DPP Assignment 2 - Additional Work

Received an e-mail from my tutor suggesting that I include the additional work that I did in my learning log. I had prepared written notes and had put them into my folder for eventual submission. Following a belt and braces approach I include them here.

Following a telephone conversation with my Tutor I decided to do some additional work on the problems of mixed lighting. Last year as part of a personal project I had taken a large number of images inside religious buildings and thought that a selection of these would be a useful additional exercise. They offered some very difficult lighting conditions that had to be overcome both at the time of shooting and in subsequent processing. All images were shot in Raw.

The final images can be found on the CD in the folder ‘AddtlChurches’.

The first image ‘Adoration’ was taken at f6.3; 1/160 and an ISO of 5000.

The difficulties faced were in part the problem of shooting the image from across the Church to ensure that all the frieze was included and the available lighting. As seen by the naked eye the colours were slightly muted and the gold leaf was dominant because it strongly reflected the light. The clarity of the many individuals was not clear I think in part because overall the light was flat but also because of the lack of perceivable contrast.

In processing and after the routine changes to Camera Calibration, Lens Correction and Exposure, my main aim was to increase the overall contrast, increase the saturation of the colours (largely done using the ‘Vibrance’ slider) and reduce the brightness of the gold leaf areas so that they were less dominant.

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The second image ‘Large Dusty Church’ was taken at f6.3 1/15 ISO 5000.

The attraction here was the golden light above the altar that was in stark contrast to the muted tones of the rest of the Church. I wanted to include the body of the Church to emphasise the lighting of the altar area. The challenge was to keep some of the detail in the stained glass window immediately behinnd the altar without leaving the rest of the Church in relative darkness.

Using the tools availalbe in Camera Raw (including Recovery and Adjustment Brush) I selectively reduced the exposure level of the windows until most of the detail was restored. I increased the saturation of the golden light to lift it out of the general lighting but left the body of the Church unaltered.

The figures were left in to give a sense of scale.

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The third image ‘ Magically Lit Chapel’ (f2.8 1/1600 ISO 2500) is selected because of the challenging light conditions. The attraction was the light that came from a stained glass window to the right of the picture (not visible) where a strong sun lit up the ceiling whilst providing a splash of colour across the floor of the Chapel.

I did lighten the ceiling slightly because I felt that the arched form provided a sense of depth and solidity that framed the altar and its background picture and statues which provided a counterpoint in the picture to the vivid colours on the floor that otherwise would have dominated the image.

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The fourth image ‘Ornate Altar’ (f9.0 1/125 ISO 5000) is included as the challenge for me was to maximise the detail in the statues and pillars whilst keeping detail in the stained glass windows. The lighting to the left of the picture proved to be satisfactory requiring very little enhancement in later processing. The right of the picture was in shadow and I decided to select the area in Photoshop and use Curves adjustment to lighten the area whilst preserving contrast as far as possible. The deeply convexed ceiling was partly in shadow and agin I used Curves to bring out the detail and colouring.

From a compositional point of view the presence of the figures in the foreground particulalry the female standing with her face pointing away from the altar is a distraction. After some debate with myself I decided to leave the image as it was taken because the figures provided a human context within the overall awe inspiring grandeur of the altar and surrounds.

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The fifth image ‘Wall Paintings’ (f2.8 1/250 ISO 1280) attracted my attention because of the wall paintings above the altar in a very simple (compared with the rest of this Church) alcove. Equally the simplicity and form of the altar provided a strong contrast to the arched form of the rest of the area. The wall paintings were quite brightly lit and this muted the colours that were already faded. In processing I darkened the area and used Vibrance to increase the saturation of this area without affecting other parts. I also increased the contrast to make the painted images stand out from the wall on which they were painted.

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The final image ‘Wood Relief’ (f5.0 1/80 1280) was, for me, unique because it was a wooden panel apparently of considerable age with the figures in relief on its surface. The lighting was directly onto the panel so that from the front view the relief was flattened. I moved slightly to one side sufficient to emphasise the relief but not too far that the detail was lost. In post capture processing the only significant enhancement was increasing the contrast and increasing the saturation of the colours by using the Vibrance slider. I did consider cropping the image just above the panel but this removed the context and I felt that the stained glass window added to the overall effect.

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As can be seen there are marked differences between the images I have chosen for this exercise and my original submission. The lighting conditions were more varied and in some cases the challenges were greater. These images were not taken with this exercise in mind and the in-camera shots were the result of some experimentation in situ using the histogram and camera LED screen to refine the settings of the camera. Looking back and having taken the time to re-examine the images and carry out some additional enhancements post-capture (using the Raw files) I would question, in some cases, the choice of aperture and ISO combinations.

A valuable learning experience

DPP Assignment 4

Spent the last two days getting together images for the work on the book cover for Assignment 4. I had some grandiose plan using a whole series of images to create a montage that would be used as the book cover. Although it finally came together I was not happy with it because it was over complex and fussy. Decided to abandon the whole idea and start again. Not a complete waste of time because I was able to practice some long forgotten skills in producing the montage and also new one's using the latest software.

