Flatbed scanners as a camera Something that many people over-look is the potential to use flatbed scanners as a means to create images. See the two links below for examples...
Scanners produce good quality images at quite high resolutions, with a unique feeling of their own. Ideally suited to flat-copying, but they do have the potential to create renditions of 3D objects too. In addition because of the way that images are scanned by a slow moving capture system, there's loads of scope to play around with movement in conjunction with the images, creating potentially very creative outcomes.
Normally associated with 'Art' applications in photography, rather than commissioned photography.
Can be used adapt other types of photography for instance Pinhole photography produced on photographic print paper on small scale can be scanned at high resolutions and therefore digitized and scaled up.
Disadvantages
Lack of mobility, need mains supply.
Limited in their ability to render and record 3D objects
Requires expensive software packages such as Photoshop to work with at post production stages.
Limited to A4 capture size although A3 scanners do exist.
*Note - The photo-copy machines at college have a scanning function via the menu. Select the 'Scanning' option and click the 'email' option as well as the resolution and colour settings. Also choose what type of file type you want your scan to be sent to you as. I would generally opt for a TIFF file. Once your scan has been made, you'll be sent a digital file to your college email address.
If you're looking to attain good grades in your Art and Design course, one area that you need to demonstrate that you've investigated and learned about is the contextual aspects. This is one of the aspects of your research that you normally have to read more to grasp and make sense of and therefore will gain you additional points as such. More importantly it leads you to looking at wider subjects and therefore accelerates your learning.
Currently for what I teach (Photography) I break it down into 3 sections...
Operational context.
Historical context.
Zeitgeist context.
(1). Operational Context – This is
where you identify and explain the working context; is the work you’re looking
at art
photography/personal work where the photographer/artist has full
control over every aspect of the process, chooses the subject and Materials, Techniques and Processes and the
work is usually produced over months and years. Or is it Commissioned Photography/Art where the work is done to a brief
set by someone else (Client/ad agency) using MTP’s that they stipulate and is
produced within a time scale and you’re paid a set wage for producing the work
for them. Or is it Amateur work – where it’s done for pleasure and isn’t
usually sold to provide a living wage for the artists/photographer?
(2). Historical Context – This is where
you read about the photographer – interviews or critical reviews and discover
who the photographer is influenced by. Using the images of the
artist/photographer that they are influenced by, you have to identify
connections and look to see if this is a re-occurring theme within the
art/photography world.Is it being used
in similar ways historically? Ideally you should make direct connections with other forms of art especially paintings.
The most recent image (A) is a Mario Testino image from Vogue 2011. (B) Is a David Bailey image from the mid 1960's and (C) Is a Jan Van Eyck painting from 1434 "Arnolfini Wedding".
You can see that there is potential to refer to all of the images if you're looking at any of them because of their similarities. The Testino image no doubt refers to Van Eyck as they not only reference the pose, but also the clothing and the whole 'Dutch Old Masters' theme. Whether Bailey referenced Van Eyck is speculation, but as a student, if you're making these speculative comparisons, what it demonstrates is a very broad knowledge of both art and photography showing how one can influence another. Not only that, it also demonstrates you're looking at important historical art and photography as opposed to images and photographers of no consequence whatsoever.
The key point here is that if you were to research any of these artists/photographers you would find endless research material from which you would potentially learn a great deal. By delving a little deeper for instance into David Bailey, you might then start to learn about the things that were happening around him at the time in wider society...
(3). Zeitgeist Context – This is where
you examine the photography/photographer and look to evidence that the work has been
produced in response to something that is happening now as opposed to events happening at the time when the
work was being produced (Historical). You might look specifically at political, social,
environmental or cultural events that may have shaping or inspiring the photography in some way.
As an example when writing Donald Trump
rescinded on some of the measures that Obama had started to implement with
regards to oil exploration in Alaska and Dakota. There were concerns about the rights of
Indigenous North American Indians and the fact that a pipeline was due to be
built within their homelands. Oil as you’re probably aware is one of Ed
Burtynsky’s main themes in his photography, so there’s the potential to look
into this further and make connections between Ed Burtynsky’s concerns and work
and the events unfolding off the back of Trumps presidency and seeming
disregard for the environment.
This may then
lead you into delving into what was the trigger for Burtynsky – what inspired
him to produce the Oil project? Is Burtynsky still working with the theme Oil, or has someone else taken up the challenge, or is this a theme that you might like to explore more locally?
Conclusion - The conclusion you need to draw from this is the more you know about contemporary and historic photography of consequence e.g. the work that is written about, reviewed, critiqued and analysed by experts, the easier you'll be able to make such contextual connections. This involves reading and studying - primarily books as a starting point finding the names of the relevant photographers and artists. At the start of our courses we advise you to buy a book to help with your studies "Photography the Whole Story". Once you have the names of the photographers and artists that are worthy of your time, you can then add internet research.
