Magic Hour

Okay, so as i never got to take the reflection photographs that I wanted to when it was our weekly picture project, I decided to incorporated it in with my magic hour pictures, as it was going to bug me until I'd done it anyway. These images are all taken at Pine Lodge fishery in Clitheroe, just off the A59. I feel it is one of the most beautiful places around where I live, people may not agree but I've always loved wandering round there. So this was taken at dawn, not dusk, just before sunrise. These three I feel were the most effective:

This first image, I feel is quite effective, simply because it seems to break all the rules of composition and doesn't involve the rule of thirds, the golden ratio or any of those things, and is all central, although personally I still like it. This image isn't edited at all although if I were to shoot it again, there is some grass in the bottom left and just off center to the right, I would of tried not to get these in as they ruin the symmetry.

I chose to put this image in also, as there are a lot of oranges in the image rather than just the blues that are in the other two, this image isn't edited also, though if I were to shoot it again I would of liked it to be a little lighter. Also some of the sky detail is lost where the sun is rising (this was the first image taken so the sun wasn't quite above Pendle Hill yet) as the sun is very bright, this made it difficult for the rest of the image not to appear as a silhouette. Although I do like the image as I feel it has a very calm atmosphere about it.
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This is the final image from my magic hour shoot, and I think this is my favourite. I have increased the blue hue in this shot ever so slightly and increased the clarity, although only slightly so it isn't that edited. Again in this shot the grass on the bank ruins it as it stops the symmetry, although I am still pleased with the outcome. The fact that the main of the detail in the center draws your eye in to the shot.

Shutter Speed

Today it was quite a reasonable day out, first in a while so I took my camera down to the river to take some slow shutter speeds of the water. Although it was noon so there was a lot of light and I didn't have a cable release to make it easier, the images aren't as good as i wanted. I had to get in the river with my tripod, so the water made the images a little shakey as it was very deep aswell.


I then took one using zoom on a simple tree to create motion, the effects were quite interesting although I prefer the water images.

Fruit Lighting Techniques

For this task we worked in a group, me Sara and Jenna, we shared a table with lights and helped one another taking it in turns to take a picture of our fruit with each lighting technique. I chose to use a squash for my fruit, although back light wasn't too obvious with mine so I used Jenna's pomegranete to show the technique with this one.

This first image was taken with one light and a softbox, with a 45/45 degree lighting technique. The result of this lighting was:

Next we took images using a top light. This is one of the more flattering lighting techniques as there are some nice highlights on the fruit. Although the softbox was reflected a little too much in the table.

Next we used a back light, although with my fruit wasn't as obvious so this is Jenna's pomegranate. I feel this had the most interesting effect on the fruit as it cast an interesting shadow beneath it.

The next image taken was to create a high key shot of the fruit, to do this the background had to be slightly over exposed so it was very white yet the fruit had to be correctly exposed, the result was:


The final image we took was to create a low key shot, to do this we used the large light tent with a black backdrop to create an image with a black background that is underexposed yet the fruit correctly exposed, the result was:

Hunger

For my fourtnightly picture project this week, the theme was hunger. I wanted to base my theme on starving children as it is what springs to mind when people mention the word 'hunger'. Although it obviously wasn't possible for me to fly out and spend a week in Africa or another third world country so I chose to use symbolism. A teddy bear, to symbolise the starving child. And my main aim was to produce an image of a inanimate object have a human emotion of sadness, I do feel I managed to achieve a sadness in the following photograph. Although origionally I wanted the bear to have no stuffing in with a concaved stomach, but the bear was too small and didn't have as stronger feel as the image I finally chose to submit.