Should I have been better at planning? The answer is probably 'yes'. I think what happened was that I was carried away by the technical challenge instead of concentrating on the final product. I was doing it because I could rather than because it was needed. I find this a not uncommon problem with me particularly where there is no looming deadline and I can spend many an hour lost in the complexities and enjoying the satisfaction of resolving problems. I lose sight of the goal and, to continue the analogy, spend my time in the centre circle displaying my ball control skills when all that is needed is a big hoof into the net.

I am going to keep things clear and simple and already have chosen the image that I am going to use. It is ideal for a book cover because it a strong image that has direct relevance to the chosen title (it is not an actual book). There are very few if any ethical considerations apart from why I chose the image rather than others and the message that I am trying to convey.

Here's hoping.

Landscape Photographer of the Year - Collection 02

I was sorting out my bookshelves the other day when I came across the above book. [AA Publishing 2008]. I can't remember how I got it and have not looked at it since then. There are some impressive images and each carries a comment from the photographer and an index giving all the camera settings etc. A lot of the photographers' comments made reference to the adverse conditions that pertained at the time the image was taken as though in some way this added to the value of the picture. I have noticed this phenomena before where we are invited to join with the photographer and in some vicarious way suffer the same conditions. The fact that I am sitting in comfort in a centrally heated house rather undermines the illusion that I am there .

Whilst I would recommend the book to anyone interested in landscape photography I was left wondering how far we are influenced by text that accompanies any photograph in judging the image's worth. Something as apparently innocuous as a title has an impact but the text that accompanied these images seemed to go much further and probably designed to influence the thought processes of the viewer. Is this a legitimate exercise or does it raise the same ethical issues as image manipulation? It certainly has the same difficulty in deciding whether, in the opinion of the viewer, some feathered (50 px or more!?) ethical boundary has been crossed.

The Guardian usually carries a double page spread of a photograph in the centre of the main section. The caption is frequently in a different place on the page and not obvious. I look at the image and try and decipher what it is about. I find myself judging it simply as an image and the response I have to it including its technical competence. Then I search for the caption, read it and often have the reaction - 'Didn't think of that'. I then look at the image again and am conscious that my response has changed. Sometimes it is only marginally but sometimes the change is quite significant. I am influenced by what I read and I believe that, for me and perhaps others, this is my usual reaction.

A similar happening is what I call the 'halo' effect. The effect arises when someone gains a reputation for very high quality work. From then on whatever is produced by that person is not judged on its merits but is deemed to be good because it is by that person. It is as though the person can never again produce something that it is not of the same high standard. Our critical thinking is constrained by the signature on the work.

As a student I am encouraged to look at other people's work (I have never been absolutely sure why. It is one of those things that is deemed to be 'good'. Has anyone questioned its real value?) Is it better to look at work that is text free so that I may form an opinion about my reaction or is it helpful to have some written clue about the photographers intent? I am not of the school that says that a photograph should speak for itself and not be filtered by additional material but sometimes I would like to form my own opinion then discuss that reaction with others who have had an equally uncluttered view. At least then I can test my opinion against that of others. That way I may learn much more both about myself and my approach when I have a camera in my hand.

Why did I write this blog? Because I am growing tired of being corralled into thinking in whatever is the fashion of the moment. Fashions come and go. Landscape is a classic case. Some 18 months ago I was fortunate to attend a talk by a well known and much exhibited landscape photographer. I thought his work was stunning. However his most recent work had changed. Although his genre remained landscape he had heavily manipulated the images so that it was the clever wizardry that was designed to catch the viewer' imagination. He stated that he had done this because he had found that landscape images were no longer being accepted. Suddenly he was out of fashion. Twelve months later I listened to a conversation between several exhibited photographers who said that landscape photography was making a return. Should the quality of an image be decided by what is fashionable or, what is the same thing, what the assessors aren't bored with.

Honest but Misleading?

I was browsing through the Royal Photographic Society's Portfolio One  book [Royal Photographic Society 2007] when I came across this image:

Strangeways Prison Siege 1990

Photographer   Denis Thorpe

It attracted my attention because I remember the incident well being a member of the Prison Service at the time and having spent some time at Strangeways in 1980 doing a project. What particularly drew my attention was the barbed wire at the bottom of the picture. Strangeways is a Victorian prison with the usual high wall and there is no visible fencing and certainly the security fencing used within the Prison Service no longer has concrete hockey-stick posts. My first reaction was that it was a composite but on giving it more thought I realised that the photographer could have placed himself behind the fence in a property a little away from the prison and composed the picture to include the barbed wire (yes I know - technically it is known as razor wire). If I am correct then the photograph is 'honest'.

I had been working on part 4 of DPP so I was more than usually conscious about dishonesty in photography. The picture is 'honest' but is it deliberately misleading? It is difficult to judge the photographers intent from a single picture but I presume he thought that the inclusion of the wire would add drama to the picture and increase its saleability because it makes it different from the many others that were shot at the same time. Personally I have no ethical problem with the picture. If it is deliberately misleading then it is mild deception that is no more than a bit of artistic licence. Others may differ. 