Old and out of date. New for 2020 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JK4VfqXBzY&t=975s
What do you write and what do you include when putting together a response to your practical work?
Here's a suggestion as to how you might go about it, needless to say adapt to your own methods if you don't like all of it, but if you're completely lost as to what to do and write, this may offer a solution. One of the key points of this approach is the use of a display folder, as it means at any point you can edit and remove pages to improve the folder in any way.
This method is ideal for your work at the developmental stages - test shoots, trials and experiments. Remember your work must be developed over a series of stages as your work out what you're going to do for the final product.
The Blue section should be your 'Planning' what you intend to do, your resources, where, when and who? Needless to say the more details the more indicates your levels of planning and organisation. The Red section is also 'Planning' but more visual - a lighting plan, showing where the light sare and included a key to explain what the components are. Generally most photography courses want 'Visuals' diagrams and sketches and if you can include these that'll be great.
The Green section is examples of images from the shoot, you can use contact sheets/thumbnails, but I've made mine slightly bigger and selected some of the images that were typical from the start of the shoot rather than all of the images, showing that I was working with poses. The text in this section deals with the colour of the background and the poses and the decisions I was making as the shoot progressed. Keep the details simple at this stage, just write about what you were trying to achieve or was expecting to happen.
Page 2 (below).
Top left - more images from the shoot either selected ones or the whole contact sheet, it's up to you, showing how the shoot comes together and ideas are developed. Right-hand side ringed in Green images of how you've set up the lights. Always step back and shoot images of your light set ups either with the camera you're using or a phone or whatever is at hand. This gives you the opportunity to add details about the equipment and is good for future reference if you use the lighting again and want to replicate the lighting.
Ringed in Blueis the image that influenced the shoot with the lighting we're trying to replicate. In this instance I've not done a lot of research into the image, but potentially you could find out who shot it and do some research into the photographer and possibly add additional images from the same series. I've written about the light and the exposure, but more could be added relating to the fact that it's high-key and the composition and a lot more (See prompts in side bar).
Page 3
This section is potentially the part where you're going to pick up loads of credits that meet the criteria. The way we advise you to do this is to structure the response to your own work using he Gibbs Reflective Practice Modelwhich works with either 5 or 6 prompts (I've missed out no.5 "Conclusion" in this instance). Reflecting on your work making sense of it, criticising it with the intention of identifying areas of strength and weakness is an essential aspect of your work. Making sense of it and analysing it is essential too and Gibbs steers you through the process in an orderly manner and is a dream for your lecturers/assessors to mark!
Most of the sections can be relatively short and concise, the parts you do want to focus on and produce more written material around are the analysis and planning sections. The planning part leads you into the next round of work.
Page 4
On this page, I've chosen what I felt was one of the better shots and I've taken the time to reproduce it at A3 set in a white surround. You could if you wished have it printed as a full bleed image covering the whole page. The choice is yours.
I would advise as when you produce these final shots you do so at the best quality you can stretch to and keep the approach that you use consistent.
* Note (For my students for 5135 - Fashion promo and WN25) if you do this as you go along and you engage with the process fully you should end up with a pretty useful folio of images as we'll be using some really top quality lighting techniques. The images will be massively improved if in each session your models are styled appropriately. I had to rush this example so wasn't able to get hold of a blonde model and make the images as high-key as the Kate Mosss Vogue cover.
Don't like my approach? Have a look at these here - some of the best from all around the world.
Here's my current thoughts and suggestions as to putting together a photography research project.
It's an essential part of your studies on any level 3 photography courses (UAL, BTEC or A-Levels) that you study historic and contemporary photographers. Over the years I've suggested all sorts of different ways of doing it, but this is my current suggestion and I reckon it's the most efficient and easiest way I come up with and I'd like to think that our students will recognise it and adopt it.
Almost without exception the units and assignments on photography courses require that you put together research prior to shooting your images. Your images need to be informed or influenced by the work of other 'Significant' photographers. We advise that your starting point for finding such photographers is the British Journal of Photography, books such as 'Photography The Whole Story' or my list of contemporary and historic photographers which you can find here . It's important that you list your sources in a bibliography and all examination bodies and lecturers like to see and sometimes require that you identify the use of books.
(1). This is a visual subject and you need to make your work look as though you're interested in images. Therefore the balance between written work and the use of images in your research should be 50/50.
(2). I advocate the use of A3 display folders...
