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Structure Evaluation

Structure Evaluation

For the Structure brief, we had to produce five images in total of the structure and architecture of a building. Throughout doing this we were informed to consider factors that may affect our images, such as weather, time of day and lighting. There were also photographic factors to consider as well, including leading lines and composition, so that we could capture the important features of your chosen structure. We were told to shoot the college building as it had everything that we needed features wise and there was also a competition draw. Three of the images were to be exteriors, which included a full image of the building along with two interior images. At least two of the images had to have a controlled perspective on them also.

Despite having other ideas, shooting the City college building worked better than I anticipated, due to the easy accessibility and also the stunning features that the building had to offer. Thankfully, the weather was bright, with clear blue skies and plenty of sun throughout shooting. This also helped with timing as it was like this until quite late at night, so this was a factor that I didn't really need to worry about a lot. I was going to try a night shot of the building for my full exterior image, however, due to the bright sun complimenting the building beautifully, I preferred this shot than a night one as the white of the building and stone was highlighted and the windows reflected very well in some of my test shots.

Exterior

I shot these images over two days, the first being test and recci shots and the second being my finals. I managed to show a variety of angles of the building, such as the corner at the main entrance looking up at the building. This is my favourite exterior image as it shows how the weather and blue of the sky compliments the building so much.

I only had to bring up the whites and clarity up by a little to make the image really pop. You can really see the detail of the architecture and lines of the stone work/ structure perfectly in this image. My full exterior is my least favourite as it looks bland compared to the rest. It annoyed me that you could not see as much detail due to being far away to fit it in. In post-production. I cloned out a lamppost, and also cropped the traffic from the bottom of the picture, as it was distracting. Despite not having to worry about weather, next time I will need to consider peak times for traffic etc. so that I can capture the best that I can.

Interior

I knew that I wanted to shoots the ceiling and lights at the side door entrance of the building on floor 2 as it contrasts with the rest of the buildings architecture and really stands out. The main Atrium is filled with natural light, which I used for my staircase image, but the natural light of this contrasts well with the artificial lights of my ceiling image, and that was my main aim after doing my test shots for this brief. My staircase image shows the artificial light that runs down it, but also the natural window light falling onto the wooden texture, leaving a soft spot of light in the middle. I love the composition of this image also, as the stairs come from the side and go down, and it lets your eyes flow with it, which is what caught my eye in the first place. I made little to no changes in these pictures as they did not need it.

I chose portrait canvas layout for my five final images, as it worked with my full exterior in the middle, with the rest placed around it. I made a solid border around it as it looked more neat and professional. For my optimising and editing process, I used; Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop. I only had to fix highlights, contrasts and some whites as well as cropping for these final Structure images.

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Illuminate Research- Lichtfaktor

This is by a group of artists that are very popular in the light painting world. Their work shows urban environments clashed with a form of light based architecture that merges into my final inspirational image (above). This work shows just how brilliant light graffiti painting can be.

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Illuminate Research- Lightmark

This work is by Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke and focuses more on minimal shapes and nature, rather than outright graffiti. They make the light look part of the environment, with shapes that fit the context of the image. This is an inspiration to me, as it is different than most light painting images, as it stays away from graffiti, and focuses on the introduction of “alien light” into the natural world.

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Illuminate Research- TCB- Twin Cities Brighest

The lines within this image are flawless, ribbons of light that, in most cases, weave into complicated shapes and patterns. TCB (twin city brightest), is very prolific with their light painting, and follows mostly street art and graffiti, with a beautiful result, as you can see above.

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Illuminate Research- Taylor Pemberton

Much of Pembertons work is rooted in traditional graffiti, as his light painting images follows the swirls, curves and shapes of the pieces of art/graffiti that he has found in cities around the world. His most recent project is set in abandoned areas, where concrete, steel and decay form the perfect frame around the shapes of light.

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Illuminate Research- David Gilliver

I like this image as the composition just sets it off. Instead of photographing straight on, he has took it from the side at an angle, giving the image leading lines and some atmosphere. He has made such a simple subject come to ife and pop in front of the viewers eyes.

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Photography in the 90s

Key dates in the history of digital photography from 1990 to 1999:

1990: Kodak develops the Photo CD system and proposes the first “ worldwide standard for defining color in the digital environment of computers and computer peripherals.”

1990: Adobe release Photoshop 1.0 making it the second digital editing program available for Macintosh computers and an important milestone in the digital photography timeline.