I 'blogged' this image because it shows another point on the continuum from the completely honest and the obvious cheat. It also illustrates that context is all in deciding ethical issues.

For those that are interested I understand the the Royal Photographic Society will shortly be publishing 'Portfolio Two' and details of this can be found on the RPS web site www.rps.org.

DPP Exercise 23 Alteration

The image above is the original taken at a Wood fair at Ickworth House a National Trust Property in Suffolk. The main subject of the image is the steam engine but there are a number of unwanted parts not least the presence of the modern trailer to the left of the picture.

The second image is the 'cleaned up' version. As can be seen all the extraneous bits have been removed. The first step was to crop the image to remove the vehicle on the left and the arm of someone that comes in on the right hand edge. The small sign and the rope at the bottom of the image were removed using the clone tool and healing brush. I find the latter a very useful tool for such things as the rope in this image or telegraph wires in the sky.

The major problem to be faced was the intrusive trailer to the left of the image. I considered cropping but this would have placed the steam engine very close to the edge that would spoil the composition.. Advice is that there should always be space in the picture for something to move into. My approach was to select the area and then use the 'Content Aware' tool to cut out the selection. The result was surprising not least because it worked well first time which is not always the case. The straw covered ground was matched and only required random use of the clone stamp to provide realism. The hedge that can be seen between the straw covered ground and the grassed area beyond was a product of the Content Aware tool. In its search for what was likely to be behind the removed section it had used part of the tree to the left of the engine. By using the cloning stamp to disguise its source the hedge provided a neat boundary between the straw covered area and the grassed area.

This image was shown at an exhibition with the title 'Steam Up'. The only question I was asked was where was it taken. As the person asking was a member of the Camera Club I also gave a potted history of how it was created. 

DPP Exercise 22 Addition

The image is the combined result of two images taken at almost the same time with the camera set on a tripod. The first was an exposure for the sea and the second an exposure for the sky. The difference was  1and 1/3 of an f stop.  The rather odd change in the colour of the sea towards the horizon appears in both original images and I assume is the effect of the low mist bank on the horizon.

Although I have Photoshop and could have worked on the image as two separate layers I used the PhotoMerge facility to produce the final image. Prior to the availability of this software I used the technique of erasing the unwanted area from the photograph. I never found this wholly satisfactory as great care had to be taken to ensure that the horizon line did not show evidence of the alteration. The technique was not very good where the horizon was 'messy' such as trees or irregular roof lines. PhotoMerge works well in these situations although it is always necessary to check carefully to make sure there are no unwanted artefacts.

In this image the sky has been replaced by a 'storm approaching' sky that I had taken about a year ago. The tricky part was the initial selection. I used the quick selection tool initially and then used the 'Refine Edge' tool to improve the selection particularly where there were trees in the horizon line. There was a certain amount of tweaking necessary and I changed the selection to a Quick Mask and painted in or out those areas where the selection was not accurate enough.  I did not select the individual branches of the trees as I believed that the difference in the skies would not be noticeable and that proved to be the case.

In terms of realism the lighter side of the lighthouse indicates that the sun is coming from the right of the picture. Fortunately the lighting on the clouds was an acceptable match so that the overall result gave the impression of being one image.

I presume that the question that we are to ask ourselves is ' Is the work done to the first image less ethically questionable than that carried out in the second image?' Again I would argue that it depends upon context. Clearly the second image is not of a 'real' event - it has been created. However unless I claim that it is an actual image then the question of ethics does not arise. 

I do recognise that if I entered it in an exhibition with a title 'Storm Approaching' there is an underlying assumption that the image is of a real event. Am I misleading the public by omission? What if I entered it under the title 'Stormy Sky' is this less misleading as the sky part is real? It is an interesting question whether the titles we give our images are disguised to hide the truth, to direct the thoughts of the viewer to understand our intent or to give a neutral guide to help the viewer understand and reach his own conclusions.

DPP Exercise21 Enhancement

I fail to see what is the real difference between this exercise and the last one. As stated in my last blog I used the same enhancements that I usually do with portraits. Sharpening generally tends to make the eyes appear brighter. I have never considered changing the hue of the eyes and can only surmise under what circumstances this would arise unless from a request by the person who asked for the photograph where the question of ethics would rest with that person.

There is no point at which someone feels they have crossed some mythical line between lightening the face and changing the hue of the eyes as they are not part of a continuum. I would repeat that there are no ethical issues if there is no advantage derived by me from any of the changes. I am not pretending that the portrait or any other image is something that it is not. If people wish to challenge the changes then I would ask them to state where the truth in an image lies. There is no verifiable truth in an image because everything we see and the camera records is an interpretation of some unknowable reality.

DPP Exercise 20 Improvement

Following routine processing in Camera Raw I selected the face and lightened it. I then selected the eyes and mouth, inversed the selection and applied a Gaussian blur to the rest of the image. I then re-selected the eyes and mouth and applied some sharpening. The result is shown above.

