Research , Robert Doisneau

Robert Doisneau is one of Frances most famous photographers , he was born in Gentilly France in 1912. In his childhood he was brought up by his Aunt as his father died during the first world war and his mother died when he was seven. At the age of thirteen he studied at a craft school where he passed with diplomas in engraving and lithography. At the age of sixteen his early interest in photography began as a hobby, taking images of still life then moving onto taking pictures of children and people in a street life scene. This went onto become his passion in life and most famous for. At the end of the 1920's he took a job as a draughtsmen working in the advertising industry for Ulnann Studio , it was here that a opportunity came his way to be a camera assistant and then a staff photographer. In 1932 he left the Ullnann studio to work for a modernist photographer where he sold his first pictures. In 1934 he moved to work for Renault as a industrial advertising photographer but after 5 years was asked to leave because of his poor time keeping . To make a living he was opted to enter into the world of freelance work , here he worked with engraving and postcard photography,  this was a shrewd move as at the time France's postcard industry was the largest in Europe.  In 1939 he went onto be hired by Charles Rado to travel through France in search of the French people in street scenes. This is when he took his first professional street photographs. 

" The marvels of daily life are so exciting ; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street "Robert Doisneau. 

Below we see two images, to the left a scene shot in a class room . This picture shows a glimpse of the children's life at school time in France in perhaps the 1930's . The little boy in the for front deep in thought is perhaps thinking of what to write on his slate or maybe what his tea will be for later then to his right we see another boy who is seen trying to read from the first boys slate. In my pictue although my daughter is not in the class room enviroment she is still seen to be gazing and in thought about something that only she knows about. Doisneau work in showing life as it is and making us think about how the people in the pictures lived is excellent. He draws me into his pictures in a way that really makes me think about the lives these people led and in turn make me want to be able to capture my town's people to try and get a glimsp of thier lives and share the pictures with others.  

      

I partically like the above picture , to have been able to capture this image with such great exposure and detail to me is outstanding,  in that the equipment he would have used would have made it so difficult. Fixed lens no built in light sensor to help him

Research , Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks was bourne in Fort Scott , Kansas on 30th November 1912 and lived until he was 93 on the 7th March 2006. He was married and divorced three times and had 4 children and five grandchildren. At the age of 15 after his mother's he left his home time and after a few jobs eventally jumped a train and settled in St Paul for a while. It was here at the age of 25 he got his first taste of photography. After getting some pictures developed, by his local photo clerks,which were taken with a camera he'd bought in a pawn shop for $12.50, on collecting them they commented to him how good there were and encouraged him to go for his first assignment with a womens clothing shop owned by a Frank Murphy. The photographs he took were by chance seen by a Marva Louis the wife of boxing heavy weight champion Joe Louis. She was so impressed by them that she persauded Parks to move to Chicago were he began his career in the portrait business photographing the society women of the day. 

Research , Lewis W Hine

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3709956873531963227 "There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work." 

Investigating Macro Photography

Photoshop Introduction 24/11/11

Today we were introduced to the Adobe photo processing program called Photoshop , the version installed on my college computer was CS5 . I have a Nikon picture editor on my own computer but have very limited experience on Photoshop so was keen to learn some more.
Firstly we were instructed how to crop a picture this is taking away part of a picture by to show what we thought and to decide what size we were to use for our final 10 images be it A4 , A3 , 10inch by 8inch etc. For this occasion I choose 10in x 8 in and also set the DPI to 300 so to give the best quality possible if they were to be printed. Next we learnt about the layer process , as you make your changes to your image you are to build layers up with each change which can be viewed separately. I experimented within the program to change the brightness , contrast , colour , B & W , cropping and adjusting the hue and saturation.

Below I have posted screen grabs from the Photoshop program
 Firstly as you can see I have simply changed this picture to Black and White.

Here I have cropped the picture than adjusted the amount brightness/contrast then lastly Hue / Saturation was adjusted . With the contrast to the maximum and the reds adjusted this has given this image a real feeling of being taken on another planet!!

