Assignment 3: Feedback & Corrections

Once again, I received my tutors response with a degree of trepidation.  My greatest concern was whether or not I had sufficient variety within the set to meet the requirements of the assignment.  By now I appreciate that it is largely up to me to set the parameters for the assignment, however, there is still a standard to be met.  As it turned out my tutor was fine with the assignment and in particular felt that this work "Appears to be leading you on a path to positive, future development".  This is what this assignment was all about for me, development.  In other assignments I have had more of a "demonstrate ability" mindset.  With Transient Light I deliberately set out to do something very different from previous work and adopted a new working methodology.  I start to understand the need for patience and perseverance in photography, especially when trying to build a coherent statement, versus a disparate set of images.

Within the feedback was a paragraph that discussed the reasons for making such photographs and the degree to which the photographer leaves an element of themselves within their photographs.  In particular the degree to which the digital photographer can set the mood of a photograph in the post processing process.  This assignment, more than any other to date, got to grips with personal questions about why I take photographs and what I value.  This assignment seduced me into wanting to take more and more images, always searching for that perfect juxtaposition of light and form together with the softening affect of the mist. Each week the space evolves, the sun angles in from a progressively different direction as the days now start to shorten.  I want to understand this place and the light within it, I feel drawn to continue, there are still many puzzles to be solved.  I do find myself struggling for "newness" in the photographs, but that comes with time, even if it is simply that a tree loses or regains its leaves.

There was some critique, I still fail to take enough care over the final preparation of my images, in particular stepping back and placing myself in the eyes of the viewer. This was the case for the third image, where I had over-enhanced the contrast to the extent that I nearly was rendering the top right hand corner Black.  This was the starting image, before any developing

The image I submitted, needed a fairly severe Black point adjustment to ensure that the running figure had enough presence in the photograph:

This led to the overly dark top left corner. I have taken the photo and applied a graduated filter to this area, sloping at around 45 degrees and then increased the exposure of this corner.  The great thing about this adjustment is that it is localized to the area of the image having too little brightness.

This is now better balanced and looks more natural.

Otherwise, my tutor was complementary, especially about #7, which he described as "delightful"; I have to confess I agree, this  is one of the best shots I have yet taken.  It is central to my thinking about imagery of a living breathing city.  All that's needed now is to print the corrected image and add it into my new Silverprint A3 portfolio box...

Assignment 3: Submission Note

Assignment 3: a linking theme – “Transient Light”

Introduction

It is often the green space rather than the buildings that defines the character of a city.  Munich, more than most cities, enjoys large expanses of parkland, partly a legacy of recent reconstruction, but also due to foresight in the early planning of the city.  Created in 1789 the Englischer Garten is a vast swath of parkland stretching 5 km North from the city centre, covering nearly 4 square kilometres of ground.  “English Gardens” refers both to the style of the park and to its creator, Sir Benjamin Thompson, an Englishman serving as the Bavarian war minister.  Originally conceived by Thompson as a space for War Veterans to cultivate for food and to generate income, the park quickly evolved into a public garden.

Today it is the green lung of the city, a space truly loved by Munich’s citizens and through the several excellent beer gardens, by many of its visitors.  From spring until autumn the park is crowded with people escaping the heat of their apartments, seeking open ground to picnic, play sports, party, or simply drowse in the sun. In winter, snow and ice transform the park into a venue for sledging and skating, whilst the beer gardens switch to Mulled Wine. 

Early in the morning the park takes on a very different character; the only people to be found are dog walkers, fitness enthusiasts and a few hardy souls cycling to work.  At this time the park seems almost endless, sounds of the city are softened by the surrounding trees, and it is possible to imagine that you are deep in the countryside.  When the weather is just right streams flowing through the park emit a fine mist that struggles to rise far above the ground.  Sun rise quickly burns away the mist, but for a short time just before and after dawn the air is filled with a magical luminance, “Transient Light”.

