Assignment 2: Elements of Design

The purpose of this assignment was to incorporate the techniques and learning from what I had worked on so far into a set of photographs that were all directed towards one subject.

Having taken a week’s holiday during October this year and visited France, I chose to use the subject of Monet’s house and garden to the west of Paris known as Giverny. I had been to Giverny before and was well aware of the gardens which are a main feature of the property and an inspiration to Monet in his paintings. I wasn’t entirely sure that I would be able to capture all the elements that were asked for in the assignment - and in one or two cases, I was not as satisfied with the results as I am in others. However, the explanations for these are below.

There are two parts to Monet’s garden – a flower garden called Clos Normand and a Japanese inspired water garden. There was significant contrast between the two – which are separated by a road – the flower garden showed strong signs of wintering and it looked like there had been some frost in the previous days as many of the flowers and plants were damaged and/or dying. As a result, the colours in the flower garden were more restrained.

The water garden, however, was much lusher and the colours in the photographs show up more strongly.

The following is a brief analysis of the photographs for this assignment which, as usual, can be found on my Flikr account:

• Single Point Dominating The Composition: the first image is of a wheelbarrow and was actually the first thing I saw when I stepped into the flower garden. The barrow dominates the shot with the eye going straight to it.

• Two Points: Using the wheelbarrow again, I also included this time a tree which was standing in the same space. The tree is more dominant and I wondered if the wheelbarrow would become ‘lost’ with the background bedding but I don’t think this is the case and the two points are definitely marked.

• Several Points In A Deliberate Shape: I had the most difficulty with this effect and I am not as satisfied with this photograph. If anything, I spent more time trying to find a subject for this particular effect than any of the other photographs. There is an element of the triangle in between the three closed flower heads.

• Combination Of Vertical And Horizontal Lines: for this photograph, I used the horizontal trellising and contrasted this with the vertical hanging branches of the tree behind. The chain railings together with the green bench help to highlight the horizontal lines in the picture.

• Diagonals: these are implied through the linear perspective of the pathway in between the two very wide flower beds. I feel the diagonals are also accentuated by the framing of the overhanging trellis and the green chain across the front of the photograph.

• Curves: Giverny is famous for the Japanese bridges that cross the waterways and I took a number of photographs of these. I chose this particular shot as there is the curve of the pathway but more importantly the handle rail which the eye follows across.

• Distinct, Even If Irregular, Shapes: I’m unsure as to what type of snail this is but suspect, as it was so close to the water’s edge on a reed, that this was its habitat. The snail’s shape is very distinct and completely recognisable. To complement this, I have also included a photograph of the water lillies which again have a distinct shape in their roundness. Even collectively, each individual leaf stands out.

• At Least Two Kinds Of Implied Triangle: my first shot is an implied triangle made up of three very bright yellow flowers. As mentioned in my opening paragraph, any colour in this part of the garden was quite unusual especially as so much else of the garden was dead or dying. (This was the last few days of the public opening this season.) The second photograph has an implied triangle from the way that the branches of a plant reached up inversing the shape.

• Rhythm: I took this from the house which was part covered in plants but which had a series of green shutters all the way down together with a number of young trees held up by posts that created a sense of rhythm for me. In reality, if I could have taken the shot from a full-on position I think with hindsight this might have been better.

• Pattern: I focused into this plant which, with its series of leaves and berries, provides a pattern albeit irregular.

November 2010

Completion of Part Two - Elements of Design

Again, there has been a bit of a time lapse since my last learning journal entry but, as before, I have been doing quite a lot of photography in and amongst a quite heavy workload and considerable travel for work.

I completed the remaining exercises in the unit looking mainly at shape (including triangles) and rhythm and pattern and have also completed the Assignment for this unit (which will feature separately).

I have been aware of the use of implied triangles in some of the work I had been doing around portraiture and especially when there are three or more people in the group. The exercise to take a series of photographs that represented real and implied triangles wasn't quite so easy. However, these are included on my Flikr site.

The final exercise concerned rhythm and pattern which I enjoyed doing. For rhythm, I spotted some tall grasses blowing in the wind outside our house. I liked the way that each blade of the grass flower moved together with each other as if they were one. I took a number of shots of these but the best, which I feel gives a great sense of rhythm is below.

