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.