There are number of reasons for this. (a). You can edit the work easily, so many students change their minds about the way they work and produce work out of order leaving blank pages with the intention of filling them in later and then they run out of time. With these folders you can swap and change and omit work easily/ (b). Most colleges have photocopy machines with A3 paper and you're probably allowed to take a few sheets of paper if you ask your lecturers and this reduces costs. (c). I recommend as below you use one side of a two page spread almost exclusively for the images you find associated with the photographer you're researching and on the adjacent page a key image about A5 size surrounded by your written work. (d). When you hand in your finals they look impressive as A3 images or surrounded by a white mount affect when printed as A4's on an A3 mount. If you spend the time and money acquiring high quality finals as you complete each of your projects these can be removed and added to a final portfolio at the end of the year.
So this is the way I would suggest that you compile your work
So this above would be an A3 double page spread. The recommendation is that you do make it visual and have it so that 50% of the work is made up of images.
So the image above is the 'Image page'. When you find your initial or key image you'll probably find associated images collect them all together as files and then print them off - print off about 8 or 9 approx. A6 in size. If you use a PC (proper computer) in windows select four images to print and windows will neatly nest four images on the page to print at a time onto A4.
At the top of the page you'll see a couple of images that are associated with the Testino images by virtue of the pose. The pose looks to be inspired by Jan Van Eycks 'Arnolfini Portrait' and interestingly I noticed that it also was similar to David Bailey's photograph from the 1960's of Jean Shrimpton. It maybe that both photographers were inspired by the work of Jan Van Eyck and realising that this image has stood the test of time for several hundreds of year was a pretty safe bet to use as stylish pose? Where possible and as much as possible look for these kind of links and identify them (This is the reason you're encouraged to look at images constantly).
Include on this page if you wish some written work. As I developed this approach I started to use this page to write up my initial observations and immediate thoughts about the images. On the adjacent page below I then wrote up the facts rather than opinion and speculation.
Make sure both pages (RingedBlue) have a big clear title including the name of the work/images. From your initial research where you collate all of the images pick a key image that you feel you can write about - possibly the first one you noticed or the one with the most interesting features. * As you collect the images from the website, save some of the HTML addresses to include in your bibliography. Also look at the website in case there's some written content that gives you more information about the images. If there's not then start to look around for written content that is associated with the artist or the images. The best way to do this is type in the name of the photographer pre-fixed with "Interview with" so I would have tried a number of searches using...
Interview with Mario Testino
Vogue masterclass September 2011
Vogue master class interview Mario Testino
I'd have repeated the same searches on Google but with a video search enabled. This generally brings up some really good resources and it was through watching the video of Testino shooting a Japanese shoot for Vogue that I identified his own research methods and the equipment and lighting he uses on set. All very much worth looking at.
Two interviews is generally enough, along with videos and the original sources from the BJP to get enough information to write about the image/s using the prompts (Circled in Red). If you're struggling generate written responses to the images use these prompts (see the sidebar to the write of this blog page).
Try and generate for your Final Major project at least ten pieces of research like this independently. You'll get the chance to practice this in class with help, but to push the work on to Merit level you need to be seen generating your own research more specific to your own needs.
A very similar approach can be used in conjunction with your practical sessions and another video and series of images will be added after I've made the resources.
As soon as you're visually aware as a child you'll start to see images... On television, on computer screens, in newspapers, books and magazines and you'll be presented with images that generally conform to the rule of thirds. If you're still unsure what the rule of thirds is and how it's used in photography and paintings - type 'Rule of thirds' in Google and you'll see thousands of examples.
Generally when I initially explain it I use as an example one of Thomas Ruffs deadpan portraits. These image conventional compositions with the person sitting in the central third with the eyes falling on the top third intersection. Look through historical paintings and most portrait photography these conventions generally apply. Given a camera and told to take a photograph someone - most people will apply these rules. So when deconstructing your research images and analysing them, this is one of the basic things you can discuss in your work. Do the images you're looking at stick to these conventions or break the rules? If the image doesn't conform to the rule of thirds - why do you think it doesn't - what is the photographer trying to do?
Think about the space that's possibly been created, think about the use of the image - is the space there to provide space for text perhaps?
Breaking the frame Look at your research images and look at the key subject in the image or the main components - do any of them break the frame or are all the elements of the image contained nicely within the frame? If they do break the frame as in the sheep here in this famous painting by William Holman Hunt 1852 "Strayed Sheep" at Fairlight in Sussex. Why?
A lot of fashion Photography despite the fact that it is constructed and planned includes this aspect of composition - why? Look at fashion images and you'll see limbs and parts of bodies cut off by the frame of the image - do you think this right or wrong - does it matter, do the limbs need to be in the image? Are there rules for instance when you shoot someone standing up about where you should cut through their legs when shooting the image as a 2/3rd or 3/4 length portrait?
Negative space
When and why might you leave space in a picture? Why do we shoot portraits as upright compositions, why is that the right way? Similarly why are most landscapes horizontal - and what if we use a square format camera - how does that effect the composition and the balance of the image? What are your thoughts on the matter? See this article here.
Look at the images that you're researching or analysing and discuss them in these terms.