1990: Logitech introduces the Dycam Model I and Fotoman digital cameras. It was a true digital camera capable of capturing 320 x 320 pixel black and white photos. The camera had 1 MB of internal memory that could store up to 32 photos. It had a 8mm fixed-focus lens with a shutter speed range of 1/30 to 1/1000 second. The camera came with a cable to download these photos to a computer and sold for $995.

1991: Another milestone in the digital photography timeline was when Kodak released the first professional digital camera system marketed towards journalists. It used a Nikon F-3 camera film body adapted with a 1.3 megapixel Kodak CCD image sensor. It sold for $13,000.

1991: Fuji releases the DS-100 digital memory card camera. This camera had a 390,000 pixel imager and a 8-24mm F/2 power zoom lens. It recorded images to a digital image card and sold for around $5,000. Fuji also sold a card drive that hooked up to a Macintosh computer via the SCSI port resulting in faster image downloads than the typical serial interface more commonly used. This camera included a version of Adobe PhotoShop that allowed the importing of images to a Macintosh computer.

1992: The National Center for Supercomputing Applications release Mosaic the first internet photograph browser another important event along the digital photography timeline.

1994: Apple releases the QuickTake 100 a color digital camera made by Kodak. With as selling price of $795 this camera was able to capture a 640x480 pixel color image and came with a fixed focus 50mm lens. It used three AAA batteries for power and weighed only one pound. It stored up to 32 images at 320 x 240 pixels or 8 pictures at 640 x 480 resolution and connected to a computer via a serial port.

1994: Olympus introduces the Deltis VC-1100, the world’s first digital camera capable of uploading photos using a modem to another camera or computer. It had a built in zoom lens and an image resolution of 768 x 576 pixels. Selling at about $4,000 this camera was also one of the first cameras to store images on an external PCMCIA card.

1994: SanDisk and Kodak released the first CompactFlash Memory Card. Kodak releases a 1 MB version of the card in early 1994 and SanDisk releases 2-24 MB versions of the card later that year. Still widely used today the development of the CompactFlash memory card was an important event in the digital photography timeline.

1995: Ricoh releases the RDC-1 the first digital camera that could also take movies with sound, although the movies were limited to only 10 seconds long. Also in 1995 Casio released the QV-11 which was one of the first digital cameras with an LCD display.

1995: Canon and Kodak jointly released the EOS DCS series of digital cameras intended for professional use. Canon also released the the EF 75-300mm F4-5.6 IS lens. This was the first still camera telephoto lens that had built in image stabilization technology.

1996: The Kodak CD-25 is the first camera to use a Compact Flash card for storage. Canon also started selling its “PowerShot” 600 the first in a long line of “PowerShot” cameras designed for the general user. The Canon “PowerShot” 600 also used a compact flash card to store photos and really marked the beginning of Canon’s full scale start into the digital camera era and a key event on the digital photography timeline.

1996: Sony introduces their first “Cyber-shot” digital camera the DSC-F1. This camera used a .3 megapixel (310,000 pixel) CCD image sensor capable of a resolution of 640x480 pixels. It had 4MB of internal flash memory and could store up to 108 JPEG images. (30 images in fine mode.)

1997: Was a breakout year with Hitachi coming out with the MP-EG1 the first digital camera that captured movies in the MPEG format. At the same time Sony released the Cyber-shot DSC-MD1 the first digital camera that recorded JPEG images onto a MiniDisc (a small CD). This camera had a 640x480 pixel CCD image sensor and a 37 to 111mm F/2 lens with macro functions. The same year Sony also released its MVC-FD5 the first of its Mavica cameras that allowed users to record JPEG images directly to a standard 3.5 inch floppy disk making it easy for the consumer to transfer the images directly to their computers.

1997: Olympus releases the Camedia D-500L. The D-500L had a 1024 x 768 pixel CCD imager and a 50mm to 150mm F/2.8 lens. It retailed for $799 and was the first non-SLR digital camera to use a TTL (through-the-lens) viewfinder.

1997: The Panasonic Palmcam PV-DC1080 is one of the earliest digital cameras to come with a docking station to link to the computer. This camera had a retail price of $550 and used a 640 x 480 pixel CCD sensor with a 55mm fixed focus lens.

