Unit 3

For unit 3 we have to choose our own starting point.  I looked into doing lots of things, including some studio work, with portraits or doing more techniques such as light trails , looked at using photoshop. Which would play to my strengths but I would like to try new things and work with different styles

From the unit 1 work I really enjoyed using the dark room and experimenting so I have chosen to compare digital to film, and have started off developing film and using 120 and 35 mm film. I have also started using cameraless photography with the dark room and scanners.

I have looked into artist such as Man Ray who tried to coin the word Raygram which we now know as a photogram. I have also looked into Lomography who at the moment is a big player in producing and influencing the film world with their large user base and don't think and shoot outlook on photography

Time laps of final Piece

For addition to the 6 pictures, my final piece also has a short clip of the skies in a time laps.  It's only 10 seconds long and will play on repeat next to m final pictures. This will show hoe the sky got from one to the other. Located on my space on the school system.

Final Evaluation of unit 2

My initial intentions were to explore the relationship between colour. I think that I worked well and was able to achieve my intentions although I have varied from just looking at colour. I started by looking at James Welling where I looked into using filters to change the colours of the environment but I struggled with getting the colours to complement and contrast against each other. I the looked at the colour wheel and how to link colours around the wheel, this improved my pictures dramatically. I came away from using colour filters and found and artist called Brice Bischoff who used long exposures and material to create and illusion of mist or smoke in an obscure location. My research on each artists have been consistent with how I view there pictures and how i worked out how they achieved them.
Along the way I have experimented by editing differently and using different filters for the same picture and shed how each turned out. I have also been looking at using the long exposures in different ways and seeing what else I could find with contrasting or a range of colours. I feel I could have spent more time working out how Bischoff achieved his shoots, as even though I made progress my final pieces are not quite how Bischoff did his.

Final Pieces

All the pictures were taken in RAW format. which keeps all the information of the picture and doesn't compress it. I used a tripod for all and the same 18-55mm lens for all my shoots to date unless specified. I also used a timer for the pictures I didn't have help with.

This picture was taken on beach. The colours blue and yellow are dominant in the blur. Not only are they contesting colours according to the colour wheel, They show calm (blue) and sun shine and excitement (yellow) which is the feeling and emotions on the beach.for this I asked my friend if he agreed with the colours I chose, which he did agree. 

This is on the cliffs just above the beach. It has the same colours as the one above with added green into it. I think this show how there is more plant life on the top of the cliffs where nature is. It shows my feelings with sitting on the grass looking over the sea, calming and knowing that you are just sat in the grass.

I view the forrest as a peaceful nature place, which is calming but in the trees there is little sun, so lack of yellow. The  presence of red was manly to do with the passion I have for the forrest. How I love to go and will go at any opportunity I get. This is why there is red in the blur.

This is the pool I work in. When at work I don't really enjoy it as much as I would if I was just going for a casual swim. So this blur has a mix of emotions. the yellow for excitement and enjoyment. the blue for calming and isolation while I swim.
The red is for how it is also a place of work for me now. 

This was taken at school. It is by far the odd one out. The colours are mainly red and white. Red because I really have a loathing for the education system but white as I have to accept this fact if I am going to get my grades and succeed.
This is the only picture not to have any calming or happy colours associated with it. I would also like to point out the black on the bottom of the red, It show how its kind of depressing at times.

Final Shoot - Edit Variation

For editing I used photoshop for all of them due to an arm or a person in frame.
 I used a 2 layers and a mask on the top. This meant I was able to remove the top layer apart from the blur. used the paint brush tool which allowed me to smooth the edges of the blur. In some cases I was able to move the blur around and it was solid compared to some of the others which were more opaque.

This picture was taken on the cliff tops where I had help to hold the tissue paper. Which was useful as it meant i was able to compose the shot better than I had been doing in some of my other final shoots. 

This was taken at the pool where I work. It didn't have the the best back drop as there are too many thing in it which makes the picture complex and confusing in what is the blur and what is the wet play area. I did this one on my own with a wireless remote to take the pictures as I held the tissue paper and moved it. In the pool I was able to not use the 10 stop fitter which removed the annoying blue tint from my work.

