Unit 31
In this unit I will be researching skateboarding photography and using it to take my own skateboarding photos which I will be evaluating my performance in.
P1
Lee Wiley
This Photo was taken by Lee Wiley who is a Bristol Based photographer. Lee uses shadows to explore the contrast between light and dark.
Skin Phillips
I chose this picture as an example of his work because it shows how he has used the hair and face to show black and white. This is a portrait photograph like many others that he takes and others are event photography. This picture has been used for a portfolio on a website but could be used for a magazine. Lee has created a fade from black to white and changed the skin on the models face to white leaving the lips, eyebrows, eyes and shadows on the face black. All of the colour has been sucked out of the photo. The photo is focussing on the model and the background has been faded to draw attention to the lady in the picture. It is also cropped very close in to her face which also concentrates the focus towards her. Lee mainly focusses on portraiture photography and explores different expressions to make every portrait different. He explores all areas of portraiture and makes all of his work diverse.
Inspiration
This is a photo of Max Schaaf who is a pro skateboarder from California at a skatepark in Bristol. This picture was taken by Skin Phillips in 1998. The photo was used in 'Free Skate Magazine'.
This was taken in dean lane skatepark which is one of the best skateparks in Bristol. The photo was used in an article in 'Free Skateboard Magazine' in an interview with Skin Phillips. The photo Has been edited in black and white which gives a nice contrast between the sky, the buildings in the background and the skateboarder with the ramp. If I was taking this photo, I would use a model wearing bright clothes and shoot on a clear day with blue skies. When editing this photo I would use colour to bring out the street art on the ramp and in the background. I think that when editing a picture of a skateboarder you have to be aware of every detail in the picture and of how you can attract attention to what you want people to see in your picture. Skin first started taking pictures of skateboarders in his late teens after his parents bought him a 50mm camera for his birthday. He used to go to skate events, leaving his home in Wales to travel around the UK and meeting, photographing and getting noticed by globally known pro skateboarders. Skin is currently the chief editor of Transworld skate magazine and the skate team manager of the powerhouse brand Adidas.
Interests
Information
Information
This is a mood board which shows the type of photography that interests me. I am interested in exploring different colours and shadows. I am interested in taking portraits or pictures of skateboarders in urban areas. As I live in Bristol which is an area with lots of skateboarders, I am going to photograph skateboarders near me in Urban skate parks.
Project
Offending race and religions:
At the time of a shoot I would have to consider the ethics and beliefs and whether my photos would disagree with their beliefs. If I had an idea which may appear offensive or upset them, a new idea would have to be looked into or I would have to find a way to change it to solve the problem. I would also need to make my pictures appropriate in every way. This includes my venue, style, people used and what media it will be used for. Before producing a picture I would need to be 100% certain that it was acceptable to be released. It would be necessary for me to check my ideas before even planning my shoot.
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Trespassing private property:
Trespassing on private property is an illegal act so when planning a shoot I would have to make sure that I know for sure if the area or building is private or public land. If the place I want to shoot at is a private place, I would have to find a new location or get in contact with the owner of the land to ask for permission and if needed, arrange a time to shoot on their land.
Environmental Factors:
As I would be using camera equipment for my shoot, I would have to be considerate about the environment and community. An example of a situation where I would have to be considerate of the environment is if I chose to do a nature shoot and I was planing to photograph animals or go to a location where there were animals. I would have to insure that I would not disturb any animals. I would also want to refrain from wasting materials as much as possible.
Model Release Forms
I would need the people I take photos of to sign a model release form which confirms that they allow me to take a picture of them and use it to put on my website or put it on social media. It is compulsory for me to do this for everyone I get a picture of.
Copyright Act
The copyright act protects my work and means that nobody else can use my work as their own legally. It means that nobody can take a photo of mine and edit it as their own or claim that it was their original idea. The copyright act also gives me ownership to my pictures.
Defamation
Defamation is hate speech towards someone which makes them or their work sound bad. When mentioning other photographers in this project I would need to be careful what I want to say about them and their work.
Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rights is who came up with the ideas for my shoot when doing my shoot I must make sure not to steal the idea of another photographer. I would be allowed to use another photographers work to influence my own idea but I would have to be careful of whether my work is an exact copy of another photographers idea. If I decided to make my own version of another photographers picture, I would need to make it clear that I was copying somebody else idea.
