Work Diary - Fine Art

What is it? "The production of images to fulfill the creative vision of a photographer. ... Synonymous with art photography" or  "A picture that is produced for sale or display rather than one that is produced in response to a commercial commission"

Shoot Evaluation;
I was actually one of the very last people in the class to complete this technique due to filling up my previous lessons with personal project work, and after hearing what people had to say about this technique, I thought ti was going to be quite difficult. However, when I went outside to shoot fine art, I found it surprisingly easier than what I thought it was going to be, and I found using the macro option on the camera useful as it made basic shots of flowers and other plants look much more professional. I definitely feel my work on flowers and plants today is quite strong, especially after I had changed the levels and curves on them all, but, I feel like I didn't shoot the technique in a broad enough manner, as I didn't expand beyond nature, but that is because I feel that coming up to winter everything outside is starting to become quite bleak and not what I would deem appropriate for 'fine art'. I also feel that to accurately challenge this technique, I would need to plan for a studio shoot, rather than just finding something outside to photograph, which is why my images mostly focus on the normal 'fine art'.

Although quite simple, I personally really like this photo because of the warm, eye-catching colours which signify the start of the autumn season. I think this image represents fine art really well because it looks so eye-catching because of the vivid colours and the strong shapes which completely fill the frame. What's interesting is that the colours actually initially resembled traffic lights, where the red changes to orange, and then to green as they progress into the center of the leaf. This image could have worked even better if I had have perhaps applied a warming, autumnal photo filter to the image to suit this season a bit more.

This is my favourite image from the entire shoot, especially after I had edited it. As a fine art piece, I can really imagine this photo blown up onto a canvas for the use in a bedroom or even theme living room as it is really eye-catching and really brighten up a room with the strength of the purple tones. I used high curves and levels to give a slight 'posterised' effect and then changed the hue slightly to enhance the purple colour which was already present in the image. This image would make a really interesting focal point in any room because of how the flower fills the majority of the frame, but is positioned slightly the the right rather than dead-center, which look like a much more natural photo.

How could I apply this to my personal project?
I found that one of the key elements of this technique was finding an effective combination of the formal elements especially colour, shape, pattern and texture, and I think I have, and will continue to, apply this knowledge to my personal project, especially as I may chose to look at colour contrast as one of my topics for this project. For example, I may chose to photograph some brightly coloured flowers, looking specifically at the different colour contrast within them, but at the same time it would also make a very pretty 'fine art' image.