1998: Sony’s MVC-FD91 was one of the first cameras to use Sony’s Info Lithium batteries. This allowed continuous feedback as to how much battery life was left as well as eliminating the “memory” problem typical of NICAD rechargeable batteries. Like most other Mavica’s this camera stored images on a standard 3.5” floppy disk. It was one of the first cameras to have a 14X zoom lens with built in image stabilization and a key event in the digital photography timeline. With a 37mm to 518mm effective focal length the camera set a new standard for what today would be referred to as “super zoom” cameras. It had a 1024 x 768 pixel CCD sensor and sold for around $700.

1999: Another important point on the digital photography timeline was when Photohighway.com started the first photography site on the internet where photos can be uploaded directly from a digital camera.

1999: Another milestone on the digital photography timeline came when Nikon released the Nikon D1 which was the first DSLR (digital single lens reflex camera). It had a 2.74 megapixel APS-C image sensor weighed about 3.75 lbs. and cost slightly under $6,000. It also used the standard Nikon F-mount lenses which allowed film photographers could use many of the lenses they already owned. Nikon continued using an APS-C image sensor, known as the “DX sensor” in their digital SLR’s from 1999 to 2007.

1999: Nikon also releases two 2 megapixel cameras capable of producing smaller photo quality prints. The Coolpix 900 came with a zoom lens while the Coolpix 700 had a fixed focal length lens.

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These are my inspirational self portraits- Alex Wein, Jun Ahn, Sasha O, Cindy Sherman and an unknown artist

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Portfolio Printing Plan - Task 2

For ordering my final prints for my NC Portfolio, I decided to go with the services of Deadly Digital.

I used this company twice to order prints and each time they were produced excellently. Their prices were very good, especially for the quality I was receiving from them.  It is also based in Partick, so it was very easy for me to pick them up, saving me delivery money. All together I got 14 prints, and the price was very reasonable.

I decided to use A3 Giclee Matte for my prints, as this was very high quality paper, and it made my images stand out more as the detail was very sharp. 

The times that they worked by were fantastic, as they were ready in only a couple of hours, after I had ordered them. The service I received was great and  I would definitely recommend them to anyone. The staff were very helpful and were happy to give quotes as they were understanding as it was my first Portfolio. 

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PORTFOLIO POST PRODUCTION

After choosing our final images, we were instructed to put the images on to a provided A3 canvas that was available to download from MyCity. 

The template, as you can see, has helpful guidelines so you could place your images in the centre and within the lines given. 

We had to crop them to the appropriate size which was A4 to place onto the A3 canvas. The template given was a huge helping hand, as making our own canvases could be risky as it could tamper with our final images. 

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This is my image that is a remake of the Albumen. I put the image onto photoshop after picking a suitable layer to put over the photo. After choosing the correct opacity, I went on to save my image as a final. This software was easy to use for this process as it was basically step by step and in total took no time at all to do, making it enjoyable to do. My final looks vintage, which was the end goal, so I am pleased with my finished result. 

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This is my process for making my images look like that of WeeGees. He used an old Ilford Film in his camera, so I had to make my images look as if they were took on film, adding some grain and deleting highlights and adding more shadows. I played around with the colour levels of this image to experiment what would work best. I used Photoshop and the adjustments tool to do this.

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These are my finished Diane Arbus remake images. I used Lightroom to optimise them all as it is my preferred software to use. 

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EMULATE AND CREATE - DIANE ARBUS

 As the time of her work, it was black and white film that she used to capture the pictures that she did. I used the software Lightroom to edit and manipulate my image. 

STEP ONE- open up the software and have your chosen image somewhere where it is easily accessible. Tick the image that you will be using and then click import. After this I then clicked onto develop so I could continue to edit my image.

STEP TWO- After you plan what you are going to do with your image, the drop down tool bar on the right will let you edit your image as much as you like so plan and go ahead with optimising.

STEP THREE- I started experimenting with each tool that was available to see which suited my image best and which one I preferred. In this image it is visible that I was testing the highlights and darkness.

STEP FOUR- To make my image like one of hers, I took the saturation right down and pulled the highlights right up.

STEP FIVE- I then went onto change the sharpness of my image by bringing it right up so that the shadows and light in my models eyes were the focus point. 

After doing this remake, I was pleased with the end result. Optimising this image was a success and I really made it look like the way Diane Arbus’ images do.

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This diagram explains the difference between  Adobe RGB and sRGB, the settings on your camera which brings out the colour profile. It gives helpful tips on how to achieve both settings and which is best to use to bring out the best in your image and to show which one can be used on either Adobe Bridge or Photoshop.

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Philippe Halsman inspiration