Overall Comments
You Illustrate the attributes well. Some have more originality than others but all show good technique in terms of composition and consideration for the various camera settings and camera position.
The main thing to bear in mind is that this is your opportunity to experiment with ideas and techniques and start to develop your own style. A key attribute to go hand in hand with the experimentation is to recognise issues, develop solutions and learn from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and plenty of them.
My style of commentary is to pose alternatives, ask questions and suggest where I think improvements could be made; this is to give you the chance to think about alternatives. It is then for you to decide if you agree or not.
I don’t believe there is a right and a wrong way of doing things - there are different opinions and there are bound to be different points of view. I may well say things that you disagree with - that’s fine but it is important to be able to put forward a cogent argument to support your views.
This assignment is concerned with expressing the ESSENCE of each contrast in pictures. It isn't enough, as some student do, just to photograph something big or some thing small, or something straight and something curved. It is the ESSENCE we are after, the feeling of strightness or smallness conveyed in the picture. The assignment is intended to open your eyes to the main characteristic of a subject and explore how best to interpret this visually.
You Illustrate the attributes well. Some have more originality than others but all show good technique in terms of composition and consideration for the various camera settings and camera position.
The main thing to bear in mind is that this is your opportunity to experiment with ideas and techniques and start to develop your own style. A key attribute to go hand in hand with the experimentation is to recognise issues, develop solutions and learn from mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and plenty of them.
My style of commentary is to pose alternatives, ask questions and suggest where I think improvements could be made; this is to give you the chance to think about alternatives. It is then for you to decide if you agree or not.
I don’t believe there is a right and a wrong way of doing things - there are different opinions and there are bound to be different points of view. I may well say things that you disagree with - that’s fine but it is important to be able to put forward a cogent argument to support your views.
This assignment is concerned with expressing the ESSENCE of each contrast in pictures. It isn't enough, as some student do, just to photograph something big or some thing small, or something straight and something curved. It is the ESSENCE we are after, the feeling of strightness or smallness conveyed in the picture. The assignment is intended to open your eyes to the main characteristic of a subject and explore how best to interpret this visually.
Feedback on assignment
Your work is quite varied in terms of originality and creativity with some images demonstrating good individuality of approach and interpretation of the attribute. Examples of this are your later images - the transparent and opaque pair, the Blunt image and the combined large / small. Where your creativity is a little lacking is in the pair straight and curved. These are perfectly good images but are a little literal /obvious interpretations.
Other images are less successful in terms of being open to other interpretations and not perhaps capturing the essence of the attribute in a way that excludes other connotations. Examples of this includes: Still and Solid.
You have shown good observation and technical thinking behind your images as evidenced in your accompanying notes. The fact that in your continuous image you have been aware of the problems of flare and moved your viewpoint accordingly, your increasing the iso in intermittent to ensure a high shutter speed to freeze the motion of the droplet and ripples.
I wonder what is behind some of your decisions for the images in this assignment: For instance, what’s behind your decisions to convert some images to black and white and leave others in colour. This is even carried through into contrasting pairs such as continuous and intermittent. Why do you use rounded corners in the small image and introduce black borders in curved and diagonal images but no others? Your reasoning is the sort of thing that you should be recording in your log.
You use a variety of image formats/aspect ratios and post production techniques - why? The result is an
overall impression of individual images rather than a group of images that are unified by a particular theme.
Some of your images that have been converted to black and white have deep and blocked shadows is this by design and if so why? It would be good to record your reasoning in your notes.
Suggestions/thoughts on the images are as follows:
Your work is quite varied in terms of originality and creativity with some images demonstrating good individuality of approach and interpretation of the attribute. Examples of this are your later images - the transparent and opaque pair, the Blunt image and the combined large / small. Where your creativity is a little lacking is in the pair straight and curved. These are perfectly good images but are a little literal /obvious interpretations.
Other images are less successful in terms of being open to other interpretations and not perhaps capturing the essence of the attribute in a way that excludes other connotations. Examples of this includes: Still and Solid.
You have shown good observation and technical thinking behind your images as evidenced in your accompanying notes. The fact that in your continuous image you have been aware of the problems of flare and moved your viewpoint accordingly, your increasing the iso in intermittent to ensure a high shutter speed to freeze the motion of the droplet and ripples.
I wonder what is behind some of your decisions for the images in this assignment: For instance, what’s behind your decisions to convert some images to black and white and leave others in colour. This is even carried through into contrasting pairs such as continuous and intermittent. Why do you use rounded corners in the small image and introduce black borders in curved and diagonal images but no others? Your reasoning is the sort of thing that you should be recording in your log.