Content

As I finalized my photographs for Assignment 2 of Landscape, I found myself needing to photograph something other than architecture, but also to commit to a long term project.  The subject for this assignment arose almost by accident when I was shooting some autumn shots for my portfolio.  The seasonal element of the portfolio will be a series of 4 photographs taken from a small hill looking towards Munich’s historical skyline across the southern part of the Englischer Garten.  As it is a South West facing view, I needed to shoot early in the morning for the best lighting.  At 7am on the 3rd October I took the above photo.  I was immediately intrigued by the mist lying low in the park and walked down towards the stream that runs across the park just behind the clump of trees in the foreground of the photograph.  As I arrived the sun was just rising above the Eastern tree line creating dramatic changes in the light, especially in  the low lying mist. This fascinated me and I spent a happy 30 minutes exploring the light with my camera.

From this I evolved the idea of an extended study of this early morning light in the park, targeting the creation of a photo book and accompanying DVD setting the photographs to music.  With Christmas in mind and the book as a planned gift, I needed to complete the photography by mid-November, giving me 6 weeks to develop and complete the project.  Hitting my deadline I had ample material for the concept I had in mind and produced the following book/video.

Book: http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/2676918

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtHrdevU6iE&context=C3580bc0ADOEgsToPDskKxNgEiWjQ-cVPLKNL5tWl_

At this stage I took stock and decided that I was not finished with this project, so opted to extend it into the subject for this assignment.  This subject gave me a chance to explore a different facet of the city, something softer than the glass, concrete and steel that has dominated my earlier assignments. The question of the theme arose, my book was titled “Transient Light”, but in truth I have only really considered a very finite subset of transient light, specifically the evolution of dawn light and its interaction with ground mist. The assignment calls for 8 different photographs illustrating a single theme, but, how different need different be?

Furthermore, I am limiting my imagery to a very specific locale, no larger than a few football fields and immediately adjacent to the Eisbach stream that runs through the middle of the park.  Working in this small area had become very important to me; I got to know every tree and fold in the ground, and could anticipate the quality of light based upon weather forecast and time of day.  The whole experience became increasingly personal; I found myself relating very strongly to where I was and became attuned to the gradual changes in the park as autumn passed into winter.  I explored other locations, still within the park, but the imagery I obtained, whilst consistent with the basic brief of the assignment did not sit well with the other photographs.

By selecting a small locals and specific time of day I have tried to bring focus to the quality of the light as the defining element within the photographs, the “difference” being more to do with light than topology.  But, I still understand the need to create interest in the subject matter.  As with my other photographic assignments, people are an important element within these photographs, a city is as much its people as its landscape. I found that the dawn light could be divided into 4 distinct colour palettes.

• Before dawn the world was basically white with muted pastel colours emerging from the mist.
• As the sun rose and crossed the tree line it turned the mist golden and yielded an almost sepia monochrome lighting. 
• As the ground froze with winter, the air cleared and colour became dominated by the blue sky reflecting in the frozen ground and water; accented by bright yellow sunlight diffusing through the sparse mist. 
• Finally, as the sun climbed higher in the sky, it gave way to the full spectrum of colours, but softened by the mist. 

My photographs are thus divided into 4 pairs each illustrating these colour palettes, but within each pair a very different compositional strategy.  Extending this project further, as I intend to do, I expect the environment to change further; the snow we have missed thus far will sharpen the contrast, whilst the soft greens of spring will bring yet another tonality to my photographs.

Before moving onto a discussion of the more practical elements of completing this assignment, I must say that I was greatly influenced in producing these pictures by two photographers whose work I was studying at the time.  Both photographers have produced work that is very much a study of colour and tone, with structural elements playing a secondary role in their photography.  The first photographer was Joel Meyerowitz and his “Cape Light”, a series of beautiful softly lit studies of Cape Cod.  The second is Richard Misrach and his book “The Sky Book”.   Misrach takes the theme of colour far further than Meyerowitz, most of the photographs in the book are simply studies of early morning skies shot in the US deserts.  The only details are clouds and star trails created in some of the very long exposures.  His work is very emotive and for me very personal, the book was a favorite of my father who lost a 6 month battle with a post-operative infection 4 years ago.  This book was always at his side, it somehow helped ease some of the pain.  A retired high-energy physicist, at the time he was studying for a degree in art and was a keen amateur astronomer; his ashes were buried beneath his telescope plinth in the garden.  I think that is a good deal to do with why I am enrolled in this course.

