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
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