You use a variety of image formats/aspect ratios and post production techniques - why? The result is an
overall impression of individual images rather than a group of images that are unified by a particular theme.
Some of your images that have been converted to black and white have deep and blocked shadows is this by design and if so why? It would be good to record your reasoning in your notes.
Suggestions/thoughts on the images are as follows:
Continuous - good image and choice of shutter speed/tripod to blur the
water. Very deep blocked shadows - why? Could crop to cut out burnt out
highlight in sky, concentrate attention on water and unify images to a square
format?
Intermittent - good image and choice of shutter speed; could crop sides to make square format.
Diagonal - Another good image - could crop top and bottom - bottom would eliminate people that could be distracting and top that cuts out glass and arched structure and focuses attention on the diagonals. The toning of the sides of the escalators, is it necessary?
Rounded - Good capture conversion to black and white resulting in a different end product - mostly mid greys and no deep black/shadows. Another different style.
Liquid - good shutter speed to freeze motion perhaps slightly tight crop at the top. Ideally you may have wanted a little more space above the splashing liquid. Good light on the background to the left of the glass.
Solid - Shadows perhaps too deep and could use square crop.
Intermittent - good image and choice of shutter speed; could crop sides to make square format.
Diagonal - Another good image - could crop top and bottom - bottom would eliminate people that could be distracting and top that cuts out glass and arched structure and focuses attention on the diagonals. The toning of the sides of the escalators, is it necessary?
Rounded - Good capture conversion to black and white resulting in a different end product - mostly mid greys and no deep black/shadows. Another different style.
Liquid - good shutter speed to freeze motion perhaps slightly tight crop at the top. Ideally you may have wanted a little more space above the splashing liquid. Good light on the background to the left of the glass.
Solid - Shadows perhaps too deep and could use square crop.
Much - great shot as uses a tried and
tested idea of many similar objects but
with different and interesting items. Good
useful angle of view to avoid reflections,
could crop top to make square crop.
Little - Like the notion of “a pinch of salt” as an illustration of the topic. The
focus tends to be on the van but as this is recognisably little it also fits the bill.
Would try for a squarer crop and not use rounded corners.
Pointed - yes the cone draws attention and illustrates the topic, I’d consider cropping out some of the sky to produce a square format and also consider the camera position to vary the positioning of the building behind the statue.
Blunt - good inventive interpretation.
Still - Good landscape but perhaps a little tenuous interpretation of “still” as dependent on knowledge of local conditions usually being different ie windier and wetter.
Moving - good creative interpretation. Like the colourful, saturated image.
Straight and Curved - As mentioned good images but a little literal and straight forward interpretation of the topics. Could be cropped to make square. The curved image has a very narrow depth of field which in some respects aids the impression of curved.
Transparent /opaque and Large and Small - Good images showing good creativity and technical skills.
Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays
Your log gives good information about what you did and how. It would be good to see a little more analysis of the results - what has worked well and not so well; what could be improved and how. Also notes of other photographers’ work that you like and have seen and how it could influence and feed into your work would be good to include.
Suggested reading/viewing
If you have not already had a look at Stephen Shore’s The nature of photographs, it’s worth a look as it looks at the nature of photographs, how they work and are viewed.
Pointers for the next assignment
I would think not only about each individual photograph - how it fits in with the others to make up a cohesive set that illustrates the assignment. Work on producing less obvious images that meet the brief as you have with your transparent/opaque and large/small images.
Pointed - yes the cone draws attention and illustrates the topic, I’d consider cropping out some of the sky to produce a square format and also consider the camera position to vary the positioning of the building behind the statue.
Blunt - good inventive interpretation.
Still - Good landscape but perhaps a little tenuous interpretation of “still” as dependent on knowledge of local conditions usually being different ie windier and wetter.
Moving - good creative interpretation. Like the colourful, saturated image.
Straight and Curved - As mentioned good images but a little literal and straight forward interpretation of the topics. Could be cropped to make square. The curved image has a very narrow depth of field which in some respects aids the impression of curved.
Transparent /opaque and Large and Small - Good images showing good creativity and technical skills.
Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays
Your log gives good information about what you did and how. It would be good to see a little more analysis of the results - what has worked well and not so well; what could be improved and how. Also notes of other photographers’ work that you like and have seen and how it could influence and feed into your work would be good to include.
Suggested reading/viewing
If you have not already had a look at Stephen Shore’s The nature of photographs, it’s worth a look as it looks at the nature of photographs, how they work and are viewed.
Pointers for the next assignment
I would think not only about each individual photograph - how it fits in with the others to make up a cohesive set that illustrates the assignment. Work on producing less obvious images that meet the brief as you have with your transparent/opaque and large/small images.
