Photos Evaluation

My topic for the photo styles was abstract because I think there is a lot more subtext you

can take from abstract than from any other. The abstract photos also looked more interesting

because they are characteristically colourful and contrasting, they often involve a great deal of

guessing as to what they are and can very easily be

accidents (similar to the effect of a fly going past the

camera at the moment of flash in the Circumvention

photo). I particularly liked the photo that involved paint on

a speaker, creating a rainbow effect with the paints being

thrown up from the speaker and the photo which seemed to capture the side

of a glass or the surface of a wet window where light is

shining through the droplets and the condensation,

making it look like a trippy illustration or hallucination.

Again, my having to guess if this is precisely what is happening in the photo

is part of the reason that I chose abstract as my topic.

Most of the inspiration for the theme of the flash being the only

artificial light in all of the pictures came from the cover art for PJ Harvey’s

Rid of Me, which used only the light created by the flash at the moment of

the picture being taken. It creates an effect that means every part of the photo is clearer and the

shadows behind her on the wall are eerie and jagged. I also liked the way that the black and white

complemented the method of taking the picture. I don’t think that any of the photos had a slightly

scary undertone but I think that a couple, particularly the Driveway picture, were eerie in their

execution. It was taken by Maria Mochnacz, a friend of Harvey’s and a photographer.

The equipment was mainly limited to a camera and an SD card, since none of the photos use

a tripod. In the case of the bass photo, the only other equipment

was the obvious bass guitar needed for the picture. All of the

photos were turned black and white in post-production, as well as

the Driveway photo having the cat’s eyes colour separated and the

most edited photo of the bunch, the bass photo. In the bass photo,

originally, it was to be one photo that had my movement warped

at the moment of the jump. However, the photos all came out

clearer than expected, giving me the idea to layer them on top of

each other. An improvement which was noted when the photos

were being shown initially was that in the bass photo there was a

washing line in the background. Using

the spot healing brush tool on Photoshop

(which was where I edited all the other

photos as well), I went over the washing

line and merged it with the rest of the

background. Using the opacity tool and layering in a different way to how

they had been used before (mainly as a utility to help with editing, instead

of as a piece of the editing).

I think that one of the strengths of the photos is the way that most

of them work on the same level as the PJ Harvey photo i.e. capturing the

moment that the flash happens to achieve more detail. While this was an

initial problem with the bass photo (since I wanted it to be blurry to achieve

the desired effect) it was actually more interesting when the clear photos were layered on top of

each other. I quite like the way that the Circumvention photo (pictured left) adheres to one of my

favourite features of abstract photography: accidents. Admittedly the shot would have been quite

boring otherwise but the accidental fly in front of the flash made it so much more interesting and

mysterious. That was part of the reason it was called Circumvention: because it does just that. It

circumvents the expectation of a normal photo by accident in having something normal juxtaposed

with something completely unexpected. That’s one of the reasons that I also quite like the Driveway

photo, because it took me a long time to have my cat look at

the camera, and I had no idea what shot I would get when he

did.

One drawback for the Loss of Focus picture is that it

was originally supposed to be framed so that there was a

noticeable object behind the subject’s body so as to illustrate

the theme of the photo i.e. the problem that people face of not

focusing on the important things. While the photo does explore

this to a point, I don’t think it was framed correctly and is

almost certainly the weakest of all of my photos. It was also

commented on in the feedback as someone’s least favourite

photo because they wanted to have shown the subject in the

photo. Though this was the point of the photo, I think this is

indicative of how badly it gets across that point of subtext.

In terms of improvement, I think that the Loss of Focus

and Circumvention photos could have been retaken so as to frame them properly; however strange

the Circumvention photo is, it was still an accident. As I said before, the framing for Loss of Focus still

bothers me, since it isn’t quite the shot I wanted when I planned it. This was probably due to the

type of lens I used: if I had used a telephoto lens, which could have focused on only the thing right in

the centre of the frame, it would have made the shot closer to the original plan. Similarly, the

Circumvention photo was originally supposed to be from a further

distance but I didn’t facilitate the problem of there being no light

to see where the shot was being framed and whether it was in

focus. We had to improvise and put a noticeable light on the floor

immediately in front of the subject to focus on before I stepped

back and took the photo. But, what with the inability to see

properly how far away I was from the subject, the picture also

came out slightly different to the original design.

One consistently mentioned point on the feedback was for

the Tangled Up photo, and it was to use editing to make the wires

stand out more from the background. If I were to try and do this I

would separate the wires onto a separate layer from the

background and turn down the brightness but turn up the

vibrance to make them darker on the face of the dull grey

background.

I think that my considerations as a photographer in terms of framing and prior design has

improved greatly, since I now have some idea of the finer points of using photography as an art

form, such as how the flash functions and how to use it, how the point of focus can change a picture

and the importance of being in the right place at the right time.