A few of the forrest pictures, the blurs where not on focus which is why this was not apart of my final piece. I was able to edit it but by no means was I able to use it. I was alone when I took this, which is likely why i had trouble getting it to focus as using the 10 stop filter the camera wouldn't auto focus.

This was taken on the cliff tops. The background is out of focus due to the 10 stop filter. The blur on this was edited well enough that I could move then blur around and even onto different picture with a similar back drop. I could have done all the blurs in a studio setting and added them in later but I had only thought about it after I took my final shoot.

I returned to a location I used in shoot 3. In my opinion I have improved my work when you compare the 2 pictures. Although this has the same problem as before where the blur is out of focus. I used a 10 stop filter even though It was getting dark it was still too bright for me to not use it. This may have caused how the blur was not in focus but also that the 10 stop filter prevented my camera from auto focusing and also was unable to see down the viewfinder. This made the job of focusing the camera a struggle by: focusing it without the filter on auto, chaining it to manual and then putting the filter back on. I would have to do this multiple times depending on the distance away I was

Final Shoots- Contact sheets

For my final shoot I had to do multiple locations. This meant that I have contact sheets for each location. Each shoot worked well and I was able to get at least 2 decent pictures from each location.

This location is around school and work well. For this location I managed to get some help in moving the paper around and was able to influence how they moved it from what I could see on the screen of my camera.

This was taken on the cliff tops , I had no help with this location so I had to use a remote to set it off. Where I used the remote I took a lot more pictures than I intended to take as I was unable to review my work as efficiently as I had done with help.

This was taken around a swimming pool. I did this one on my own again but at this stage in doing my final pice I was able to predict how the movement would effect the blur and how to distance myself from the camera. With this location I didn't have to use the 10 stop filter as I was inside unlike the other locations.

This location was in the forrest ,by the time I got there It was getting dark, but not dark enough to not use the 10 stop filter so a few of my pictures were darker than intended. This location was the same I used in the 3rd shoot which gave an interesting comparison to how I had improved my work.

Final shoot - Contact sheet

This is my Final shoot it was taken over 4 different ideas for location I could link emotion to. It consisted of 4 mini-shoots in a pool. on the cliffs, in the forrest and around school. Each one with a blur of colour, influenced by Brice Bischoff, in which represented my emotions and feelings towards the places. Although, I know that everyone has there own take on what colours represent so the feelings won't be mutual. I achieved this by the same method as my fourth shoot, but this time I also took an image of thee background. This enabled me to edit the blur and merge it to the background. This helped as I had little help with the is picture, so I was forced to use a remote. Most the time I was in frame, but using the technique above, I was able to easily edit myself out of the photo.
I rustled the paper while taking the shot. I had to use a 10 stop filter again in all the outdoor locations as in most cases it was too sunny to not use the filter, this gave a blue tint to the the original photos which I was able to edit in raw. The use of filters links back to my work at looking at James Welling which first gave me the idea to use a filter but also the practical use of reducing the light getting in the camera.
As I took more and more shoots I got better at using the technique. This enabled me get better pictures consistently rather than trial and error process which happened in shoot 3 and 4.
The shoot worked well as in some cases it showed how my artist Bischoff, was able to take my pictures in raw, which benefited me in the post-production process again with the filters blue tint.
I managed to get quite a few pictures out of this shoot and had to narrow it down to 5 pictures with different locations.  These will be my final pieces which I will mount onto foam board to display in a row of 5.

Influences

Brice Bischoff
- His use of the long exposure with tissue paper has been a driving influence in my final idea, due to the use of colour and the technique which fascinates me. It has taken some time to master and at this point I am still need to take a lot of pictures to get right. I am getting better at using the technique. This is shown in my final idea and final edits.

James Welling
- I started with Welling and got interested in using filter and had to use the colour wheel later on the help with the matching go the colours to the filter I was using, His influence can be seen in my work still due to all the colours and how the look of my work is somewhat unnatural in the sense that you couldn't just find it. Much like his manipulation of colours and how he changed them to a unnatural colour.

