Managing colour

The idea here is to correct significant colour casts in a number of JPEG images. It proved a very useful exercise.

P561:  F8 @ 1/40  ISO 100  22mm  WB Tungsten  - Original image

P561 was a classic example of not checking the white balance setting before taking an image. The tungsten setting resulted in a very blue cast on a very bright cloudy day.

P561a : Amended image 

P561a is the result of using the equivalent of a 'grey dropper' placed on the asphalt.It brings the colour back to nearer the actual colour on the day which I further enhanced by adjusting the colour saturation to bring out the colour of the costumes.

P562: F5.8 @ 1/8 ISO 1600  98mm AWB

The original image of our cat ( P562 ) was disappointing as it came out with a yellow cast that did not reflect the true markings of her fur.

P563a Amended image

Placing the 'grey dropper' on the dark grey of one of the stripes produces a more accurate image.Try as I might I could not adjust the image further to remove the slight pink tinge on the chin.

P563: f3.5 @ 1/3  ISO 400 18mm

P563 is one of a number of pictures taken to illustrate a meeting made all the more difficult to take because of the changing light in the pub room which ranged from darkening natural light through to an alarming red light effect coming from wall lights as the evening progressed. This image was taken half way through the light changes and came out with a strong yellow / orange cast. 

P563a : Amended image

With this image I focused on the patch of charcoal grey top right  of the picture again with the 'grey dropper' which produced an whiter image more easy to reproduce for a local leaflet.

Managing tone

For this exercise I chose an image taken with my Powershot SX40HS and in Lightroom performed a number of actions. These included assessing and adjusting if necessary the mid-tones, contrast and if necessary making corrections to localised areas.  






P560 : f2.8 @ 1/1000  ISO 160  4.3mm AWB  Original image

P560a : Adjusted using tone curve and localised correction on sky




Value of Raw

The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the processing advantage of raw, but at the same time to put this advantages in perspective. I have taken three images in three different lighting situations using a combination of raw and the highest quality JPEG offered by my camera.

Daylight

P551: f8 @ 1/80  ISO 100  27mm AWB  JPEG

P551



P552: f8 @ 1/125  ISO 100  27mm AWB raw 

P552

P553: f8 @ 1/125  ISO 100  27mm AWB  raw amended

P553

In P553 I increased the contrast, highlights and shadows plus decreasing the black clipping. The result is lighter than the original raw and fractionally lighter than the JPEG version.

Artificial light

P554 : f4 @ 1/5  ISO 200  18mm JPEG AWB

P554

 

 

P555: f4 @ 1/5  ISO 200  18mm AWB

 

 

P555

 

P556 : f 4 @ 1/5  ISO 200 18mm AWB  RAW amended

 

For P556 I increased the highlights and increased the shadows to lighten the image. Looking at the original RAW and JPEG, I can see that the RAW image is darker.






P556



High dynamic range



P557: f9 @1/200 ISO 100 21 mm  WB Daylight

P557



P558:f 9 @1/200 ISO 100  21 mm  WB Daylight

 

P558

 

 

 

 

P559: f9 @1/200 ISO 100  21 mm  WB Daylight

 

P559

In P559 I amended the image by decreasing the white highlights and increasing the shadow which has increased the detail visible. 

Comparing the two versions for each scene, the colours seem darker in the Raw version ( less apparent in the high dynamic range model) and in the case of the image taken in daylight a little more saturated. Not a great deal of difference regarding dynamic range that I can see.

Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life exhibition - 13 July 2013

 

 

 

 

This exhibition at Tate Britain displayed an extensive collection of LS Lowry's work throughout six rooms : each room representing a different aspect of the artist:

1. Looking at Lowry
2. The Idea of Modern Life
3. Street Life : Incident and Accident
4. Ruined Landscape
5. The social Life of Labour Britain
6. The Industrial Landscapes

I remember seeing  Lowry exhibition at the Lowry in Salford many years ago but this new showing has more paintings which are hung alongside other artists such as Pissaro and Utrillo ... it seems he showed earlier and more often in Paris than London with Parisien critics understanding the link between his work and their own tradition. I had always felt that Lowry, a painter of the working class, was sympathetic to the working conditions and grim reality of everyday life of the people  he saw in front of him. Seeing such a collection  of works it seems to me that he is almost an unmoved observer and there is little within the paintings to really engage the viewer and draw them in. In some respects they seem paintings reminiscent of ' documentary' photographs  - the rule of thirds carefully observed - the image with its often white background slightly over exposed. People talk about Lowry's appetite for the crowd but I feel it is his pictorial capture of 'poverty and gloom' through his images of industrial buildings and landscapes that convey the harshness of working life and living in the 20s,30s and 40s. His crowds veer towards the grotesque / comic in his later work.

Assignment 2 : Reflection

Going back to the assessment criteria for this course again here are my thoughts having completed Assignment 2 .

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills materials, techniques, observational skills, visual awareness, design and compositional skills. 

This assignment has led me to really practise the digital techniques needed to get my camera to achieve what I was looking for to meet the very specific requirements of capturing high contrast scenes effectively without resorting to post-processing. It has been a real challenge at times but I feel that I understand the camera better and think a lot more about what I'm seeing in front of me before adjusting the camera settings and taking the shot.
The technical challenge of the street scene was for me very hard and I think I would like to revisit this later on in the course.
Certainly my visual awareness is more heightened and I find myself looking at high contrast images away from the camera in a different light and considering the technical aspects mre than I used to.

Re compositional skills, looking back at some of the images that I've produced, I feel that some lack a creative spark ( e.g. the lighthouse comes to mind here ) and I think I need to spend more time considering what subject material meets both the assignment and my own creative needs before starting on an assignment.


Quality of outcome content, application of knowledge, presentation of work in a coherent manner, discernment, conceptualisation of thoughts, communication of ideas.

I think that I have presented my work in a coherent manner for this part of the course. I have tried  to communicate my ideas clearly but this is probably better judged by the reader. Certainly I have applied what I have learnt through the course, perhaps more effectively with some images than others.

Demonstration of Creativity imagination, experimentation, invention, development of a personal voice.

If I'm honest I feel that my assignment does not demonstrate the level of creativity I would like to see...this maybe that I felt a little constrained and less engaged by some of the locations that I ended up choosing.  I need to spend more time reflecting on what I want to capture in my images and why.


Context reflection, research, critical thinking ( learning log)

My research was primarily focused on the technical side and looking for suitable locations to fulfil the requirements of the end assignment. Two particular exhibitions that I have visited during this part of the course have had an influence in my thinking here. Tacita Deane's 'Disappearance at sea' - the lighthouse light against the sunset came to mind when I was thinking about how to capture an interesting image of the Southsea Lighthouse. And I see the influence of John Riddy's 'Sicilian landscapes' in my London street scene in terms of light and dark ...I have begun to catch up on my reading but need to devote more time to this.

Assignment two : Seeing like your camera

This assignment requires the production of a set of photographs that demonstrate that the student can pre-visualise how their digital camera 'sees' a scene. All the photographs are shot in high quality JPEG with no post-processing. There two parts to this work:  Part one which requires 12 images -  three for each of the models chosen - and Part two where on of the models is re shot to make the scenes low contrast.

Part One

1 Backlit scenes




P530: f4.5 @ 1/1250  ISO 200  -1exp.   35mm AWB

This street caught my eye when walking to my OCA study visit in London. It was a sunny day, the clouds were moving very fast and I had very little time to capture the scene. Nor did I have my Canon 500D with me only my IXUS 210. That said, this was too good a scene to miss. I wanted to bring out the amazing shape of the building on the right hand side and the reflections in the glass opposite. I used evaluative metering as there so many different light sources which came out as f4 @ 1/1000 . I decided to adjust the exposure   since I felt the image would likely come out too bright  and finally settled on f4.5  @ 1/1250  -1exp. What made you choose this exposure?  Was it and educated (or not!) guess or was there a logic to it
I like the result, the small figure in the picture draws the eye in and I can live with the small amount of clipping.