I suppose that is about as far as I would be prepared to go in terms of improvement and is fairly standard work with portraits. I do not know what is meant about an 'innocent, legitimate adjustment' because they are subjective terms and what they mean will vary from person to person. If I am asked what I had done with the photograph I would tell the enquirer. 

I always find discussions about the ethical questions that arise from the enhancement of photographs a sterile argument. If I gain no advantage from the changes I make then ethical questions do not arise. 

How long should it take?

When I received my tutor's comments on Assignment 2 of DPP he set a target date for him receiving Assignment 3 as the end of May. I was quite surprised at this as I had already done about 80% of the work and was planning to send it before the end of February. Even taking into account his suggestions about broadening the scope of my approach to assignments I still think that I can have it ready for very early March.

I was left wondering whether I am missing something. The time scale given approximates to 16 weeks. If we use the OCA claim that the Courses are set anticipating between 5 - 8 hours of work per week this provides a range of 80 - 128 hours for the period I was given. I assume the difference in the anticipated hours is to allow for the range of students previous experience and aptitude. Lets take a middle figure and say that the task should be completed in 104 hours. I started this part of the Course in late December  and calculate that I will have been working on it for 8 weeks suggesting an average weekly time expenditure of about 13 hours. Does this match with my experience?

The average time is misleading because I tend to work in bursts of activity. On receiving the Course material I take each part in turn and work out how many photographs I will need of a particular type to cover the exercises. I try to get as many as possible in one shoot although in practice I need to refine this initial burst by seeking out shots that I have not got or where I think I could do better. I then do each exercise in turn; with some I will complete two on the same day if I have the necessary material. The material for the assignment I tend to leave towards the end although I always check whether I have unused images that are suitable for inclusion. For example I decided on the theme for Assignment 3 and completed the initial shooting in about 6 hours one day and then spent approximately the same time processing the Raw images and selecting those I thought worthy of inclusion the following day.

Following my tutor's comments in response to Assignment 2 I decided to broaden the theme and spent roughly 4 hours yesterday taking additional images and anticipate spending the same time on processing.
I have calculated that in the last 7 days I have spent close to 35 hours on the Course work including what I think of my 'chosen' time. 'Chosen' time is reading material related to photography such as Michael Freeman's book; writing my blog and thinking. Thinking time is important to me both at the direct level such as planning a shoot or a theme for an assignment but also thinking about photography in general. One of my main interests is in the psychology of photography and how this impacts on the 'intent' of the photographer and the interpretation of the viewer. Having said that some days I do absolutely nothing about photography.

I am confident that I am doing more than the 5 - 8 hours a week. I am retired so that I have very few other demands upon my time. Photography is my main intellectual outlet so am more than happy to spend a disproportionate time on pursuing it. I have been using Photoshop since version 5.5 and am currently using CS5 so I am au fait with the way it works and what tools to use when. This knowledge speeds up the processing of Raw images considerably.  I will use any available software to help me achieve the desired end. I also follow as far as possible the same processes in image enhancement so that I get to where I want to be in the shortest time possible.

However I am still left with the question  whether those who will assess my work at assignment or assessment stage will believe that I have done the work. We shall have to wait and see.

DPP Exercise 19 Correction

Before acquiring a camera that provides sensor cleaning I found that dust spots were fairly consistent across the image from one image to another. This made it relatively easy to find the dust spots. Indeed it was possible, where the lens had not been changed, to do a batch of images together.

In this case both the camera and the image were unfamiliar to me and knowing which were dust spots or artefacts of the glass was difficult to decide even at large magnifications. Where I thought there was a dust spot I used the spot healing brush of sufficient size to just cover the spot. It worked well providing I zoomed in and made sure that I did not include sharp edges.

For me dust spots seem to be a thing of the past although I do still check for them. On one occasion I entered an image into a competition only for the judge to make pointed comments about dust. On much closer examination of the image under appropriate lighting I found that the 'spots' were in fact a cloud of midges that were very close to the lens when the picture was taken.  I removed them using the healing brush without difficulty particularly as they were against a clear blue sky. Just shows you can never take anything for granted.

First time that I have had to resolve this problem. Not because I am a clever photographer but because I discard such images on first inspection. I also try to avoid the problem by using a lens hood and where necessary shielding the camera from the direct sun by providing shade from whatever is available. If I have one with me I find a reflector panel works very well.

In this case I first selected the polygon(s) and then partially desaturated them using the red and yellow channels. This worked quite well but more work was necessary. I then used the clone stamp matching as far as possible the immediate surrounds. In parts there had to be a guess as to where something ended. 

The question is asked - Should the flaring be left? Personally I don't like to see it in an image because it is generally distracting and tends to take the viewer's eye away from the main subject. I realise that this is a personal decision and I have seen other photographers who have used it deliberately. Unless in some way it acts as a pointer or takes the eye into the image I would leave it well alone.

