My Theme and Images

My Theme and Images

THEME:

I've decided to go with the theme of desertion/neglect because I think it's a very effective kind of photography that can, if taken well, produce some incredible images that tell stories and make people feel certain emotions.

The above photo is one I took, originally in colour but decided to use Photoshop CS6 to convert it into black and white as I think it looks more effective and sharper. It is a photo of an abandoned building in my town that I thought would fit into my theme very well as it has been abandoned for years and has the old, neglected look I was looking for.

My second image is of the same building, though a close up and in colour. I changed the exposure to a brighter one so some details could be seen easier and I increased the sharpness in order to highlight certain details such as the grass and edges of the door. 

My third image is of a neglected old house that hasn't been lived in for a while. The previous owners didn't take care of it and left it in a mess, which I thought would be effective for my theme of neglect and desertion. Below is the photo I chose of the spiral staircase which I liked because of the unusual angles and natural lighting provided by the window in the top right corner, below the firs flight of stairs. I increased the brightness and cropped the image so the main focus would be of the stairs and shapes the image creates. 

My fourth image is of old, abandoned mills which haven't been used for multiple years. With the broken and boarded windows, graffiti and antique look, I thought they were perfect for my theme. I originally though to change the image to a black and white photograph, but then decided to decrease the opacity of the effect so it's not completely colourless. I thought the angle of the buildings and the road leading off between the building created the effect of dimension and an almost 'mysterious' look to the image.

My fifth and final image is of a different, smaller mill that hasn't been used for ages, and I thought the chipped pain on the green door especially portrayed the look of neglect as well as the broken furniture to the left. The drab colours an slightly out of focus image created an older look I was trying to achieve and the stained tiles of the room on the right also contribute to my theme.

I personally believe my favourite photo out of my five final ones is definitely the first image as the black and white added more effect and an older look to the image, which contributed well to my theme of neglect and desertion. I like the angle of which I chose to take the image as it shows not only the closest part of the building but the length of it and how all of the building is falling apart and is a neglected building.

Still Life Images

Still Life Photography - Images

Below are some images of still life photography. I very much like still life photography as it is most of the time, very simple images created yet very unique with use of colour and layout.

Action Shot Images

Action Shot Photography - Images

Below are some action shot photography of animals and sports stars. I believe action shots are very effective when capturing things in motion. Though action shots are not one of my personal favourite types of photography, I do think it is very clever and provides people with an idea of how things may look when in movement. 

Landscape Images

Landscape Photography - Images

Below is a collection of landscape photographs. I thin landscape photography is very beautiful and captures the many wonders of life. Besides from being nice to look at, nature photography also manages to show clever use of the camera as bright colours and focuses are used for different types of landscapes.

Portrait Images

Portrait Photography - Images

Below is a collection of portrait photographs of people, some celebrities. I think portrait photography is beautiful as it captures a person in a very natural way, where it is just a person without props or anything else.

Macro Images

Macro Photography - Images

Below is a collection of macro photography of nature, insects and animals. I think macro images are very effective when looking at close details as it helps you see things that are not usually visible to the naked eye.

Food Photography

Food Photography

One form of still life photography would be the focus on different types of food. Commonly used for advertising and making food look appetizing,food photography is used to show in packaging, cook books, menus and magazines how good a food product is.

Usually, professional food photography will involve the help and efforts of an art director, a
photographer and a food stylist.








These two meals were prepared before hand by a food stylist








The job of a food stylist is to prepare and lay out the food in an attractive way for the final image, and they take extra, careful time as opposed to someone at home who would not take as much care or time to prepare the food to look quite as good as how a photographer captures it in images.

Over the years, food photography has developed from the original idea of shooting images from a birds-eye point of view like how someone consuming the food would see it, to more creative ideas like having the food in mid air, to being photographed from different and unusual angles.

Creativity with food

I think food photography is a great way to persuade people to buy the products and to tempt them into trying something from a possible menu or shopping list. It always looks appetising in the photography and always is incredible to look at, especially when they stylist have become creative with their layout of the food.

Nature Photography

Nature Photography

Nature photography can refer to multiple types of photography taken outdoors and devoted to natural elements and disasters. Ranging from landscapes, wildlife, plants and natural scenes and texture, nature photography can cover these many things and more.

Nature photography is commonly used for photographic genres like photojournalism and documentary photography. Photographs of nature are published in travel, cultural and scientific magazines such as National Geographic Magazine and some of the best known nature photographers include: 

•  Frans Lanting 
• Galen Rowell
• Eliot Porter
• Art Wolfe.

To the left is a photograph of a landscape and on the right is a photo of wildlife in a forest

Wildlife photography is devoted taking images of animals in their natural habitats nd are often captures in action either flying, fighting or eating. However, the techniques required for a wildlife photographer differs greatly from a landscape photographer. Wide apertures are used to achieve a fast shutter speed and freeze the motion of the subject in wildlife photography. Landscape photographers prefer to use small apertures. 

Macro photography can be used in nature photography to capture close up, sharp images of insects and small animals. Also, for close up images of stone texture, leaves or tree trunks, macro photography would be brilliant.

Macro images of an insect and a flower.