How big in the frame? Looking at the image what can you say about the way the 'Subject' is framed, is it close or far away - why? Would it affect the way that we read the image and make sense of it if the subject was closer or further away. What is the relationship between the subject and the background or surrounding subjects?
People - If there is more than one person in the frame - how have they been composed in relation to each other? The space between the people - what does it suggest about their relationship?
Viewpoint - Where has the photograph been taken from - again this is very significant when it's in conjunction with the image of people. Has the photographer shot the image on the same eye-level as the subject? How does this affect the reading of the image - what does it suggest about the relationship between the photographer and the subject?
What if the photographer is higher than the subject - how does this affect the psychology of the image and the opposite... the photographer is lower than the subject? All of these things have a very significant bearing on the way the images are perceived.
Here's an example of how you might choose to put your work together. At our college we suggest either using the traditional sketchbooks or this method using A3 display folders. The current course leader advocates the use of the traditional hard-back A4 sketchbooks.
The next question we're confronted with is "What the hell do I write and what do I put in it"? Another thing that seems to be lost on students is the work rate and how organised you have to be to get the work completed and in your books.
Question... What the hell do I put in my sketchbook?
There's a number of answers to this - one is everything, the other is the stuff you need to meet the assessment criteria. The bottom line is what-ever you do put in your books, whether it be a minimal approach or an everything approach it does have to meet the assessment criteria.
To this end, it is essential that you engage with this aspect of your work and you make sure you know what it is you've got to do - ask the question "What criteria do I have to meet - what exactly do I have to do"? This information will be on your assignment/brief sheet under the section titled "Assessment Criteria". It tends to be a bit 'wordy' so if you don't understand it, ask someone to explain it to you in terms of what you have to do. If in doubt ask. Work Rate... Fast and efficient, do it as it happens. Use college time to write stuff up, print things off, read the BJP's, stick your work in your book. Do it there an then! When you're working in the darkroom where you have to wait for things to happen, don't wait around, use this 'dead time' to write up records and explanations of what you're doing. Do you travel to college by train? Work on the train? Set aside time to do the work and do it as it happens. Diary Style. Work on your book as though it's a diary, do a bit every day, write it as a diary.
Page 1. Always ensure that you have a page that identifies your work with contact details for the college in the event that you lose the work. If it gets left on the train or somewhere the chances are someone will return it. Without this page, you may never see the work again and we cannot assess work that we have never seen.
For our current students, the next page may include the work that was produced prior to joining the course - research work using the British Journal of Photography (Images and you're analysis of the work and the accompanying text).
The first lesson was the Visual Language work where we explored and shot images of mugshots over two stages. Simply record what you did, what you were thinking and what you understood of the task at that stage using both images and written work. You could include technical details, but the most important aspects are the visual language aspects - the conventions that relate to creating images that look like a classic police mug-shot discussing the complexities involved in making the image.
Once you'd shot the first series the results and conventions were discussed and you went out again and we developed the work further aiming to make the work a more convincing version of the classic mug-shot...
As much as you can you're advised to include sketches and drawings. UAL love sketches and drawings and the more you do the less you'll have to write. There's a balance to be had between how much writing you do and how much you illustrate your learning through the use of images (photography or sketches). Potentially you can write a lot less than the example here, but you then need to use images and sketches far more in the process of evidencing your learning and analysis (See the example at the bottom of this post).
Listen for suggestions in lessons, if an idea or experiment is suggested, you should grab the opportunity and try it out. In the lesson the lecturer discussed the one-eyed aspects of using lenses at different focal lengths. That was a prompt for you to do additional work that would help you attain the higher grades...
.
Research is essential and as you go through this course you'll be directed as to how to go about your research at this stage you need to have completed research in conjunction with your practical work you need to do outside of college. (See your brief 'Sinister'). The research at this stage is being directed in that we're pointing you towards specific artists and resources. In response to the artists you're being directed to look at you need to include images and then start the written content offering your initial response to the work prior to reading and learning about it. Once you've offered your opinion and analysis of the work, you then need to read the accompanying text and then write up a summary of the important aspects that relate to your task. This might look like this...
There are loads of examples of how sketchbooks can be put together and a particularly good resources for exploring how others do it is here
On this website you'll find links to videos such as these and you may find them helpful...
How do I make my work analytical rather than descriptive?
Don't take everything at face value, cast doubt on your initial assumptions, look at different ways of seeing and approaching a problem in order to resolve it. Is it right for this situation - what if I tried something else?
This approach is reliant on accepting that photography is a series of problems, many of which need to be analysed in order to resolve. Therefore one of the helpful things you can do it identify these problems is to list them...
Light
Composition
Background
Props
Adherence to the brief
Equipment suitability
Equipment usage and calibration
One of the main things on the UAL courses that prevents students from attaining higher grades is the lack of analysis.
Analysis is required at regular points within your work.