P531: f8 @ 1/125  ISO 1600 28mm AWB


I used spot metering for this image and focused on the lighter early morning sky. The reading came out as 1/125  @ F8 and I took the image at this setting.

Is there any other way you could have metered the light to get a guaranteed silhouette of the statue?

I chose to have the row of military flags leading up to the statute of the Marine offset by the everyday street lights lit to the right i.e. the calling offset by the reason for it...The final image came out darker than I saw it which was what I was expecting given the angle of light ( low and off to the right ) but lighter than I reckoned the camera would actually reproduce it. I did not expect to be able to see the colours of the flag.

Why do you think this might be?




P532: f14 @ 1/100 ISO 400  -0.7exp.  38mm Daylight WB

This image of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton (P532) was taken in the middle of the day in very strong sunlight.I wanted to taken an image that accentuated the interesting architecture and noticed the sunlight glinting off some of the domes which became a starting point for me. What I wanted to achieve was a capture of this sunlight combined with an almost silhouette effect to highlight the shapes. I was not sure how to meter the scene so tried partial metering
 focusing on the off white stone work and sky with the light coming in from the right. It metered at 1/400 @ F11 which I altered to f14 to achieve a little more detail and then reduced the exposure by -0.7 to darken the stonework. The image has not been processed other than being cropped to improve the composition. Again I was expecting the camera to see the image darker than it actually did as you can see some detail below the dome which I did not expect to be visible to the extent it is.

Why do you think the camera produces a lighter image than you were expecting?

That said, I think the light and dark shadow contrast on the dome does enhance the detail of the dome which was what I was looking for.


2 Early morning




P 535: f7.1 @ 1/400  ISO 100 -1exp. 27mm Daylight WB

The Millennium Tower in Portsmouth is very much an iconic landmark at Gunwharf Quays. It towers above the quayside, a dazzling white image against the sky. Here I wanted to catch the effect of the sun rising here i.e. any change in colour and gradually the colour of the tower changed from a grey white to a very faint pink to this golden white colour. Again I used spot metering focused on the highlight area of the tower as a starting point. Seeing this to be 1/400 @ f5, I decided to shoot the picture one stop underexposed. To heighten the dramatic nature of the building, I chose to shoot the tower from below looking up and diagonally across the frame - a diagonal emphasised by the shadow of a flag at the bottom right. I hoped that the camera would reproduce a dramatic contrast of colour and in fact, the sensor renders it darker than I was expecting but for all that I feel pleased with the end result. The shadows emphasise the architectural design and line well.





P536: f22 @ 1/5  ISO 100 -1exp.  49mm Daylight WB



For this image I used the spot meter focused on the sky with the sun rising behind and to the side of the lighthouse. The reading came out at 1/40 @ f5.6 with some clipping. I wanted to have the lighthouse stand out as almost a silhouette to emphasise the colour of the sunrise so I reduced the exposure by one stop to darken the image. The final image produced by the camera had a darker blue for the sky than I saw when looking  at the scene with the naked eye though this did enhance the sunrise oranges. Image was cropped.




P537: f9 @ 1/400  ISO 100  18mm  AWB Cropped

This image was taken just after 7am. Spot metering was used focusing on the white hut and came up with a reading of 1/250 @ f9. I took an image at this setting but given the high levels of contrast I was seeing I was not surprised to see some clipping. By increasing the shutter to 1/400 I managed to reduce the clipping with the resulting image above. I deliberately composed the picture to frame the apartments over the water within the silhouetted jetty. With hindsight I think a smaller aperture than f9 would have been better giving more depth of field and allowing some of the detail of the apartments to be seen.



3 Dappled scenes





P533: f6.3 @ 1/80  ISO 100  55mm  Daylight WB Cropped

Spot metering was used for this image using the light playing on the plums as the metering point. This came out as f6.3 @ 1/80 which I then used for the image. I cropped the photo a little from the top to improve the composition allowing the eye to travel down the main stem to the weighty ripening fruit without too much distraction.




