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Experimental Photography

Hayley Roberts

Out of FocusFor this experiment, I decided to photograph a still subject using a tripod as the image had to have no camera shake and just needed to be softer and out of focus. I changed the setting from Auto Focus to Manual Focus so I could change the focus of the image and make it out of focus. For the photographs, I changed the aperture from a small aperture to quite a big aperture. The top image was taken on the setting f22 and even though I used a tripod for this image, camera shake was still detected and this made the out of focus look of the image blurred. Both the middle and bottom images were taken with a lower f-stop with f4.5 and I found that the shutter was open for a less amount of time and so camera shake cant be seen on these images and they worked really well. I like the effect that this experiment has on the images and it makes them really soft and muted images. I think that having the shutter speed on a higher setting leaves the aperture open for too long and so this is why I don’t like the top image and it really didn’t work compared to the bottom 2 images. I think that the top image would have worked really well without the camera shake as the composition and angle of the image works really well. I think that the middle image has been taken on the right angle and the amount of space between the books isn’t too big and doesn’t take the attention away from the books. There was no main focal point in the image and the bright colours from the books with the white book with different letters on balances the colour ratio out. Not being able to read the writing fully leaves the audience guessing what the writing is trying to say and the image doesn’t look busy to say there is a lot of books in the background and the main subjects don't blend in with the background. The bottom image is a book that was taken landscape so it was taken on a different angle altogether to make it really hard for the audience to understand what is being said on the page. But the image is really simple and doesn’t look busy with all the writing on the page and the black from the writing stands out with the white background and creates a strong contrast. I like how the edges of the image look a little darker than the middle of the pages and this draws the eyes of the audience to the middle of the image.

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The image isn’t busy and the main subjects stand out against the background of all the books and this works really well.

The bright colours and the white of the book with the letters on really contrasts with each other and balances out the colour ratio.

The composition of the image is set up well and only having a certain section of the book in the image makes it a lot more of a macro image.

The angle of the image works really well with it being taken straight on instead of a higher or lower angle.

The contrast between light and shadow but the light in the middle of the image is slightly burnt so it does distract the audience a little.

There is no camera shake shown and this effect has worked really well for this image.

MovementFor this experiment, I changed the setting on the camera to Aperture Priority and made sure that the ISO was on the lowest setting. Then I took the image with a slightly slower shutter speed so that it captured the movement in the images but it also kept everything that was still the images very sharp. For the top image, I used an f-stop of f29 and the exposure was 1/8 sec. This made the movement not too blurred as I wanted the moving cars to be still obvious for the audience. I like how the two cars in the top image are nearly crossing each other and then the car that's still is nearly in between them both and this has a contrast of movement and stillness. I also used a tripod for this experiment so it kept everything I wanted sharp and in focus and then the blurred represented the movement in the image. If the images had camera shake in them then this would have made it a less effective images. For the middle one, I represented movement in a different way by using the lens and using the zoom on the lens. I used a longer shutter speed again as it didn’t matter if camera shake was obvious in the image as it’s going to be really shaky anyway. When the image had been taken and it was still taking the image, I zoomed in with the lens barrel and it created this effect and created a zoomed in and out effect and I think that this effect is really unusual and different and even though the main subject was still in the image, it represented it in a different way. For the bottom image I did the same process as the top image by taking the image on a longer shutter speed to capture the movement in the image. I like in this image how every car in the image is blurred as they are all moving in the image and all the landscape is in focus. I like how it’s all sharp in the image and the movement balances it all out and the white van really draws the audiences attention to the middle of the image and this is where the audiences attention should go to as it’s the main focal point of the image.

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The subject in this image was still but using the zoom barrel to create the movement represents it in a different way. I like the effect this style of experiment leaves on the image because it has quite ghostly effect to the image and looks quite shaky and 3D.

There is a strong contrast between light and dark in the image from the darkness of the shadows and the lightness in the windows and this balances it out evenly and doesn’t make it too heavy in the background and leaves the attention to the main subject.