Colour wheel
- This was the biggest influences, It can still be seen in my work the whole way through my unit 2. It is so constant because of how useful the different contrast and complements with colour I could achieve. I still pick out the tissue paper to first get the emotion and then arrange them in a way so the completing colours are next to each other or ether side of another.

Final Idea

My final idea is to link emotion to the colours, then the colours will link to the place that the picture is taken. This emotion may vary to each emotion and will relate to every person differently. This is how I am showing the relationship between colour and feelings and emotion.

experimenting - Colour Range

I was experimenting with a light that could change colour. So I was able to keep the object in the same place and change the lighting colour which changes the mood of the picture. This links into my idea of colour and emotions. As each picture gives off a different mood and tone. I think that using the idea of colours to emotions will link the idea of relationships more strongly to my starting point than just using colours.

Colours and how they make you feel

For my final idea I plan to link colours to the emotions that I feel for the particular location.

Red: passion, aggression, Violence, Power, Love, Romance, Blood,evil, fear
Orange: fire, warmth, energy, excitement, autumn.
Pink: Love, Floral, Feminine.
Purple: Magic, supernatural,Creativity, Royalty.
Blue: Thirst, cleanness, peace. Tranquility. loyal, relaxation,loneliness, Good
Green: Greed, affluence, nature, soft, comfort, outside.
Yellow: Sun, happiness, optimism,cowards, caution, energetic.
White:Innocence, peace, purity, good
Black: wealth, power, sadness, depression, fear, death, morning, evil
Grey: sadness, depression boredom

This is a general idea of the colours and the emotions that I link to them. Although 2 different colours together can also change how you view them and this is what my final piece will show.

Fourth Shoot - Best edits

This is my 4th shoot best edits. All the editing I have done is edit the exposures in Raw. This was to get rid of the blue tint. The pictures in the top row I was unable to remove the blue tint as I dint take the pictures in raw. This is because it was an after thought to do so, where I developed the shoot which tuned out better than the first attempt with the tissue paper.
The top row of pictures I achieved with tissue paper taped to a persons body who moved with the long exposure. I found that a too long of an exposure limited the movement as you didn't get as much of a blur and motion. A lot of my pictures were taken with an exposure of a few seconds at most, which made the colour look blurred and showed movement.
I took the pictures in the bottom row by having my subject hold the piece of tissue paper and letting the find move it. This worked better than the other idea.  This worked due to the way I edited them in 2 layers, one being the background and the other being the tissue paper blur. This enabled me to separate the blur from the background. Which is how I got rid of the blue tint that the filter I had to use due the longish exposure I was wanting to use on such a bright day.
The picture on the far bottom right was done where I dragged the tissue across the frame, this created the effect of motion more than the others, although the colours I used did not suit the surroundings, even though I attempted to do it again I was unsuccessful.
The reason for this is that I didn't know what the pictures would look like until I got back to the computer and started editing. This was due to how the blue tint made the screen too dark to view on the camera monitor.
IMG_9016.jpg is my best edit and how I want to continue with my final piece in the same way. I had the idea to link emotion to the colours and then they relate to the location of the picture.

