Assignment one : Workflow

Camber Dock

I thought quite a while about what subject to focus on for this assignment and opted to explore Camber Dock in Portsmouth which I felt offered a range of subjects from working fishing boats, leisure craft and a well known fish market all bound by residential buildings.

1 Preparation
I researched the Camber Dock area e.g. opening times of the Fish Market that I wanted to visit. Given the consistent weather forecasts indicating cold, cloudy weather, I also checked out on the internet what techniques fellow photographers were using to overcome dull or at best cloudy / bright weather  to see whether there were any tips I could pick up on. This led me to taking the tripod on every site shoot so that I could use as wide aperture as I needed avoiding camera shake and a circular polariser. Other checks covered the battery level and storage capacity of the memory card being used. Also decided to re calibrate my computer monitor and printer in readiness for printing the final selection of images.

2 Site visits

An initial and brief visit to primarily walk the area ( as the weather was not very good that day ) made me think that a straightforward landscape approach for outside images could likely produce  pedestrian / picture postcard views. Looking at the theme from a different angle I decided that action shots and images that captured the range of colour,texture and pattern that constantly drew my eye as I walked around the dock might work better.

3 Capture images
I completed two site visits and combined the images taken on both days. This was worth doing since the weather was different on both days giving a different perspective for the images. I tried  different approaches e.g. bracketing to see how the images  might be improved on site. Inevitably images were deleted on site but given the light difficulties I did have to bring the majority taken back home since it proved too difficult to see the impact of the changes on the camera display screen.

4 Technical edit

The technical edit reduced the images down to 156 images.  At this stage, I started to think what I really need from software to allow me to easily make value judgements and how best to organise the material. In the past I have created my own filing system of folders and subfolders and this simple approach has worked well so far. Experimenting with Photoshop came unstuck due to some kind of corruption of software but up to the point of becoming aware of the software problems I was not convinced that that approach provided me with an improved approach re-organisation within the workflow. That said, it is early days and I feel the need to persevere with getting to grips with the 'Organiser' side of things once I have sorted the software problem. My fall-back position looked to be using Windows Photo Gallery to grade the photos at the first selection stage.

5 First selection 

At this stage I had to decide what software to use given the problems I was having with Photoshop's interaction with my hard drive. In the end I opted to not use Photoshop for organising / tagging the images. Using Photo Gallery's system of star rating, I looked  
 for images that drew my eye from the point of view of content e.g. texture, colour, pattern, sense of place etc.  I was probably not critical enough at this stage since the initial selection came to 70 images ( three star ).

6 Second selection

Applying a more critical eye and using Photo Gallery processing software, I now came down to 19 images ( four star ). At this point I decided to give myself a break from looking at the images so that I could come back to the review stage with a fresh eye.

7 Review

Worth standing back for a while as  I found it much easier to choose the final selection of 12 images ( 5 star ).

8 Final selection
Each image was then numbered using my current numbering scheme and given a caption containing technical detail. The final selection is more abstract than reality perhaps...



P488 :f3.5 @ 1/400  ISO 200 +0.3exp.  18mm  Cloudy WB

I liked the angle of this shot  ( P488 ) which emphasises the shape of the boats against the sky. I decided to adjust the saturation for this image to bring out the colour more.



P489: f5.6 @ 1/50  ISO 100 55mm Cloudy WB cropped

In the above image the reflections emphasised by the blue cable caught my eye first. The swan was a bonus given it was on the move at the time.



P490: f4.5 @ 1/320  ISO 100  148mm cropped Cloudy WB

I wanted to capture the swan juxtaposed against the incoming fishing boat which meant taking the shot quickly. The cropping was slight and vertical from the left. I also adjusted the contrast increasing it a little. I’m happy with the result liking the position of bollard, swan and boat …

P491: f4.5 @ 1/80  ISO 100  18mm Cloudy WB

The intention here is to draw the audience from the boat coming in to the catch i.e. the oysters framed within the yellow structure of the boat…a natural frame so to speak. The image came out a little dark so I increase the brightness and saturation a little.



P492: f4 @ 1/125 @ 1/125  ISO 100  28mm Cloudy WB cropped

What attracted me here in P492 was the rich colour of the inside of the boat, the blue working gloves and the crab leg left over from the morning’s work. I did try cropping more closely to bring together the linked images of gloves and crab leg but lost a lot of the rich colour, pattern and shape so drew back to this composition. Saturation was increased a little to enhance the colours.



P493: F14 @ 1/160  ISO 200  55mm AWB cropped

I really like the outcome of this shot i.e. the composition, colour and reflection of the dock pub in the water.



P494: f13 @ 1/25  ISO 400 -0.7exp. 24mm  AWB cropped

I spent some time in the fish market trying all kinds of shots of fish, the working area, the imagery and notices on the walls etc.  to try and convey a sense of place.This lobster was quite splendid and I think tilting the shot works well.



P495: f5.6 @ 1/50  ISO 800  27mm Cloudy WB  cropped

You couldn’t miss this sign as it faced the entrance. Obviously seen better days and somehow the broom leaning against it seemed to emphasise this. There was very much a tension in the indoor fish market between the up to date fresh fish presented in a safe and healthy environment and signs like this one set on the periphery of activity.



P496: f8 @ 1/13  ISO 800 24mm  AWB

Until now I didn’t realise how difficult it actually is to photograph dead fish in a way that hints at the live animal. The eyes always indicate freshness apparently but capturing the beautiful markings took a number of shots from different angles and ISO settings. I increased the contrast slightly when processing this image to enhance the markings.



P497: f8 @ 1/30  ISO 100  37mm  AWB

I chose this image ( P497) because I liked the composition. I turned it round to view it in portrait rather than landscape as I think it works better that way. Contrast, saturation and brightness have all been increased slightly.

P498: F5.6 @ 1/30  ISO 100  31mm Cloudy WB

What drew my eye here were the shells and stones trapped behind this piece of fishing gear plus the rhythmic pattern and contrast of colours. I increased the contrast and brightness a little to enhance the image.

P499: F4 @ 1/160 ISO 100 114mm Cloudy WB

I had to use the telephoto lens here to get close enough to the subject to try and capture the beautiful reflection that I could see from afar. I took the photo at a slight angle as I wanted to achieve an abstract image. Try as I might I could not capture very well the slight tremor in the water which reminded me of impressionism. Again I increased the saturation and contrast to bring out the colour and shape.

9  Backup /archiving
The 12 final images were backed up on an external hard drive as usual.

10 Prints

8 prints were taken. Despite re-calibrating my computer display and printer, the prints were not as good a match in colour as I would have wished.




11 Conclusion

As I worked through this assignment, I wondered how what I chose to to do in terms of the workflow process might differ from what others might do here. I think the key area may be the selection process and how images are tagged for future and retrospective use. I still feel more comfortable with my customary practice of using folders to differentiate the levels of selection rather than grading with say a star based system which I felt somehow slowed things down for me. That said, this may well be the process of learning and getting used to a new approach getting in the way. Once I have sorted the Photoshop software problem, I think I will persevere here for a while longer so that lack of familiarity with the 'Organiser ' side of things does not influence my thinking here as to what to use in the future.