 

P542 : f4 @ 1/125  ISO 100  -1 exp. 5mm WB Daylight 

My eye was drawn to sunlight playing on this brushwood / log hide. There was a wide range of constantly changing light sources given it was a cloudy/ bright breezy day so I felt I was more likely to get a sensible reading using a pattern exposure reading. I took a picture using the reading indicated ( i.e. 1/40 @ f4 ) and then changed the setting to get nearer to what I was  actually seeing with the naked eye but to reduce the clipping that was apparent in the first image. P542 is the result. I chose this angle of shot to have the tree shadow on the ground lead up to the sunlight spot on the hide and then draw the eye beyond to the sunlight path through the woods. I also like the light catching the tree trunks  in the background. This shot was taken with a Canon Powershot SX40 HS.







P541: f 18 @ 1/25  ISO 100  +0.3exp.  46mm  WB Daylight

For P541 I used spot metering focusing on the white beard of this garden gnome. It was a windy day which meant that the dappling was a movable feast. I wanted to capture the detail of the gnome's face and felt the dappled light falling on him did the trick. However, conscious of the likely problems of reflected light coming off his face I altered the camera's setting from the original reading of 1/40 @ f5.6 to 1/25 and over exposed the shot by 0.3.
The result was darker than the scene I saw with the naked eye and a little darker that I thought the camera would produce it following the changed settings.



4  Street scene




P538: f5.6 @ 1/1000  ISO 100 +0.3exp.  30mm AWB Cropped

I homed in on the white wall of the public house here on Spice Island, Portsmouth using spot metering. The reading was f5.6 @ 1/ 640. Since the sunlight was very strong, the shadows dark and wanting to prevent the image coming out darker than I was seeing it, I chose to use bracketing to adjust the exposure. My instinct was that a slight over exposure might work and  in fact this did render an image very close to what I was seeing here.





P540: f13 @ 1/80  ISO 400  -1exp.  21mm WB Daylight

It was quite a challenge to photograph scenes in the area of  The Lanes in Brighton. At midday the narrow passages were a very dark contrast to the bright sky above and the scene constantly changed as people wandered through window shopping. I tried spot metering at first but found it difficult to get a setting that produced the right balance between dark and light with enough detail to make the image interesting. I opted for partial metering in the end given the various areas of differing light . Based on a reading of f9 @ 1/80, I then dropped the exposure by one stop to avoid too bright an image for what I needed here.
The end result is near to what I was seeing but perhaps a shade darker and still had some highlight clipping. I like the figure looking out towards the camera in the pool of sunlight which draws the eye in and the light catching the flint wall but try as I might I could not quite capture the intrigue of the Lanes suggested by the play of light and dark shadows and open patches of sunlight in the passageways.






P539: f10 @ 1/200  ISO400  -0.3exp.  18mm WB Daylight Cropped

In P539, I used pattern metering to provide a reading. This came out as F8 1/200  and I reduced the exposure by -0.3 stop to counteract the bright light flooding down into the passage way as I wanted to reduce the shadow sufficiently to see the activity in front of me. I cropped the image to provide a more intimate composition. I like the compositional contrast between hurrying shoppers and the still couple looking into the interior of the pub obviously sizing it up for lunch... 

Part 2

 

 

For this part of the assignment I chose to return to the early morning images taken along Portsmouth's shoreline. The idea here being to  reduce the contrast or maybe even make hem low contrast scenes. Thinking about the variables  over which I might have some control e.g. the weather, I decided that maybe cloudy or rainy weather could be helpful here since changing the lighting of the composition by moving around the subjects was restricted by their location. I went out on a very wet, gusty morning with the high winds whipping the dark clouds across the sky at a rapid rate. 

 

 

Millennium Tower

 



P543:f10 @ 1/160  ISO 100 28mm AWB



 I was not surprised that this image came out almost devoid of colour as there was actually very little colour in the scene. The sky was almost uniformly a white grey - whiter than the tower. The spot meter reading of the sky came out as 1/160 @f/9. I used bracketing for the first three images and then opened the aperture to f16 ( too dark ) and then reduced to f10. The final result is a flatter more bland image with little crisp shadow definition - less contrast than the image taken in early morning sunshine where the shadow lends to the dramatic thrust of the building.

