shoot two

Shoot two

Plans for shoot: 

my plan for this shoot was to photograph common plants that you would find in a garden and edit them in a way which accentuates the details of them and also enhances the colours of the organisms, this shoot will also link to the technique of achieving a shallow depth of field.

Research influence

Nina Mingioni

Nina Mingioni was my influence for this shoot, Nina Mingioni’s work is inspired by dramatic light and shadows, people’s faces and stories, lines and small details. She said that 'Photography gives her the chance to live in the moment. While taking Nina away from the daily grind, it opens her eyes with the gorgeous light, detail, emotion, and beauty of all that surrounds her'. Her work with flowers focuses on the finer details and always has a specific focus point.

Contact sheet

Image bank (containing 5 images)







My Best images (target 4 - 6),

Images that require improvement

i felt that all these images required improvement because they all had bad focus and looked blurred and out of focus. I feel that these images may have had the wrong focus, due to the difficulty of using a tripod in the location, these images may have resulted in being out of focus due to camera shaking.

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.


My idea for recording this shoot was to photograph the finer details in flowers and plants, like Mingioni's images, and to focus on isolating the boldest aspects of my images. I was inspired by the work of Mingioni by her method of taking photos, and by what she captured within some of  her photos. 

      With reference to my best images, I feel that although I could not create photographs exactly like Mingioni's photos, I did create a set that was in the style of her work (centring the main subject/object within the composition). I am happy with the overall outcome of my images and feel that they all show the many ways that flowers and their intricate details can be captured within a photograph both with and without editing. i decided to edit my images to make them more blurred and bolder in order to reflect Mingioni's work on flowers.
With regards to some of the images that did not come out as I expected, I struggled to adapt my camera settings as the sun was ducking in and out of clouds and the weather was just awful in general and overcast which meant i had to change my position between each image taken.   Some images lacked focus due to the difficulty of using a tripod within the location.


AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

all photos were taken on a Nikon D3500 i also used a tripod for some shots at the start, but later gave up with using it as it was hard to transport the tripod to where i wanted to take photos of within the grounds.

camera settings

1/60 second shutter speed

f/8

ISO 140

flash did not fire for any images.

by having a low f stop, my images had more focus on the subject than the background which is what i was aiming for, the high shutter speed helped achieve a crisper look so my images  were not over or under exposed. The low ISO ensured that my images were crisp and clear instead of grainy, i did not want to achieve a grainy look to my images so the ISO helped avoid that.

All images were refined on Adobe Photoshop, each image had the curves, brightness, contrast, exposure, levels and saturation altered.

i further edited the image below to mimic one of Mingioni's images:

With this images of Mingioni's, the focus is only on the foreground, and the rest is blurry and out of focus.

To edit the above image, i used the blur filter on Photoshop, to do this i first created a new layer of the already edited image, i then added a layer mask and outlines the flower in the foreground, once i had done that i changed colour of the layer mask so that the flower's outline was in black and the rest white, then i added the blur filter to the whole layer, the blur was around 15 pixels, just enough to add a natural blur, i then merged the layers and this produced the final result.


AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
(Here you will discuss how you developed your work based on your research of e.g. artists/photographers, etc).

The artist research was very useful during these shoots as I had some inspiration on how to tackle the finer details of the flowers from a range of species of plant and flowers. My research of Mingioni's flowers portfolio helped me to focus on the intricate details of the plants and their petals as well as the contrast between their colours. I found this helpful because where i decided to shoot contained a lot of opportunities to photograph different mediums including a range of naturally occurring colours. 

The research on colour saturation  (shown in my techniques post) was helpful to this study and I feel that I shot some good photos that had enough contrast between the colours and saturation to bring out the boldest colours within my images.

AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements. 


I believe i have produced a relatively strong set of images inspired by Mingioni and her macro floral photography, the final images were refined by the following processes:

~ i altered the brightness and contrast 
~ i further altered the curves and levels of the images
~ i then adjusted the hue and saturation of the images 
~ then i changed the blur levels of some images
i then further adjusted the brightness and contrast till i got my desired looks which are my final images, shown below: 

Progression: you must refer to what you will do next to improve on either the shoot you have done or how you will develop your project in the next shoot.  

For my next shoot i hope to experiment more with my editing processes, this may include using glitching effects, major altering to colours or portraiture.