P2
The Shoot
For this shoot, the theme is possessions. I was inspired by this photograph by Leo Sharp because it looks like it could be on the cover of a magazine. I decided that I would photograph some skateboarders from Bristol and create a front cover photograph. The possessions of the skateboarder in my pictures are the skateboard and the trick they are doing because each trick I have photographed is different. For my shoot the one equipment that I will need is a camera and a lens. The model I am using will need their own skateboard but there are no other props needed.
Recce Sheets
Risk Assesement Sheets
Daily Shooting Schedule
Model Release Forms
This model release form is an example is what I would use for everybody who was in the pictures that I had taken. It is a way of giving physical proof that they have consented to being photographed and allowed me to use the photographs of them. Model consent must be given on every situation on a shoot as it is a legal requirement.
Location Recce
Nailsea skatepark and Backwell rec are both public areas where photography is permitted. For this reason, a location recce sheet was not needed. The land I was shooting on did not belong to anyone which meant that I could not ask for permission to shoot in the area. If I did need to ask someone for permission, I would have to find out who owned the land that I wanted to shoot on and once I had done that I would need to ask their permission. The laws in the UK are that if you want to shoot in a public area then that is permitted but anyone who you take pictures off will be required to sign a model release form or in some way give their permission to be photographed.
Contingency Plan
The idea that I had if my initial idea didn't go to plan was to photograph people of different ages, each in a different room of their house. I was interested in portraiture and using colour and tones to create a mood of each photograph. If I chose to do a project like this in the future, I would choose a range of different people of different ages and I would use expression and use colour when editing to convey the mood of the photograph.
P3
The Unedited Shots
For this shot, I used lighting from the setting sun and placed my model with his back to the light because it created a nice effect with the shadows on his face and the light surrounding him creating a kind of outline of the shape of him. I used the focus to slightly blur the background which directed the focus towards him. I also liked the way the lighting came through the trees in the background and reflected off the ramp. I decided to place my model in the centre because it allowed me to experiment with using the light to create the effect that I wanted. I selected this shot for the final 10 because I liked the effect that the lighting had in this picture. However, I did not pick this for the final 5 because I wanted to focus more on the possessions of skateboarders. I also felt that the picture looked nicer when natural than if I edited it.
In this picture, I positioned my model just in the shadow of a nearby tree. I also positioned my camera in the shadow to create the contrast between light and dark. the sunlit park in the background against the skateboarder in the foreground attracts the viewers attention to the skateboarder. The sun shining through the leaves of the tree creates a nice effect on the floor with patches of light and dark. I chose this picture for my final 10 because I thought the natural lighting effect created a nice light and dark contrast. I did not think it focussed enough on the skateboard enough which meant that it did not make the final 5. I used the sport camera setting which meant that I was able to capture the board movement in the air without it becoming blurry.
I liked the lighting effect of the previous photograph so I decided to experiment with it using a self portrait. I slightly adjusted the positioning of the camera to capture the side of the wall which my camera was on without losing the focus of my model. I decided to put this in my final 10 because it was useful to experiment with the lighting on a different style of photo. It did not make my final 5 because I realised that it did not work as well as the other pictures that I had taken. I used a manual camera setting with a high shutter speed with wide framing to show the scenery in the background.
This portrait was taken in the same lighting as the first one. I used the focus to blur the background to focus on my model. I chose to photograph my model at a side view with the light on his face because it created nice shadows across his face and neck. The use of the low sunlight hilights the definition in the neck and in the face specifically around the nose. I chose this picture for my final 10 because with sunset lighting it looks good as a natural photo and when I tried editing the photo I was not as happy as I was with the original picture.
For this photo I used a low shoulder level angle and I decided to photograph two models from the shoulder of a third model. I again used the focus to only focus on the two models in the photo and blur the background. I chose this angle because it makes the photo look more natural. I also liked the slight contrast between light and dark with the dark green trees in the background with the blue sweatshirt. This photo was close to being in my final 5 but I chose to put it in my final 10 because it nicely captured a natural looking shot but I still wanted to get action shots to show possession. I used a high shutter speed as I wanted to capture a shot which looked natural as if they were having a conversation.
P4
The Edited Shots
Style
I decided that I wanted to create some action shots of skateboarders so I decided to use the sport mode on the camera which allowed me to get action shots without the image being blurry. I also used a high shutter speed so that I could get the specific shots that I wanted. When editing, I wanted to experiment with colour and black and whites. When working with black and whites, I used the levels tool to bring out the lights and darks in certain areas of the photographs. when working with colours I contrasted the brighter colours with darker ones to create a specific mood within my pictures.