If you produce your written responses to your work within the framework of a Gibbs Reflective Practice model, you are prompted to analyse at stage (4)...
(1). What happened (2). Feelings (3). Evaluation (4). Analysis (5). Conclusion (6). Action plan
*****
Example (using Gibbs).
Our students were working on Unit 12 - Engaging with an audience in Art & Design (Photography).
In essence they have to produce work that meets the needs of the client and the market. As part of this unit we had a professional photographer come in to the college and set a task whereby they had to shoot for a client with specific audience - Musto. The photographer liaised with the client who he was shooting for at the time and was able to obtain some of their products for the shoot (Coats). The students were given the name of the client beforehand in order that they could do some research into the brand and who the target audience is. With the knowledge of the brand and its audience profile, the students were briefed and shown a video...
and were set loose to shoot the coats.
On return, they had to then re-size the images and wetransfer the images to the Photographer before a specific time. Having done the practical stuff, they then have to reflect on the days activities and we strongly advise that they do so using the Gibbs method. So, this stage of their work if done well should look like something like this...
GIBBS reflection
What Happened - (Normally this bit is kept short, concise and to the point). We were set the
task of shooting a series of images for a mock Musto location shoot at Leigh on
Sea in Essex. Our initial submission of low
res images needed to be 10-14 in number and required to be uploaded to the
client within 48 hours of shooting. We were given Musto coats and assigned to random
groups to shoot in, 1 coat per group of 5-6 students. Feelings - (Again, keep this bit to the point and fairly brief, unless you're really struggling, as you can use this as a way of alerting your lecturers to your situation).
Initially I was
a little concerned at the thought of a pro-photographer peering over my
shoulder looking at everything I was doing, potentially picking fault with my
process. In the end it didn't turn out like this and we were able to get on
with our work. Over the course of the 3 hours, I became more confident as I
went along although I do feel that there were issues, but these will be
discussed in my analysis. Evaluation - (Again short and concise allowing for the detail to be discussed in the analysis section)
Overall the
whole process and day was good, being set the brief with these requirements and
knowing that Musto might even consider using some of our shots on their website
was exciting. The weather for the most part was good, but it was cold and some
of us had totally inadequate clothing. Other bad stuff was that it would have
been better if there were more coats and we’d been able to work in our own
preferred groups. Analysis - This is where the detail comes in, this is where you demonstrate your learning and understanding of what you've done and show that you question your approach, analysing it in order to produce improvements. (You could use the list above as I am).
Lighting
The light on
the day was good in some respects in that it was consistent, it might have
rained as it did the day before and that would have been really difficult to
shoot in. Having said that we didn’t arrive at the location until 10.00-10.30
ish. The sun at this point even though it’s pretty much mid-winter was
relatively low in the sky over the River Thames, but no-where near ‘The golden
hour’. As a consequence a lot of the better shots were to be had looking
directly into the sun with the boats on the river behind the model, leaving us
with a difficult lighting scenario. Considering this later on and thinking it
through, if we’d have set out before sunrise or just before sunset, the light
would have been in a far better place for shooting and much lower in the sky
and much less intense. The sun lower at these times of day, would have been
diffused due to the moisture and pollution in the atmosphere.
Other solutions
I could have tried would have been to use a external flash gun, but to be
honest I’m not that brilliant at using them and would need to spend some time
practicing before doing that for real. Another approach might have to be far
more selective about where I shot the images, only choosing to do so in shaded
areas. Looking again at the video, it’s obvious that the videographer had it
easy because the light that he/she’s used is overcast and flat.
We did have the
use of lastolite reflectors, but they’re difficult to use with the models
because the light is reflected back into their faces making them squint, so
that isn’t a particularly good solution either.
I think given
the chance to do it again at the same time of day with the same lighting
issues, the best approach for me given that my fill-in flash skills are lacking
would be to use the flat, diffuse light in the shadows of the boats and
buildings. It does seem that in these situations it is most definitely a good
idea to look around the location with a little compact camera and work out
where the best back-drops are, so that you can pin-point them and focus your
efforts on prime locations rather than walk around as we did, not knowing where
the best places would be.
Composition
Looking at my
own images, again given the time we had they’ve come out okay and similarly with
the light situation, as second follow up shoot would almost certainly mean I
would end up with far better results. In part this would be down to things like
I now know what backgrounds I’d want and I now know what lenses I’d take in
order to throw the backgrounds out of focus in some of the shots, making them
more Musto-esque as in the video.
Most of my shots
were done at F16 in bright light, looking back and reflecting I think I would
go for much faster shutter speeds and wider apertures. I’d also play around
with individual ideas more. Because we were in groups I didn’t feel like I
could shoot loads of ideas in one location because there was always 4-5 others
waiting to shoot as well.
