Ashley Maman

AO2 - Demonstrate skills in taking photographs for a specific product

For this unit, I was required to take a number of photos to demonstrate a good range of techniques that are common and what professional photographers look for when taking photos. As part of the course, we decided to take photos as Moseley High School, here we could take interesting photos of people as well as the architecture and landscapes of the school. In this specific assessment objective, I will be selecting what I believe are my 10 best photos from the photo shoot and I will be explaining how well I understood about the composition on screen as well as advance controls in making the photo look good on the camera scene, regardless of the change of lighting circumstances in the actual location of the photo.

1. This is one of the first images I took when I got to the school. I immediately saw the building and thought of taking the picture of it. As you can see from the image, it has dark grey clouds, this was because it was about to rain, so I had to take the photo quickly due to the fact I wasn’t using my own equipment and it was a prosumer camera from the school. In terms of framing the image, I decided

to go for a cantered, 'Dutch' angle as I felt it looked best and interesting in terms of composition on screen, this way I could get a lot of the sky and ground into the image rather the point on the roof taking up most of the upper image I was to take it landscape. I feel the ISO was correct for this particular image as it wasn’t too noisy and was in-between of getting the detail in the sky as well as the building. As you can see from the image, you can see students walking past, for this I decided to use a high shutter speed, this

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meant that the picture would be took immediately to reduce the motion blur of moving objects on screen. In terms of exposure, I feel it was well balanced as there isn't any over exposure or bright areas in the image and the over all colour is the same, this of course can be changed in post but all images are straight from the camera.

2. This was another strong image I felt I took, again it was of a building as the straight edges and shapes in the image could test most of the features on the camera and how well it is focused. In terms of exposure, the building its self is lit correctly and is in focus, where as the sky seems a bit too over exposures, this is due to the fast that since the building was the subject on the photo,

changing the ISO lower would mean the building would go darker but the sky would become detailed, this isn't what I particularly wanted, to overcome this I would need additional hardware for the camera, for example a variable neutral density filet on the lenses would enable me to get the background into detail without changing my ISO too low or high and also changing the film speed would help too. Since I was shooting outside, the ISO was fairly low as the sky was my main light source. The sky itself wasn’t too bright or too dark, this was completely ideal as I wouldn't et much of an over or under exposures shot.

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3. This was an interesting subject to take a photo of. The composition of the tree I felt was a little above the centre but hit the 'hotspots' of the rule of thirds. I would agree in saying that the image is a bit too over exposed as the sky was too bright and I lost a lot of detail in the leaves at the top of the tree. again, as mentioned previously, to over come this I would have had to use additional hardware or simply change it in post, but for this particular unit, I will be talking about images that were took straight from the camera. The day in general wasn’t windy so the shutter speed was optimum but fast as I was

standing up, I used a fairly quick shutter speed as I wasn’t using a tripod so there would have been motion blur if I was moving slightly. I used the Manual focus on the camera as I felt it was best, I tend not to use the automatic settings on a camera due to the fact I have previous knowledge of photography and its sometimes a lot quicker in Manual as you know what you want in focus and what will be overexposed.

4. This next image was very unique and used a clever built in

parameter which was in the camera. I was fairly surprised to see this feature as it is not in any other camera I know of. the feature was to create instant panoramas in camera rather then using additional software in post to do it. The outcome was fairly good and surprising. To use the feature I simply stood still and took a photo, panned slowly right until the icon on the camera screen

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turned green and it was aligned to the previous, I could have done a full 360 but felt the image would be too long in length to be

viewed so I did a shot panorama, the outcome was very good. As you might already see on the image, the 2 spots that are blurred, this is because it started to rain, therefore I took the rest of the images inside. the image in general wasn’t over exposed and the composition was balanced and key parts in the photo touched on the rule of thirds, this is exactly what I wanted.