Fourth shoot - contact sheet

This is my Fourth shoot it was taken in My garden area for the initial experiment of my idea to use tissue paper, but in the experiment stage of the shoot, I taped the paper to my subject. Then the other location at the beach for a better background and setting for my pictures. For this shoot was attempting to create blur motion, just like in my 3rd shoot. Due to some more research into my artist I discovered how he took his pictures. This was a big development from my use of towels to using sheets of tissue paper. I looked more into planning my shots as I needed to use a 10 stop filter due to the long exposure and also planning how to move the paper as it slides across the picture. 
The paper was dropped across the camera and shaken while holing it on a string to get the sense it levitation in the air. I did this with a long exposure and a small aperture but in a few attempted to do shorter exposures which produced some nice effects with more vibrant colours.
 It was the middle of a sunny day when i took the picture and even though I was using a 10 stop filter I still had difficulty to use the Technique that Bischoff uses. This may have been to do with how Bischoff took his shoot in a set of caves and was therefore able to console the light levels better than I was able to in daylight.
The shoot worked well as in some cases it showed how my artist Bischoff, was able to take my pictures in raw, which benefited me in the post-production process as I was able to easily remove the blue tint that I was having problems with in my third shoot. This has enabled me to get pictures that replicate the style used by Bischoff. I consider this a successful shoot.
There were a few pictures that worked well in this shoot and some that didn't due the trial and error approach of this technique. 
After a bit of experimenting in photoshop I was able to enhance colours in the pictures purely by editing in raw.
I am now looking into my final piece of work. I really like this style and would like to continue this. My idea is to use the colour blur to represent emotions with the colours to the location of the shoot. I intend to use different colours to represent different emotions and use a selection of 5 places to take the pictures to produce my final piece. I already have a picture from this shoot to use that has the colours of yellow and blue with show happiness, sunshine and tranquility. This accurately represent my love for the beach which is my starting point for my final piece.

Art History review- Brice Bischoff

Diving into more research I was able to find this quote.

 "If a visitor to the caves were to accidentally stumble upon my performance they would only see a mass of crumbled coloured paper draped awkwardly over a man moving/dancing to a camera positioned on a tripod,"

This gave me a clear idea on how to proceed with my 4th shoot. It gave me the information that he was able to do this on his own and what material he used , Paper. This gave me more of a direction for my 4th shoot.

-Brice Bischoff

This is one of my favourite pictures in his shoot at the caves. I think I like it as there is big mix of colour. The colour also doesn't take up all the picture, which gives the effect that you are drawn into the cave. I also really like how he managed to get the reflection in the puddle in font of the blur.

The artist has used the same colours with the effect of looking out of place with adds to the sic-fi feel his shoot. This links to the magazine he was doing the shoot for. I also think that he made is work mysterious for the sake of it. His work makes you ask questions and wonder why he did it. It shows how he enjoys manipulating the natural area and put something out of the ordinary in. This mentality ties in with the sic-fi theme.

I want to be able to do something like this, now I have the knowledge to do so. Which is what I will look at with my 4th shoot.

Third shoot -Best edit

This is one of the pictures that urned out darker than I expected, this is due to how I used a 10 stop filter which enabled me to take long exposures. This shoot didn't go as I planned as in most of the pictures you are able to see the towels. This is due to the nature of how the towels fall and moves as they are heavy.

This is one of the best ones that look similar to my artist. This was a picture that was taken when my subject walked down the path quickly moving the towels in circular motion. This worked better but I have eddied the levels and the exposure. It would have been easier to edit if I had taken a picture of the background and edited the blur onto a clean background by using masks.

Both the pictures are taken when my subject is spinning around as he moves down the path. I think this worked particularly well as you get the motion and the colour blur. I think that it could have been improved if I was able to incorporate more colours into the pictures. The pictures you can also see the subject within the colours which I have tried to fix like I have in some of my other edits although I was unable to, In my next shoot I will need to think about this and how i can eliminate this. I think I also need a reason to take pictures and link colours to the feelings and emotion to the place I am taking the pictures in. I think this will improve my work,

Third shoot- contact sheet

This is my third shoot it was taken in a wooded area. For this shoot was attempting to create blur motion, and in that blur try to have a set of contrasting colours . I looked more into planning my shots and when to take them as I used towels as the source of my colours. The towels were awkwardly draped over my subject. Then as my subject slowly moved it created a blur, I did this with a long exposure and a small aperture. In the light conditions I had, I used a 10 stop filter to darken the picture so I was able to have a longer exposure and have more movement and blur.
The shoot worked well as in some cases it showed how my artist Bischoff, was able to create his pictures, as a lot of mine came out darker than they should have, although that would be to do with the 10 stop filter. So I may need to use a similar technique to my previous shoot, to edit a blighter background around the motion blur.
The pictures on the bottom row of the contact sheet are edited by brightening the picture using photoshop. Although the background is still darker than I wanted, but that is to do with the settings on the camera that I use. I will have to use a light to brighten up the colours so they are more vibrant that what i managed today.
There were a few pictures that worked well in this shoot. "IMG. 9997.jpeg" was one of the better ones where i captured the motion and the colours as my subject span around as he moved down the path creating a spinning top like look.
After a bit of experimenting in photoshop I was able to enhance colours in the pictures, by layering them up. This was hard due to the tint of the filter I used. I will need to address this issue when I do my fourth shoot.
For my next shoot I will use coloured paper instead of towels, This may work better as I recently discovered that my artist Bischoff used coloured paper attached to himself as he moved in the frame. I will use a light to be able to brighten up the subject and hopefully be able to get rid of the tint of the filter. This will hopefully improve my work. I also want to relate the place to the colours. This way I will be able to show the relationships we have with the places through colours.