For Pattern, we were staying at a rented house in the Cotswolds and one of the rooms had a book case in loaded with books of all sizes. I took a number of photographs cropped tightly into the book case and making sure that the edges of the case did not show. Again, I was pleased with the result (below).

Overall, the unit has again helped to observe more closely my surroundings and think constantly as to what it would look like as a photograph as well as improving my overall composition technique.

Part Two - Elements of Design (i)

I've not written in my learning log for a few weeks but that's not to say I haven't been doing any photography! I did a portrait photo shoot for my executive coach and her website and then last weekend, visited a small environmental centre for big cats with Esther where we had a whole day of shooting (the photography-type! they're endangered already!) a range of tigers, snow leopards, pumas, lions and other big cats. It was an amazing day.

For the course, I've moved onto Part Two: Elements Of Design and have been working slowly through the unit completing the projects as I go. This log is an update of where I have got to so far.

The first project was around Points and positioning a point. I took three photographs of a derelict building on the South Downs and not too far from our home. The first picture was taken with the building in the top right corner - this felt the most natural place to include the point as the foreground of grass and field seemed to lead up to the building. I also wanted to try the building in the centre of the frame - partly because everything says 'don't!' and I wanted to see what it would look like. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't that particularly interesting! My third image was taken with the building intersecting on the bottom and central third on the left hand side using the 'rule of thirds'. This feels very unsatisfactory and almost uninteresting especially when I compare it back with the first.

As always, my photographs can be viewed on my flikr page.

The second exercise was around the relationship between points. I've had some difficulty in trying to identify 'two normally occurring situations' and rather than hold up the rest of my unit, I have continued on. I dully understand the principle which I hope is demonstrated in the multiple point exercise but, not being one to give up, will continue to look for a decent example over the coming weeks as I progress through the unit.

However, I have taken the third photograph in the exercise which was of a pair of eyes.

The third exercise was multiple points - a walk through a field with a horse chestnut tree at one edge gave me the idea of using conkers and their shells for this exercise. I had some difficulty in selecting a suitable background to start with and aborted two or three attempts as it either looked too busy or was unnatural. My final selection was using dried leaves that were falling in our garden and setting up the still life on the ground underneath the tree where the leaves were falling. I placed the seed shells around to add some interest and then proceeded to place each conker in a row with two conkers off-set to add  additional shapes and lines to the final composition. I was very happy with the result which, when I added a series of lines that related the objects, highlighted a series of triangles. The final picture complete with drawn on lines is below:

The next exercise progressed into horizontal and vertical lines - this is one of the reasons why the unit has taken longer as I wanted to identify potential images from a variety of sources including from the Cotswolds where I was staying a few weeks ago. I found vertical lines easier to identify and photograph although there was no shortage of examples of horizontal lines. My vertical lines included a large mural beneath a bridge in London, a series of trees on the Downs, some panelling and metal bars making up a fence. I also had other examples including the way in which a field had been ploughed leaving vertical lines in the soil and a path across the Downs (although I was able to re-use the ploughed field again a little later as part of the diagonal exercise (see below).

For the horizontal lines, I found these more evident in nature and/or where man was working with nature. For example, hedging was an obvious example and I used this across a field. I also noticed lines created by the way that soil had been moved by weather and erosion down the side of a hill. Another example was the way that sheep  stood in a particular field (although I confess, on reflection, this is less obvious for this exercise!).

The next exercise was to look at diagonals - again I found this more difficult to identify diagonal lines but, as mentioned before, was able to use a photograph of a ploughed field. Perspective also creates diagonals and the line of a metal fence on the Downs was something that I had spotted as a potential diagonal and I returned to photograph this. My third diagonal photograph was made up of the lines of metal supporting for Hungerford Bridge over the Thames in London which has a number of steel struts.

The curves exercise was simpler and actually more fun to do - as the text of the course suggests, there is a sense of movement in a curve and I found this especially in the photographs of the winding road that I took as well as the top of metal fencing. The eye seems to naturally follow the fencing around from the front of the photograph to the back. Whilst we all know that the London Eye does go round - albeit slowly - the photograph of this  even though it looks stationery still presents a sense of movement. The final photograph in this set was of rows of houses as they sweep round and again give a sense of movement if not at least for the observer who follows the houses around.