Practice

The challenge was to create 8 photographs within a small space with sufficient visual variety to create a compelling submission. I visited the park in the hour of dawn over 20 times from early October until late December; then faced the task of reducing 2,730 images down to 8 for this submission.  Editing and sequencing proved very challenging, indeed it is those skills that I find myself struggling with far more than the actual technical capture and processing of the photographs. 

My evening task was to check the weather and obtain the forecast temperature and humidity for 7am the following day.  From these two numbers I could calculate the dew point and with reasonable assurance predict whether there would be sufficient ground mist to make a trip worthwhile.  The selected area of the park is 40 minutes walk from my home.  I needed to be on site about 30 minutes before the sun rose above the trees fringing the park, giving me roughly 60 minutes worth of useable light before the sun either rose too high or the mist evaporated in the warm light.

Unlike other photographic exercises I took a fairly casual approach to selection of equipment, this was about capturing mood in low light levels rather than creating pixel precise imagery.  I predominantly used my Canon 5D2 and 24-105mm zoom, Image Stabilization and high ISO helping greatly in the early morning gloom.  I did use a 70-300mm zoom, but quickly found that whilst the telephoto compression was useful, shots taken from a distance became overly dull due to the intervening fog. For the two photographs with a blue caste I had my very much unexpected Christmas present, a Fujifilm Finepix X100, a lovely fixed lens “rangefinder” style camera with a 35mm field of view.  This proved to be an excellent tool for this assignment; I only wish I could have used it earlier.  I abandoned use of a tripod, I found it too restrictive and as the light was continually changing I needed to be quite mobile.  I also wanted to capture moving people, so there was little value to be gained from  the longer exposures a tripod would permit.

I have chosen a very deliberate 2:1 almost panoramic aspect ratio for all of the photographs in this project.  This was primarily driven by the need for continuity in the book and video, but also because it worked well with the subject matter I had to deal with.  Once I had selected the final 8 images, all were put through Lightroom for conversion to Tiffs for printing.  As some of the images are far more marginal in terms of definition than I would normally work with I wanted to ensure that prints would look right and so took care to print each to A3 size on Matte paper. I feel that the Matte paper works well with the softer colours in these photographs and holds the blacks very well.

Learning

1. Shooting over and over again at around the same time in the same space enabled me to get much closer to my subject. I was better able to predict when and where the best lighting conditions would occur and could time my movements accordingly.
2. Although not an element of this specific submission, the development of the book and video forced me to think very carefully about sequencing a set of photographs, both from a subject, but also from a colour continuity perspective.
3. Although this was by far the most “Landscape” project I have yet to undertake, I find myself needing to include people in the photographs, I am uncomfortable with images that do not ground themselves in the human experience.  Whilst, not Social Documentary, this human element is starting to become a key element of my work.

Location

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=munich&hl=en&ll=48.147269,11.590158&spn=0.0099,0.019945&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=108.083526,49.306641&vpsrc=6&hnear=Munich,+Oberbayern,+Bavaria,+Germany&t=h&z=17

Assignment 3: The Photographs

It took some time, but I finally managed to edit down to the 8 shots that became the submission for this assignment.  This was a far more difficult task than I have experienced in the past, primarily, I believe, because the set had a limited narrative.  There is a story, it is about the changing of the light both as the dawn progresses, but then modulated by the changing time of year.  However, this story has multiple means for expression and my photographs could have been sequenced with many different scheme, time of day, colour, date, location.

As it turned out I decided to follow a rough timeline associated with the changes in the light as the sun rose.  From early October to late December the absolute time of these events changed, however, there was a distinct chronology in the sequencing.  I was quickly able to sort the photographs into 4 distinct colour groups, White, Gold, Blue, and Full spectrum.  It could be argued that there were more, however, others were simply variations on one of these 4.  I opted to take 2 photographs from each colour grouping with very different compositional content.  The structure and arrangement of objects in the frame was a consideration, but by far subordinate to the quality of the colour of light and its interaction with the mist.  In my write up I reference Joel Meyerowitz and Richard Misrach, two photographic artists who also place colour above structure as the guiding element in their landscape photographs.