The exercise proves that the best way to deal with the problem is to avoid it happening at all. Many DSLRs have sensor cleaning and they must prove their worth if one takes into account the cost of cleaning the image instead. Although it may just be someone's time the cost may be real in terms of cash or, perhaps worse, limit the time you have to do what you want to do - take photographs.

Unless you want to include flare into the image it is relatively easy to avoid. Sometimes you only have to turn your body slightly whilst still being able to take the shot you want.

World Press Photo 2011 Finalists

I first saw some of these images in the The Guardian newspaper of Saturday 12th February 2011. I was particularly interested in the photograph of Tom Daley as it looked heavily manipulated. I went to the Guardian web-site www.guardian.co.uk/inpictures to see all the images to try and work out what made a good press photograph.

This is the shot of Tom Daley. It is dramatic and captures the sense of movement of a dive very well. However what I am unable to work out is how both the diver and the background are blurred. Usually the main subject is blurred and the background remains in focus or the subject is in focus and the background blurred. Both are common ways to indicate movement. I may be doing the photographer an injustice but my guess is that this is a composite picture and/or has been heavily manipulated. Whether this matters or not is a judgement for the individual viewer but for me enhancement has been taken too far. Perhaps in a sense this makes it an 'honest' picture because the manipulation is so obvious that very few people would be fooled into thinking it was anything other than a very good artistic picture.

The image won second prize in the single portraits category. It cannot be denied that it is a very good photograph but it is difficult to see anything that lifts it out of the ordinary. To the non-Russian viewer there is the sense of the unknown. I found myself thinking about the many stories in the Press about the harsh treatment meted out to conscripts in the Russian military and wondering whether this young man had suffered.  Here is a clear case of the viewer interpreting an image using his personal knowledge not of the individual in the portrait but of stories in the press. This interpretation could be well wide of the mark and demonstrates the gap between the intent of the photographer and the interpretation of the viewer.

The image was second in its category Spot News Stories. Whilst recognising the immediacy of the image and the skill of the photographer capturing the image at the moment of maximum tension the image is, for me, unbalanced. The person with the catapult is isolated from the rest of the image and could have been placed there in post-processing. There appears to be some discrepancy in the scale between the main figure and the three other people clearly in the image, none of whom seem to be in the slightest bit interested in the main subject and in fact seem quite relaxed. There is also some strange lighting effect on the shirt of the half hidden person underneath the arm of the main subject. Of course this is pure speculation on my part and presumably the judges were satisfied that it was a genuine photograph of the moment. It just doesn't work for me.

I find this image disturbing but I am not really able to say why. I think it is because I just don't like it. To me it is not a very good picture not least because of the strange blue cast and the way that there appears to be separation between the bodies of the geese and their heads. The eye finds it very difficult to settle in any one area because of the confusion of beaks and legs and feet. I should perhaps state that wildlife photography does nothing for me even when I can recognise the technical excellence of the image.

The first prize winner of the General News category. I really like this image. The decision to use monochrome adds to impact. The figure in the right corner is in tension with the leaning of the burning building that seems about to collapse. The downcast eyes and apparent apathy of the figure gives the sense of hopelessness in the face of a natural catastrophe.

This image is the overall winner. Unless you are aware of the background story you are left to wonder why it was so well thought of by the judges. It is a competent photograph but looks as though it is a studio shot with a great deal of attention paid to the lighting and the posing of the woman. 

The one thing that came out of this and should have been expected is that the context is all in press photography. I have deliberately left out the background story (I have read them) to allow the viewer to judge the images on their merits. Of course if the story is already known or there is some knowledge, such as that I used in the portrait of the Russian sailor, then the viewing will be affected by that knowledge. We try to make sense of any image with which we are faced and usually do this by seeking clues within the image and then seeing if that matches what we already know. The winning image makes a lot more sense if you know the story behind it which, to Western eyes, is horrific.

I still do not know what makes a good press image and perhaps that is the answer. There may not be such a thing and what makes it good is the story that it supports.

I would strongly recommend to anyone that is interested to visit the web site mentioned above. There are others and an internet search using World Press Photo will provide a rich vein for study.

"The Photographer's Mind"

I have just finished reading Michael Freeman's book "The Photographer's Mind" [The Ilex Press 2010] having delved into the first time round and then read it more or less straight through. I only wish I had read it before or during the Course "The Art of Photography" as many of the concepts introduced in that Course have a much fuller explanation in the Chapters of the book and they come with better examples and diagrams. It may be that my earlier reading of the Course material helped in my understanding but I still found myself saying "Oh that's what was meant".

The book gives you a great deal to think about and to pick anyone area for discussion here would give the wrong impression. I can only recommend that a copy should be obtained by any legal means possible and read carefully. It needs more than one reading and probably it will only be later, if not much later, that full understanding will happen. I did not find it an easy read and persistence is required to get through some fairly heavy stuff.

