Saturday, 7 April 2012

Assignment 2 - Tutor Report

The idea behind this assignment is to incorporate the insights learned so far on the course into a set of photographs directed towards one type of subject. 10 - 15 photographs are required, all of a similar subject, which between them show the following effects:
  • single point dominating the composition
  • two points
  • several points of vertical and horozontal lines
  • diagonals
  • curves
  • distinct, even if irregular, shapes
  • at least two kinds of implie triangle
  • thythm
  • pattern
Subjects to choose from: flowers and plants; landscapes; street details; the raw materials of food.

I struggled to decide which subject to choose, due to the time of year I felt that a subject that could be shot indoors might not delay my progress as getting outdoors in winter is limited when weekends are primarily my 'photography time'. For these reasons, street life and landscapes were discounted, I wasn't really sure about plants and flowers as they are pretty dormant in the wintertime. I had several ideas for raw materials of food as these would be easy to get on with but after a little reasearch I felt that plants and flowers would be a subject that would suit me, that I would enjoy producing, although the seasonal constraints may delay my assignment production I felt it was more important to produce work for the enjoyment of the subject rather than convenience.

Tutor report

It’s good to see that you have taken on board my comments about file size and to see a general improvement in the quality of your images. You have made a reasoned choice in your theme and have met the brief set out in the assignment. But do remember that you don’t have to stick rigidly to the brief, it is there as a basic structure for you to develop and adapt in ways that show off your work to maximum advantage.

Average images are exactly that; not out of the ordinary and expected and as a result they don’t stand out from the crowd of other images illustrating a topic or issue. To become an accomplished and successful photographer you need to develop a way of being able to produce not only technically good images,but also ones that are unusual and show or communicate something special.

Your images in this assignment are technically good but I don’t think that you have yet developed the knack of producing extra ordinary images.

Your log shows that you have been looking at other imagery and what you need to be doing is considering ways of using photography to communicate how you feel about something that you feel strongly about and want to show other people. When considering producing an image think about how others have done it; what is the usual way of representing it - then think of a doing it differently and/or in a way that shows an unusual aspect. This is where your log should be used to note down your thoughts and ideas , your try outs with their successes and failures and an analysis of how things may be improved.

Feedback on assignment

As I have mentioned most of your images are fine - they succeed in achieving what has been asked for. The images that stand out as being stronger by virtue of  showing more originality include:

Your diagonal image showing the centres of flowers at the extreme corners of the frame with one main image centrally placed - it’s simple yet elegant placing the well exposed flowers against a dark background that shows off the flowers well. Your lighting gives enough /contouring and definition to show the texture. It’s better than the three tulips which, while meeting the brief, is a fairly standard approach.

Another good image is your ‘curved’ - again a good use of the background against which the curved stem is placed at a good strong diagonal. The image is sharp and well lit. One point about ‘curved’ and the tulips image is your use of the high iso -1600. The high iso tends to result in a significant amount of noise or artificial artifacts. Look at 100% magnification and particularly at the dark areas. Instead of nice even tone you can see lots of small coloured dots. This can be avoided by using lower iso settings.

I like the single point image taken in close up relying on the very centre to show the single point. It’s good to see you developing a technique of using live view with the camera to see the image s it will appear. However, this image is a very small file and just as I mentioned in my comments on assignment 1 is to be avoided as the print quality will not be good enough.

I think that you have mixed up your rhythm and pattern images - your rhythm image of the palm leaf is good - again well lit set off against a dark neutral background - but I think a better illustration of pattern. For rhythm the eyes need to follow a repeating line through the image and I find mine are just traveling in a straight line up the stem of the leaf.

Your pattern image of the gerbera if rotated and cropped I feel is better as a rhythm with its repeating curved petals around the edge. It would need to be reshot as the existing file is too small. See what you think:

I’m not sure what category your tulips final image is supposed to illustrate - I’m afraid that to me it doesn't fall into any of the categories. But it is a nice image nonetheless. You could crop it and include it as an illustration of rhythm - in this format it does make more of an unusual image.

Your other images are fine - they fit the bill but as I say are perhaps a little too standard.

Student feedback
On the whole I am pleased with the feedback for this assignment but will not stick so ridgdly to the brief if I don't feel I can. I don't yet feel that I have developed a nack of producing extra ordinary images at all yet and am focussed on producing acceptable images whilst learning as much as I can whilst find what genre I will be best suited too.

Amendments to make:
My single point image is too small and the print quality will not be good enough, I need to repeat this image.

I need to swap 'rhythm' (palm leaf) to 'pattern', and shoot gerbera again as a 'pattern'.

The tulips image will be cropped as my tutor suggested, it does look more like a 'rhythm' image once cropped.

 

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