Shoot 5

Shoot 5

Plans for my shoot

Artist Influence - Alexey Titarenko

Alexey Titarenko completed a series called 'city of shadows'. The idea unexpectedly emerged due to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Titarenko liked the idea that the movement he captured looked like worn out shadows. Within my work I want to create the portrayal of people looking slightly shadow like however I do not want them to be unidentifiable like Titarenko's photos are. I also like the use of black and white within his photos because I feel as though having the photos in black and white makes you focus more on the finer details within the photo rather than the different colours that may be eye catching. I would like to use black and white within my images to try and focus peoples attention of the image itself and the contents of the photo. The first image that is located above is in a train station. I think that the photographer has captured a couple of people moving but has used a very long shutter speed. This creates a sense of business and makes it look as though there are many people in the station. When doing my work I would like to focus on the business of the station and actually capture a lot of people in my photos. I feel as though by incorporating many more people in the image I will not need to use as long of an exposure time to capture a lot of movement. I would also like to use some of the compositional features of Titarenko's images. This photographer uses a wide depth of field within his images. I would like to do this in order to capture the entirety of the station rather than just focus on specific elements.  

Contact Sheet

I completed this shoot in two stations in London. Firstly I travelled to Waterloo and then to Victoria. These stations are very big and are always busy. My aim for this shoot was to capture the movement  and business of train stations. I think that a successful element of the shoot was the fact that I was able to successfully capture many different elements of movement within the shoot. An unsuccessful element of the shoot was being able to capture the correct camera settings. This is because I had some problems with there being too much light however I managed to use the correct settings and taken photos that had an even exposure. 

My Best Images

I have chosen each of the images below as my best photos for similar reasons. In each of these photos I feel as though I captured movement effectively. I have used elements of Ed Ruscha's composition within these images because I have used a wide depth of field and ensured that the camera was facing directly towards the subjects that I was photographing. I also feel as though each of the images below are framed very well. This was something that I took a lot of consideration when doing because I wanted each image to be framed perfectly. Using a tripod allowed to succeed at this.

1 second     f/29     ISO 100

1 second     f/29     ISO 100

1 second     f/29     ISO 100

1 second     f/29     ISO 100

1 second     f/29     ISO 100

I specifically liked the image above due to the contrast of people moving around and then people sitting still on the bench. I think that this has connotations of the different reasons as to why people may be using trains and it offers a sense of mystery because you wonder why people are in such a rush.

Images that require improvement

2 seconds    f/29    ISO 100

This photo requires improvement due to it being over exposed. This is because the shutter speed was 2 seconds and the environment was too bright. In order to have fixed this problem I should have increased the aperture however I could not do this as my camera did not have this capability. As a result of this I had to lower the shutter speed in order to let less light into the camera when taking a photo. 

1 second     f/29     ISO 100

This photo requires improvement because it is not capturing as much movement as I wanted. The shutter speed was 1 second and this was not long enough to capture movement within the photo. I don't think there was enough people moving whilst I was taking the photo because I used this shutter speed in some of my other photos and they captured enough movement. 

Camera Settings and Equipment

In order to complete this shoot I used a canon eos 400d. I also used a tripod throughout the shoot because I needed the camera to be still in order to capture movement within the photo. If I handheld the camera then I would have slightly moved it whilst taking the photo and it would have been blurry. Towards the beginning of the shoot I had to try and use different camera settings because I had some issues with the exposure of the images. I struggled because the location that I was photographing was very bright and I needed to use a long exposure. This caused some problems because too much light was being let into the camera and the images were becoming over exposed. I then used a shutter speed of one second. This allowed me to capture movement within the photo rather than freezing motion. Ideally I would have liked to use a slightly higher shutter speed however my camera would not allow me to increase the aperture. I used f/29 as my aperture. This allowed me to capture photos that were evenly exposed as well as capturing motion. I used ISO 100 throughout the shoot because I was shooting in daylight and I did not need to the camera to be any more sensitive to the lighting. 

A03

The main inspiration for my shoot was Alexey Titarenko's photos including movement. I like the way he portrays movement because I feel as though it looks slightly scary and unreal. I wanted to portray this within my photos however I decided to use a shorter shutter speed than he would have used. This was due to me wanting to be able to see that the movement was from people. I did not want to make the images look too unrealistic because I did not feel as though this would work within my project. I was also very inspired by images that I incorporated in my image bank. The main reason that each of these photos inspired me was because I liked the amount of movement that was used. This is because I liked the way you could still tell that the images were of people rather than being unsure as to what is moving within the photo. This was something that I wanted to alter within my own work when relating it to Alexey Titarenko. By incorporating the amount of movement within the photos below and the compositional elements of Alexey Titarenko's work I feel as though the images that I produced were what I wanted.

Edits

First Experimental Edit

Firstly I altered the photo to black and white. 

I then used the curves tool to enhance the contrast within the black and white in the photo. 

I then created a new canvas. 

I then ensured that the background layer was selected and I then copied and pasted the image onto the blank canvas. 

I then repeated the above process on two more photos. I then clicked cmd+T to resize the photos and move them to the desired place that I wanted them to be.

I then selected 'filter' and then 'filter gallery'. I then added the grain effect to the images which made the photos look slightly more dated. 

Second Experimental Edit

Firstly I opened each of the photos that I wanted to use in photo shop. I then used the crop tool to select certain parts of each image. 

I then copied and pasted each part that I had selected onto the first image that I wanted to use. 

This created different layers and then I was able to move them in order to create the desired look that I wanted. Finally I altered the entire image to black and white and added the grain effect using the filter gallery. 



My Final Images

Progression

To progress onto my next shoot I would like to expand upon my ideas of movement but rather than looking at movement in large stations I want to focus on the movement on the train platforms themselves. I would also like to expand upon the idea of using  multiple photos to create one final edit. I would like to explore placing the photos in different places.