Life as a student: Contextual Studies 2

In my second year of Photography at Newcastle college I received a module called "Contextual Studies 2". I immediately freaked out as I hated Contextual Studies in my first year, it was just an essay about an area of Photography and I purposely chose a creative career pathway to get away from essays. However, this year I had the task of writing a 2,500 word essay and producing a supporting image in the style of my chosen photographer. I decided to focus on surrealist photography, writing my essay about how the field has changed and how in general photography has changed over the years mainly focussing on how Photoshop and digital imaging have replaced film cameras and having to produce surreal effects in camera.

My chosen photographer was Tommy Ingberg. A Swedish surrealist photographer and one of my inspirations. I decided to take a look at his "Reality Rearranged" images and produce one that referenced the set as if being part of it, rather than reshooting an image he had produced. One of his images shows an invisible man, my interpretation of this was someone who does a lot of work for society, but hardly gets any credit and fades into the background, like some Firefighters for example. They do such an amazing job for society but hardly ever have their efforts recognised. I decided to create the reverse of this; a statue head in place of a persons head. I did this as I believe people such as celebrities don't really contribute to society, but they are classed as role models and idolised like statues.

Below is my final image in the style of Tommy Ingberg. To see more of his work, please visit: http://www.ingberg.com he is an amazing photographer and you will be able to see how my image has been created using inspiration from his work.

Long Exposure Landscape

Last night I took a D7000 and a shutter release remote to the pit heap in the Rising Sun Country Park in Wallsend to shoot a landscape photograph using a long exposure to capture the street lights, as from the hill all of Wallsend can be seen and it looks amazing in the darkness.

Copyright Danny Rowland Photography

The image above is one of my favourites that I captured last night. I left the shutter open for about a minute to allow the camera to capture all the pollution from the light and create a surreal glowing effect. This was an experiment to see what my idea would really look like once captured and I am so pleased with the outcome, it has beaten my expectations. Although I really like this image it is not perfect; I plan on doing a re-shoot as this was really just a practice.

Danny Payne Photography

A while ago during the start of my studies in Photography at degree level; I was researching photographers who concentrated on musicians and live performances as I am really interested in taking part in this field of Photography.

I found a Photographer called Danny Payne who has shot some of the most famous (and my favourite) artists and bands. I thought I would share his website with you all as he really inspired me to take some shots of my own, which sadly were nowhere near his standard as at the time I was a total amateur and had no idea what I was really doing. Since I was going to see bands in which I was not allowed any professional equipment, most of it was taken on my Nikon Coolpix S5100 or my smart phone so it isn't the best quality. I may upload some of it to my website or blog later on in the year when I have done a new shoot so the difference can be seen.

 I recommend Danny's website to anyone interested in photographing live music, events or even just those who want to try something a little different. His website can be found at: http://www.dannypaynephotography.com/

 © Danny Payne Photography

Photoshop Makeover

Today when arriving to my Digital session, I quickly found out that we were going to be retouching a basic modeling shot. This took a lot of time and effort, but I was informed in the real world I would only have about five minutes to do the whole task. This edit included lightening dark areas on the face due to bad lighting, healing blemishes and things such as bra claps, using gaussian blur to smoothen the skin and also using liquify to pull in the models clothes and mould them to her body. Below is the before and after shot I do not think I am brilliant at Photoshop and I have a to to learn but I feel now I have had this experience I have updated my knowledge and can now create more advanced and better images.

Before and After