5. the next image I took inside of a class that was taking place. I first

of all wanted to act professional as I was in a place I have never been before, I explained to the students and teacher I would be taking photos for my school work and asked them for permission to take photos of them, they were happy to go along so I took several photos. As it was fairly overcast outside, inside I wasn’t too dark as there was classroom lights and the curtains were open full to let plenty of light in. With that said, I still had to make sure the

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aperture (iris ring) was wide open to let plenty of light through the camera lens and onto the sensor, I did this and still had to increase the ISO slightly to get a fairly good photo that wasn’t over or under exposed. Since I had to increase the ISO, the image began to get noisy. this noise is what the camera puts on so the sensor can get a lit image, my doing this the image quality dropped slightly.

6. As I used previously, the panorama feature was interesting to use.

I used it again in the image for the classroom. the lens on the camera wasn’t wide enough to get an image like this above so I had to use the built in feature to achieve this effect. as the image was of moving subjects, I had to use a quick shutter speed to get the

image and reduce the motion blur on moving subjects. The image itself was good in terms of composition as the students were centred on screen and you can get a good balance of the roof and the floor too.

7. The next image I took was in the schools assembly hall. as the

room was fairly big, a lot of light was able to fill the room due to the amount o windows in the particular room, also the amounts of lights in the room also helped in a lot on terms of lighting the room too. In terms of the composition on screen, it wasn’t as centred on

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screen as I wanted it to be. this could simply be cropped in post but straight out of the camera and at the time this could have been changed. like most of the pictures I took on that day, I wanted to get a good balance of the roof and floor of all pictures as it allowed the centre to be focused on more and be the centre talking point of the photo. I believe at the time I used a built in white balance which was 'daylight', you can see from the image it looks too yellow or orange. by using a custom white balance I could have got a more appropriate lit image that would be natural to the room and what we would be able to see in real life, rather then the camera decided on the colour. As with nearly all images, this can often be changed in post, especially with new and latest piece of software for photography, almost anything can be changed in terms of colour correction and position etc.

8. The next image I took I used a built in picture style, that was the 'monochrome' look. this is basically a black and white photo. I

always thought that black and white photos looked interesting as they have no colour in them so the colour was not a problem to be correcting. the composition of the photo was centred but slightly high on the left hand side, this could be changed in post but as with all photos, making it look as best as possible in camera is always the best way, this would be something I would take care of next time. As you can see from the shadows and reflections on the window, the main fill light was coming towards the image, this meant that lighting the screen in camera required a low ISO and an aperture that was less then half closed. I felt that using the

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monochrome picture style created a 'still life' type of photo and all movement is stopped, this was an interesting technique and idea at the time when I was taking the photo.

9. This next image was one of my favourite of the day. It again used

the panorama feature within the camera. I felt it was the best due to the interesting image itself as the room looks 'unwrapped' within the single images and the walls look like they have opened to bring the centre of focus to the black wall or even the small purple

podium where a teacher would make speeches. the lighting I believe was how I wanted it to be and made the black curtain look like a black hole, this was my favourite and most interesting part. as you can see, there was plenty of windows which are mainly covered by the curtain so the door way on the right was my fill light for the right hand side, this meant I had to make sure the aperture on the lens was wide open to ensure plenty of light was let into the camera sensor to get a more detailed image. the top right windows look a tiny bit over exposed as it is hard to see the actual window frame. But overall, this was compensated as the shine on the floor from the light enabled the reflections from the chairs on the floor look rich and have a lot of detail in them.

10. This is the final image I will be talking about in this unit. In general

I used a high shutter speed to catch the main action of the student

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running past and down the playground. I wasn’t that close to the subject so I was slightly zoomed in a little. as the background was fair back from the subject, this meant that setting my focus on the student would create great depth of field to blur the background and centre the focus on the subject running. The ISO was low, as you can see on the subjects head, it is bright as the sun finally came out on that day and this was my main fill light, so ISO was kept low as it wasn’t needed high. over all I was happy with the final image as the composition of the subject was centre on screen, the lighting was correct and not too over exposed, there was little motion blur in the subject running past quick as the high shutter speed helped this and made the over all image look viewable instead of being blurry.