Panorama and Assembled Images

Assembled Images

This assignment was one of my favorite as it was really fun to shoot! It was simple : all we had to do was take a tripod around with our camera and snap a bunch of things in different places with the same backdrop. We then use photoshop to merge all these pictures together, so in the end you get a picture with multiple things you shot with! In this case, I got multiple images of my friend Jocelyn being crazy. The photoshop part was difficult, because I had to get the lighting right in all parts of the image. She had to stay the same lighting throughout, and the stairs had to be exposed the same amount. Adjusting the lighting was the difficult part. However shooting and adding her into one image was fairly easy.

This image was fun to shoot. What I did was, I told my friend Jocelyn to pretend to dribble a basketball. I then told her to go to a different spot and pretend that she was receiving the ball from herself. Afterwards, I told her to go to the bleachers and cheer for the game. Basically, this image portrays Jocelyn watching herself play a basketball fame with herself. It was fun to shoot and edit.

Panorama

Shooting panorama shots were actually really fun. We needed a tripod for this too. We had to move the camera vertically or horizontally (horizontally is easier) and keep snapping pictures. However you need to make sure that the pictures are aligned and in a row perfectly. You then use photoshop and click automate, and merge all the photos together. It takes a couple minutes, but once it is finished then the ending product turns out looking quite nice. This photo is made up of 5 pictures, merged into 1. I had originally snapped about 10 images, in an attempt to create a full-circle panorama. However, after I clicked merge photos they all bundled together in a clump, so I decided to reduce the photo amount. I moved it down to 5 and it turned up much better. 

This image was shot at the school climbing wall. I think it is an interesting image, because it shows a nice hut on the left, some of the pond and climbing wall. I had very little difficulty with this image, except for the fact that I had to adjust the lightning on each component image that made up the product. However, the finished image is lit nicely, through editing and adjusting the camera settings. 

Portaits

I went to the market to shoot my environmental portrait photos. I really like this photo because the old man is sitting on his bike, looking like he's waiting for something. He is really laid-back and relaxed, not caring about what others think of him. It's environmental because you can see that he is sitting in his bike carriage, in his market. 

This photo was shot at the front of the market. The man was very cheerful, and about to sell potatoes to one of his customers. I asked him if I could photograph him, and he willfully agreed. He was laughing, because I wanted to a snap a photo of him, and I took it at just the right moment. This is an envionrmental portait, as you can see all of his potatoes and selling materials around him at his stall. 

When we got into the market, we approached the (smelly) seafood section, and into the sweet, fragrant fruit area. This man was selling mangos (I'll admit, they were delicious!) and agreed for me to take a portrait shot of him. In my opinion, portrait shots do not really take my interest, but this photo is interesting because the blur in the back really brings out the man's face. 

This photo was not taken at the market. I was strolling around in KLCC Park with my friend, looking for a place to chill out. I asked her if I could take a portrait shot of her for my assignment, and here she is smiling for the camera. I tried to dodge her eyes as they were a bit dark, but the result was her eyes looking extremely foggy and veiled, so I decided to leave the photo without any dodging. 

Composition

For this assignment, we were required to shoot pictures containing texture (a photo with no central focus, which usually consists of micro images), balance (having more than one subject in the photo), leading lines (lines in the photo that leads to the subject), and natural frame (when your subject is framed by natural objects).

1) Texture

This image is a picture of a big leaf planted at school. I really enjoyed shooting texture photos, because there were several opportunities for getting the perfect shot (there are so many places to shoot texture on campus). Plus, no matter how your photo was shot, the end result is always beautiful.



2) Balance

This picture is of my friend and I right before after school sports. This image actually didn't require much editing or cause me any trouble. It was easy for me to develop, as the lighting was nearly perfect, and I only needed two test strips until I decided that it was nice. This was the only photo in our composition assignment that was easy to produce, as all of my other pictures had lighting that was difficult to work with.

3) Leading Lines

This is an image of my friend, who is casually relaxing at school on her phone. She is leaning on a bar, which is leading up to her, thus creating a leading lines image. While exposing this image in the developing process, I had to burn the subject and the field, so the hallway can remain exposed (making it darker). I encountered many problems in this image, for example, the lighting was different in different places, so it was difficult for me to keep the lighting consistent. However, I managed to fix everything and pull it all together.



4) Natural Frame

This image is of my friend fooling around, posing for the camera from the inside of a children's playground tunnel. She is framed by the circle from the tunnel that she is in. This image was very difficult to work with, as the top left and bottom left corners were too bright. I had tried to increase the time, and dodge everything except for the corners so that the corners could get darker, without affecting the rest of the image. It still turned out extremely bright, so I resulted to burning the corners on photoshop. My original test strips are shown below. 

Overall, this assignment was fun to shoot because I got to experience and play with new elements of photography. 

My Favorite Prints

The following images are some of my favorite photos that I took and developed.

1) My cat

I added a bit of contrast to the final print, to create a cooler effect. 

This picture is of my cat, taken at my house. I absolutely love this picture, because A., she's my cat, B., she's cute, and C., I think it is a very nice picture, as her whiskers, nose and eye are all very sharp. I took another one of her, which was a bit better because she was facing the camera more. However, this one was much more focused than the other one, so I decided to develop this image instead. Three of the edges of this image are black, because I was shooting with a black wall behind her. I realized this as soon as I developed it, so I should focus on where I'm shooting next time around. Other than that, I think this is a good photo. In fact, the original copy of this is framed inside my room. Shows how good of a pet owner I am, huh?












