Shoot Six - Work Diary

Today's shoot was in the style of Ansel Adams, I wanted to photograph large landscapes and convert them into black and white, like Adam's did in order to show how beautiful nature, and our environment is. Adam's was an environmentalist, and projected this through his images of stunning landscapes, this was the bases of my shoot, I wanted to shoot landscapes and then convert them into black and white in order to simply show their beauty, encouraging individuals to process and attend to this more. 

I am happy with the shoot as a whole, as I believe the images I photographed do effectively get my aim of beauty across to the viewer. I converted my images into black and white through the use of photoshop, I also edited the levels, and curves of the photographs in photoshop too, if I felt this was necessary. 

Best image of this shoot:

ISO- 200

F- 5.6

Shutter speed- 1/125

This photograph is my best image from this shoot as you can see detail in both the background and foreground. The church structure in the background of the image draws your eye into the image, as this building dominates the skyline; the viewers eyes then flow down to the foreground of the image whereby the swans swim on the lake. The swan that is positioned on the bottom right corner of the image is not completely in the frame- however just by the direction of the other swans, it's evident that this swan is traveling in the same direction. I believe my camera settings were correct as I capture a good amount of light in my image, and the photograph is not blurred. This photograph was heavily influenced by Ansel Adams, due to the black and white colouring and contrasting I have adopted in this image; Adam's influenced me as he photographs beautiful images of landscapes, in order to display how we need to preserve nature. 

Worst image of this shoot:

ISO- 200

F- 5

Shutter speed- 1/60 

The image above is my worst photograph from this shoot, as I believe the image as a whole is confusing as the viewer cannot clearly see what the image is of. Moreover, after I edited the image into black and white it appears to be blurry, this is an effect I did not want in my image due to the fact it makes the image appear messy and unorganised, the blur would have been due to me not having the correct camera settings in order to focus on the whole of the image, I should have worked my focus more efficiently. If I was to reshoot this image I would have ensured it was in focus, and I would have liked more light coming into the image so I could work the tonal contrast more in photoshop. 

Through research I also found that Adam's edits his images using the burn, and dodge tool, I tried this on the image below, in order to experiment in the style of Adam's. I believe that using both the burn and dodge tool allowed Adam's to exaggerate the contrasts within the different tones of his image. 

(before)

 (after)

I believe the image after looks better, as there's a greater tonal range, consequently this also allows my work to be linked more closely to Adam's work, who was my inspiration for this shoot. Moreover, by using the dodge tool on the path this too allowed me to bring more focus on the leading line of the path, which carries the viewer'e eyes to the back of the image.