The structure of the book is quite interesting. It starts as though searching for some universal truths about the photographer's mind (although the author constantly reminds you that these may not exist) and ends by showing quite clearly that it is very much an individual thing. I found particularly interesting the reference to "Image Templates" in which the Author discusses how we all carry  mind templates of the photographs that we have a tendency to favour. Whilst these will change over time it will be a slow process as older versions are gradually replaced  by newer interests. Boredom with the old templates seemed to be the reason for these changes. Of course this idea can be applied to fashion in photography generally where innovative methods at first surprise us, then become part of the norm, finally disappearing into the wallpaper. The one comfort for up and coming photographers is that at some time in the future the nature of the wallpaper will be noticed and will become the next thing to do.

One comment that I found jarring was the comment about the phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". It is stated that this is 'obviously wrong'. The justification is that it would be 'meaningless if only one person - one "beholder" - found a piece of art beautiful while everyone else dismissed it". The passage on page 18 goes on "Beauty needs a consensus , or at least the possibility."  Yet I would argue that it is self-evident. Whilst I may be told what is beautiful that does not make it beautiful to me nor would I be persuaded if the next 1000 people told me it was beautiful. Beauty is a concept that can only be understood at the personal level. Photography, of all the art forms, demonstrates the individuality of how we see and experience the world and what we believe to be beautiful. Consensus, like fashion, changes over time so what was beautiful in one period of time is no longer seen to be so. Whilst there are probably many who still see Rubenesque women as beautiful there is probably a larger part of the modern population subject to different influences who would disagree. Nobody is wrong just different.

A book that will become a source of reference over the coming years.

DPP - Half Way There!

Just had my Tutor's remarks on Assignment 2 that were most encouraging. Offered some extra work to consider (not compulsory) that I will do over the next couple of weeks. It will increase my overall knowledge and give me a better understanding.

I am about half way through the third part of the Course and have collected quite a few images that I think will work in black and white for assignment 3. Part of the comments from my tutor was to widen the scope so as to be faced with more variety and therefore more challenges. I had originally settled on a specific theme,  local ruins of Bury St Edmund Abbey and Thetford Priory both of which relied heavily upon the local building material of the time - flint. Clearly the theme is quite tightly bounded so I now need to think about how to widen the scope whilst being able to keep some of the images I have taken.

At this point it seems to be appropriate to review where I am at and the progress made. After a difficult start, due to confusion over the Course material that did not come to light until I submitted my first assignment, I received the comments back from my then tutor. The main concern was the approach that I had taken in which I had set out to photograph buildings of various ages to show the conflict between the new and the old. I deliberately chose to concentrate on 'form' rather than 'function' as I believe that when seeing a building for the first time we judge it by its form and that function is a secondary consideration. I chose not to include people unless they provided a sense of scale and certainly no-one that could give a clue to the purpose of the building.

My then tutor felt otherwise and suggested that I should have provided clues as to the function of the building. For example one of the shots was of Victorian Law Courts and he suggested that the picture would have been enhanced by the inclusion of a bewigged barrister or other clue. It is a valid point, leaving aside that barristers get dressed in robes and wigs inside the building, but I felt that it moved away from the purpose that I was pursuing.  In the end I decided to stick with my original plan.

The differences did give me considerable food for thought about the different approaches that photographers can take to the same subject and that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' way and that we have to go with our own instincts and methods. It also raised how the assignment as set out in the Course material can be added to by the Tutor  as he pursues his own interpretation or belief as to how it should be tackled. Whilst this is a perfectly legitimate approach and can provide positive creative tension it does leave the isolated student with something of a dilemma.

My own approach is to assume that the assignment is designed to test my knowledge of the preceding Course work. For example if the assignment refers me back to exercises earlier in the Course I assume that my work should reflect what the exercises were designed to test. To use an actual case we were asked in Assignment 1 to set out a workflow with particular reference to Exercises 1 & 2 and then use that to tackle a theme of our own choice. My tutor's response made virtually no reference to whether the workflow I had constructed was valid but concentrated on the images submitted. Whilst this may seem to be obvious in a photography Course I would still argue that the learning was about the organisation of our work so that the actual image taking is not frustrated by our lack of planning.

The 64000 dollar question is over the last two assignments do I feel that I have increased my knowledge of photography and am I a better photographer for it. The answer has to be 'Yes!' As I started work on the material in Part 3 - Processing the Image I noticed a obvious change in the way that I approached the task. I asked questions first and shot later which is the opposite to my previous way of working. In processing images my first thought is how can I bring out the best in the image before using the tools available rather than blindly following a path that seems to work alright and the result is not bad but could be better.

Here's hoping the remainder of the Course will be equally rewarding.

Software Ethics

I have just completed Exercises 16 - 18 usually following the suggested methods that were given in the Course material. However I was conscious that I had a whole array of other techniques available to me in the software that is on my computer. Furthermore it is inevitable that the Course material lags behind the most recent innovations in enhancement software. I found myself in something of a dilemma as to whether to use all the tools available to me or to stick to what had been suggested. On occasion I decided to use all that I had available even if this was taking shortcuts to reach the desired end.

