Learning Report

CDME3011 Digital Photography and Image Manipulation

Learning Report

Introduction

The following report will provide detailed background information regarding my experience and learning throughout the module "Digital Photography and Image Manipulation".  My first impression of Digital Photography and Image Manipulation was that it was going to be purely about manipulating images using software. However, the module focuses on the use of digital photographic techniques in postproduction image manipulation meaning that I still would get the opportunity to discover how to use a professional camera and software such as adobe Photoshop to create image.

Lectures and Workshops

To start the module off, we went through several lectures and workshops to build our knowledge and skills, which has prepared us for the Major Assessed Brief. After each lecture or workshop there was always a set task that I had to keep up to date with. However, there were a few sessions I had unfortunate missed, which resulted in falling behind. Majority of these tasks where to do with research, experimenting on Adobe Photoshop or using a professional camera. All these sessions allowed me to explore majority of the possibilities that can be done with a Camera or Adobe Photoshop.

As soon as we got familiar with several aspects of Digital Photography and Image Manipulation the Major Assessed Brief was introduce on the fourth lecture. The advantage of receiving the main project at this point of the module is that I had enough time to investigate and experiment. Since I will be introduced to new information and techniques that’s will inspire me to produce a successful photograph. 

The Major Assessed Brief

Final Shot and Effects

Original Shot

With Effects and Filters

  

  

HRD Tonning, Black and White, Curves and BW, Curves,  Vibrance & Curves

Feedback from Viewers:

Prefer the Original and the first one towards the left. 

More Test Shots

Here are three test shot that I have just merged some are working better than others as you can see. However you can see that they all need a lot of work:

Location for all the shots: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Test Shot 1

Test Shot 2

Test Shot 3

In the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery I was not allowed to use my tripod which made it difficult to take a good panorama shot manually. Hence why the photographs are not lined up very well. The reason why I want to shoot here is because I find find the architecture very interesting compared to my previous test shots of the German Market in Birmingham and my Back Garden.

Out of all the test shot I have done so far my favorite shot is the second test shot that was taken in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. However I need to go back to the scene and take a better shot as you can see that it is blurry half way down. 

http://www.bmag.org.uk/

Test Shot Panorama

Testing and Experimenting  

Playing with black and white trying to create something similar to Ansel Adams photographs

Second Attempt

First Attempt

Back Garden

Original Photographs for testing and experimenting  

Ways of taking a sucessful Panorama Photographs

Research on how to take a successful panorama 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSoiIG8X0MQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMdvSoQqtP8

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Learn-And-Explore/Article/gp09aubf/panoramas.html

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-take-landscape-photographs-with-a-nikon-d90.html

History of Panorama

Robert Barker, an Irishman who introduced Panorama etchings and paintings. His goal was to produce "the perfect Illusion of a real scene." The word Panorama comes from a Greek word "pan" (everything) and "horama" (to see, which is seen, the appearance, the view) which means the all around view. 

Robert Barker's panorama painting showed attractive Landscaped, Famous battles, or important cities. This new art form became really popular and inpsired other painters to followed not just only in England but also in Holland, Denmark, USA, France, Switzerland and Germany. For example, Johanna Adam Breysig painted the first known German Panorama in 1800 for a exhibition in Berlin.    

Panorama Painting of London 1792, from the top of the Albion Mills 

Panoramic Paintings of Edinburgh 1792

These painting by Robert Bakers were displayed on a cylindrical surface and it was viewed from the inside, in London in 1792 as "The Panorama" exhibition.

These circular painting were 15 meter high and often 100meters long to give the illusion that the viewer was the fundamental part of the scene. The  panorama exhibition began in 1830 and replaced 3D objects 


This is when Panorama Began

Book:
Mastering Digital Panorama Photography

Websites
http://www.janeausten.co.uk/the-barker-family-panorama-painters/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Barker_(painter)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Aston_Barker
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/panorama.htm

Panorama Shots & Techniques Used by Photographers

http://sucheepdop.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/photographs-like-these-by-london.html

Certain cameras can make panorama shots nice simple and easy for the photographer and avoid having to use full rotation or segmented panoramic photographs.

To produce images such as the panorama shot above Fred Yake uses different cameras to produce his panoramic shots all around the world. These wide angle photographs perhaps can be possible to produced with a fixed lens or a wide field camera. By using a fixed lens or a wide field it is easier to take photographs with the advantage of a wide frame as there would not be a need to take multiple shots of the scene. 