When I finally arrived at the 8 photographs I decided not to use titles or to provide any exposure data, I did not think this relevant to the study and in particular the exposure data would add a technical note to a set of images in which feeling and emotion have a greater import.  I did, however, label each photograph with the date and time on which it was captured.  Here came the big surprise!  Without any intent I found that the 8 images came from 5 shoots out of the 22+ that made up my overall project.  Probability theory alone would probably suggest one pair on the same date, but 3?  I guess there were simply days when the conditions simply worked and produced a richer vein of photographs.

In any case, here are the photographs, together with the description used in my submission document:

9^th November 7:28am

Early, well before sunrise, light barely penetrates the early morning mist

I start my set with this deliberately washed out capture of a small stand of trees in the centre of the park.  Adding this image to the set took some thought and is risky.  I have individually stronger images than this, however, this is a key stage in the gradual illumination of the park and so an important part of the story.

21^st October 8:10am

As the light brightens, colour and form start to emerge from the blanket of mist

Whilst developing this extended project I found that cropping the tops of the trees pulled the eye into the frame to explore what is behind the trees, rather than pulling back and looking at the trees themselves. Here I have used this device to bring attention to the two people emerging from the background mist. 

14^th October 8:17am

Momentarily the sun floods the mist with golden light. 

In this photograph I have tried to capture the essence of this evocative light and the interplay with the mist. I have included the jogger to add an element of scale and movement to the photograph, but my intent with this photograph was colour versus form.

14^th October 8:14am

Punctuating the light, a silhouetted tree projects its shadow into the mist.

Taken at almost the same time as the 3^rd image, this shot has a very different visual quality.  The tree shapes the light through the shadows cast into the mist rising from the now visible water. Once more, early morning inhabitants of the park add movement and an element of humanity to the photograph. 

27^th December 9:11am

As the year closes a frigid blue contrasts the golden warmth of the sun.

The combination of thin mist with an icy ground and clear sky has created a blue landscape punctuated here and there by the golden light of the sun. I only had moments to capture the delicate lighting of the mist rising from the cold water.  This and the next photograph were taken with my new Fujifilm X100. The quality of blue is something I think Fuji deliberately builds into their cameras, a legacy of their colour film past.

27^th December 8:37am

Low lying mist explodes with colour as the rising sun penetrates winter trees.

During my many early morning visits to the park I was fascinated by occasional low lying bands of mist, but struggled to capture anything more than a muddy line in my photographs.  On this morning, the sun rising through the trees briefly set the mist afire adding the necessary drama to the shot, helped by the ubiquitous cyclist.  I have wondered whether the cyclist was aware of the blaze they appeared to be cycling through.

21^st  October 8:25am

As the morning commute hits its peak, the sun gradually warms the autumn trees

My most evocative shots were generally taken with the lens pointing into the direction of the sun; however, looking the other way I captured a more tranquil softer light.  During this study I also spent much time observing cyclists in the park waiting for juxtapositions of light and bicycle.

29^th October 9:01am

Suddenly the drama is over and the world settles back to its familiar colour palette.

My final shot captures the park in the minutes just after the sun has risen high enough to completely flood the park with light, but not yet warm away the remaining mist.  This short stretch of stream and the trees in the background were the location for all of the photographs in this set

Assignment 3: 30 Images

In my last post I developed a framework of 10 shot types from which I plan to make my final selection.  To being that process I have chosen 3 images that best fulfill each criteria.  In doing so I am developing a visual language for the submission, to enable me to further refine the selection.  My final selection need not be from these 30, however, now that I understand this typography I can revisit my catalog and pull shots that might work better in the context of the assignment, versus the book for which these images were originally developed:

1. Pre-dawn Mist: Almost white ghostly forms

2. Brighter Mist: Colour begins to emerge and definition improves

3. Sun starts to warms the mist - golden glow

4. The contrast greatly increases and people enter the frame

5. Sun gets high enough that rays start to appear in the mist

6. Light under trees

7. Sun starts to warm the trees or buildings

8. Bright sky just before dawn, reflected in water

9. Sun star as it breaks through or above the trees

10. Reveal shot showing the end of the process

Next step, a lot of heartache, although I do think some choices are pretty clear!