On this occasion I have cropped the picture but not changed anything else apart from identifying two areas to re touch . In then image below you can see the rectangle marque around a piece of seaweed I wished to taken out the shot.

Below you can see that the seaweed to the bottom right has disappeared as also the piece just above the rock to the right which you can see is hi lighted in the last picture of thie scene.

Below is a picture of my daughter , here you can see I have increased the contrast of the picture this gives it a bit of a rough grainy feel to it .

Then I have selected to change to picture to black and white

Above I have adjusted the Brightness and Contrast then as you can see below I have experimented with the filters giving the picture a blue tint . Overall I was happy with my progress within the Photoshop and will soon hope to be processing my final images.

Nature and Travel Photography Inspiration,Riccardo Polini.

Shutter control on Bonfire Night

I was invited this weekend to my next door neighbours for a bonfire party, so I went prepared with my Nikon D3100 camera the standard lens and my tripod in the hope I might get a few pictures of use to show examples of using my cameras bulb setting . The bulb setting is simply a function that allows the user to determine the amount the shutter is open by manually depressing the shutter release button holding it, then when you think you are ready you let go to shut the shutter, easy or so I thought. This function is best used with a release cable or remote control so as to reduce image blur but not having neither I used my tripod to aid as would need the camera as steady as possible to minimise any blur. I then set the lens to it's widest f stop to allow as much light in as possible and the ISO to 200 and attempted a few shots all in manual focus .At first I found it quite difficult to determine how long to open the shutter but after a little while I got the feel for it and was quite pleased with my efforts . I hadn't appriciated how difficult this shoot would be as your never too sure where the rocket will explode and then when to open and shut the shutter.
Health and Safety played a big part in this shoot , I had to make sure that my self and my equipment did not cause any hazards to any of the other guests and that I my self was a safe distance from them and the fire works. I set my tripod about 6 ft away from the other guests and about 20 ft from the fire works and started taking a few pictures.

Shutter speed 1.8sec , f4.5 , ISO 200 Focal length 27mm

Shutter speed 2.45sec , f4.5 ISO200 Focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 2.1sec, f4.5, ISO 200 Focal length 18mm

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Shutter speed 1sec , f4.8, ISO 200 ,Focal length 32mm

Shutter speed 1 sec , f5 ,ISO 400 Focal length 30mm

There were two main difficulties with taking pictures of fireworks,  firstly every firework had a different brightness  so was very difficult to determine how long to have the shutter open . And secondly with the rockets your never to sure were they will expole . I'd been given some advise about taking shots of fire works , one to stand well back so to get the whole image of the firework and to open the shuter as soon as it exploded until it faded away. Both easier said then done. The two image above are my favorites ones the first one because it give the sense of the excitement and danger involved for bonfire nights , with the fireworks falling to the ground and the smoke filled air , your never too sure what will happen next . The second one is slighty closer up so the fire comes more into detail , you can see the sparks from it spitting out with the firework in the back ground the firework lighting up the sence.    

Shutter speed 1/2 sec, f5 , ISO400 , Focal Length 30mm

Shutter speed 0.62sec , f5 , ISO 400 Focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1.25sec , f5 , ISO400 focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1.25sec ,f5 , ISO 400 focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1.3sec ,f5 , ISO 400 Focal length 18mm.

Shutter speed 1 sec , f5 , ISO 400 , Focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1.4sec , f5 , ISO 400 , Focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1.4sec , f5 , ISO 400 , Focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1.5sec, f5 , ISO 400 , Focal length 18mm

Shutter speed 1/12sec f4.8, ISO 400 focal length 32mm

Shutter speed 1.3sec , f5 , ISO 400 , Focal Length 18mm

This first and last shots to me are the best of the night, you really get the feeling of being a child again seeing all the smoke drifting away and the fire work lighting up the sky as it explodes .  I managed to positon my camera so the firework exploded in the centre of the picture on both images . Now looking back at what I'd do diffently next time I think I would experiment more with the ISOsetting and opt for a smaller aperture to try to get a sharper image.