Friends edit

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Lillian Isobelle Hulley Stoddart

These are my two favourite friends photographs as I think both have successful compositions, both show emotion in the subjects faces and both show detail and focus. They’re different too as Matts (left) has a more successful aperture depth and shows the focus on him. However Harrys (right) wasn’t as good as the background isn’t as blurred as I had hoped. I like that you can see all the detail in both their faces and I edited it slightly to bring the clarity and detail up so they were really defined. However if I were to change something about Matts photo it would be to include more of him. So at the time he was walking towards me and I continuously took photos, so didn’t have much time to think about the composition. However I think it works enough to be a final piece.

Friends portraiture experiments

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Lillian Isobelle Hulley Stoddart

Harry

I took numerous photos of Harry and he was happy to do so, and seemed natural when having his photo taken, this made a slight difference to how he posed and how comfortable he was. I took these photos quite close up and kept his face central and chose these 3 as the best. For Harry I just used the Canon kit lense and focused on his face, however the background is also in focus so I could have changed the aperture to keep this out of focus, and would do this for future portrait work. I just asked him to ‘stand there’ at first and he slightly smiled, I continued to take photos and every so often he laughed. Photos of people laughing are my favourite as I think they can get the best response from the viewer and create a positive and happy image for both participants.

Matt

I used a prime 100m lense for these photos and I’m not sure I can see much of a difference between the two lenses. In the first image I also used a reflector to try to highlight Matts face more. As the sun was so bright when taking these photos already the reflector was too bright for Matt to pose. However I think it turned out as quite a humorous photo and you can see how the reflector creates a much more balanced light on his face. However I couldn’t seem to loose the shadow on his shoulder which I’m not keen on. I took these photos around 3pm and the sun was slightly setting so was very bright in the location. My favourite image is the middle one as I think the framing works well as he’s slightly off centre but still the focus of the frame. As it’s such a close up image the background is completely blurred out into a plain red background. I also think the detail in his face and hair comes out well in this. In the third image the sun is quite intense on his face and isn’t very flattering but I do like how this create a very dimensional photo and looks almost 3D. I would have liked the brick wall to have been out of focus however.

Ellie

This was our first time experimenting with the cameras and framing people. I really enjoy photos where the person in them is smiling or laughing as I think this is one of the most natural poses someone can do and can make the viewer also feel happy. In these photos the background is a bit busy and doesn’t really draw the focus onto the person which defeats the point of it being a portrait. I also think I should have moved further down to be eye level with Ellie as I am slightly taller than her and it slightly looks like I’m looking down on her.

Rusty Mould

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Lillian Isobelle Hulley Stoddart

When I went to the specified found objects brief location I noticed a lot of rusting, moss and decaying around the area. I was interested by this and thought they related back to my found objects final images well as they are like different ways of natural moulding on different objects. For this first image I explored the way man made and natural elements can combine to create different textures, colours and moods. I wanted the pipe to be directly in the centre as I find central images pleasing to the eye and can create a balanced and comfortable image. The green moss and red brick contrast against each other which creates an interesting and dynamic photo.

For this photograph I decided to experiment with rule of thirds by placing the sign, which is the focus of the image within these. The sign is battered and looks like its been standing for there for decades. The twigs and nature have grown around it which shows how nature could be taking back its own land.

These three images have a very orange and rusty theme to them, with the bricks, metal chain and metal sheeting. All of these have been eroded over time and look like they havnt been cared for in a while. All three also include a lot of lines, mostly vertical and horizontal

For this photograph I thought I’d include the grey sky, some of the barbed wire and some of the fence. This photo reminds me of a concentration camp image even though it’s just taken behind a warehouse. This image also has contrasting elements in that the sky looks soft against the barbed wire and the smooth but hard fence. I originally had a bit of extra fence and pole in the top right and bottom left corners which weren’t necessary or clear so I cropped these out in post production.

Still Life triptych

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Lillian Isobelle Hulley Stoddart

This is my final piece for my still life brief. Our brief specified to go to a certain location and take photos of found objects around the area, however I first experimented with taking photos of mouldy/half eaten food in my flat. I started with the apple and think this looked really effective. I decided I wanted to do a mouldy food series as I thought these would look good as a triptych. I originally thought of using mouldy bread with the apple but the bread didn’t mould very quickly and when it did the photographs weren’t as effective as my banana and grapes images. I also thought of using an apple, cactus and something else that was organic and had a green colour scheme to it. But I couldn’t find anything that would be suitable and be a good match with the apple and cactus so didn’t use the cactus image in the end.

For my final 3 images I allowed the half eaten fruits to mould for a few days as I thought this would give a much more interesting effect to the image and the object than if they were ripe fruits. They now have creases, different colours, lines and details that they didn’t before. I took lot’s of images of each of them and then used lightroom to edit and choose the best images. Although I tried to use the best settings on the camera I still did some editing so enhance the colours, textures. Although the raw images were slightly noisy I thought this could enhance the details and make the objects look more gritty. I also used lightroom to make the objects slightly glow. As the grapes were dark purple they didn’t show up very well on the black background like the apple and banana did. So I made the centre of the image glow slightly so that the edges were still a dark black but the grapes could be seen better. I did this slightly on the other 2 images too so they were consistant.

I chose to arrange the images in this order as the lines in the apple curve inwards, the grapes point towards the centre and the apple curves inwards. This means they all point towards the middle, making it a comfortable triptych to view and the lines are easy to follow. I think this was important to my images as the actual subject of them (mouldy food) isn’t very comfortable or enjoyable to look at, so by making the photographs enjoyable, its balanced out.

Cactus photographs

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Lillian Isobelle Hulley Stoddart

Initially with the apple photos I didn’t experiment much with the camera, just with the composition and the lighting. For this project I’ve been using a Samsung NX3000 digital camera with a 16-50mm zoom lense. Although this isn’t the camera ideal for photographing my found objects I think the pictures came out a good quality. I experimented with the white balance, lighting (using my desk lamp), aperture and shutter speed.

Shutter speed: When i changed this the camera wasn’t steady enough to take the photo and it usually came out blurred, so i left it on the cameras automatic settings. As the object was still, the shutter speed wasn’t an important element to change.

White balance: I tried using a white piece of paper in front of the camera to adjust this but my camera didn’t respond well to this as the lense is slightly broken. To experiment properly with this I would have to use one of the DSLR cameras. Although the white balance was off int his photo, I quite like how it came out anyway as it has kind of transformed into something else, its not obviously a cactus anymore.

Lighting: I used a desk lamp to light my object, which I had placed in front of a plain black paper background. I wanted to use black paper as I think this can really focus the viewers attention on the image. I could have used white as well but I felt this would look too much like a stock image and this wasn’t what I wanted to achieve. The desk lamp was successful to light the object and i moved it around to try and eliminate shadows and create a dark background.

Aperture: I experimented slightly with this as I wasn’t totally confident with what I was looking for. I just tried different settings and saw which produced the best images. I enjoyed changing the focus between the front pins on the cactus and the back ones and think this is a good way to change the image.

Lilli Stoddart

Photography