As with previous work on the course so far, I am finding these exercises really useful in the way that I observe and look at the world around me, whether through the viewer of the camera or just as I go about each day.

Assignment One: Contrasts

This first assignment was to build on the learning and experiences from Part One: The Frame and explore more deeply one of the fundamental principles in design which was contrast.


The activity involved the taking and choice of eight pairs of photographs from a list with the concept of contrast in mind for which, ultimately, I ended up with the following pairings:

• Transparent/Opaque

• Diagonal/Rounded

• Pointed/Blunt

• Light/Dark

• Smooth/Rough

• Light/Heavy

• Still/Moving

• Straight/Curved

plus a further photograph which I felt demonstrated contrast in one picture.

Initially, the choice of pairs was a result of some thinking and planning beforehand but once I had started the assignment, other ideas came to light and I was happy to swap to what I felt were better, more meaningful, contrasts as a result.

As a result, in some cases the photographs were ‘contrived’ – in other words, I set them up with a view to showing the extreme of the contrast – whilst others were as a result of observations that I had made which I felt would work better in the assignment. In only one case (Moving), did I use a photograph already taken and used elsewhere ie for the Movement project in this Part of the course but which I thought was very suitable for what I wanted to show.

One of my observations – and a key learning – from the assignment is the fact that I have noticed that I am starting to look at potential subjects more closely with an interest on how this will look when photographed. Whilst saying that I am starting to ‘see the world in a different way’ sounds a bit like a cliché, I do think this is true and see this already as a benefit of the course.

The photographs for this assignment can be found on my Flikr site.

The following sets out my thinking behind each contrast pair:

Transparent/Opaque: I chose to use glass in our home for this pair of photographs. Our homes have so much glass in and around them and this seemed the perfect material to demonstrate this pair of contrasts. We have chosen recently to install glass internal doors on our ground floor in order to allow more light into our hallway and rooms and the Transparent photograph shows one of these doors with my daughter being the subject to bring to life the contrast. I also chose this particular door as the window that I subsequently used to show Opaque is reflected in the glass. I again used Esther to highlight this contrast asking her to come up close to the opaque window so that you could see her shape and be able to identify her in some way.

Diagonal/Rounded: My original intention was to use scaffolding as a subject for Diagonal highlighting the cross bars that are often used to make the structure more stable and then a rounded building (an old gardener’s hut) which was of round construction. However, I subsequently noticed that there were considerable diagonal struts under Eastbourne’s pier and took a number of photographs to show these. The photograph I chose highlights these to an extreme. The pier also has a large hall on it which has a large domed feature coupled with some smaller roundels; these can be seen from a distance away and is a particular landmark for Eastbourne’s seafront. In taking this pair, I was again able to connect the Diagonal contrast photograph with the Rounded photograph using different parts of the pier’s structure.

Pointed/Blunt: These two photographs were set up at home to show the contrasts. In both cases, I wanted to use cutting instruments to connect them together. For the Pointed picture, I hung a pair of pointed silver scissors with very pointed tips in front of a black screen and then took a number of photographs. The final picture was cropped to highlight the scissors on the right hand side. The second photograph of the pair, Blunt, was created by using the back of a table knife to hack through a ripe tomato. The first few photographs looked a little ‘dry’ so I added some pips from another tomato to try and enhance the contrast.

Light/Dark: These are my favourite pair of contrast photographs. For Light, I wanted to show the source of all natural light but simply pointing my camera at the sun was, in my view, a bit boring so I used some trees to show the sun’s light coming through. I noticed that by changing the aperture on the lens that the light gave a circular border which accentuated the light coming through. To show Dark, I perversely needed something to highlight the dark and so lit a candle in a darkened room. This was very simple to do but effectively demonstrated the contrast.

Smooth/Rough: I took these two photographs on an especially calm and warm September’s day on Eastbourne’s beach. The sea was incredibly calm with the ‘waves’, if that is what you would call them, barely washing onto the shore. It is quite unusual for the sea to be this calm and I thought it would make a good representation of Smooth. By contrast, Eastbourne does not have sandy beaches but instead are covered in shingle. I liked the contrast of the smooth sea with the roughness of the pebbles all the way down to the water line.