Assignment 3: The Final Cut

I am currently grappling with the problem of trying to select 8 photos from the series of Early Morning visits to the southern area of the Englischer Garten.  To provide context to that problem, here are a few numbers:

• First Visit: 3rd October 2011
• Latest Visit: 27th December 2011
• All photos taken between 7am and 9am
• Number of Separate Visits: 22
• Number of Images: 2,730 (October 1,586, November 341, December 903)
• Number selected for Book/Video: 54

Now I need to get down to 8 photographs.  It was difficult to edit down to 54 for the book, and since then I have had new wintery light that has added to the library.  Clearly I have been editing/selecting following each individual shoot and from this I have 309 first selects!  I have now pulled the set down to 34 and now face the final struggle to move to the final 8.

This does ask questions about my working technique for this assignment versus others.  Previously I have had a clear understanding of what I wanted to achieve and how I planned to achieve it - pretty early on in an assignment I would evolve a concept and then shoot to that concept.  Everything was tightly controlled, down to pre-selection of lenses and lighting conditions for given shots.  With "Transient Light" I have taken a very different approach and one that I feel better suits the subject matter.  Transient Light is as much an emotional response to my earlier work as it is a set of photographs.  Looking back at this course and previous ones my assignments have been very tightly controlled, frequently driven by a strong narrative or visual style.  Transient Light is very much the opposite.

This assignment started as a personal project, a desire to create an individual and different Christmas gift for friends and family.  Somewhat tired with the commercialism of Christmas and the pressure to buy something that would be both individual and something that the recipient actually had any use for,  I wanted to do something very different.  At the time I also wanted to explore some ideas around book creation, so brought the two together into an extended project.  

What was supposed to be a small series of shoots in the Autumn mist extended into a long term study of how the light changes with the months in a small part of the city park.  I quickly found that I was reveling in the soft morning light and began to develop a strong affinity to this small patch of ground and the people who criss-crossed it every morning.  By shooting in the same small space I was able to concentrate more on the light than the composition - only a finite number compositional designs could work and so enabled focus on time and light.  Many times I spent an hour simply walking in a large lazy circle watching the shadows develop, waiting for the sun to cross the tree line.  Although each visit lasted for about 90 minutes, the peak lighting would last for no more than a few minutes.

Weeks turned into months and the project continued to build, Summer became Autumn and then Winter took hold.  The trees changed from Green to Gold and then to skeletal forms.  As the trees changed the city began to become visible in the images.  The mist from the Eisbach peaked in late October, but made occasional reappearances.  The place was the same, the angles did not change, but the light continually evolved.  I could not plan these shoots, I simply tried to judge when the weather would be good for both the sun and the mist, headed to the park in near darkness and then waited to see if I would be lucky.  My previous working practice could not work, this was an exercise in planned serendipity.

The result is a very large number of images all exploring early morning light in a small space.  The question I now face is how to turn this body of work into 8 images "which all address, in different ways, a common theme".  The problem word in this assignment brief is "different", how different?  I cannot submit a set of images that have no thematic or visual continuity, it goes against everything I feel for my photography, however, I must be careful not to submit a set of images that are too similar.  I have less variety than I had hoped for, largely due to the very warm weather we have enjoyed, ice and snow are still rare at this moment. I do not want to wait any longer to submit, this could extend almost indefinitely (and will - I have no plan to stop this project).

Another question is the theme, I started with Transient Light, but in reality have only considered a very specific form of transient light, the movement of dawn light.  Others exist, storms, sunsets, immediately come to mind, although the latter is simply a reverse of the former, with an admittedly different colour palette.  .  At some point I have to stop, now is that time, my deadline is approaching and soon my job will start eating my free time once more.  

My first question for submission is whether to change the title, technically this set is "Dawn Light", a special case of "Transient Light".  Currently I will continue with the more lyrical sounding Transient Light, but this is still an important issue to resolve, the title will set an expectation in the set of images.

