derekblair78

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Close Encounters

Macro images

[derekblair78]

Plan 5: Close Encounters

Macro Photography

Location: Studio (Home) and Location Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Equipment:   Nikon D7200

                       Nikon 60mm 2.8d Macro lens

                       Extension tubes

                       Speedlights

                       Flash Triggers

                       Custom Diffuser made using pringles tube, diffusion paper

& black tape

                       Tripod 

Contact sheets:

Final images:

some of my Final Images

I had quite a few macro ideas but I chose to do metal and rust as the different textures that can be seen interested me. I have other projects that I plan to use in the future.

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Climate Change

Final Images Part 2

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Climate Change

Final Images part 1

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Plan 6: Climate Change

Extinction Rebellion

Location: Edinburgh North Bridge and Edinburgh University

Equipment:   Nikon D7200

                      Nikon F100

                      Fuji X100F

                      Sigma 18-300mm

                      Sigma 10-20mm

                      Yongnuo 50mm F/1.8

                      Fuji Neopan 400 pushed to 800

                      Ilford HP5 400 pushed 800

contact sheets

Some Final Images

The Shoot was a story telling or documentary project that was to be about climate change and environment, I decided to choose Extinction Rebellion, it was an enjoyable shoot but if I had a brief that interested me more I think it would have been more interesting. 

[derekblair78]

Climate Change Contact Sheets

Extinction Rebellion Roadblock Edinburgh

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Enterprise Activity

Behind the scenes

finished pictures

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Portfolio Review

Folio 3 was all about getting our portfolio of images ready for print and submission, and it would contain a selection of work that hopefully shows all that I have learned throughout the academic year studying NQ Photography. If I had to choose my favourite part of this project I think it would have to be taking the photographs as I think I now have a better level of understanding with my cameras than I had with them before I started studying Photography, as I have now found out and learned how to do things that I didn’t think I could achieve before. New techniques I have learned, there are lots and lots but the one that I got the most enjoyment and pleasure from was from processing film and then printing my own images in the darkroom as at first the thought of the darkroom made me even more worried and anxious than I usually am, but once I got over my initial fears I found the darkroom to be a very relaxing and therapeutic place to be and it’s a part of my photography journey that I would like to take further and hopefully get the chance to learn about other film and printing techniques. I have researched lots of photographers over my year at college some who have given me great inspiration and ideas and through research and class workshops I have found out about techniques and processes that I never knew about before, Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky and his technique of creating a colour image from 3 black and white photographs of the same thing but each of the photographs must be taken with a red, then a green and then a blue filter and with some photoshop help you can create a colour image, it’s a technique that I haven’t quite mastered yet and one that I would have liked to have had an image from this method in my portfolio. Some problems did arise creating my portfolio and one was when shooting the flour image; once I had shot all my photographs, I had tidied up and went and looked at my images and realised that they weren’t as sharp as I would have liked but I got around this problem by using the image and replicating high iso film in ON1 Photo Raw, and as a result I now double check my cameras setting before I start shooting. Another problem I had with this portfolio was creating themes as I find sitting with a blank sheet of paper and thinking about projects quite a hard thing to do, I did have serious thoughts about continuing with photography due to self-doubt and criticism of my work and the latter is something I’m still having jut now. If I could get do the project all over again I would like to be a lot more organised and have everything done and dusted well before they need to be done, but I know that if I got to do my portfolio over again I would probably not be any better organised with it than I am now.

Since Starting Studying photography, I would like to think that my skills as a photographer have progressed and I hope that in the HND course I get to learn more techniques and get to work on techniques that I’ve learned this year that I would like to polish up and get better at portraits and dealing with models as it’s something that I find very difficult, but I can only hope to get better at this in the future.

[derekblair78]

portfolio printing

For my portfolio I researched Loxley colour and deadly digital, Loxley had a lot of paper choices, from museum quality to everyday papers, they are 5 minutes from my house which is handy, but cost and the time they took to deliver removed them for the moment as I may use them in the future, but for just now I went with deadly digital and I’m pleased that I did, yes cost was a major factor, but the staff are friendly, they talked me through the different paper choices, the quality of printing was second to none and the turn around was really fast as well, they are a company that I will more than likely use again in the future. For my portfolio I chose PermaJet Oyster, a paper that has a subtle pearl/lustre finish with a weight of 271gsm giving it a true photographic paper texture and finish. PermaJet claim it is the whitest Oyster/Pearl surfaced paper on the market, it is a resin coated paper that is finished with a UV protective, microporous coating giving it a high degree of water and fade resistance.

[derekblair78]

NQ Portfolio

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Plan 4: Flour

High Speed 

Location:     Studio (Home)

Equipment:  Nikon D7200

                     Sigma 18-300mm

                     Speedlights

                     Wireless Trigger

                     Tripod 

                     Black Background

Settings:      1/200sec at F/4

                      ISO 400

Contact Sheets: 

Idea of the Shoot: The idea behind the shoot was I wanted to freeze the flour falling from the sieve and the cloud of flour that it caused when it landed from a height. When I had finished shooting, I reviewed my images and noticed that they weren't the sharpest photographs I had ever taken so I picked the one that I liked the most and opened it in ON1 Photo Raw.

I wanted to try and save my shots and not have to reshoot everything so I decided to convert the image to black and white 

then add some film filters to replicate a high iso black and white film with lots of grain.

The end result is an image I'm actually quite pleased with and if you look closely at the image I think the flour looks like it was drawn with chalk.

[derekblair78]

Plan 3: Macro Bubbles

Location: Studio & Home Studio

Equipment:  Nikon D7200    

                      Nikon 60mm macro

                      Speed Light

                      Homemade Diffuser 

                      Softbox 

                      Soap Solution of dish soap, glycerin and water

Contact Sheets:

Settings:  ISO 100

                 1/160sec at F/13

                 1/200sec at F/11 

Final Images

My whole goal with the Macro photography of bubbles was to get pictures of larger bubbles on there own as I enjoyed the psychedelic and somewhat trippy colours that are created when the interference of light reflect off the front and back surfaces of the thin film of soap that the bubble is made from. I want to try the whole project again with just a sheet of bubble solution and large bubbles.

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Plan 2: HDR

Continuous Light

Location: Ashton Lane Hillhead Glasgow

Equipment: Sony A7 ii 

                     Sony 24-240mm

                     Tripod

Contact Sheet

Settings:  3 shots taken at 100 iso, 1st at 5 sec at f/11  -1, then the second at 5 sec at f/11 and the third 05 sec at f/11 +1

Technique:  HDR stands For “High Dynamic Range” which is the difference between the “lightest light and the darkest dark” that you can capture in a photograph. You take 3 or mare photographs at perfect exposure, then 1 stop under and 1 stop over or whatever the values you choose then using photoshop or Lightroom you then create the HDR image using photo merge  in Lightroom or automate - merge to HDR function in photoshop.

Final Image

I like the look of HDR photographs as they are seen a lot in magazines and it was fun trying to recreate one as its quite a new technique and having the ev compensation dial on the camera made this task a lot easier.

[derekblair78]

Tiny worlds

this is a project that I would like to shoot again as I'm not 100% happy with the photographs that I took.