"My images were taken with a variety of cameras, from standard format with film, panoramic cameras and digital. Panoramic images were taken with Roundshot, X-Pan, Widelux and Noblex cameras." Fred Yake 

http://www.fredyake.com/index.htm 

Wil Pearson is a great example for producing unique perspective that can be made by using fisheye lenses and photo manipulation software.  

http://www.willpearson.co.uk/

Other Techniques that I can try out:

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/50-dazzling-examples-of-polar-panorama-photography/

http://dirksphotoblog.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/tutorial-create-your-own-planets/

http://weburbanist.com/2008/10/02/5-epic-panoramic-and-360-degree-photographers-and-photos/ 

The Great Photographers(Research)

Task 4 The Great Photographers

Research

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Ansel Adams

Man Ray

Tears

Man Ray a tireless experimenter and a crosser of borderlines between media. He produced memorable Dada Sculptures, he was a painter and a film director but his most important work were done in visual twilight zone, in a intense interplay among painting, sculpture and photography that literally set sparks flying.

Ray was no conventional photographer. 

 Information found: Book: 50 Photographer You Should know

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was a war photographer and a photojournalist who recorded 5 different wars:

The Spanish Civil War

The Second Sino-Japanese War

World War 2 Across Europe

1948 Arab Israeli War

The First Indochina War.

Capa was a prime representative of a generation of photographers for those who were interested in political engagement, profession, and adventure were one.

Henri Cartier Bresson

A french Photographer who is considered to be the father of Photojournalism. He was an early adopter of the 35mm film format and the master of candid photography. He produced the Street Photography (life reporatage) style and that was coined The Decisive Moment that influenced generation of photographers that followed.

Henri Cartier-Bresson work was described as sheer beauty and wonderful.

 

Information found: 

Book: 50 Photographer You Should know

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6eRuIxMtbk

Research and Notes for the Presentation

My Notes for the Presentation
Fire on Marlborough Street 1975

On 22nd July 1975 the police scanner picked up an emergency "Fire on Marlborough Street!". Stanley Forman who was working for the Boston Herald American news papers managed to capture this tragic moment with his still camera using a 35mm lens. 

Stanley Forman climbed on to a fire truck and photographed a young women named Diana Bryant and her 2-year-old goddaughter Tiare Jones. Both of them were standing near the fire escape, shouting for help. Before the turntable ladder could reach them, the fire escape had collapsed bringing both the girls down. Only the little girl managed to survive the 50 feet fall.

Stanley got lucky with this white and black photograph as he received the World Press Photo of the Year and Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1976.

What I found really interesting about this picture was the composition as it enhances the dramatic moment. Everything happens to point diagonal lines making the picture more disturbing. There is also a contrast between the dark and light shapes. For example, the body and the window against the darker background making the falling people the main focus.      

References 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4245138.stm


Luara's Research for Presentation

Migrant Mother

Migrant Mother [1936]

Photographed by Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange. Lange captured the image while visiting a local and dusty California pea-pickers’ camp in February 1936

Thanks to Dorothea Lange “Migrant Mother” son became the face of the great depression. And by being spread rapidly across the globe it soon prompted the politicians of California to send food and supplies for people suffering like Florence Owens Thompson (who kept her name secret from the world until an interview with a

newspaper in 1976).

In total Lange took 5 exposures of Florence. Lange said that the woman was willing to help because she “seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it”. Which enevitably it did for her and the workers.

Before action was put into place her family and the other 2,500 workers survived on stolen vegetables from a field near by and birds killed with stones.; But when help was sent her desperate cause to keep her children fed and well she had already moved on.

I was drawn to this photo because of personal reasons, I recently lost my mum and I instantly felt a connection.  I felt the desperation and the deep love the children had while burrowing in to this woman’s shoulder, looking for protection, love and comfort. Which although the children are in focus in the composition, they are not the primary focus, by using the lighting sources Lange has the mother high lighted – placing the boys in a shadow of safety. Where as she is exposed to all the problems they had in the great depression, and the worry lines on face enhance her desperation. Also although one interpretation is that the children represent her having the weight of the world on her shoulders.

In total Lange took 5 exposures of Florence on a Graflex camera on 4x5”film. Unfortunately I can not find what lens she used, but if it was taken in the rules that Paul has taught us, I would like to think it would be taken on a 50 mm.