Light/Heavy: The contrast I used for Light was a feather. Initially, I wanted to show the feather floating down in front of a black screen but this proved extremely difficult to do particularly with the lighting. Eventually, I managed to get this rather grainy photograph by dropping the feather and photographing it from above as it descended to the table below (which was also covered in a black cloth). For Heavy, I used our kitchen scales with three house bricks balanced on one side. One consideration was to put a tiny weight on the other side but in the end, I chose not to do this with, instead, leaving that side of the scales empty.

Still/Moving: I enjoyed the project on panning and particularly liked the photographs of motorbikes which seemed to work really well for me. As I knew at that time that I would also be looking for photographs for this assignment, I chose to use one of the panned motorbike photographs to show Moving. This photograph clearly shows the movement through the horizontal lines in the background. For Still, I set about looking for a stationary motorbike parked in the town and found this particular one.

Straight/Curved: I am fortunate enough to live in an area where there are a number of woodland paths and walks as well as open gardens. It was relatively simple to photograph these two pictures both on a sunny day and showing these two contrasts. For Straight, I think this contrast is accentuated by the shadow lines that run across the path giving an almost ‘train track’ impression. In doing so, this leads the eye to the end of the path. For Curved. I used a woodland path which bent round to the right. I liked this curve as it invites the viewer to see what is around the corner.

The final photograph attempts to show contrast in one picture and was taken from the south bank of the Thames by Westminster Bridge looking across the water back towards the Houses of Parliament. There are a number of contrasts in the photograph including light and dark (the sun shining on the left hand side of the picture and the dark shadows under the bridge); sharp and blurred (the bridge in the foreground is very sharp whilst the Parliament buildings have a softness to them caused by the depth of field); movement in the water as it ripples under the bridge; weather, both good and bad with fine blue sky on the left and rain clouds on the right; reflection of light on the water; and, nature and man (water and the bridge).

September 2010

Photography 1 - A Week In Cornwall

I've spent a serious part of my week off in Cornwall catching up with the first main unit of the course where I knew there would be plenty of photography opportunities - as there have been. I read through the unit before I came away in order to give myself as chance to think through what might be required as well as look for new places where I could take some photographs.

This is likely to be a long learning log this week as there is plenty to write about as well as show - of course, most of the photographs will be on my Flikr account.

The subject of the unit has been around the frame - something that I have tended to generally take for granted. Occasionally, I do think about how things appear in the frame but reflecting back on my earlier log about the time taken to compose a shot compared with the time to just press the shutter release has helped me to slow down a little before actually taking the shot. This unit has helped that slowing down process even further and made me think more about what am I actually trying to record on the camera.

The first exercise - which I did before we left for Cornwall - was around fitting the frame to the subject. I chose to use the hanging chair that is in our garden as it is large and accessible enough for me to be able to get up close as well as stand back and take photographs. I enjoyed the cropping part of this which gave yet another perspective that I hadn't necessarily seen when I first took the photographs my preference being for cropping the landscape photographs in such a way that it elongated the frame and made the chair look more interesting. Rather than being in the centre of the frame, by cropping I was able to make the subject look almost coincidental but very obviously part of the picture. Below is my favorite of the sequence - the first picture being the original photograph and the second is the cropped:

Full frame photograph - chair in context with surroundings

Cropped photograph of above

 The second project in the unit was around having an object in different positions which was something that I had tried doing before and which worked reasonably well. Finding the subject wasn't quite so easy as I was looking for something that would stand reasonably solitary so that it stood out. Originally, I tried a red flag on a golf course - it was so solitary that it wasn't particularly interesting. My second choice was a little more successful which was a hotel on Newquay's seafront. I took a sequence of photographs of the hotel which looked rather majestic in various positions in the viewfinder. The first was with the hotel slap bang in the middle of the frame and then I simply moved the viewfinder in several other positions including to the left and right of the centre of the viewfinder and even one where I cut off half the hotel to the left. The photograph that worked least well was the one where I took it to the extreme left. In all honesty, it just looked silly and almost like I had made a mistake. The photograph that seemed to work the best was where the hotel was higher up in the frame and slightly to the left. Whilst there is plenty of foreground (the golf course), the size of the hotel and the lines of the horizon seemed to help to accentuate what to look at with the hotel being highlighted by the colour of the sky.

Of course, the advantage of a digital camera is that you can see almost instantaneously what makes a good picture.

