are in coloured in the photographs on the right. I created this effect by putting a coloured gel over the L.E.D and I got this idea from a video below. I did these shots in the studio for some more experience. Although, I could of think of more locations where i'm going to create the light paintings.
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Improvement suggestions:
1) getting the whole orb in the photographs 2) finding different locations such as the outside rather than the inside. |
The orb set 2
I stayed outside until it is dark enough to do the light painting process so I could achieve a clear light painting image and I was quite surprised that I managed to get a decent results in the end. Although, i was annoyed with some of the photographs. The orb painting in the massive snow environment was a good idea because I've seen images of photographer doing the light painting technique with the orb in the snow which gave me the an idea, but the landscape itself was blurred because I should have used a tripod. However, I liked the large, open space and I would like to do more of this in my next step. As it signifies the subject light painting.
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The orb set 3Finally, I did some more around central London. I quite impressed with the ones that I did around the park because You can see the orb clear whereas the pictures of the streets you can see it, but not as clear and bright as the dark areas photographs. Although, there was too many light source and these break up my orb
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