The question now is how to go from the 34 final images to the 8?  First of all I must decide what the 8 different "Transient Light" cases are going to be.  Looking through the images and grouping them visually I have come to the following 8 "Transient Lights":

1. Pre-dawn Mist:  Almost white ghostly forms
2. Brighter Mist: Colour begins to emerge and definition improves
3. Sun starts to warms the mist - golden glow
4. The contrast greatly increases and people enter the frame
5. Sun gets high enough that rays start to appear in the mist
6. Light under trees
7. Sun starts to warm the trees or buildings
8. Bright sky just before dawn, reflected in water
9. Sun star as it breaks through or above the trees
10. Reveal shot showing the end of the process

OK, that is 10, but that starts to illustrate the problem I have. However, now that I have a working framework within which to set the images I can start a step-wise refinement of the selection process.  I will continue to Blog my thoughts as I step through this process.

Context and Narrative

A noticeable difference in my working practice since starting this course has been the need to contextualize my work and to provide a robust narrative to each photograph and to the set as a whole.  In the first year courses I found myself primarily concerned with the formal aspects of composition and managing image quality from capture through to print.  Whilst these skills are of great importance and still in need of further development, they are no longer enough to create a photograph that has meaning for me, let alone my audience.  Prior to studying photography as an art form, I would have said that composition and image quality were the be all and end all of what I wanted in a photograph.  Now I see the world very differently.

The big question when I take a photograph now is WHY, not WHAT, WHERE, or HOW.

With the last two assignments, I have undertaken difficult stories born in terrible catastrophe, trying to show through my photographs how Munich has moved from the dark into the light.  Taking the photographs was only an element of the activity, equally important was to research the history and then work out how to weave a story in the photographs.  The subject matter was risky, a Brit living in Germany commenting on Munich's Nazi past must do so with respect for both the victims, but also the descendants of the perpetrators who are equally as innocent.  A key outcome of this experience was that choosing a photograph for display had as much to do with the viewer as it did with the subject.  In both assignments I shot well over 1,000 frames and had in the region of 50 good photographs.  Reducing them to the 12 needed was very hard, far harder than taking them in the first place.  This gets to the WHY of photography, why I take the photographs is one thing, why I chose this shot versus another to display and why I place them in this order can determine whether a viewer accepts my images or simply passes them by.

Looking back I can say that Context dealt with why I took the photographs and selected this subject, Narrative determined why I selected the 12 I did and the order that I then placed them in.  As I work on assignment 3 I am finding that this awakening of awareness of the importance of Narrative and Context is making progress very difficult.  When I started this project the goal was simply to study the changing light of dawn and its interaction with the humid air of Autumn.  As the photographs developed, I found that I was building a sequence of images, from the bleak whiteness of pre-dawn mist into the light enfused golden glow of dawn and finally into the blue of early morning.  This developed into a sequence of 54 photographs, published as a book.  The narrative is simple, it is the awakening of the day and the study of light arriving in a new day.  Context is provided by shooting all photographs in one small quarter of a city park, a demonstration of the beauty that can be found in a small area of a vast city.

However, the assignment calls for 8 differing photographs with a linking theme.  I can do that, but this seems to be an exercise in illustration, losing the subject contact that continuity in the images could bring to my work.  I feel I have the versatility to show a broad span of lighting conditions, but every time I look at the photographs together they do not work as a set, context exists, but narrative is killed.  Perhaps that is the nature of this assignment, however, my head is somewhere else, I want each assignment to be a photo essay, not a series of technical challenges.  This will need more development over the next 3 weeks before the deadline for submission arrives.

An unexpected outcome of my increasing awareness of the critical importance of Context and Narrative is a changing feeling about the equipment I use.  Over the last 3 years I have been adding a progressively expensive array of lenses to my kit, mostly fast primes, seeking to optimize image quality in any given situation.  In the last 8 weeks I have almost only used an f/4 24-105mm zoom, a damn good lens, but far from the best.  However, what I trade in quality, I get back in versatility, enabling me to better capture my inner vision of the photograph, worrying less about aperture, speed, and quality, more about does the photograph contain the message I want to  deliver. Interesting..

Oh, and prior to submitting my last assignment I read the following:

Amazon

This helped me to develop many of the thoughts I have expressed here.