Object in a different position - working better

Object in a different position - working least well

The next project was around creating a sequence of composition - I had been thinking for a while how I might do this and started initially at the Eden Project tracing people who had come to visit the gardens and ultimately ending up in one of the many cafeterias at the attraction. However, this didn't seem to work extremely well and I abandoned the idea. I then tried again at Newquay's beaches following a series of people down to the beach. It was clear that most people were going onto the beach for surfing and as I hadn't visited Newquay (or any surfing beach) before, half of the fun of this exercise was the fact that I really didn't know what to expect. I had a few false turns including following the Lifeguard service on the beach which was very evident, some young lads who were playing on boards as the waves came in, following a dog (who I hoped was going to jump into the sea but he got cold feet!) and finally I seemed to catch on to a guy who, with surfboard in hand, was looking for the right waves before venturing out. The sequence for him shows him looking at the waves, checking in with his friends before venturing out and then finally getting on to the board and managing (briefly!) to surf.

As before, I was very conscious of the candid nature of this type of photography and the possibility of being misunderstood on a beach with a camera. This time, I had Sue my wife with me which seemed to help.

The learning here for me was exactly as intended, that is, creating a sequence which came about almost incidentally. I knew that perhaps there was a 'story' of sorts somewhere on that beach and I suppose the interesting thing is that the story emerged quite accidentally and without me knowing how it was going to end. The great thing about the camera is its ability to create a story and record it as it happens.

The next exercise was around focal lengths. I appreciate the fact that I am lucky enough to have a number of lenses which enable me to take photographs at variable focal lengths. For this exercise, I was looking for something that stood out and I found this in the Lost Gardens of Heligan. (By the way, I'm conscious that this weeks blog is starting to sound like a travel diary ..... apologies for this!) There was a very tall tree that stood out in one of the gardens - I loved the way it appeared so proud above all of the other trees. I used several lenses to capture the photographs - from wide angle which was around 10mm up to my longest lens that I was carrying which was 200mm. As I had already owned the lenses for a while, I was very aware of what they could do but nevertheless it was still a good exercise.

The full sequence can be found on my Flikr page but the photographs above show the tree taken at a very wide angle of 10mm and below at the other extreme of 200mm.

For my next exercise which was around focal lengths and different viewpoints, I chose a piece of farmyard machinery which I walked past each morning on my way up to get my morning paper. It just looked so intriguing although I have no real idea of what is is for! For this exercise, I used a telephoto lens which, had there been space, would have gone up to 300mm. As it happened, I only had the width of the lane that I was standing in plus a metre or so with my back right up to hedges behind. As instructed, I changed the lens to my wide angle lens which has a focal range of 10mm - 20mm and walked forward until the subject filled the frame. To be honest, the difference in photographs is not brilliant - on the wide angle photograph, there is some 'rounding' or curvature of the edges of the machinery which I think is caused by the lens.

Photograph taken with telephoto lens (100mm)

Photograph taken with wideangle lens (20mm)

As with an earlier exercise, I may repeat this later when I find a more suitable subject.

The final exercise I undertook whilst in Cornwall was around positioning the horizon - with so much wonderful scenery of farmland (as well as beaches etc), this was relatively easy to do both in finding a location as well as taking the photographs. I chose a fairly straight sky line with fields in the foreground so that the impact of a changed horizon line would show more. The numbers of potential positions with this scene were many but I chose the extremes with the horizon very low in the picture (so, therefore, very little foreground and mainly sky) and the opposite with the horizon very high in the picture so that the photograph is mainly foreground. Personally, I think having the horizon slap bang in the middle was quite boring and I liked the contrast that positioning the horizon in different places gave. Certainly, when I have taken photographs like this before, I have tended to make sure that there is something prominent in the foreground to add a  bit of interest to what otherwise can become quite a static scene.

Horizon at bottom of photograph - nice clouds!

Horizon at top of photograph

 

Week Three ....

Firstly, I must think up some more original titles to each learning log entry otherwise its going to get very boring.

I did the final two exercises this week in the Introduction unit, both around photographing movement.

The first was around shutter speeds and since I was already in the Kings Drive area of Eastbourne where there was plenty of traffic, I decided to use cars as my moving object. I took a number of photographs at a fixed point of cars passing across the viewfinder starting at a shutter speed of 1/15 and progressing through a number of shots up to 1/5000 (all on the TV setting).