Art History- Brice Bischoff

1-Brice Bischoff 2009

2-Brice Bischoff 2009

Brice Bischoff is a american photographer, He has done a piece of work in the Bronson caves, where a lot of low budget sic-fi films have been made.  This then was linked to a set of work that was done for a magazine for a sic-fi week which is why his pictures look mysterious and different from what you normally see. His pictures consist of  lots of colours that have been created by a long exposure and colour paper or sheets have been moved around while the camera was capturing.
While he was capturing he used specific dance moves with him moving the sheets so that he could create different pattens. The pictures are taken in landscape but a lot of his pictures are cropped and all look uniform.The tile of the work is called "bronson caves" Which is just the name of the location of the work that he had produced.
The picture may have been slightly altered and edited with how vibrant the colours are. I think this because in my attempts to do this I have fond it hard to get vibrant colours altho, my solution would be to use a light to illuminate the colours. 
He used paper or sheets to created the colours, with a long exposure which has produced array of colours. I suspect he has used some form of lighting to light up the colours.

In picture 1 has been taken in a dark cave and there what appears to be a shaft of light pouring in from the ceiling, This has produced enough lighting ,but in this one compared to the other pictures, the colours of are misty and this makes the picture look very mysterious.

The second picture, the colour looks a lot bolder and brighter which suggest there wasn't a lot of movement compared to the first picture,

When I was experimenting, I found that I had to use a 10 stop filter to keep the picture at the correct exposure, as i used a long exposure and a large f number.
His other work is very experimental much like the Bronson caves. Also much like James Welling my other artist. I like this idea that we can do more with a camera than we can see normally. Bischoffs other work shows that he uses light and long exposures. He is experimental in his ways and was only in Uni till 2007 doing photography where he would have been influenced to do a lot of experimental suff.

So for my first attempt I will find a sheet or paper that I have in may different colours. Get a subject to have them draped over them so when the subject moves the colours are blurred in the long exposure.

Second shoot - Best edits

Both the picture are the same picture. I have edited them in differently. The one on the right I have Brightened up. I took the original picture with a filter held out in front of the camera lens. This created a blue tint over the flower which, links to my artist using filters. 

In the Image on the left I have layered the pictures and changed the colour of it using a digital filter. Then using masks to change the colours of the petals on the flower. I used a graphics tablet to be able to have more control over the sections I changed the colours in. I used the different schemes on the colour to make the petals stand out.

I have done the same for the other pictures and tried to get the colours to be opposites on the colour wheel, and in some cases more than one set of contrasting colours. This brings out the odd colours. Lucky for me nature does this anyway so I only had to change some colours to get the colours to contrast.

This is one of my first edits that I did, I used the same method as the above pictures but only used 2 different colours, green and red. Further more with this picture I used a red filter over the top, in hope to get the pink flower more red to contrast again the green leaves in the background but also the edited green flower.

