Top 20 Pieces (So Far)

Connecting Essays 1 - 5

NEW Bleeding Flower Animation *Shoot 10*

Work Record - Personal Shoot 11

Plans for the shoot:
My plans for this shoot are somewhat quite simple compared to other shoots I have conducted. As some of the shoots I wanted to involved powder paints and white clothes, I thought this might be somewhat difficult to do considering the amount of time I have left before the end of this project, and the level of mess I would have made. So instead, I decided to take on the technique using a different method, where I will photograph some white roses that I am in the process of dying rainbow colours. I have watched many tutorials and I set up the experiment yesterday afternoon, in a hope that some of the colour would have been absorbed by this morning - but this has failed. I did observe very slight colour droplets on the petals, so I am hoping that by the time I get home this evening, they will be much more colourful for me to shoot on another date.

An example of what I hope to achieve.

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16/12/13:

The results of my experiment have so far not come through - the flowers essentially died after I'd kept them in the coloured water for a few days, which I don't understand as I followed the tutorial for it exactly, but sometimes these things happen. I think it might be to do with the way I cut the stems, as I used scissors rather than a sharp knife, which may have effected the small tubes which run on the inside  of the stem which usually carry the water to the leaves and the petals. The petals picked up some colour, mostly the blue food colouring, but not enough to create the effect above that I was looking for. I am going to now buy another bunch of flowers, possibly not roses this time, to reduce costs, and I am going to experiment by painting the colour onto the petals, possibly with either food colouring again or watered-down water colour paints and shoot them together at home against a white background.

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19/12/13:

Today I went into the studio with the intention of shooting my 'coloured roses'. Only a few of my roses actually survived, and the ones I was able to bring in today were starting to wither, so I combined a lot of the shots with other white flowers to bulk up the framing of the images. I did attempt to dye the new white flowers, but I only bought them yesterday which meant they didn't fully absorb the colour like i wanted. My plan was to shoot the flowers in a variety of compositions using the macro lens to show the graduation in colours between the flowers. These are a few of my favourite edited images from the shoot. I particularly like the 2nd, 3rd and 4th images below purely because of the sheer boldness and contrast in colour - I am really pleased with the level of detail I have managed to capture and the patterns created by the 'blend' of the colours looks really eye-catching. This just shows that even though the dye had a very minimalistic effect on the roses, the results still looked effective and I could well try it again in the future with more colours.

Technique Page - HDR

What Is It? HDR stands for High-Dynamic-Range Imaging. The technique produces a greater dynamic range of contrasts and luminosity within a photograph.

The technique can be produced with specific HDR-enabled cameras, or it can be applied with a few steps on Photoshop.

Step 1: Set up the camera like normal, preferably on a stand/tripod.
Step 2: Take a series of the same image but with different exposures, some below 0, some above, and one at 0.
Step 3: Upload the images then open Photoshop.
Step 4: File > Automate > Merge to HDR pro.
Step 5: Select the images you want to use for the HDR piece, including a range of different exposure sets.
Step 6: Alter the sliders for the image until you are happy with the result. Print/save like normal.

More Animations!

I copied a section of one of the flowers which had a droplet forming, and then applied it in an animation form to give the idea that the blood is dripping from the flower. I am happy with the result as it looks realistic, but I may have to work on that opening frame as the droplet seems to jump off of the petal.


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Experimental Session - Work Record

Plan:

As my planned shoot for today can't go ahead, I am going to conduct some experiments on HDR photography using some photos of my dog I have shot over the last few months and some from when I first brought him home. I am going to use a tutorial I found online: HDR Photography CS6 to give some of my images depth of contrast in terms of the colours, highlights and shadows, and then I am going to experiment with various multiple imagery techniques to show the contrast of when he was a young puppy, to how he looks now, to essentially show contrast in age.

Original copy

HDR copy

Normal Levels/Curves copy

I think that the tutorial has worked well in the sense that it has definitely given the original image that HDR effect. I think it looks particulalry dramatic on his tummy fur and on the ears, but I think that because of the paleness of his fur, especially on the top of his head, it doesn't work as the colour just blends in with the cream background, so it would have perhaps worked better with a darker backdrop. The technique works by combining different copies of the same image with different exposure levels. I also edited the original copy of the photo with extreme levels and curves like normal and I think on this occasion, the effect looks just as good as the HDR trial, except that the colour looks to dark and overly-edited.