Choosing the Moment and Twilight

Whilst visiting Hartshead Pike in Ashton-Under-Lyne I decided to try and take the photographs for a lot of my projects. I even used the location for a lot of my photographs for Assignment 3. It has stunning views over Manchester and when the weather's right, a photographer can take some excellent shots.

For Project 46 (Choosing the Moment) I decided to use the sun as one of the main subjects in my shots as it moves through the sky. Upon arriving at the location I had plenty of time to decide upon my favourite viewpoints.

As the sun began to set, I took my first shot in the series. I feel this is a good photograph however I wanted something better, something with a little more interest in the background.

After switching my angle of view so that I was looking directly towards Manchester City Centre I took my next shot.

Still not happy with the result, I attached my 75 - 300mm lens to get closer to the City.

After taking two similar shots, I still wasn't happy.

Five minutes later the sun had come from behind the clouds and the sky was blazing orange. Having rather stupidly left my tripod at home, I used a nearby fence post to keep my camera steady, set the focal length to it's maximum of 300mm to get some close up shots of the sun setting over Manchester.

Another similar shot.

Not quite right.

I'm very proud of my final shot and feel it is some of my best photography yet. The colours are incredible, the composition is balanced and overall it is a very pleasing image.

Twilight

Keeping in the same location as earlier, I waited for the sun to disappear further behind the horizon.

My first shot isn't true twilight as the sun is still slightly visible.

After changing to a wider focal length of 135mm I took another shot, this time of the entire City. The colours that twilight bring to a photograph really make for an interesting shot. I would have to say that this is my favourite out of the twilight shots.

Over exposing the shot slightly at 205mm much more detail is visible in the City but the colours are less dramatic. This is quite a surreal image.

My last shot is a silhouette of the tower on top of Hartshead Pike. It has quite a eerie and sinister feel to it.

Low Sun

Within two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset is when the sun is at its lowest, except for in winter when it stays low for most of the day. When the sun is low it can light subjects in very interesting ways depending on its direction and the photographers view point.

During my visit to St Martin's Church I decided to experiment with different view points on a Great War monument. The sun was low in the sky and I was able to move around the monument and photograph it from multiple angles to capture different lighting directions (front, side, edge and back).

Front Lighting (Sun directly behind camera)

ISO 200, 29mm, 1/250sec, f/10

Side Lighting (Sun 90 degrees to the left of camera)

ISO 200, 18mm, 1/200sec, f/10

Edge lighting (Sun in front of camera, slightly to the left outside of frame)

ISO 200, 18mm, 1/400sec, f/10

Back Lighting (Sun directly in front of camera and behind subject)

ISO 200, 28mm, 1/3200sec, f/10

Front lighting shows all of the subjects detail and the background very well. Side lighting shows half of the subject in shade and half illuminated, detail is still visible but hard to make out in shaded area. Edge lighting shows little detail as the subject is almost silhouetted but is slightly lit along one edge, perhaps using a tripod and longer exposure would have enabled me to capture more detail of the subject. Edge lighting has a much greater effect when the background is shaded as the light on the edge is easier to see. Back lighting turns the subject into a silhouette, the sky is detailed but only the outline of the subjects in the foreground is visible.

Using a Meter

Film and CCD (charge-coupled device) sensors are less efficient than human eyes at recording what they see and therefore the suggested exposure settings produced by a camera's meter may not always be the best. A well exposed photograph as that which appears identical to how you remember the scene. Detail should be visible in the lightest parts and the darkest parts shouldnt be completely black or featureless.

Most scenes are neither completely light or completely black so the most convenient way of measuring the light is to point the meter at the subject. The meter will provide the photographer with a shutter speed and aperture that will give an average exposure. Through-the-lens camera meters work well most of the time.

My Canon EOS 450D has four different Metering Modes, these are:

• Evaluative Metering; The camera analyzes the entire frame, it then selects an exposure that's designed to produce a balanced exposure
• Partial Metering; The camera bases exposure only on the light that falls on the centre 9% of the frame
• Spot Metering; Similar to Partial Metering however it only bases exposure on the centre 4% of the frame
• Centre-Weighted Average Metering; The camera bases exposure on the entire frame but puts extra emphasis/weight on the centre

Evaluative metering is what I'll be using most of the time until I become a bit more experienced.

After flicking through "the textbook" (Photography A Concise History by Ian Jeffrey) I have found a number of pictures that I feel have been purposely over or under exposed in order to capture specific qualities.

The high contrast, black and white photograph on page 19 is slightly over exposed (Maxime Du Camp 'The Eastern Part of the Peristyle of the Temple of Rameses - Meiamoun. Medinet-Habou (Thebes)'. I can see from the shadows that the sun is directly overhead. The stone is white and due to the direction of the light the carved details can be easily made out.

Page 73 displays a slightly under exposed photograph (Eugene Atget 'Marble Vase by Jean Cornu, Versailles'. The Photographer possibly chose to under expose this capture to emphasise the shadows that outline the subjects detail.