Having a longer shutter speed for this experiment gives you chance to use the zoom barrel and not using a tripod doesn’t matter because the camera needs to be loose so the zoom barrel can be used easily and camera shake won’t be seen .

ReflectionsFor this experiment, I didn't find it as interesting compared to the last two experiments that I used. I found it quite simple and a little boring compared to the other two experiments which were a lot more fun and more experimental. For the images I used a really high ISO and the f-stop for the top image was f5.6 so it was on a normal setting to take these images. I found the top image really good for a reflection but I found that I couldn’t crop the background out and it was really hard to take this image as I wanted to get everything in that I could to show it was a reflection. I find the pole as well really distracting and takes the attention and focus away from the actual reflection and this is not what I wanted in the image as the whole point is to make the refection stand out. I think that the colours in the image make it really bright and this kind of grabs the attention and leads the focus back to the reflection. The image is really sharp and in focus as well and no camera shake was detected in this image. The middle image worked really well and I like the strong contrast between the dark and light in this image. I think that this image would of worked better if I changed it into black and white as there is limited colour in this image anyway so it would make it less distracting if I changed it to black and white so the colour isn’t a main focal point. I think that the audiences attention goes straight to the York College sign which is the main focal point of the image. The bottom image was taken through a blue sign on the wall and so I decided to capture the reflection through it as I thought that having the image with a blue tint to it makes it a little different and not capturing what the reflection is taken through makes it a lot less obvious to the audience what it actually is. I also think that if I had taken the image with the writing on the sign it would of taken the attention away from the reflection and that’s another reason why I took the image as it is. The bottom image is also meant to be portrait not landscape.

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I think that this was the best image for me out of them all as you can’t tell what the reflection is taken through so this makes it a lot harder for the audience to understand but also makes it really intriguing. I also like how the image has a blue tint to it and it’s not just plain simple colours so it makes it different that way too.

I think that the composition of this image isn’t the best but I like how it’s just showing what I can see and it was hard to take the image so this was the best angle I could get of the image but I like how you can see the reflection of the lights through the glass so it’s a reflection through a reflection.

The whole image is sharp and in focus and there is no camera shake as it was taken with a fast shutter speed but I feel this image worked the best out of most of the images I had taken but overall I didn’t enjoy this experiment compared to the other two experiments.

Hockney PhotomontageFor this experiment, I didn’t take 3 images as I ran out of time so I only got change to do the two images. This experiment again wasn’t the best of experiments I like the effect that it leaves on the images and I think it works really well but I do prefer the top two experiments that I had done compared to the bottom two. For this experiment I left it on the settings I had used for the reflections photo shoot and to do this experiment I had to take a picture of every part of the area I had chosen to take the images of and make sure I overlap the images a little so that I had got everything in. I then put the images onto Photoshop by selecting the file and clicking Photo Merge and then making sure I didn’t blend the images together to create a perfect image. I then put a stroke around the images so that every individual image stood out on the college and the effect it left was it being like a collage. The top image was my first attempt and I found that I preferred the bottom image to the top because I didn’t take any images at the bottom or the top image so it only looks like half a picture and I think it needed that bottom part to make it a full image. I also find this image quite dark and dull but the lines in the image are quite disjointed which I like about the image. I fond the bottom image worked better for me as I made sure that it took the full picture from what I could see and not half of the image compared to the top one. I also like how there is different light settings in this image and they all fit together perfectly and the stroke around the images really makes it stand out on the page and I like how it’s not perfectly even around the edge of the image.

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I like how the stroke around the images help each individual image stand out so they all fit together perfectly and recreate the image that I saw.

There are different exposures in this image and I think it works really well and the disjointed lines in the image show that it isn’t perfect and I like that effect.

The images around the edge all overlap differently and this makes it a lot more uneven and more like a collage and this really works well/