Adherence to
the brief
One of the key
aspects that we need to look at and discuss in our main unit brief is the
audience and the little research that I’ve been able to do would suggest a
certain type of audience based on my socio-economic observations with regards
Musto’s target audience. Musto looks to be a high-end brand, with very few retail
outlets in high streets. Looking around our locale, there are only 2
shops in Essex and they sell the shooting and hunting clothes, the nearest
boating clothes retailer is in Rochester in Kent. It was
this type of customer that we were shooting for.
Looking at the
video and my research the audience I’ve concluded are primarily fairly well off
and middle class with an age group profile of 21 and above. Therefore there
needs to be a certain approach in making the images, whilst still maintaining
the Musto look as we see in the video. Looking again at my images and our
location there are too many instances where the backdrop looks too industrial
as opposed to vintage, classic and old school. The video has a kind of charm to
it where it seems to be looking back at older more elegant times. With some of
my shots, it’s far too urban and modern.
Conclusion- (Again I'd go for a fairly short conclusion as it doesn't help a great deal with assessment criteria).
The main
conclusions that I’m able to draw from the Musto activity are –
(1). Pre-planning
and having some sense of where you’re going to go is important as a lot of time
was wasted photographing in 5-7 different places and looking back at the images
and again at the video, I think I could have shot most of the images in just
two key places.
(2). Back –up plan.
Have a plan but then have a secondary plan, If I’d had more experience I may
have recognised the lighting issues that came about and intended to shoot in
the harsh light, but then might have gone to plan 2 and shot in diffuse light?
(3). Have a
good model. We all had to share the modelling, but it is obvious that in our
class some people are better models than others, so if I’d been able to control
this aspect of the process I think I’d have got better shots.
Action Plan - (This is another section that calls for more detail and content primarily because it helps to meet a number of assessment criteria). Going forwards,
I can now see that I could use this as the basis for a follow-up shoot. I wont
be able to use Musto products, but I could either source another brand or even
use my own coats or friends coats and do a shoot in the style of the Musto
shoot alongside our main Shoe brief. What can I take
from this in the short term and use for my shoe shoot? At the moment I’ve not
shot anything for my shoe shoot, but I know I’m going to be shooting Adidas
Sambas trainers to do an Adidas advert, I still need to make decisions about
where my images are going to appear. On-line I’m aware that they use a number
of different approaches, much the same as Musto. Some of the shots are studio
pack-shots, simple white backgrounds which don’t particularly work to address
an audience. The ‘Banner’ images on-line and in the brochures are the type we’re
supposed be looking at as they’re the adverts that reflect the audience and
their aspirations.
So far
depending on the products, there’s an obvious element of ‘Urban and young’ with
the use of colour. So in the short term I need to conduct more specific secondary
research into the way the product is advertised currently. There is a specific
advert for Samba football boots and the audience for that is very specific,
using particular image conventions and approaches. So the plan…
Over the next two days conduct
secondary research.
Make sense of the research, analyse
it (Gibbs) and form a coherent plan. Allocate at least a day to write up
the Gibbs Reflection of the research.
Aim to then review the situation,
but have a plan to do a test shoot within the next 4 days.
Look to start contacting and
finding models for the shoot now, I’m looking for any boys/men 18-15. Lots
of people play football, I could look at using the students in the sports
dept?
Check the weather and the lighting
in the research images.
The advantage of writing up the majority of your work within the Gibbs reflective format is that in doing so, you do so in a structured way. It also negates the necessity to write up separate 'Reflections' as the whole process is reflective. Working with this approach on a regular basis after you've done some work, tested something, tried something out and or completed your research will enable you to evidence so much of the assessment criteria. It really is the way forward.
I'm a massive advocate of the use of the Gibbs Reflective Practice as a method of generating responses to the practical lessons that students participate in.
Students often wonder after a lesson 'What should I now do in response to that lesson and how should I do it'?
Increasingly I'm seeing that the Gibbs method should become an integral part of what students do in response to their lessons. They need to say what they've done, how they've done it, what they've used, why they've used it, how it connects to professional practice and identify what it is they have learned. Through the use of Gibbs, almost all of the required written responses could be generated an in most instances these would meet the assessment criteria.
The example I've identified here uses a lesson I deliver for Fashion students. The students are given a choice of 20 historic and contemporary portraits to choose two from, to act as the stimulus for their own fashion photography images. The image that this particular lesson is based around is Vincent Van Goghs self portrait against a blue background.
The rationale for this approach is that, this image has stood the test of time, the pose and the use of light is by virtue of this being one of the most famous paintings ever, a very fine example for you as the student to draw influence from. Secondly, one of the criteria this work has to meet is one based around having to demonstrate knowledge and use of light in their practice. I therefore put a case that if you study the work and the lighting of the great painters as professionals do, your work will benefit from that study. The next bit is the tricky bit as I have to somehow bring that notion up to-date by cross-referencing an example that uses a similar light source. In this instance I use Corinne Day's 'Under-Exposure' from Vogue 1993..
