LO3: Photographs

In the above picture I am organising all of my files using Adobe Bridge, I did this by renaming them all and rating them out of 5 stars so that all of my best photos can be grouped together.

These are my final photographs as unedited JPEG files. 

The main photographic technique I used was the rule of thirds. This was so that I could properly position the model, and the camera so that they were relatively central to the image, when they needed to be.

Another photography technique I used a couple of times was leading lines. This is most apparent in this image (left), I used this to create more spectacle for the viewer because the logs lead the eye to the model.

All of these photographs were taken in the same location, Charnock Woods. I used the woods as I thought because it is such a desolate area it would help to enhance the idea of someone who is abnormal and an outcast.  The titles for these I think should have a lot of metaphor behind them to enhance the meaning of the photographs, for the close-up of the girl with her face covered for example I could call it 'Blank Expressions' or the man standing besides the fire 'Standing with the flames'. For any of these images it could be as simple as naming them after the location such as 'In the woods'.

For some of these photographs I decided to use the surrounding area to frame the photographs, for example when Lewis is lighting the fire, the firewood itself is covering the bottom half of his body. The eye is drawn to the centre of the photograph and the rest of the photograph is almost obsolete. I think his actions are very obvious in the photographs here so it may be simply titled 'Lighting the fire' or the use of framing could be involved and it could be called 'Covered by the flames' which I think would add more meaning to the photograph as well.

For the pictures of the fire I decided to make the exposure ever so slightly longer, so that any flames could be captured in the image. At this point however the fire had significantly died down. What I really like about these images is that the surrounding area was so dry that that the contrast of the ash and the dirt gives it the appearance of snow on the ground which of course would be impossible besides a fire. I think this could simply be titled 'The ashes' or maybe I could draw on that appearance of snow and call it 'Snow on the ground'.

Because it is difficult to control natural light I had to be very careful with my camera settings to avoid photographs from becoming over exposed and looking bleached. To do this I used a fast shutter speed and a narrow aperture between f/5.6 and f/8.