The year is flying past. Winter, spring and summer have been and gone and autumn is now with us and there are some stunning colours this year. Already though the ground is carpeted with fallen leaves and soon the branches will be bare once again. This week's foggy and damp weather seems to have precipitated a greater rate of leaf fall. Trees are changing colour at different speeds and this is having a knock on effect on my work for Project 15. I am using four locations for this project and shall make a final choice of my four images when all have been captured. Two of my locations feature an ash tree in the foreground and they seem to be taking on autumn colour more slowly than other trees. I took shots at these locations last weekend but hope to return to the two ash trees in a week or so when a change has taken place, although I am somewhat worried that they may drop their leaves without changing colour. I have also been out and about taking general autumn shots in my locality for use in my final protfolio.
In my last reflections I mentioned that I was having problems with my aging Epson 1290 printer. It gave me awful trouble when printing pictures for Assignment 3 and in the end I had to resort to using my Epson DX4450 cheap and cheerful do-it-all printer but this didn't like the thick Hahnemuelhe photorag paper I was using. Finally I have bitten the bullet and invested in a new Epson Stylus Photo R2880. It has been an expensive time as I have also had to buy a new PC as the old one died on me. Now that I have both installed, the next job is to calibrate the monitor and download the ICC profiles for the papers I use.
Something that I have noticed during the last few weeks involves the sharpness of the photographs I take. I use as low an ISO as possible to reduce noise in my images and try to stick to ISO 100 for landscape work. I also use a small aperture to ensure as great a depth of field as possible (when appropriate). This consequently entails longer exposures, especially in low light conditions. This is all well and good when nothing moves but if leaves, for instance, are moving, and it often only needs the slightest breeze, then slight movement blur occurs and the images are not as sharp as I would like despite using a tripod. I have a tendency, that I must be careful about, to use ISO 100 and f16 or f22 and only notice the shutter speed and possible lack of sharpness later. This occured yesterday morning when I was taking an autumn relection and I did, in fact, return later to retake the shot at ISO 400 but sadly the light was not as good. Life is a compromise, I suppose, but it is something I need to be aware of.
I am currently reading and enjoying Ansell Adams' Examples. Apart from the beautiful images it contains I find the explanations of the taking of the photographs and their subsequent developing and printing and his thought processes fascinating. The time and effort he went to in the development of his negatives and the printing of them is amazing. Overdoing the post processing of digital images often comes in for a fair amount of criticism but I think we need to remember how much work was done in the darkroom in the past. Personally I use as little post processing as possible but I do enjoy looking at 'over the top' images, although I think that a lot of the time the photographer tries to kid the viewer into thinking that is what the view looked like. Perhaps all images should detail the amount of post processing that has been done. In wild life photography there are similar issues when it is not admitted that an image is of a captive animal or bird or the shot was taken in controlled conditions. A couple of years ago the winner of the predigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year award was stripped of his title when it came to light that his winning image was of a captive subject.
I have also been looking at the work of Edward Weston, which I have found inspiring. I have always admired his still life work of such subjects as his shells and peppers and it has been a revelation that he also took some fine landscape images. Thinking ahead now to Assignment 4, having discussed this with my tutor briefly and done some more research I am moving away from Fay Godwin as much as I enjoy her work. I am, in fact, minded to base my essay on Ansell Adams. I have always admired his work and I love that of Galen Rowell but, as I said in my last review, I felt I needed to be closer to majestic mountains, if not Yosemite. But discussion with my tutor made me realise that the idea in Assignment 5 was to photograph in the style of the chosen photographer not to copy their images. I think that my style of photography is akin to Adams. I like crisp sharp images, with dramatic skies. Back in the day when I dabbled in black and white film photography I liked to use yellow and red filters to help darken the blue of the sky and emphasise the clouds. In colour I enjoy using a polarizer for the same reason, although I know I have a tendency to overdo it a bit. There again I love the work of Rowell so watch this space!!
Progress on the Projects:
Project 16 and 18
I enjoyed these two projects. I love photographing at dawn and dusk. I think that the point here is that a range of exposure combinations produce acceptable results and it comes down to a personal preference. I found though that it was easy to let unwanted flare spoil the image and care should be taken.
Project 17
I found experimenting with fill in flash fascinating. I was lucky to encounter a willing subject in a man fishing of the rocks of the Firth of Forth.
Project 19
I used the setting sun here to illustrate choosing the moment but choosing the right moment is important in other situations.
Project 20, 21 and 22
Shooting into the light is something that I have usually tried to avoid unless it was at sunrise or sunset but these projects showed me that it can be another technique to add to the armoury of the photographer.
Project 23
We often need to make the best use of soft light in this country. We do, though, need to be able to balance the brightness in a gey sky so ND grads are useful here.
Project 24
Still working on this. I need to look over some of my recent images and look for images with different cloud types but ones that also fit the brief. I will then purposefully fill in the gaps.
Projects 26 and 27
Although I have posted some shots I already have of the moon I need to do some specific work. I am hoping to take some shots in Whitby this weekend. The Photographers Ephemeris tells me that the moon rises at a suitable time and direction over Whitby harbour.
Project 28
Again I enjoyed this work. The dividing line between wildlife macro and intimate landscape is a fine one.
I look forward to continuing with the course and researching for my eassay. I am also looking forward to visiting the forthcoming Ansell Adams exhibition in London. I also continue to enjoy my wildlife photography. I am including some shots taken of the red deer rut in my next post.
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