Rain

The brief here is to imagine a magazine cover on the subject of rain: "Produce a strong, attractive image that leaves no one in doubt about the subject".

For this exercise I have chosen a previously taken image:

This certainly leaves no doubt about the subject but hopefully is not just a shot of rain. It was taken from the inside of a tent - the other tents in the shot are just discernible enough for the reader to recognise. The low cloud dull sky adds to the effect.

The aim of the image is to hint at contrasting emotions of rain: on the one hand that it is unpleasant and restricting, particularly in an outdoors setting; on the other that the image is evidently taken from a position of shelter and relative comfort. the image could be taken from a car or a house, but that makes little difference to the effect.

Juxtaposition

The course introduces the concept of juxtaposition, defined broadly in the notes as "..the putting together [of] two elements so as to suggest a relationship".

I looked up some other definitions. On http://sceneinadifferentlight.com/outer-banks/juxtaposition, Dan Waters defines juxtaposition thus: "An act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast", a slightly more restricted definition.

Other definitions were more or less on the same lines, the emphasis being on relationship between the elements as the most defining characteristic. This ground was covered in Relationship between Points in Chapter two and one of the images used in that exercise is particularly relevant here:

There is a clear relationship between the golfer's ball and the hole, the golfer's aim is to juxtapose the two as closely as possible.

I took an image demonstrating a more subtle juxtaposition in Kiev:

This was taken during a rainstorm, converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro2 and the colours replaced in the chair using the Brush Tool. I considered it important that the chair stands out and resaturating it was a straightforward solution.

The relationship is between the empty chair and the rain - the chair was actually used by a self appointed taxi organiser who ran for cover once the rain started. I think it is important the chair faces the road to the left, so clearly has a function of pointing towards oncoming traffic yet is vacant on account of the weather.

Although the exercise brief was for one image only, I add another one below:

This shot was taken in Polperro on the day of some Morris dancing. I captured the relationship between the dancers and the flautist by composing an image that showed the dancers as a reflection in his sunglasses.

Symbols

The idea is to find symbols for a number of concepts:

Growth

Growth of cities - can take images of urban overcrowding, shanty towns, traffic, pollution;

In the natural world, a good image to show growth is a mushrrom or similar - a plant that seems to stretch to the light

Excess

An image of binge drinking; drunken people on streets;

An over ornate structure can demonstrate excess.

Crime

A beaten body;

A trashed shop after rioting;

Mass graves;

Silence

Person praying;

Footballers around the centre circle at a football match in memory of a deceased player;

Sea floor - coral or similar;


Poverty

Shanty towns;

Inside of a crowded dwelling;

Malnourishment - bloated belly on children

Evidence of action

The object of this exercise is to produce a photograph which evidences that somethig has happened.

I selected an image of a squashed can:

f4 1/4 sec

The can is on the road and has evidently been run over by a car. The image was taken at night and lit solely by the tungsten street lamp.

Five examples of concepts that are regularly depicted in advertsing or publicity, which cannot be shown directly:

• Sex- many male and female cosmetic and clothing commercials hint at this;
• Driving fast - car ads meticulously avoid max speeds in favourof sleek lines or subliminal hints at speed;
• Periods - commercials for liners or similar simply talking about "staying dry" and not showing;
• Drinking too much - alcohol ads major on something new and fun, omitting the effects of alcohol (favourable as well as unfavourable);
• Orange have of course made a name for themselves by never having a phone in their commercials

A narrative picture essay

This exercise is to set ones self an assignment and photograph it, an objective not dissimilar to that of Assignment 5 . As I wish to use a forthcoming holiday to South Africa as subject matter for Assignment 5, I thought a simpler topic would be appropriate for this exercise.

My wife came up with the idea of her baking some buns; by coincidence one example suggested in the course notes. I was keen also to build on my indoors photographic expertise, following on from the later exercises and assignment in Chapter 4.

I used a 25-105mm lens fixed to a Canon 450d body on a tripod. Lighting was supplied by tungsten room light and Speedlite 430EX II flash attached by cable. Additional lighting was supplied by Micro Lite on a few images.

My wife has some recipes handed down over generations - for this exercise she chose raspberry buns, a recipe handed down from her grandmother. The main ingredients are flour, eggs, margarine and of course some jam, albeit she used blackcurrant conserve as opposed to raspberry jam!

I spent some time thinking about how to encapsulate the narrative in between 5 and 15 images. I took nearly 30 images and selected down to 15; more could have been posted here, but that is not the brief and I considered it important to stay within the brief as in practice it might be that 5-15 is the commission one receives.

Set out below is the narrative, with appropriate captions:

Looking through the handwritten book for Grandma's recipe

This is it!

Contemporary technology used to convert the ounces to grams

Warm the oven ready

Ingredients laid out in a deliberately posed shot

Sieving the flour into the bowl

Weighing the margarine

Washing hands - an important part of the narrative to show proper procedures used

Ruubbing in the flour, margarine, sugar and salt

Penultimate ingredient is the egg

Low technology method of mixing in the egg

Kneading the mixture - used a different camera angle to capture texture

Preparation for the last ingredient....

....the jam!

The end result - a nice pattern picture. Allowed pattern to continue beyond the frame as per Chapter 2.

This was a fun exercise to do although probably not good enough for an assignment. I think possibly there is too little variety between the images.

I must also own up to not thinking through the technical points well enough; there were several other well conceived shots that could not use as part of image as out of focus - I simply took too many images using f4. It is low light but smaller apertures were possible with the available lighting  As it turned out, there were plenty of acceptable images for this exercise but the lesson is learnt.

Two other lessons learnt:

• the need to plan even a simple exercise like this well;
• keep calm - my wife got agitated a couple of times because the framing took a long time (the whole exercise took two hours). Some expectation management is required.