Wednesday, 25 February 2015

Half Term Task

Over the February half term I was asked to carry out a task in which I would photograph a different building each day but in two different ways. The photographs I took are all located within the Baildon and Shipley area as this is the area which i live in and with limited founds, it meant that i was not able to go further afield at this time. For the first few days, I focused on photographing buildings in Baildon village as this proved to be the most accessible for me and once I felt that i had photographed the majority of the buildings with any interest within this area i then branched out to Shipley town centre as this is also nearby and easy for me to get to. Over the February half term, the weather was not the best and the sky was overcast and cloudy meaning that the lighting within the photographs which I took during this task are not the best however there was nothing which could be done to alter the weather and as the photographs had to be taken within the time scale provided, i had to make the best of what I was given. 
Here are the photographs which I took during this task:

Day 1:

For the first day of this task, I chose to stay close to home, as close to home as I could get, and take the two photographs for this day of the exterior of my house. For both of these photographs I went out to the back garden and took two shots which are essentially the same, however the two photographs here look completely different. These two photographs were both taken from the same angle and they were both taken in the same place meaning that they are both showing the same section of the building which I chose to photograph. The first photograph shows a general shot of the side of my house showing the back door and the door into the outhouse whereas the second photograph which it took shows a close up of the brickwork. The first photograph has been quite heavily affected by the lighting which was present at the time of photographing. As I was relying solely on natural lighting, this means that as the day in which i was taking this photograph was overcast and cloudy, the photograph which i took looks quite flat and lifeless. This would be corrected if the weather had been different as the sun had been out, If this had been the case, the photograph would look a lot brighter and more interesting to look at. With the second photograph however, the lighting did not prove to be as much of an issue as this photograph is a close up of the brick work and the sky is not visible within this photograph. The lighting within this photograph is sufficient as it allowed me to to take a well lit photograph of the brickwork without unwanted shadows being cast by myself or surrounding objects. I chose to take these photographs from the same angle because it meant that although the photographs were different in some ways, they remain the same in others

 Day 2:


For the second day of this task i chose to photograph the Moravian Church in Baildon. I chose to photograph this building as I feel that it has some interesting features such as the detailed hinges on the door and the overall shape of the door and it is near to where I live meaning I was not requited to go too far in order to take this days photographs. A with the previous days photographs, the sky was overcast and cloudy meaning that the lighting provided for these photographs is somewhat dull and not very interesting and I feel that this is the case for both of these image, the second one more so that the first though. For these photographs i chose not to photograph the building head on and I chose to take two very different shots of this building for this days photographs. The first photograph is of the door which leads into the Moravian Church. I chose to take this photograph as I thought that this was a very interesting part of the building as the shape of the door within the archway is quite unique and I found the shape of this door very interesting. In addition to this, I also liked the hinges which are on the door as they are both practical and do the job they are intended to do and decorative as they add a nice amount of detail to these doors. I feel that this small bit of detailing on the hinges of this door really make  difference as they prevent the doors from being plain and boring. In addition to this, the handles on the doors are quite large, however from this photograph, they look relatively small. This gives the photograph some scale and shows that the doors are a lot larger than they might first appear when looking at this photograph. The second photograph which I took was taken in a completely different way and was taken using a small mirror which I found lying around the house. I chose to take this mirror out with me when I took the photographs as i wanted to experiment with reflections within photography and i felt that this would be the perfect way to do it. To take this photograph I placed the mirror on the floor and positioned it so the Moravian Church would be in view, then I photographed down onto the mirror and focused on the church itself meaning that the ground surrounding the mirror dropped out of focus. The mirror which i was using had a couple of stubborn streaks which did not want to be cleaned away on it making it difficult to properly focus the camera on the building in question. I found when taking this photograph that this technique of taking the photograph via a mirror was very effective and I liked the way it came out so I then went on to take photographs using this technique on later days. 

 Day 3:

For the third day of this task I again chose to photograph a church, this time it was St. Johns Church also located within Baildon meaning that this is also extremely close to where I live so it was easily accessible by myself when I was not able to travel much further afield to take these photographs. The first photograph was taken as a head on shot of the church and the whole of the front of the church is on view. This means that when looking at this photograph, you can see exactly what the photograph is of. This church is a typical old church which I find looks simple, yet appealing to look at. Within this building there is no elaborate stonework or intricate detailing however i chose to photograph this church as it is simple in design and i feel that this is part of the buildings charm. As with the photographs which I took on the other days, the weather proved to be an issue once again as the sky is over cast making the photograph look dull and less interesting than it could be had this photograph been taken when the sky is blue and the sun out. The second photograph was taken in the same fashion as one of the photographs from the previous day and was taken by shooting the photograph of the church via the mirror. I like using this technique as the mirror flips the image which you see and i think this gives a different look to the photograph in question. In order to take this photograph, I positioned the mirror on the wall seen within the first photograph and took the photograph in this way. I focused my camera on the reflection of the building so this meant that the wall which the mirror was positioned on dropped out of focus making the reflection of the building more prominent. I feel that this photograph would look better if the sun had been out and the sky being blue as this would add more colour to the photograph making it more interesting. Either this, or if the sky had been a lot darker as if a storm was about to come. I think this would look good as it would add a lot more atmosphere to the photograph.

