Shoot 8
Artist Influence - Irving Penn
AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
Irving Penn takes very detailed photos of pressed and dried flowers. The focus of his work is on the intricate detailing of the petals of the flowers. I specifically like the way in which Irving Penn incorporates negative space within his images to draw your attention to the flower itself. The main thing that drew me into the image of the poppy was its strong connotative meaning and the idea that the flower symbolises remembrance day and a reminder of the soldiers that fought for our country in the war. I feel as though the fact that the flower has been dried could imply the strength of poppies during the war and how no matter what they went through they would not diminish. The main element of Irving Penn's images that I want to use within my work is the use of pressed and dried flowers. I feel as though this gives the flower different textures which cannot be created with a flower that is left to die naturally.
Images that have inspired me
The image above is the main image that has inspired me within my shoot. When doing my research I found that this photo has been taken on a light box and this is why you can see the small detailing within the petals. I like this however I do not want to use a white background which may prove difficult when using a light box because that may be the only option therefore I will use other parts of this photo to influence my work. I like the composition of this image because I like the way the end of the stalk is not visible within the image. I feel as though this makes it seem as though the flower is ever lasting and adds a mysterious element to the image. This is something that I want to use within my shoot.
Contact Sheet
I completed this shoot to experiment with the different things I could physically do with the flowers rather than just photographing them as they are. I decided to press the flowers using heavy books and placing the flowers inside. I left the flowers for a few weeks and then removed them from the books. I feel as though this shoot was relatively successful because some of the photos I took came out very well and I feel as though I captured the detail within the flowers. I did try to use a black and a white background to create a wider range of images as I only had a few flowers to work with. Some of the photos on the black background did not turn out as I wanted because I feel as though the light was too bright and this captured a lot of texture on the background. I think that this happened because the flower was too close to the black background. If I were to do this again I would have moved the flower further away from the black background and this would have made the background pitch black which is the effect that I wanted.
My Best Images
AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
F/20 1/125 ISO 200
I have chosen the image above as one of my best because I am happy with the way I have created a pitch black background. I do feel as though the left side on the image is slightly too dark however this is something I am able to fix when editing my images. I also feel as though a lot of detail has been captured within the petals of the flower.
F/25 1/125 ISO 200
I have chosen this image as one of my best because I like the way that by using a soft box I was able to create a slightly softer lighting technique. In comparison to the image I took of this flower but with a black background I feel as though the details in this photo are a lot finer and not as harsh.
F/25 1/125 ISO 200
I have chosen this image as one of my best because I like the fact that the photo has been taken with the camera portrait. I think that this elongates the flower and makes it look very elegant. I also feel I have used negative space effectively by allowing a lot of background within the image rather than just zooming in on the flower which is something I feel I do a lot. I would like to improve upon my photos by using more negative space and I feel I have done this throughout my shoot.
F/25 1/125 ISO 200
I have chosen this as one of my best images due to the composition of this image. I like the way I have been able to incorporate all of the flower into the image. I feel as though the flowers could have been slightly more separated however I do like the effect it gives that they are on top of each other. I feel this could have connotations of the strength and power of nature and the impact that this has on the world.
F/18 1/125 ISO 200
I have chosen this as one of my best images because I like the fact that the background is very close to being completely black. I like the way that I have taken this exact photo but with a white background because I feel as though the two different lighting set ups show different detailing within the flower. I think that the direct light creates a darker feel to the overall image and highlights the finer details.
Images that Require Improvement
AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
F/13 1/125 ISO 200
The image above requires improvement due to the lighting. I do like this image and I feel as though this could have been effective however I do not feel that the lighting was positioned in the correct place. This is because all of the light is aimed at the right side of the flower and therefore this side of the photo is a lot brighter. I did fix this during my shoot and altered the position of the light to be more central and illuminate the centre of the flower rather than just one side of the flower. I also feel as though the light was on a slightly higher setting that I would have liked because there is a lot of texture visible in the background which is not something I wanted to create.
f/11 1/125 ISO 200
This photo requires improvement due to it being very over exposed. I think that this image was over exposed due to the lighting that I was using. The soft box was on a fairly high setting and therefore an aperture of f/11 was too low and allowed too much light into the camera. This resulted in me producing an over exposed image. To improve this I used a higher aperture to give me a more even exposure.