My thinking was that the Course material is designed to cover a whole range of experience and available software so that it has to be written to be inclusive. I have no conscience about using Photoshop CS5 although it is possible that some of my fellow students may only have access to more limited programmes. Is it, therefore, any different to use software that is not perhaps more generally available or to follow the advice found in other sources of information. One that coloured, if you will excuse the pun, my thinking was the comment I read that using the channel sliders means that you are working in the dark and that it is very much a case of trial and error. Certainly I found myself going backwards and forwards without any real idea of why the changes I was making had the effect I saw.

Photoshop offers a whole range of presets that are quick to use and the effect is immediate (and reversible). I first started using Photoshop Ver 5.5. The difference between that and CS5 is of several orders of magnitude particularly in the support through presets. In addition there is plug in software that offers even more. I have come to the conclusion that I will use all that is available to me but at the same time trying to understand the underlying techniques.

Exercise 18 Colours into Tones - 2

The image is part of my back garden taken today (6.12.11). The black and white version without any changes is shown below.

A version where the green vegetation appears lighter was produced using the green filter:

As can be seen the green filter produces the desired effect. Interestingly I also tried using the Yellow filter that produced an image in which the green vegetation was even lighter. Presumably this indicates that the 'green' vegetation has a high yellow component to its colour than appears to the eye.

DPP Exercise 17 - Colours into Tones -1

The original colour image was:

The black and white version was created using the Adjustment Black and White layer in Photoshop without amendment:

Using this black and white as the baseline the next image has been created using the High Contrast Blue filter that is a preset available in the Black and White adjustment layer dialogue box (settings were Blue, Cyan and Magenta shifted to 150% and Red, Yellow and Green shifted to -50%):

Reverting to the original black and white image the High Contrast Red filter preset was used (settings Red and Yellow shifted to 120%, Green-10%, Cyan, Blue, Magenta -50%):

The Blue filter created a very dark image with only the original white lettering and paint work clearly visible. The Red filter produced a light image that seems a little washed out and lacking in contrast but is better than the Blue filter. 

I experimented with a whole series of settings to see the different effects. Some were acceptable although in all honesty it seemed to be a lot of work for uncertain results. Maybe the image chosen was not the best for the exercise.

DPP Exercise16 - Strength of Interpretation

This is the original colour image that was processed in Camera Raw. The next image shows the effect of applying a Curves layer to create a strong contrast.

As can be seen the colours, particularly the oranges and the reds, are badly effected making them unreal. The blue of the sky is more acceptable but even so there is a sense of it being 'wrong' in some way.

The original colour image as shown above was converted to black and white:

The conversion was carried out so that the overall effect was neutral. Again a strong contrast curve was used to produce the following effect:

As suggested in the Course material a much stronger curve was applied than with the colour version without any strange or unexpected results. Although there has been loss of detail in the shadows overall the image remains acceptable and certainly is more dramatic.

The second series of images tackle the high key effects. The first image is the original:

The image was taken in a workhouse laundry and the shadow figures were created by technology. Using this as the base image the next image shows the effect of using levels to create a high key image.

I found that there was a need to be careful in applying the Curves adjustments to avoid odd effects particularly on the sheets onto which the shadows were projected.

The original image was converted to black and white and again the conversion was carried out to achieve an overall neutrals effect with the following result:

Using this image as the base a high key effect was tried for using levels:

Once again a much stronger use of levels was possible without any unwanted changes to the image.

I am not sure that I was able to anticipate how individual colours would appear in black and white versions. Much seemed to depend upon the lightness of the colour in the image rather than being a product of the colour itself. Light areas remain light whatever the colour although there are probably differences because of the reflectivity of the colours. My memory of taking pictures in black and white when that was more the norm is of assessing the image in terms of the contrast within the picture knowing that a flat diffused light would produce a flat low contrast image. For those with their own darkroom or access to a skilled darkroom technician the impact of the image was created by manipulation of the light falling on the negative in the development process.

DPP Exercise 15 Black-and-White

Bearing in mind the need to convert the image to a black and white image I chose the subject for its starkness and that, in silhouette, it would have impact because of the tracery created by the lack of foliage on the branches of the tree. The 'mottled' sky meant that there would be tonal variation in the sky even after conversion.

The colour version was:

Following conversion to black and white using the Silver Efex filter in Photoshop the following image was produced:

My own preference in Black and White images is for starkness of subject or clarity of lines. I like to keep the subject simple and to compose the image with the minimum of clutter. Looking at the image I feel that I should have got closer to the ground in order to have the maximum amount of the tree against the sky rather than as shown. 

DPP Exercise 14 Interpretative Processing

I chose an image that I had taken at the Blists Hill museum which is well worth a visit as there are so many photo opportunities.

This is an enhanced image that was processed largely in Camera Raw with a great deal of use of the adjustment brush particularly in darkening and partially desaturating the foliage that was too bright in the original and was a distraction. I also darkened the building on the right as well as the pathway to take the viewer into the image.

