Scannography

All of these images were taken using a scanner instead of a camera. Using the scanner we can get very different and strange effects that a camera could not capture. Here I laid my face flat on the scanner bed. As the light went across the bed (which was taking the photograph/capturing the image) I moved my face so it was laying flat at the opposite side of the scanner bed so it captured my nose and centre of my face straight on when the light was scanning the middle of the bed. It creates this really abstract, strange looking face. 

HDR : First Attempts

LOCATION TECHNIQUES : Landscape and Architecture

Taken on the Yorkshire Moors.

Here is a HDR version of this image :

Taken on the Yorkshire Moors. 

Taken at Scarborough beach.

Taken at Portishead Marina.

Taken at Portishead Marina. 

Important things to consider when creating and processing landscape and architectural images:

Quality - to get the best possible quality images it's best to shoot in RAW in-camera. This enables you to edit images a lot better because the size of the image is four times bigger than a standard JPG. When shooting in RAW, the image file is not compressed and therefore is a lot better for printing on a large scale. A RAW file uses your camera to its full capability, and is the best at achieving the most clear, impressive, professional and aesthetically pleasing image than a JPG. RAW takes up lots of memory (around 4x more than JPGs) therefore you can't afford to be trigger-happy. You need to take time to correctly compose and expose your images so you aren't wasting shots and taking up too much memory.

Focus - Getting the image in focus must be done in-camera. If you do not get the image in focus and it is blurry, it cannot be recovered in photoshop or any other editing software. 

Noise - Noise is created by having an ISO too high. When shooting in daylight, ISO must be kept to it's lowest possible settings for the lighting otherwise noise will be created. A high ISO should only be used in dark lighting situations e.g. shooting at night, at a concert or in a nightclub. Noise can be reduced using editing software like photoshop but doing so will make the image very soft and lose it's sharpness. If the sharpness is then tried to be recovered, it will possibly bring back noise and make the image look very fake and too edited.

Clarity - An image is a lot more aesthetically pleasing to viewers if it is clear. There must be no camera shake or motion blur (unless it is intended). If not, it just looks unprofessional.

Exposure - Exposure can be corrected using editing software like photoshop using lots of different things; exposure, brightness/contrast, levels and curves, etc. However, it is ideal to get the perfect exposure or thereabouts as there is less editing to do afterwards. You can bracket your exposure by taking one underexposed photograph, one correctly exposed and one over exposed, then using photoshop you can take aspects from each one and montage them together to create your ideal image. This isn't the best thing to do though when shooting in RAW because it takes up so much memory. You can also read your histograms to correct your exposure.

Composition - Must be done in-camera. If the image is not composed right to start with, the image can't really be rescued. If the subject of the image doesn't look good, then you can't really do anything about it or edit it in any way to make it look better. The only thing you can do is crop into it using editing software to create a different composition depending on how you crop it.

Colours and Contrast - This can be changed during the editing process. Depending on what the photographer wants, the possibilities are almost endless when it comes to colour alteration. The colours can be made more dull, more vibrant, more saturated or an image can be made completely black and white.

SEQUENCING :

This sequence of images I took of myself using a tripod. I positioned the camera on the tripod and used the self timer setting to create these images of myself dancing in my garden. This set of images was inspired by Julie Cassels. 

Here is another sequence I created of my mum hanging out the washing. I really like sequences in groups of 3. I think things generally do look better in odd numbers.

I really like this sequence of my dog moving towards the camera. I like the way he is small in the distance and gradually gets bigger through the different frames. Even though the first image shows him really small I love how it shows him running and his ears flying up. I had to be quick when taking these photographs because he was running towards me and I had to have a quick reaction time to get the shots that I wanted.

This was one of the first sequences I ever created when I didn't really have any idea of what to photograph. This sequence of photographs is very obviously staged as I didn't know what to do so thought it would be easier to stage one than wait around for something to happen which I could capture naturally without staging.

I really liked this idea of taking a photograph of a group of people standing at a bus stop, then a bus coming (so you can't see the people anymore), then it pulling off and leaving no-one stood at the bus stop. Instead of carrying on with my theme of three images in a row and chose to use six images, 4 of which showing the bus moving off. I really like this except how once the bus had moved off, there was still two people stood at the bus stop (most likely waiting for a different bus which stops at the same stop) but I really would have liked it if there was no-one left at the bus stop at all to create a nice contrast.