Assignment 3: Video

Part of the development of my "Transient Light" book was creation of a slide show set to music to be inserted as a DVD into the back of the book.   My first thought was to raid my CD collection for something with the right degree of serenity and long enough to enable the photos to be viewed properly.  However, using copyright music would have limited how I could distribute the video, so I searched for some rights free music, or rather music that I would pay a fee for that would then permit use on the internet and incorporation into a short run DVD release.

I found a suitable track on musicmediatracks.com, Velvet Dreams, just over 7 minutes long.  Cost was 15 Euros and allowed me to use it in a web site and on up to 500 copies of a DVD. I would have preferred, "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, but as well as being a terrible cliche, would also have been illegal.

Putting the video together was challenging and needed a couple of attempts plus some very useful advice from fellow students, for which I am very grateful, especially Stuart who provided good input on the timing.  What I found was that the opening 1 minute was quite unstructured and needed careful transition planning.  The music then settled down to a regular beat, a 7.5s transition timing seemed to work well.  Finally the music goes into a less rhythmic flow which allowed more creative placement of the final few images.  I used adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Encore CS4 to build the video and then DVD.  Overkill, these are very sophisticated tools, but it was a good learning experience.



My overall goal was to create a soothing flow of images, taking the viewer from the whiteness of the pre-dawn mist into the rich colour of the sunrise and finally into the clarity of day.  This followed the same sequence as the book and is designed to compliment the paper based images.

The question I now face is whether to actually use this as a part of my submission for the course, it is far more than 8 photographs, but conversely is taking my photography in a new direction.  Need to consult with my tutor.

Assignment 3: Winter

The past few weeks have been very unproductive, no blogging and only a limited amount of photography.  My workload went through the roof and a combination of preparation for Christmas and my 48th birthday, kept the weekends very busy.  Another distraction was the preparation and publication of two photo books, more about this is later posts.  However, I have still been getting up early and hitting the park at dawn to work on photos for Assignment 3.  Since the beginning of October, I have made 21 separate visits to take photographs.  This is by far the most effort I have applied to any photographic project for the OCA, only diving trips have involved more photography and even then only over two weeks, not 3 months.

A major change has happened since the last time I commented on this set of photographs, the onset of winter.  With winter has come a change to the landscape, leaves have gone, bare trees now permit a view of what lies outside the park.  The park now seems much more a part of the city, rather than the green oasis of summer.  The other major change is in the light, the mists of Autumn have gone, the soft golden light has been replaced by a hard cold  blue.  So far the weather has been un-seasonally warm, little or no snow and even a lack of ground frost.  On the occasional days when the clouds part and the rain stops I have headed down to the park, but as yet the results have not been very good.  A key problem comes from the tonality of the landscape now, compared to that of a few months ago.  The brief for Assignment 3 calls for variety, however, I desire narrative consistency in my photographs and so far I am looking at strong colour clashes - maybe I can resolve this, I think it is a perception issue for me rather than an issue with the photographs.  I am also thinking about a slight shift of emphasis in the title, from "Transient Light" to "Dawn Light".  Subtle, but reflecting the fact that all of the photographs have been taken in the dawn.

In this post I am summarizing shots from my past 4 shoots, in fact 6 visits, but 2 of them were totally unproductive due to poor light.  I decided to check out a slightly different part of the park, about 500m north of the area that I have shot so far.  This location contains the Kleinhesseloher See, which apart from hosting one of the best beer gardens in the city is a popular boating lake and a favorite haunt for water birds.  My thoughts on visiting this location was to add some variety to the set, using the water to add reflections and using the birds to add a different type of movement to the photographs.

The above two photographs have great light and colour, but also illustrate the contrast to the misty golden images of autumn, but perhaps that is a part of the point, to show variety and versatility.

The sky was quite amazing and whilst the above is unlikely to make my collection, it is a dramatic almost painterly image.  The next uses the same sky, but with a reflection into the water, counterpointing the sky.

I have also given some thought to whether it would make sense to frame the photos with overhanging branches.  Not sure, might be a little too twee...

Well that was sunrise over the lake.  I struggle with the huge visual contrast between these shots and the ones I took during Autumn, again this might fit the brief, but can it generate a sequence of photographs that possess harmony and balance as a set.