Day 4:

For the fourth day of this task I chose to photograph the Baildon medical practice. I chose to photograph this building from two different angles in order to get two different photographs of this building. The first photograph which I took was the easiest for me to take as I took it from standing in my back garden as the medical practice was built on the land just beyond the garden. This means that I have an unobstructed view of the side of this building from my garden. As I have this view, i thought it would be the perfect opportunity to take this photograph as after taking this photograph i was then able to leave my house, turn a corner then be at the front of the building where I was able to take the second photograph. The second photograph is of the front of this building. This photograph was taken head on in order to show off what the building is as i did not want to obscure the photograph and make the subject unrecognisable. The day on which these photographs were taken was, like the other days, cloudy and overcast meaning that the photographs appear quite dull and would be improved if the photographs had been taken when the weather might have been better. A bright blue sky would cheer the photograph up considerably and make the two photographs a lot nicer to look at however, like stated previously, i was not able to take a photograph in such weather conditions as the photographs had to be taken within a certain time scale. 

 Day 5:

for the fifth day of this task I chose to photograph Shipley train station. This was the first day in which I chose to photograph buildings which were not in Baildon. The first photograph which I took was of one of the archways leading onto one of the platforms. I chose to take this photograph from standing on the platform itself and looking out onto the car park. I like this photograph as I think that this archway is nice to look at and it also photographed well as the skylights at the top of the tunnel let in a lot of light meaning the entire archway was well lit and easily photographed well. The second photograph which I took was the front of the ticket booking office. I chose to take this photograph from a slight angle as taking it head on meant that I would have had to stand in the middle of the road in order to get the shot and this was not safe for me to do this. Both of the photographs which i took on this day are simple and neither have used any different techniques rather than photographing other sections of the building to shoot this photographs. As with the other photographs taken throughout this task, the lighting is not the best as I was relying only on the natural lighting and the day which i was taking these photographs was quite dull and this was not the best for the photographs i was taking as i feel that a brighter sky would have made the photographs a lot more interesting to look at.

 Day 6:

these are the photographs which I took on the 6th day of this task. These photographs are of the clock tower in Shipley town centre. The first photograph which I took was taken from the bottom of the clock tower looking up at it. This was a different angle to those used when taking the other photographs from this task as with the others, I did not take any other photographs from the bottom upwards. Taking photographs in this way gives the object in which you are photographing, in this case the clock tower, more importance as it appears that the object is towering over you as if to possibly intimidate you when in reality, it is just a simple clock tower which hold little importance other than time telling within its surroundings. The second photograph which I took is revisiting a technique which I used earlier on in the week which is photographing the building via a small mirror. This technique flips the image making it look unique as the photograph shown is the right way up however the building has now been tunred on its head. in order to take this photograph I focused on the clock towers reflection meaning that the ground has dropped out of focus. i feel that this works well as the texture within the pavement which the mirror was placed on may have caused a distraction and taken away from the building itself which is what is intended to be the main focus of this photograph.

Day 7:

These are the photographs which i took from the 7th and last day of this task. Both of these photographs were taken of the row of shops in Shipley market place. The first photograph which I took is just a general shot of the shops and the building which they are all incorporated into. I chose to take this photograph in this way so it was clear enough to tell what it was and recognise the building it is clearly enough so you can then make out the second photograph, The second photograph that i took is of the exact same row of shops and was taken standing in the same place however this time, i have taken the photograph of the building in the reflection of a spoon. I chose to take this photograph  in this way as earlier in the week i found that i enjoyed taking photographs in the reflection of a mirror and i liked the way the photographs looked done in this manner so i decided to get a little experimental and try to find other household objects which i could capture a reflection in. The first reflective household object which sprang to mind was a spoon as i thought i would be able to capture a good reflection in the back of the spoon and although when it came to photographing, this probed difficult, this was still possible. When i was taking these photographs the weather was dull and gloomy which i found actually helped with the second photograph as i feel that direct sunlight would have made the whole thing a bit too bright and taken away from what i was trying to achieve however on the day i was taking these photograph it was actually raining quite heavily which proved to be a problem, not only because of my fear of my camera getting wet and being damaged but also because the rain on the spoon distorted the reflection which i got. this was not intentional, however it was not a major disaster as i feel that it adds to the distorted effect which would already have been present as a result of the curvature of the spoon. The second photograph which i took on this day proved to be the hardest of the photographs which i captured throughout this week and it was the only photograph which i needed assistance in taking. As i was taking the photograph and holding my camera with both hands in order to press the shutter and properly focus the camera, I asked my dad if he wouldn't mind coming along with me in order to hold the spoon in the right place so i could capture this photograph. He was happy to do this for me (even if it did mean him standing in the rain for a while when he could have been inside watching football or something!) so I was then able to get the shot which I wanted to get. when focusing for this photograph i made sure to focus on the spoon and the reflection of the building only as i wanted none of the background behind the spoon to be visibly in focus as this would definitely have been distracting from the main subject of this photograph. overall i think this is my favourite photograph which i took during this week as this is the photograph which took the most planning and came out the way i wanted it to. if i could reshoot this photograph i would maybe shoot it when the sky is clear and blue, but i would definitely wait until it is dry and there is no rain to further distort the image.



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