Work Record shoot 2

"CITIFIED SKY"

  AO1:

plan: my plan is to photograph the sky in an urban environment to create silhouetted images that have the outline of houses and streets but focus on the tonal range and colour of the sky.

  the series will be shot on my road with a tripod , and further editing in Photoshop will help to produce my final images for this shoot.

     

Research influences:

For this shoot i decided to conduct research on the work of Paul Reiffer and Nicholas Buer

both artist are heavily influential in the field of skyline photography, Reiffer with the sun and Buer with galaxies in the dark. I have chosen these artists as their image have larger focus than just the sky and I feels important for me to develop my images in looking at the bigger picture rather than just clouds.

  Buer photographs landscapes and cityscape to create spectacular images.

t   A range of techniques are used by him such as using filters when photographing in addition to all the correct camera setting needed to produce such stunning images. from his work i can see how he uses the sky as a main part or at least 1/2 of his composition As the exam brief if have chosen focuses on sky i feel this is a key element of his work that i can use a recreate.  Additionally his dayscapes depict a wide range of cloud formations that give another type of texture to the images.  the image below seems to have warm tone based on the colours in the image but also because of the feathery clouds giving a warm comforting background with the way they help diffuse the light softly. These are the technique I will try to incorporate in my shoot.

The image below on the bottom left is another photograph taken by Buer and the use of the skyline as a silhouette is a key point for me and i will try to use this in my photographs.

Paul Reiffer on the other had shoots a variety of sunsets as a part of his main focus. His work showcase techniques like long exposure and the use of filters.

movement is a key element of his pieces as shown by the image above as this is done by the long exposure. The colour of the sky is also heavily saturated as a result of this. Therefore Reiffer is able to extract a kaleidoscope of colour from his landscapes. Even though i wont be able to use ND filters or have extremely long exposure I will attempt to recreate some of his work by editing my images so that they can have a similar feel to that of Reiffer's high end landscapes.

In addition to the colours i will also try to develop the technique of producing silhouettes

         Contact sheet:

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                Straight images:

      AO2:  

Camera settings:

The ISO was set to 200 to avoid the image becoming grainy and to let as much light in as possible so that the shadows don't bleed through the rest of the image. the f stop was set a 11 as i was hoping to get the clouds in full focus with the foreground in somewhat focus but less so than the background to give a greater perception of depth. The shutter speed at 1/100 i thought was adequate as i didn't want to overexpose the image on too long of an exposure and i wanted to keep the detail of the foliage or buildings in the foreground which would've been shadowed out if I had increased the shutter speed.

Edits

i only liked 3 out of all the images i took and felt that the others where not wha i wanted to achieve therefore only 3 images have been edited and presented as a final series.  

image 1:

 I put the image into adobe camera RAW and begun to add various things. i increased the clarity as well as the saturation, along with performing a lens correction and dehazing the sky.

after that had been done i created 2 curves layers and begun to burn and dodge the images, bring out the clouds and darkening the foregrounds to achieve the silhouette look that Reiffer and Buer photograph so well. 

 after doing so I felt like the image was lacking highlights and to increase its dramatic presence I added in a layer of levels.  It allowed me to stretch the range of brightness well especially as I had taken the image in a RAW format. It can adjust brightness, contrast, and tonal range by specifying the location of complete black, complete white, and mid tones in a histogram.  this enabled the image to gain the brightness I wanted and then the images edit was complete

Image 2:

· Image 2 was of my street with the pylon central to the composition. The first step to my edit was to create a photo filter layer to warm up the tone of the image. I wanted to replicate the tone of the images I researched as I felt they where aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. 

to do this I created the layers of curves and once again burned and dodged to bring out the definition of the clouds and especially those that surrounded the pylon as I wanted to keep the pylon a central part of the composition and not get its focus lost within the bright clouds. Furthermore I added levels to bring up the highlights and brightness levels and the image was then complete.

Image 3:

This image was edited in a similar what to that of the 2nd by burning and dodging to create the high lights as well as the silhouette 

 in the foreground as with all the images I have tried to keep a 1/2 or 2/3 ratio between the sky and the silhouette to ensure that the sky is still the primary focus of the shoot as that is the exam brief I'm linking my images to.

      AO3:

when evaluating this shoot it didn't go as planned and I wasn't as happy with it. this is because the images do not reflect my true style of photography and neither does the editing.  The images to me lack a clear focus and the compositional  elements are very week. However I did try to reproduce images that I research in my own style but the techniques and equipment used by both Buer and Reiffer is very costly therefore I feel I was not able to create images that link heavily back to the research.

although I am not completely satisfied with the images I feel in some way I have done to the best of my abilities to try and photograph the sky.

 I feel that some elements of the images as a series link to my research and those elements are, the warmth through the clouds and the glow it  gives off; this is characteristic of Reiffer's work and I feel I have done well. However to improve these images I must travel to a significant location that has a wide skyline. by taking the images at home I limited my frame to what I could see from my garden which may have derailed this shoot completely.

    AO4: best edited images

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