Returning to my usual haunt and with very different light, I shot the following sequence as the sun slowly started to illuminate the park.  Across the set of images is a 5 stop difference in light levels, the first image has 32x less light than the last, or 3% of the illumination.  As the sky was totally clear the light was very even, leaving the first image looking the brightest.  I have varied the framing, including more or less of the stream, as well as adjusting the focal length, but have kept to the same horizontal Gurskiesk view.

The final shot was made with a 2 stop ND Grad filter, completely changed the colour balance of the sky.  I very occasionally use these things, but have never been happy with the result, expect in the tropics, where it is that or white sky.  I am also not a great fan of Pol filters, again for the same reasons.  Both filters improve contrast and add colour, but the effect is usually very obvious and too strong.  I find the combination of the dynamic range of my 5D2 and the processing latitude in Lightroom can manager most situations.  Those that can't were marginal anyway.  I am quite happy with these shots, although I think there is still development needed in this concept.

This sequence of photographs has resulted in the evolution of a new set of practices, checking the weather the night before, hoping for cold, but clear weather.  Then getting up early and checking the sky, looking for stars or the moon to indicate what the cloud cover looks like.  A couple of times I got this wrong and headed out in darkness only to arrive at the park as dawn begins under a completely overcast sky.  Still, it's a good walk and a great way to start the day.  The other issue has been timing.  The light is good for around 90 minutes each morning.  About 30 minutes before dawn there is enough light to start shooting, but it is very blue and hand holding the camera is a challenge.  I take my monopod which helps, but I still need a 1/10s or better exposure.  I have fallen out of love with my tripod as it is cumbersome and inhibits my style.  I guess once we have snow I will need to use it to generate some early shots with the white lighting that the snow brings.  About 15 minutes before sunrise, the sky hits peak colour and I can work with the sunrise, not my thing really.  Once the sun crosses the horizon the light begins to change, colour drains from the sky and begins to fill the park.  It takes another 30 minutes for the sun to actually rise above the buildings and trees.  My most productive time is from around 15 minutes before and after the sun clips the tops of the trees.  I have some software that I consult for the timing of dawn, which I then cross reference with the dew point and then finally the forecast weather.

Taking all of this into account, Monday looked good with broken cloud and sub-zero temperature, but no chance of mist as the air was very dry.  I decided to leave the house before sunrise and as I headed across the river towards the park, was forced to stop and pull out my camera.  I wondered whether the people stuck in the usual morning rush, were able to fully appreciate the glory of that morning.

Arriving at the park, I decided yet again to work the Eisbach into a few shots, starting with yet another Gursky inspired composition, this time capturing the last of the dawn sky, just before the sun clipped the tree line.

The above is a variation on framing, not something I plan to use, but interesting.  My plan is to stick to the 2x1 framing for this set.  A key effect I am looking for at present is the reflection of the sunrise in the water and in the grass.  The latter only happens if the ground is frozen, snow or frost will work.  So far the weather has been too warm, although as I write this it is snowing outside, so hope yet

The last shot in this sequence, closed the shooting as cloud rolled over the landscape, however, this is the best image in the set, the pastel tonality of the ground combined with the sky has a subtle and soothing effect.

My last few photographs in this lengthy post were taken during a much earlier arrival at the park, this time around 30 minutes before dawn.  Earlier I mentioned the 5 stop range in the sequence that I took.  These shots are 6 stops darker, so now I have an 11 stop range in these photos, this is 0.05% of the light available for the brighter shots taken just after dawn.  I had to sue a monopod, but it does still amaze me that a camera can take such shots.  The world is very blue and very different from previous images.

The last couple of shots work the same scene as earlier, but trying to capture the light in the house windows as dawn rises.  I think I am too early and without a tripod the quality is limited, ISO3200 is pretty noisy at the detailed level.

I still have a month or so before I need to submit this set, and I am thinking that I will need to ask for more time.  My greatest problem still remains the weather, I am waiting for snow or frost.  I think this will create images that are very much more harmonious with the Autumn shots, although I guess I could do themes pairs, using a colour key - Gold, Red, Blue, and White.

Christmas is around the corner and family commitments, plus the inevitable thick head will limit the number of days I can pursue the morning light.