There is a considerable sense of movement at 1/15 - the car is just a blur. You can get a true sense of the wheels moving where there is some really interesting 'cross-hatching' of the hubcaps on the wheel as the wheels faster than the car does.

Shutter speed at 1/15 f/14

The exposure at 1/500 makes the car look stationery and has no sense of movement at all and this continues more or less throughout the the remaining shots with the exception that as the shutter speed increases, the photograph becomes darker so that at 1/5000 it is barely visible.

Shutter speed 1/500 f/4.0

Shutter speed 1/5000 f/4.0

The second project was more interesting and involved a little more skill and technique and that was around panning. Again, I took a number of photographs attempting to pan with the vehicles and blurring the background. It took quite a few shots to get the hang of the techniques (thanks Esther!) and I found generally, I was panning too slow. The speed of my body movement got better as I carried on and I soon realised that I needed to speed up to get the better pictures.

Overall, I was happy with the results especially with the motorbikes which added more interest. Even with the vehicle still in the photograph, there is still motion in the wheels.

Panning at 1/80 - keeping it rocking!

I tried panning at shutter speeds of 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, 1/80 and got the best results at 1/60 and at 1/80. At a shutter speed of 1/100 I got a photograph that didn't show any motion at all.

Most definitely the blurred background gives a strong sense of movement and my preference is for the background to be blurred rather than the subject.

Just one other thing - this exercise helped in overcoming the self-consciousness I mentioned last week. Many of the drivers were distracted by my photography (which was possibly a reckless thing on my part) and most smiled or even waved.

My other photographic news this week was that I got a Highly Commended certificate for my bluebell photograph in the Arlington Bluebell Walk competition I entered in the Spring - my first competition too! My photograph can be seen on the Gallery Page for 2010 in Class B on http://www.bluebellwalk.co.uk/ as can also one of my other photographs under 'Imaginative!'. You can imagine how delighted I was.

I'm looking forward to moving on to the next part of the course this coming week.

As a reminder, all my photographs for the projects can be seen in my Flikr account.

Week Two ....

The week started with the 'photoshoot' at the Middletons where I was practising taking portraits - the actual posing, which was what I was most concerned about, went reasonably well. The real problems were with getting the lighting right and getting the hang of the equipment. I had huge problems to start with around getting the right exposure - this was despite using virtually the same settings as I had done the week before at our house - but clearly the external lighting ie lighting coming in from outside the room etc was very different. I also had problems with shadows on the background - oddly, by taking the photos in RAW, those that came out under-exposed (mainly because the flash on my camera had not had time to recharge) were easier to correct later in Photoshop.

I've spent the week starting to process the photographs since last Sunday's shoot and, so far, there are around a dozen that look really presentable. (One of the books I was reading for ideas on poses would call them 'saleable' - I'm not so sure about that but will try and get some really good feedback from Jackie and Reg when I present  back the final portfolio in a couple of weeks time.)  I also intend to pull together some sort of feedback form and ask them to complete it as honestly as they can setting out what they thought went well, what didn't get so well and what they think I could improve upon.

I also did three projects for the course this week - the first was on 'Getting To Know Your Camera - Focal Length & Angle Of View'.  I took three pictures at our kitchen door of the back garden, mainly focussed on the summer house - one at 50mm ('standard'). one at 24mm ('wide angle') and the third at 105mm ('telephoto').  As instructed, I printed off the three photos and stood back at the door. The standard photo was about 18" away from my face when the print scene appeared the same size as the view of the real scene. The wide angle was less than 2-3" away! And the telephoto was so far away that I couldn't hold it but had to put it down and then stand back.

In terms of learning, I recognise that the camera can see/do things that I can't do with my eye in terms of reach/bringing things closer or making them look further away.

The second project was to 'Focus With A Set Aperture' - I went down the road away from our house for this and took pictures of railings adjacent to the local recreation ground and with the lens set at f/4 (the lowest f-stop on that particular lens which was my Canon EF 24-105m and the camera set in AV mode), I took three photos, the first focussed on the foreground, the second on the middle ground and the third on the background.