Page 93 shows a photograph of an over exposed female. (Robert Demachy 'Academie'). The model's position combined with the direction of light emphasise her shape. The light source is above and behind the model, she is almost a silhouette however the photographer has over exposed his image to capture details of her body.

On page 201, the exposure of 'In the Kitchen' by Bill Brandt has been set to capture the table and models surrounding it as accurately as possible rather than averaging the light entering the camera from the entire room. The light source is directly above the table therefore this area is very bright, under exposing slightly will keep the table nicely exposed but make the background slightly darker.

I have taken four photographs which exposures are either lighter or darker than average, below I will explain why.

ISO 200, 55mm, 1/60sec, f/5.6

The snow in my first photograph made the background extremely bright, the meter tried to average the scene but the snows overwhelming brightness meant that the leaves were too dark. I had to over expose the shot by two stops in order to correctly expose the leaves and berries.

ISO 400, 18mm, 1/2000sec, f/6.3

I took my second shot outside Monument underground station in London. The Monument was erected to commemorate the Great fire of London and celebrate the rebuilding of the city. I over exposed this shot by 1 stop otherwise the monument would have appeared as a silhouette.

ISO 200, 36mm, 1/3200sec, f/5.6

I under exposed this shot by too stops because I wanted to capture as much detail in the sky as possible. Cropping a lot of the dark area at the bottom off this image would probably improve it

ISO 1600, 55mm, 1/25sec, f/5.6

The last photograph is of my girlfriend Lindsay. I decided to underexpose this photo because the light on her face is very bright and I like how my eyes are drawn straight to it without their attention being caught by the rest of the image.

‘Bracketing’ is the term used to describe taking a series of slightly different exposures of the same picture. This technique offers useful insurance to photographers that are unsure about which exposure setting will look the best.

Next I will bracket a few subjects to see if there are any exposures that I prefer to the average. There will be five versions of each image, average exposure in the middle, overexposed by 2 stops at the top and underexposed by 2 stops at the bottom.

My first subject is a plaque on the side of a World War One commemorative statue at St Martin's Church in Sale.

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Out of the five exposures above I most prefer the shot that is underexposed by 1 stop. The detail appears more defined and the dates on the stone are very easy to read.

Next, during my visit to Hartshead Pike I decided to bracket some shots of the Tower there.

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My favourite shot here is again the one that is underexposed by one stop. The suns rays are visible streaming round the sides of the tower which they aren't as much at -2 stops. The silhouette of the tower and the plant on the left against the highly detailed sky make for a very interesting photograph.

My next shot was taking in Newcastle, I liked the combination of the nice sky, trees, grass, fence and snow so I took the shot.

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My favourite here is at +1 stop. Detail in all parts of the photograph are visible and the snow doesn't appear pure white, it seems a little grey but I like this as it truely portrays the time of day. The sun is setting and it's getting darker.

This shot was taken at Hartshead Pike.

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I have two favourites here; my first being at -2 stops and second being at +1. I like -2 because the sky is very detailed and this highly contrasts with the silhouetted foreground. I like +1 because it's not so bright that detail in the sky has been washed out but it's bright enough to bring the foreground into view in full detail.

My last shot was also taken on top of Hartshead Pike. It is the view from the top towards The City of Manchester.

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I feel that at -1 stop this shot looks the best. All of the detail in the sky, background are visible. The foreground is a little dark but as the day is coming to an end this helps to show an accurate representation of the time of day.

Weather, Illness, Postal Strikes and Work

All I've been able to do recently is fill my notebook with ideas of places I'd like to go, techniques I'd like to try and subjects I'd like to shoot. Having taken on more hours at work; combined with severe Tonsillitis, Postal strikes and the extremely bad/usual weather of Manchester, my ability to complete projects and Assignment 3 are somewhat being hindered. The recent postal strikes have meant that books and equipment ordered online are taking longer to arrive. I tend to shop online opposed to going to actual shops as items can be found at much cheaper prices and it's usually a lot more convenient. I have managed to take my camera out on a couple of trips on the only two nice days Manchester has seen this Autumn. During these trips I managed to capture many usable photographs for the projects of Natural Light but still have a long way to go. As for Assignment 3, I would like to shoot Manchester's major landmarks or maybe even base it around Manchester's tallest building, Beetham Tower aka The Hilton Tower, I shall choose my landmarks or viewpoints during the bad weather and return when things perk up.

Through the Day

Ok so I’ve finally managed to finish the Through The Day project!! It was a lot hard than I originally thought! My photographs are from multiple days because 99% of the days I’m able to be in one place all day the weather is terrible! I set my camera on a tripod at the end end of my drive and marked its position so I could return to the same spot and attempt to to keep the same exposure. I took these photographs throughout June 10 so that’s why the day is so long.

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It is clear from the photos that there are many different types of light throughout the day. In the early morning and evening when the sun is low, shadows are long and the sky has other colours in it than just blue. When clouds pass in front of the sun, the light becomes diffused and shadows are less visible. I feel that the early morning and late afternoon light is the most appealing, the long shadows and colourful sky really help to produce an attractive photograph.