Scattergun

I’m sure I wrote in my intro about my scattergun approach to things and that hopefully I could use the study to help focus my mind but haha no such luck. I have gone through several abortive attempts on Assignment 2 which have been further hampered by buggering around with a new flash and a x2 macro lens.

Firstly I thought I’d use my incredibly messy shed and spend time just looking at the mess for interesting compositions. Mmmm mildly interesting but I couldn’t get enough shots I was happy with for a cohesive set. Here’s a couple that I converted to B&W with a chiaroscuro look….

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Don’t judge me on the state of my shed (it’s tidier now, honest).

Anyway next up was a muck around with a flash unit and some vegetables. Whilst taking these I had just watched a small documentary on Edward Weston that included a discussion on Pepper No. 30 which was eye opening.

In order to get the object in total focus this close meant covering the aperture on his 8×10 camera and making a pinhole in that covering thus ending up with something akin to f240!! The exposure was around 4-6 hours which explains the even natural lighting as the sun moved across the subject. ((10) Secrets of Edward Weston’s Photography – YouTube, s.d.)

I had no intention of trying this yet but I did try some lighting techniques against a dark background which I thought may be interesting. I’m quite happy with Lettuce No.8 (tongue firmly in cheek) and I have a mental note to pick some interesting instead of perfect looking vegetables off of our allotment for photography purposes later in the year – part of the obvious allure of Pepper No.30 is the anthropomorphic quality of the pepper; to me at least looking like a human back hunched over with the head hidden.

I did shoot some peppers but they were far too boring and perfect in shape to be interesting to photograph for any length of time.

Next on the list I ordered a Laowa 105mm 2x macro lens which is difficult operate and will require another purchase to fully utilise it (4 way focus rail). I haven’t done this lens any justice yet but the level of detail is incredible and the focus plane wafer thin so focus stacking will need to be utilised to make the most of it. I’ve been also been setting a moth trap so there is a potential ‘collection’ there (moths all released the next evening!)

Anyway after experimenting for a bit I thought I had finally settled on my assignment. To show a town and businesses hit by the corona virus shutdown. I wanted to employ long shutter speeds and depth of focus to give a sense of time continuing but also how these places are left behind and standing still. Where this didn’t work I wanted to ensure there was a visual clue that something was not normal about the scene. In the end I worked on the images I was happy with to have a consistent look and feel, I narrowed down my selections, reviewed them and put them together and the more I looked the more unhappy I was. I couldn’t put my finger on it though.

I went back to the the text for Assignment 2 early one morning and re-read the brief. The penny dropped. I had focussed so much on what the subject was that I had forgotten the name of the assignment – COLLECTING!!! Thats what was missing – my images weren’t a collection – they may have largely hit my own interpretation but it wasn’t cohesive , they didn’t show a single idea and they would need an explanation. Bummer.

I still like many of the images and I may well use them or come back to them at a later stage but for now I include them here for you to judge.

I should finish by saying that I had already started another set of images that I realised did fit the ‘Collecting’ brief far far better so although I required another photo shoot I’m far happier with the results – I’ll post the final Assignment this week.

Bibliography

(10) Photography Secrets of Edward Weston’s Darkroom – YouTube (s.d.) At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT2-xpKBafs (Accessed 25/05/2020).

(10) Secrets of Edward Weston’s Photography – YouTube (s.d.) At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUAKoiRhLR8 (Accessed 25/05/2020).