 

Lighthouse

 

 



P544: f8 @ 1/80 ISO 100 54mm  WB Cloudy

 

 

This image was taken in the pouring rain with a cloudy bright sky. The meter reading came out as 1/60 @ F7.1 but  while this produced less contrast, the picture was dark without the enhancement of a sunrise to provide interest. Changing the setting slightly kept the reduced contrast but added in some detail i.e the various shades of stone and brickwork but to my mind the result is a flat picture. I prefer the previous picture which while backlit by the sunrise ( i.e. no detail of the brickwork ) gives a crisper image.
 

Jetty 

 




P545: f8 @ 1/100  ISO 100 25mm WB Cloudy

 



Still raining here at the jetty with a cloudy sky as a backdrop. The colours are more muted here with more detail being revealed on the jetty with the terracotta pot being visible and the colour of the high rise flats more prominent. I prefer again the image with the crisp shadows and silhouette. 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and having now reworked three of my original images using weather conditions to help reduce the level of contrast, I realise that this was not as successful as I had imagined. Had I had more time, I think I would have revisited the three sites in similar weather to the original pictures to see how adjusting the composition might have worked better.

Assignment 2 : Seeing like your camera - preparation

This assignment is all about high contrast scenes and as such has warranted a good deal of thought as to what, where and when to shoot the images. Another factor was the requirement of Part two of the assignment requires me to select one of the four chosen situations and photograph the same images in  a low contrast situation. I've decided to go for the following situations :

• Early morning landscapes
• Backlit scenes
• Scenes with strong dappled light
• Street scene in the middle of a clear, sunny day

My first instinct was to try to achieve some coherence to the assignment by choosing a theme that the four modules could illustrate. Given that the assignment required a reworking of three of the images, I needed to ensure that wherever I shot the images I would be able to easily return to the location. I decided to look at a Portsmouth theme as this would likely provide street scenes as well as seaside / waterfront locations within easy reach by car. I was also mindful that the weather would be playing a key role here given the lighting needs and given our summer weather, I began monitoring the local weather forecasts with far more interest than usual.

My reconnoitring trips made me realise that there were no suitable street in the city which would give me the conditions I needed for the street scene. A visit to Chichester where I thought that I might get both street locations and opportunities for dappled light ( thinking here of the Cathedral interior and cloisters ) again proved fruitless. The dappled light scene was easier to resolve than the street one given I decided to look at our garden and the local countryside where I go walking. For the street scene I decided to visit Brighton's 'Lanes' and keep my eyes open on a scheduled theatre trip to London.

So, the end result here was an abandonment of a them for the assignment and a concentration on location and  lighting to provide the photo opportunities needed.

Scene dynamic range

For this exercise I took a number of different images to measure the dynamic range of these scenes.

P 546: f4 @ 1/10  ISO100  27mm AWB

P546 was taken indoors in natural light from a nearby window on a dull day. I measured the dynamic range as being between F4 and F10 i.e. 8 stops.

P 547: f10 @ 1/60 ISO 1600  -1.3exp.  ??mm AWB 

The range here is F5.6 to F20  i.e.  11 stops.

 

P548: f5.6 @1/60  ISO 100  44mm

P548 had a dynamic range of 5 stops i.e. F5.6 to F10 - taken outside on a cloudy day.

 

 

 

 

P549: f8 @ 1/20  ISO 100  55mm  WB Daylight

 

This nasturtium was captured on a bright sunny day. The image is low contrast and I measured a dynamic range of between F5.6 and F9 i.e. 4 stops.

 

 

 

P550: f11 @1/80  ISO 100 25mm WB Daylight

P550 was taken on the same morning as P549 ( bright sunshine ). Here the dynamic range was 7 stops  ranging from F10 to F20.

 

 

 

 

From these shots it seems that my camera's dynamic range is smaller when the image is low contrast a P549)  and much higher when there is a bright light within the composition leading to a very high contrast image ( P547).