In this image I have attempted to use a sepia tone. I converted the image to a black and white using the Adjustment Black and White in Photoshop. I then used the tone dialogue to introduce the sepia eventually settling on  the R 138; G 118; B 87. I then used Hue/Saturation adjustment to lighten the tone until I achieved a satisfactory result.

The final image was created using Nik Silver Efex Pro software. The effect chosen was Antique Plate II. I accepted the default settings. I had tried all of the other alternatives to find what I considered the best effect before choosing the one shown.

Blists Hill is a 'living' museum that attempts to show life in the Victorian/Edwardian era. It was for this reason that I decided in the final two images to try and create the appearance of an old print. The first print, whilst a reasonable record of what I saw, did not capture 'atmosphere'. I tried a straight conversion to black and white using a range of methods including the gradient tool with the foreground set to black and white; the Black and White adjustment tool and simple conversion to Greyscale. Whilst all produced a closer version to what I was seeking none was satisfactory.

Sepia toning, that suggests the photograph was taken some years ago, is a common way of evoking a bygone age. Whilst I felt that it was closer to what I was trying to achieve I remained dissatisfied. It was difficult to pinpoint the reason why although I suspect it was the overall sharpness of the image. The depth of field was also something of a giveaway.

The third image is the one, by some distance, that I prefer. The image has the appearance of having been taken in the early days of photography. More importantly for me is the unexpected bonus of the light vignetting around the image that draws the attention to the bridge and what is beyond it. From a technical point of view it has a whole host of problems but for sheer impact it cannot be beaten.

The exercise particularly the method used in the final print does raise the question as to how far I can call these images mine. In the first two I have used the tools available to me in Photoshop to create the final images so my input is reasonably high although I have relied upon the 'shortcuts' or presets to achieve what I was after as quickly as possible. In the final image I have used powerful software in which my only input was to make a selection from a number of pre-sets. It was possible to change the pre-set in a number of ways that would have provided a slightly different image thus increasing the amount of 'me' in the image but it would have been marginal and in this case unnecessary.

I suppose that I could have achieved the final result without recourse to the Nik software but to do so I would have still been using a very powerful tool in Photoshop. It is an interesting dilemma.

Wire Awry

I have just begun to delve  into Michael Freeman's book 'The Photographer's Mind ' [Ilex Press 2010]  The word 'delve' is chosen deliberately because it is a book that I find I have to read a section then put it down, think through what has been said and then go back and read it again. On page 82 he makes reference to "our hard-wired visual system" a concept that has been dear to my heart for some time not least since I became more serious about photography and took much more notice of other people's work in exhibitions and competitions. Quite often I found myself wondering whether the selectors saw what I was seeing. I became more questioning when I read through the set book for  'The Art of Photography' Course - Graham Clarke's "The Photograph" [Oxford  University Press 1997].

I make the assumption that the term 'hard-wired' is the visual system we are born with as modified through physical changes (loss of an eye; disease or brain damage; old age; etc.) as opposed to external influences that shape our thinking such as cultural influences. Most of us know that eyes and the way that information is processed can vary significantly from person to person. One example is colour blindness of which there are a number of variations. The fact that I wear spectacles and someone else does not indicates that we see the world differently without assistance (and even with given the subjective nature of eye tests. Yet there seems to be a commonly held view that apart from these well known cases we all physically see everything in the same way. I do not believe this to be true.

Human beings are unique and no two (apart from identical twins) are the same. The differences may be subtle but differences there are. Evolutionary theory suggests that we are the product of a series of changes in genetic structure (we are all mutants) with genes that bestow some benefit being continued through the species. Studies of genetic illnesses suggest that we all carry, in some form, an imperfect copy of the genetic structure we should have inherited from our parents. It is a safe assumption that this holds true for the genes that created and sustain our hard-wired visual system. It follows then that in a way that may be marked or of apparent insignificance our visual systems are different. You do not see the world in the way that I do even allowing for cultural differences.

At the risk of over stating the case let us assume for the moment that what you see as 'green' I see as 'blue'. If you could look through my eyes you would see grass as 'blue'. Why then do I say that grass is 'green'. Simply because I have been told that grass is 'green';  the colour has been given a label in my mind so that every time I see something the same colour as grass I will call it green. The label has no physical connection to the colour or more accurately its place in the spectrum of colours. It is learned behaviour. I have no reason to question my view of the world because everyone around me uses the same term to describe the colour of grass or similarly coloured objects. I go through life believing that you see the world in the same colours as I do.  People usually respond by using the traffic light problem and asking me how I know when to stop. Its simple I have been told that a certain colour is 'red' so even if my vision of the world is distorted I will respond to my colour that I have been told is 'red'.

A subtler and more likely scenario that people have difficulty in agreeing on colours is evident in any shopping mall when a man and his wife are discussing the colour of the trousers he wishes to buy.

If this is the case then it is hardly surprising that we react differently to photographs even if we set aside cultural differences. Seeing is a uniquely individual thing and beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. The world may say that something is beautiful but that does not make the individual wrong simply different. Perhaps we need to be a lot less certain what is good or bad and certainly a lot less dogmatic that our view is the right one.