The following text and images therefore demonstrates how a student might use the Gibbs prompts to generate a response to the lesson.
What Happened?
One of the images that we were given the option
to work with was Vincent Van Goghs self portrait set against a blue background.
In this lesson the image was displayed on a tele and as a class we discussed
the characteristics of the light. We had to look at the angle of the light,
guess what the light source was and describe its characteristics.
We were then presented
with a contemporary photograph by a photographer called Corinne Day. The image
comes from a set of images from a series called ‘Under exposed’ featuring Kate
Moss, they appeared in Vogue in 1993 and caused uproar at the time. The reason we
were looking at this image and comparing with Van Gogh was that the light
sources are probably the same.
Having looked at both
images we then tried to replicate
the type of light used in both the images using studio flash heads. The lights
were set up, our cameras were set in accordance to the lighting and the situation
we were confronted with and we all took a number of pictures of each other
exploring this type of light.
Feelings
At the moment with five
lesson already gone and the deadline still some months away I feel okay about
the current situation. The camera is complicated with so many settings and I
feel that it would be a challenge to shoot either at home or in the studio
still. This lesson though felt useful as did the lesson last week, I now think
I understand what ‘Point light’ and ‘Diffuse light’ are. I think now when I
look at pictures I can start to recognise the light and talk about the
characteristics of the two types.
I was confused a little
with the PDP (Gibbs Reflective Practice) but since the last lesson and the guidance
to use it to generate the written responses to the lesson as I am here, I think
I’ve now completely got it.. So for the moment with so many weeks ahead I feel
that if I keep on top of the work I’m going to be okay.
Evaluation
At the moment the good
stuff out-ways the bad stuff, the lessons are all coming together nicely and I
feel like I’m learning at a rate that I can keep up with. This lesson in particular
was really useful and has made me realise a few things about the light in my
flat where I am going to do my location shoot. I also think now if I look at
photographs and paintings I’m going to be able to analyse the light at least in
terms of where its coming from and whether it is point or diffuse light.
Bad stuff, is primarily
down to me being lazy. The work from the last three weeks wasn’t written up
like this and I’ve still yet to use my camera outside of college and I really
do need to try it out at my flat. I’ve not been printing off the images from
the lesson and these images here are the first to have gone in my book, so I
need to catch up.
Analysis
Initially we looked at
the Van Gogh image. The observations that were made and discussed were as
follows. Apparently It was common around
this period and continues to be so, that the light that painters use/d was ‘North
Light’. This is the light that faces the north side of a building/studio. The
reason is that ‘North Light’ is reflected off the blue of the sky or cloud and
therefore is no-where near as variable as direct sunlight seen in the south.
Light coming from the south varies massively in colour and quality. We saw this
in the lesson last week when we were taking pictures in the atrium. The light
changed from one minute to the next. Point light when the sun was out had harsh
shadows and diffuse light when the clouds covered the sun had soft shadows.
North light is far more consistent – generally, flat, even, diffuse and soft;
wrapping around the subject and sought after by painters such as Van Gogh.
It was also noted that
the image was predominantly blue, the skin especially and again this is one of
the properties of North light, the colour is a cold blue as opposed to the
variable light from the south. We all recognised that south light when it rises
in the morning is warm and golden as it is in the evening.
Looking at the Van Gogh
image we all suspect that his studio must have had a large window facing the
north and the lecturer drew up a lighting diagram for the Van Gogh image…
(A) Represents a window through which the light is passing. As the light passes through the window it scatters more and produces a soft, diffuse, wrap-around light. (B) Is the viewpoint from which the subject (C) is viewed. Because of the separation between the subject (C) and the wall (E) the shadow (D) falls diagonally for the most part out of view and is only rendered on the subjects face. The subject in the image is sat at 3/4's to the light in order that the majority of the face is lit and the shadow falls onto only a small proportion of the face nearest the wall giving us some sense of the contours and shape of the face.
Corinne Day ‘Under-exposed’
shoot lighting The image of Kate Moss
shot by Day looks to have used exactly the same kind of light albeit from the opposite
side. The other difference is whereas Van Gogh is depicted separated from the
wall leaving no shadow on the wall Kate Moss is leaning on the wall almost
casting a shadow on the wall. It’s the quality of this shadow that enables us
to hazard a good guess as to the light source along with a little research.
From a little bit of research it’s easy to find out that this was shot in a
flat using daylight…
"The setting - the West
London flat she shared with the photographer and model Mario Sorrenti".
"Been photographed in
daylight by her closest friend, the model-turned-photographer Corinne Day".
(A) Again North Light coming through a large window, again scattering and diffusing as it does so.
(B) Indicates the general direction of that diffuse light towards the model (Kate Moss).