My initial reaction, looking at the LCD screen, was not very impressive. I couldn't see the depth of field - which was the whole point of the exercise - and I thought that perhaps I was using the wrong lens. However, when I got the camera home and lookd at the pictures again on the PC, it was better (but not brilliant). My preference was for the picture where the middle ground was in focus and the the rest of the picture 'fades' away into the background. I thnk this was partially because of the composition of the picture - the background was naturally darker anyway because of where I was and it creates some intrigue in the picture. Where the immediate foreground was out of focus, I felt that this led the eye into the centre of the picture where it was sharper and more focussed.

Focus on middleground

The thrd project was the one around 'Focus At Different Apertures'. For this, I went onto the Downs and looked for some trees or something suitably in line that would give me the row of things that would demonstrate the difference in picture at the different aperture settings on my lens (f/4, f/11 and f/22). The first set of shots were very disapointing  and particularly the photograpgh at f/11 which was blurred. This was despite using the tripod. There were two reasons for this, I think - the first was that the amount of light was much less than away from the woods. I should have thought of that. The second was that I think I rushed the exercise - to be honest, I was a little self-conscious standing there with my camera and tripod. This is something that I have to overcome as part of this course!

I repeated the exercise at the top of the hill outside of the woods and focussed on the row of cars parked opposite the golf club. I didn't use a tripod this time but focussed spcifically on the number plate of the car in the centre of the row each time. I can't see a huge difference in the photos - and maybe I haven't done the exercise properly, I'm not sure. Certainly the photograph at f/11 is much sharper than at f/4 and f/22 and the speed of the shutter which was automatically adjusted for each was significantly slower at f/22 (1/15) than at f/4 (1/500). The preference, if there was one, would be to go for the middle photograph at f/11 (with a shutter speed of 1/60).

f/11 at 1/60

This coming week, I want to move onto the motion exercises and start getting into the course proper.

Incdentally, I am starting to worry about the scheduled date for the fisrt assignment especially with my current workload but will keep an eye on this and let my tutor know soon if I think there is going to be a problem.

Week One ....

So, I've started my learning by doing the Introductory section of the course and am now ready to kick off this weekend with the various projects and finally the Assignment (in time!). I really thought through the notion that many people (including probably me in the past) take about the same time to compose a picture as they do to press the shutter release. I'm sure its a slight exaggeration but I get the point. Method is key but thinking that through and having the eye to do it seems very daunting at this moment in time. That is what the course is for!

I've started setting up lists of photographers to look at that are mentioned as well as thinking about collecting objects as well as ideas to photograph in the future. I will at this rate end up with lists - I need to make sure that they don't just stay like that. I also want to look at Edward Weston's day books to give me an idea of the style and the sorts of things that he wrote in them about the photographs that he took.

Also during this week I've been preparing for these two portrait sessions that I've gone and got myself bookings for. A little nerve-wracking to say the least especially when you start reading about the problems around lighting as well as just getting the subject to pose in such a way that is flattering to them as well as producing a good photo at the end.

Lots of books arrived this week - went a bit crazy on Amazon - but managed to get the three books recommended for the course and will start to look at these on next weeks travelling to the Netherlands.

Finally, Matthew and I had a good session last night with the alphabetti spaghetti - I've attached the final shot. It was just a bit of fun but the more important aspect was the siting up of everything and the trialling of different lenses to get the right exposure and one that we were both happy with. Lots of failures before we got to the final picture - including around the use of equipment such as tripods and where reflection of light was coming in from. But great fun all the same.

In this coming week, I'm putting my mind to getting some of the projects done and under my belt. It will help me feel better and that I will have really started the course.

My first blog entry .......

This is my first entry on my OCA Learning Log for my new photography course. I'm sure I'll get used to writing a blog - it feels a bit like a diary especially as at the moment I'm not sure who my audience is! A bit bizarre then! I'm very much looking forward to starting my course - in fact, I'm positively excited about it! I left school at 16 and entered into work and have often regretted not going to University but then wouldn't know what I would have wanted to study anyway! Now I have something that I really love doing - photography - and I'm looking forward to studying this and earning a qualification at the end of it all as well.

So today is my set-up day when I'm hoping to make contact with my tutor, read through the various documents that OCA have sent me and launch my new life (in between the day job!) as a student!

Wish me luck!