I first experimented with black and white in this picture and I wanted to keep the colour of the sky with the trees so I used the eraser tool to draw around the edge of the skatepark and colour the background. I drew carefully around my body at the top because I wanted to keep that black and white also as if it had been frozen in the moment. I chose this for my final 5 because it shows a clear picture with an nice colour contrast.
At first I was unsure about this photo as I felt that it was too dark but then I experimented when editing by turning up the brightness of the picture which made it clearer. I was inspired by a 90's skateboarding look for this photo so I decided to use the magnetic lasso tool to select the shape of my model and his skateboard. By doing this I was able to edit only the shape selected. To create the cut out effect I adjusted the exposure of the selected shape and the offset to separate it from the rest of the picture. I was also interested by the effect that the light gave when shining along the coping so by adjusting the saturation I was able to create a nighttime effect. I chose this picture for my final 5 because It gave me lots of options and ideas for editing. For this photo it could be used for a magazine.
This picture did not require much editing because I was happy with the clarity and how the picture looked. For this picture I used black and white and Levels to create the contrast between the lights and darks in the grass and the damp patch on the ground. I also used brightness to tidy up the look of the photo. I chose this photo to be in my final 5 because it is clear and the lights and darks contrast well with each other.
The first thing I noticed in this picture was the shadows created by the trees which give a dark image when in black and white so I decided to focus on the dark colours in this photograph to create an evil mood. I used black and white and levels to bring out the dark colours in the image and creating a misty nighttime look. By making the edges of the ramps darker, it defined the objects in the image. I chose this image to be in my final 5 because the natural effect of the shadows allowed me to create a mood when editing.
The natural lighting of this photograph created a cartoon look on the trousers of my model so by adjusting the levels and saturation I was able to darken all colours except the blues on the skateboard which drew attention to the possession of the model in the picture. I chose this picture to be in my final 5 because the still allowed me to focus on the skateboard.
P5
Fit For Purpose
These pictures fit to the brief of possessions in three different ways. The first way is that the skateboards in the pictures are our possessions. This shows sense of belonging in the tricks we do with them and the style that we skate in. The second way is that these areas are our possessions that we choose to skate the pictures give the viewer an idea about the atmosphere that we put ourselves in and the things and people that we choose to surround ourselves with. The third way is that we belong to the skate scene ourselves and when we skate it feels like a sense of belonging when you are with other people you are friends with.
The Initial Book
Our group chose to display our work as a physical portfolio in the form of a book because we thought that having the book as a possession matches our theme for the unit. We have chosen a black background for our book so that when we print out the pictures, we can see how the colours go together. We are all having a double page spread and have chosen how to organise our pictures over those pages.
I will format my photos this way because I have decided to separate the photos focussing on light on the left and dark on the right. The biggest Photo on each page is the main photo which focusses on its colour tone. I have only used minimal writing because I want people to focus on the pictures I have taken.
The Final Product
This Project has taught me a lot about how to independantly plan and carry out a photography shoot. It has also made me more aware of how to use different tools in photoshop to make my photos look more professional. Before doing this unit, I had a vague understanding of the different types of photography and ways to convey a theme in my photos. I decided to use quotes about skateboarding beside each photo which describes the feeling that skateboarders get when they land a trick for the first time. I chose 4 quotes which describe the thrilling feeling and finished with a long quote which shows the frustration it takes to land a trick. I decided to use quotes rather than paragraphs because I felt that the pictured I took worked better with something that could let the reader use their imagination rather than giving a set description of each photo. This also adds a comedic effect to my presentation after saying how good it feels to land a trick. By doing this I hope to make people more aware of how skateboarding is and the people who skateboard are viewed.
Within our group, after the book was completed we had a session where we went round writing feedback on a piece of paper so that we could see what our peers thought of our work. This is some of the feedback which I received from my peers about my presentation. I am happy with the comments I received and I feel like I have been successful when taking and editing my pictures. I think when thinking about my presentation next time I will think about the layout of my photos and which colours work together.
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In this project I think my success was mainly to do with my management of time. I chose to do my shoots over 3 weeks which allowed me collect a lot of photos that I liked. It also allowed me to manage my website as I was doing the shoots. I was able to stay at the skatepark for a whole day which meant that I could do shoots using different lighting and it allowed me enough time to get the shots that I wanted.
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If I did this project again, I would Experiment more with different camera lenses and possibly different angles to each shot. I would also choose to shoot on a day when I could have people to help get pictures of myself as I had to set up the camera in a position which captured a nice photo but did not experiment with lots of angles.
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Over the course of this unit I have learned how to create a presentation of photographs of my own which fit to a theme. I am happy with the work I have done and I look forward to my next unit!