(C) Would be the position of the camera - the body position of Kate Moss is straight on and the lack of distortion would indicate a lens of 50mm or more?
(D) Indicates the field of view, the composition is quite tight with furniture in the bottom left hand corner and Moss's arm breaking the edge of the frame.
(E) Is the model position against the wall and the shadow cast by her body is indicated by the hatched area (F).
If we analyse the use
of the light further in the image we have to consider what Day was trying to do
in these images. Reading the Robin Muir article it’s apparent that there’s a
fusion of a ‘Documentary’ approach in these images and sense of reality. The
images are done in a way that looks very basic, we’re led to believe that this
is a flat and that the light is what it is, so it is in fact wholly
appropriate. Furthermore Day uses the light in a way that is flattering. The
light is soft and diffuse, but coming from such an angle that there is some ‘Modelling’,
we can see the shape of Moss’s face and figure, the clothes (Top) has obvious
contours in it, so the lighting has been used cleverly. Creating the Corinne
Day lighting in the studio
We then had to recreate
the North Light effect seen in both the Van Gogh painting and the Corrine Day
photograph in the studio. One of the lesson earlier on in the term Dave spoke
about the fact that the further the light travelled the more even and
manageable it becomes. We found a blank white wall for our Model (Dave) and
placed the lights pointing away from him, bouncing off of the opposite wall and
corner. The heads were positioned quite high so that the impression was that
the light was coming from a slightly higher position.
(A). Two Bowens Esprite
flash heads turned up full power and pointed into the same area on the opposite
wall of the studio to the model. Initially a point light source, but once
bounced off the wall (B) becomes a larger diffuse light source, with properties
like that of light coming through a window.
(C). The resulting
lights direction aimed at the model.
(D). The camera set
with a focal length of 55mm or longer pointed directly at the subject.
(E). The model
positioned against the wall.
(F). The shadow.
(G). This is a 8’x4’
white poly board. This was positioned next to the subject just out of shot to
reflect light back into the subject ‘Filling in’ the shadow. When the board was
really close the shadow was virtually invisible and the further it was away the
more obvious the shadow was.
In this image (Above) the
reflector is placed a good distance from the subject and therefore doesn’t
affect the shadow. We deemed this okay, but wanted to look at the effect of
bringing the 8x4 board a lot closer…
The ‘Fill’ from the reflector
in this image almost completely negates the shadow and could be deemed as too
flat. But a compromise between the two may give us the desired effect? Camera Settings The camera settings for
the studio were as follows… 1.Manual Mode 2.ISO 100 (Lots of lighting
means that a low iso is easily used and that retains quality. The faster the
iso the lesser the quality of the images. 3.File settings – Raw +
Fine JPEG or if you haven’t got access to Raw software use Fine JPEG 4.Lens set to 55mm or
longer, too close will mean the image will start to distort. 5.Shutter Speed – 1/125 –
again this is easily achievable in the studio due to the control we have over
the light. 6.Aperture – This is the
variable aspect with regards the light in the studio. We had to use 2 lights to
get the light reading at 100 iso up to F11. The lenses work best at around
F8/F11 so this was perfect in this scenario.
Conclusion
What else could I have
done? The only other thing I could do is ask my class mates to be more involved
and shoot more of them? Maybe we should come in with it in mind that we’re
going to be photographed and offer ourselves as models rather than keep
photographing our teacher? Other than that I think this write up has gone
really well and I’ve written a ton of stuff that meets most of the criteria
that we’re meant to meet.
My only concern at this
stage is that if we approach our work in this way it becomes the PDP which we
have to hand in during November and yet we carry on till January? I’ve talked to Dave and
he has said that if we produce the work like this he’ll photocopy the pages
that are done in this way and have them as the PDP.
Action Plan
This has gone really
well, but I readily acknowledge that the work that I’m supposed to be producing
independently isn’t coming together and I need to start getting things together
as time will catch up on me. We have been clearly told that we should try our
ideas out in the most basic way in order that we have images to put in our book
and respond to with more independence. This will also enable Dave to look at
the work and give us feedback and guidance and maybe adapt the lesson to accommodate
our own specific ideas with direct examples.
So, this week I’m going
to…
1.Ask my mate Jo to model
for me for my first test shoot on location (My flat).
2.Plan the shoot for
Saturday with Jo and ask a 2nd person to be a back-up model, maybe
one of the group as they can act as an assistant as Dave has suggested. That
way, if I can’t figure something out, between us using our notes we might be
able to come up with a solution?
3.Between now and
Saturday I’m going to try and take pictures and set my camera up using my notes
to get some confidence.
4.I’ll make notes of my
camera settings and record them in the event that it goes wrong.
5.Whatever images come
out, I’m going to get them printed and make sure they are in my book so that
Dave can have a look and offer advice if need be.
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