I think nature photography is beautiful and stunning to observe because not only are they bold, colourful images most of the time, but they show animals and flowers etc from other parts of the world, giving us an idea of just how incredible other parts of the world are.

Wedding Photography

 

Wedding Photography

Wedding photography is photography that focuses on capturing the events at weddings. Taking images of the event itself, or just of the bride or groom, wedding photography manages to capture that special day that those two people were looking forward to for a long time.




This image captures the bride and groom well in a coloured, focused image, its clear and sharp final outcome







Usually, wedding photography is taken to provide professional images to print on thank you cards, portrait displays and announcements and will cover the wedding itself and reception.

I believe wedding photography is a great way to capture someone's
special day and provides a beautiful theme for the photographers who have the opportunity to create many wonderful images not only for them self, but for the married couple and their families also.

Fashion Photography

Fashion Photography

Fashion photography is a type of photography that focuses on displaying clothing and many other items of fashion. Mostly conduced for advertising and inside magazines, fashion photography has, over time, developed its own aesthetic. Now, the clothes and fashions are enhanced by the presence of exotic accessories and locations. Fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and Elle hold hundreds of different images of new, old, returning fashion.


Fashion photography is everywhere - if not in magazines, then on our TV screens, on posters and even in shop windows. When it comes to fashion, it is not only about the advertising of the products, but also the photography. If shown in the correct way, the photography of the fashionable clothing is what will sell it in the end.

With this image, we can see a great example of how the fashion look while being worn, and how it looks while in the natural light of the outdoors.







However, in this image, the photogrpher has taken it in black and white, which makes viewrs focus more on the style of the fashion as oposed to the colours and how it looks in the light.

Besides the fashion itself, photographers also take into account the model who is wearing the clothes - usually ridiculously attractive and heavily made-up, almost as if to exaggerate the idea that the fashion will make you look flawless.


I believe fashion photography can be misleading depending on whether the photographer decides to take the image in colour or black and white. I also believe that the commonly used, beautiful models used to model the fashion in the photos provide an almost unrealistic approach towards the clothing, as the clothes may not necessarily suit everyone and has been purposely given to a chosen model to wear.

Celebrity Photography

Celebrity Photography

One of the many types of photography in the world, celebrity photography is only one. Celebrity photography is a form of photojournalism where the subjects can be music artists, actors, sports stars and even politicians. Most commonly used by newspapers and magazines, are three type of photography:

1) Event Photography

Event photography includes photographers who work at events such as film premiers, parties and even award shows. Other event include music festivals, private functions and weddings.

The Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 film premiere in London









2) Celebrity Portraiture

Portraiture involves photographers being assigned a portrait session with a celebrity taken or in a photos studio.

A studio where photographic sessions may take place







3) Paparazzi

The paparazzi are known best for surrounding celebrities and capturing images of them with or without consent in hope of catching exclusive new images. They mostly frowned upon for their desperation and never-ending attempts to take images of celebrities, paparazzi and will even resort to very long telephoto lens shots or even secret, more discreet photography.

Images taken of George Clooney and One Direction taken by paparazzi









I believe celebrity photography is quite a good type of photography as it is necessary to have images of stars to go along with newspaper articles and magazine columns for people who are especially interested in celebrities. Though the paparazzi are probably the worst kind of people to take photos of famous people, they still manage to produce great images and sometimes, ones as good as those taken in studios.

Focus

Focus

Photographs are almost always sharpened and clear unless intentionally taken blurred. Many image-taking devices such as digital cameras offer the chance to sharpen images, and there are several ways of making sure your images are clear.

MANUAL FOCUS:

Because many cameras struggle to focus onto very close subjects and the lens ends up looking for the subject every time the shutter release button is depressed, manual focus is especially good with macro photography (small images are exaggerated to look larger than they really are).

The focus on the left image has been focused solely on the butterfly, blurring out the background while the image on the left has been taken completely out of focus.

Depending on what the subject of the photograph is, focusing on the closest items will make sure the image is in focus the closer it is to the camera while the background will blur and be out of focus. For example, the railing in the bottom left is in focus and very clear and easy to see while the street background is blurred and out of focus as it is further away.

I believe that focusing on the wanted image makes a massive difference to how the outcome of the final image will appear. With a blurred out background, the main image becomes more eye-catchin and clearer for viewers to notice.

Angles

Angles

Another important technique to think about when taking photographs, is the angle of which you take the images. You can very dramatically alter the effect of an image depending on how you angle the camera when taking photos. 

Different ways of taking images:

• Straight up

Taking images like above give a dramatic and unusual effect to the normal type of photograph - it shows how a forest looks from a low perspective and exaggerates the size of the trees.

• Low down

By getting low, down to the ground, unusual angles can be achieved from the low position and can exaggerate the size of the subject. For example, the man's leg looks exceptionally larger than the rest of his body due to the fact that his leg is closer to the low camera.

• Twisting the camera

By turning the camera in different directions, images that are difficult to capture when holding the camera. By turning the camera, the lens can focus around larger, more difficult objects to capture, such as the car below.

I believe that by considering different angles in which to take pictures, a more effective image can be produced and can even create a better, final photograph.