Long Exposure

When hearing we had to take a long exposure photo the first idea I had was for it to be directly related to the freeze photo, so my idea was going to be a long exposure of someone on a swing. However as I couldn't find a swing I had to change my idea. The first picture I took was of some cars. I've done light painting before but I struggle to draw a good picture, so having cars to do it for you is a lot better. I don't think this is a bad picture but I wanted my photo to be unique and I know this idea has been done a lot.

It was a clear sky that night so another idea was to take a picture of the stars. This photo didn't work out so well as there was a lamppost in corner so the light from that seeped in, you can still see some stars though. I decided to not go with this picture as I just don't think there's a lot to it, it's not that interesting to look at particularly.

Finally I really liked how the colours of the lights reflected on the water so I decided to see what a long exposure of that would look like and this was the result. I tried to get the lights of the cars driving by but it didn't work so instead I waited for a train to go by and got the lights from that.

Movement - Fast

Another idea I had for the capturing a moment photo was to get someone running and to have them in focus but the background blurred. I've done this before with cars which worked out so I tried to do it with a person but I couldn't quite get their face in focus.

This is one I'd got of a man on a motorbike, I wanted the same effect for this project.

Another reason I abandoned this idea was that when someone is running they don't look very photogenic.

The location we were in was a good place as there was lots of trees and it was sunny that day, but because it was on a hill and the grass was wet it wasn't ideal for running.

This picture was probably the best one of the lot but the face wasn't as sharp as I would've liked it to be and therefore I didn't want to use it.

Movement - Fast

The brief said to capture a moment in time, or to "freeze" a moment. I really liked the idea of someone jumping off a swing because I think it captures a really good moment, it's the moment where you don't know if it's going to work out okay but at the same time you're still having a good time. Unfortunately I couldn't find a swing anywhere but I did find a park so I decided stick with the idea of being in mid air but just not from a swing.

I decided to take it in portrait mode so I could get the whole person in. It took a few shots because like in this photo their foot is still on the ground and I wanted them to be fully in the air. In the first picture (above) I wanted them to look a little more majestic so I took several photos until I got the result I wanted.

Research

I found some pictures by Andrew Whyte who does long exposure photography. 

This photo jumped out to me because it has Battersea Power Station in the background, which is a building I really admire as it has a lot of history and I love Victorian architecture. The lights are from trains which I think is quite simple to do but still has a really nice effect to it because it looks so unnatural. I think the whole photo has an urban feel to it and being from London it reminds me of home.

I really like the humour there is to this photo, it's called "how benches avoid being sat on" and I admire that because I think there's a preconception that photography is quite serious but this erases that. I like how he's used light painting to make an ordinary object more interesting.

Finally I picked out this photo because of the colours. I love the rainbow colours under the bridge because it looks like quite an old bridge but it's not just a big structure it also looks pretty. I also like the sky in this photo as you can see the stars and I think all together this photo seems like it should be from a cartoon and the fact it's real life makes it good.


This is a photo by glenncoco which captures a moment. It's at a really nice location which I think is easy to forget about when you're trying to take a picture of motion. It looks like the person on the left has used a power to push the other person away which I think is cool because I like photos that tell a story. The fact they're in silhouette makes it focus more on the movement of the photo which I think is a good way of doing it.

This photo is by Michael Shakes and it's capturing the movement of the cards. The man is more in focus than the cards so straightaway you're looking at his face which obviously isn't moving, but I think it's interesting that the cards aren't the main focus of the photo. It's a very simple idea which I admire and where the cards are placed is interesting because they only cover where the man is and not the background. 

Research

I looked at the work of William Neill as he's done many triptych photos.

What I particularly like about his work is how all 3 photos are of the same thing but they're not all the exact same photo.

This photo is very symmetrical which I think brings a lot to the photo as there's a lot of lines and spirals and the fact it's almost a mirror image both sides makes the photo seem simple yet complex. 

The triptych also has a good use of colours, they're very natural looking and almost look like an oil painting.

William Neill has done a lot of photos with nature but the colours are all quite bright which I think looks really good, and is something I want in my photos.

As we're putting our found objects in a studio environment I found this picture he'd done of the same rock but in different positions. I like the fact it's such a simple photo and yet looks very sleek and clean. The background is a plain black but the object is well lit which really brings it out, and is something I'd want to do with my photos, I want them to be simple looking.

Triyptych

 These were the "cheaper" items photographs. The Dr Pepper can particularly stood out to me because of it's bright red colour and the fact it's so shiny. I also really like the red of the ketchup sachet. There's also a toy that's broken just under the ketchup which I found interesting because I wasn't sure what the toy was originally, but it looked chewed up and I wanted there to be some blue in the picture. 

I wanted the horizontal line to be at a 180º angle because I think visually it looks better.  It was hard to decide where to have to focus so in these 3 images, despite all being very similar, the focus is in different places.

Final Image

This is my final image. I'm happy with the order it's in but I think it would've been better if the horizontal line in the background matched up. I also think the colours are different in each picture so it would look more unified if they looked the same. But I'm happy with how each photo turned out and I think they're interesting to look at.