Camera Settings and Equipment
AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
When completing this shoot I used a canon eos 400d. I also used a tripod in order to use negative space effectively and to ensure that I was able to frame the photos in the exact way that I wanted them. The apertures used did very from f/11 to f/25. The reason that I used such a high aperture was due to the intensity of the lights that I used. I used a soft box light to capture photos in front of a white background and a snoot attachment for the light to capture images in front of a black background. When using a soft box I wanted the light to be on a high setting in order for the entire image to be bright. I attempted to use an aperture of f/11 which is what the meter read when I measured the camera settings however this gave me very over exposed images. I did not want to alter the light settings and therefore I increased the aperture. This allowed me to take photos that had an even exposure but still having a bright soft box. With regards to the images I took using a black background I used a slightly lower aperture because when using the snoot attachments I put the lights on lower settings as I only wanted to illuminate certain areas on the flower therefore if the light settings were set too high there would be too much light projecting onto the image and the photo would be light in different areas. Throughout the shoot I used an ISO of 200. This remained the same because I could not use ISO 100 as the images would have been underexposed as the lights were not bright enough and if I had have used a higher ISO then the photos would have been over exposed as the camera would have been too sensitive to the light surrounding it.
Below I have created two lighting diagrams of the setups that I used during this shoot.
Below I have created two lighting diagrams of the setups that I used during this shoot.
The setup above was used when taking the photos of flowers on a white background. I used a soft box light to one side of the object and then I used a white reflector to reflect some of the light back onto the object. This allowed me to create soft light without needing to use another soft box.
The lighting diagram above was used when photographing photos on flowers on a black background. I used a snoot attachment for the light to one side of the subject. I then placed a reflector on the other side of the subject. This was done for a slightly different reason than when I photographed on a white background. I did this because when using the snoot attachment there was only a small beam of light directed onto a specific part of the flower therefore the reflector was used to bounce some of the light back onto the object to slightly illuminate the other side of the flower. If the reflector was not used then one side of the flower would be too dark and not visible.
AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
The main source of inspiration from my shoot was due to the research that I conducted on Irving Penn. I took inspiration from the composition of Irving Penn's composition within his images. I feel as though I have focused a lot on making the flower the subject of the image throughout many of my shoots and this is an idea that I feel I have continued onto this shoot as well. An area of the images that I feel could have been improved is the amount of detail that I captured within the images. Although the photos that I took were very detailed I do feel that Irving Penn has some slightly more intricate detailing within his images and this is something I believe I could improve upon in the future. I have also gathered some ideas from researching the use of pressed flowers in the Victorian Era. The Victorian women would use flowers as a skilful art and pressing flowers was an enjoyable pastime for women. Flowers were also used in order to place between pages in a book to mark a special day. I liked the way in which flowers were used in such positive ways within the Victorian Era and I wanted to reflect this positivity of nature through my images by using some brightly coloured flowers to represent happiness.
The main source of inspiration from my shoot was due to the research that I conducted on Irving Penn. I took inspiration from the composition of Irving Penn's composition within his images. I feel as though I have focused a lot on making the flower the subject of the image throughout many of my shoots and this is an idea that I feel I have continued onto this shoot as well. An area of the images that I feel could have been improved is the amount of detail that I captured within the images. Although the photos that I took were very detailed I do feel that Irving Penn has some slightly more intricate detailing within his images and this is something I believe I could improve upon in the future. I have also gathered some ideas from researching the use of pressed flowers in the Victorian Era. The Victorian women would use flowers as a skilful art and pressing flowers was an enjoyable pastime for women. Flowers were also used in order to place between pages in a book to mark a special day. I liked the way in which flowers were used in such positive ways within the Victorian Era and I wanted to reflect this positivity of nature through my images by using some brightly coloured flowers to represent happiness.
Edits
AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
Edit 1
To create this style of editing I firstly duplicated the background layer.
I then created a curve on this new background layer. I dragged the curve down to the right hand corner which made the photo completely black.
I then selected 'edit' then 'fill'. By doing this the image remained back to normal before I altered the curve. This creates a mask which is not visible on top of the photo. I will use this to make areas of the photo darker. The main reason I did this was to make the backgrounds of the images completely black.
I then made sure that the contents selected was black and clicked ok.
I then used the paintbrush tool and made sure that the colour was on white. I then lowered the opacity slightly and painted in the areas that I wanted to be darker. This reveals the darker overlay on the image that I created whilst using the curves tool.
Edit 2
Firstly I used the quick selection tool to select the entire flower. I then clicked cmd+C which copied the selected area. I then clicked cmd+V which pasted the selected area onto the image I already had.
I then pasted the flower another two times and moved each of them to be placed in the right position. I then merged each of the layers together. This allowed me to edit each of the layers as one entire image.
My Final Images
AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.
Progression
I would like to now move onto photographing some flowers with deeper symbolic meaning. I would like to focus on the edits that I am producing. I feel as though I have got a consistent theme within my work now so I would like to focus on the experimentation of my images. I would like this to involve some physical manipulation and computer experiments.