Second shoot contact sheet

This is my second shoot it was taken on another walk but this time I focused my pictures on a them of nature and plants with bright colours. For this shoot I took advice from what I learned from looking at the colour wheel while looking at James Welling. I looked more into planning my shots and when to take them by trying to get the filters . As I was walking I was constantly on the look out for colour contrasts in flowers.
This shoot was  successful as I managed get some good pictures with he use of a physical filter, and some even with both digital and physical.  
The pictures on the contact sheet are all the pictures including the edits, which are on the bottom row. I think that my shoot has related to my artist well by using the filters in appropriate ways and how in some cases managed to get natural contrasts and/or edited the to get the contrast in colours. There are some good edits that I look naturally and edited to suit my colours needs, such as "blue filter on.....jpeg" which has yellow, blue and green and red which are 2 sets of contrasting colours. This is my best edit.
For my next shoot I will look at a different artist to attempt to capture colour. I will have to keep in mind the colour wheel and the way I have edited my pictures in the first 2 shoots, which will help me later on get a contest in colours.

Experiment - Long exposure lights

I was in the car and decided to see what colours I could get when I use the camera on a long exposure. This would let me see the light trails of others cars headlights, street lights and traffic lights. When I attempted this I found that I couldn't hold he camera still in the car as it was so bumpy, This brought out the effect on the light trails being jerky. The more they look like scribbles the more bumpy it was.

The red lights were from traffic lights and the back lights of cars. the green was from traffic lights and the others where headlights or lams. This really showed the contrast between new lights and old ones, where the more white lights being newer and the yellow halogen type, are older.

I found that the bottom image has red and green in which are contrasting colours, but against the black background all the colours stood out.

Influence - Colour wheel

Complementary colours are directly opposite sides of the colour wheel, They are hard to use in large bulk but it is useful for small sections to stand out among the others

Analogous colours are next to each other on the colour wheel, They are found in nature. You pick one dominant colour and the other 2 are to accent the main colour.

Triadic colour colours are where the colours are evenly spaced around the colour wheel, They should produce a vibrant scheme. They should be used much the same as before to let one dominate and the others accent the main colour.

Split-complementary is where you take the complementary colours but use the 2 colours either side of one of the colours to give a strong visual contrast.

Tetrad colour scheme can be used in a square or a rectangle. They both use sets of complimentary pairs. And work well when one colour dominates. A lot like the rest of the different uses.

The site I use to get the exact colours to use is linked below.This is a colour wheel that can select colours to help me chose colours.

http://paletton.com/#uid=15z0u0klPl6bivBgIqer6fQxaaw

Experimenting with colours

I decided to look at the colour wheel and experiment with different contrasts, triads (3 colours)  and tetrads(4 colours). Here I will use the same picture but with different colour effect on in. I used the hue and saturation to edit the colours

This is the original picture with the use of a physical filter tinted blue.

This picture I decided to do red and green, which are contrasting colours. This makes the picture stand out but the way I have edited it doesn't work as the boat got blended into the background. Although the colour change is not on the horizon line which very off putting.

This picture I decided to use 2 colours next to each other on the colour wheel. This means the colours will work well together and they will make the other stand out.And this is where I decided to just make the boat purple, which had the effect of making the boat stand out.

In this picture I chose a triad of colours, which all compliment and contrast each other The orange/red defines the sky , and the blue defines the water and yellow defines the boat, which splits up the picture well, making the boat look like a different picture, contrasting against the blue. Then is exaggerated by the orange/red sky to make the blue look deep and bright.

This is a edit of the all pink picture where I used a tetrad of colours which are meant to complement each other and contrast. This gives the effect of where the sky is split but also works well with each other. The colours also work well with the boat standing out, along the others .This hasn't worked well due to the sky was to over powering with the green and orange contrast.

This is nothing like my artists work, as in his pictures he doesn't single out an individual object to change the colours of, but it works in the over all look of using the filters.

The use of filters work well as it standardises the colours of the pictures making them easier to edit and change to a different colour.

Experimenting - Cross prossesing

Cross possessing is a technique that used film. It was used a lot in modelling and was the "in" style for some time. It took a lot of experimenting with different types of chemicals and mixing and matching types of film to a different type of chemical that it wasn't designed to go with, but produced a different colouring effect.
Unfortunately I am not using film, but photoshop lets you use a filter which you can change and edit that replicates the colours in the style of cross processing. I have been looking at using in some of my edits.
I like the colours that the cross processing gives you but it is nothing like my artist, who uses colour filters. The reason I have looked at it is due to it being a filter.