2) Hibiscus Flower

I think this hibiscus flower is my favorite print. It is a beautiful flower, and the detail is captured perfectly. It is a sharp image, which is absolutely essential when taking micro photos. I'm not giving myself a pat on the back (well I am, sort of...); if any other photographer took a photo of this quality I would also fall in love in an instant.

Developing your Film and Contact Sheet

The change from digital cameras to film cameras was a big change for me, as I have never used a film camera before. There were some significant changes, for example, I couldn't view / delete my images if they weren't good, I needed to manually adjust the lighting, and much more. It was a good change, though, because I got to live through new experiences in photography.

Step 1 : Take pictures using a film camera. You need to load the film in properly, otherwise the film would be exposed and your pictures would all be ruined. 

 Step 2 : Develop your film!

Film processing is a difficult procedure, because you need to make sure you don't mess up. Luckily for us, the advanced students in the class developed our film. Otherwise, if the 'newbies' tried to process it, everything would be ruined. To develop the film, you need to put several liquids through a light-proof can. The chemicals react with the film, creating your image. 

Step 3: After your film turns out nice, you will need to put it in something to protect it from getting moist, or dirty. What our class did was we cut the film strips and put it into a sleeve, as shown.















Step 4 : Once this is done, create your contact print! This is where the fun begins, but you need some prerequisites before you begin. You need a dark room, and several photo developing chemicals, such as developer, stop bath, and fixer. You also need photography enlargers that project light onto a canvas. This is what creates your image. 

This image contains a girl standing at one of the photo enlargers. She has to lay her film (in the sleeve) on a piece of photo paper, put it on the canvas, and project light for around 10 seconds, depending on the lighting in her original photos. 

This image was taken in a dark room. It is all red because of the red lights inside. The red lights are especially designed for dark rooms, because they don't expose photo paper. 

After the photo paper has been exposed, you need to slip it into the first chemical, the developer. This is the chemical that does the real magic; it creates your image! You need to leave the image in the developer for around 2-3 minutes, then move it on to the next chemical. The photo has to stay in the next chemical, stop bath, from 30 seconds to a minute, then it's one to the next one. Your photo needs to stay in the fixer for 5 minutes this time. The final step is the most important, you need to put it in the final rinse. This rinse cleanses your image free of chemicals, so that it is safe to touch and to display. The picture has to sit in a tub of water for at least 5 minutes undisturbed, then slipped into the dryer to be dried. This is quite a fun process for me, because I love being in the dark room watching my photo develop. 

The final product turns out fabulous! 

Pinhole Photos

Our second assignment was to take a picture with a pinhole camera. A pinhole camera is a small camera made out of a tin can. It is round, has a tiny hole in it (hence the name pinhole), which light shines through. On the inside, there is a piece of photo paper that is exposed to create the picture. Below is a picture of the pinhole camera that my partner and I used to shoot with. The hole has to be very very small, which is poked inside the silver strip in the middle. 

This is the inside of a pinhole camera. The camera has to be completely light proof, which is why the inside is spray painted black. The paper inside is what is being exposed to light, which creates the final image in the end. It is quite a difficult concept at first, but it is amazing. The way pinhole camera work are you have to expose them to light for a long period of time (10-20 minutes average) for the photo to turn up on the paper. 

My friend Jocelyn and I both went outside and set our cameras up on a pile of books (to match our height), and sat as still as we could for 12 minutes. Above is the negative image that was produced. This image seems to create a panoramic effect, and this is caused because of the round can that was used to photograph. This image turned out really sharp, but my legs are a bit ghostly, because I kept moving them. We were quite lucky, because our first attempt at taking a pinhole photo was nearly perfect, and the product satisfied us both. 

After we developed our negative, we used it to create our final print. The finishing product had inversed the black and white colors, but kept the overall astonishing effect of the image. Everything turns out sharp again (Except for my legs which I mistakenly moved). To think that a picture like that is created from a tin can! Photography really is amazing. 

As usual, you need to use test strips to test the contrast and exposure for the final image. I used the test strip below to test everything. As you can see, the image exposure is way too high, so I needed to decrease the time. The ending product is glorious. Even the lightest or darkest photos can be altered (under light) to create the perfect final print.

My First Prints

This is the first contact sheet I created in photography in semester 2. I helped my sister print one during our photography class in summer school (2013), but this is the first time I actually developed one on my own. I focused mostly on shooting micro images, because I have more of an interest for micro than anything else. Because of this, I needed to manually focus the subjects, which led to some errors in sharpness. However, this was only a minor problem, as most of the photos I took are in focus.

If you look closely, you can see that there are small X's on certain images. My photography teacher, Mr. Ubl, marked certain photos that he liked and wanted me to print. Of the 5 pictures he marked, I only developed 3 of them.

This is the test strip of the first photo (aside from the contact sheet) I developed. It is a photo of a plumeria floating on the water of a small pond in my backyard. The purpose of the test strip is to see if the time, light exposure and color added makes the final image look good. My first test strip is on the right. As we can see, the time I exposed the photo paper for was a bit too long, which made the flower a bit dark. For my second strip, I decreased the time to make the flower lighter, and added a little bit of  magenta to increase the contrast. After I developed the second test strip, we decided that all aspects of the image were perfect, and I was through to developing the final image, which is shown below. 

I think this is one of my favorite pictures I developed. It is sharp, and focuses on the beautiful flower. However, next time, if I try to recreate this photo, or if I were able to go back in time and retake this, I would try to take it with better lighting, because the water is really dark. I took this photo at around 5:00 PM on a stormy day, so the lighting wasn't that great. Next time, I need to make sure that I keep the time of day in my mind, so that I know what time the lighting would be best. That way, I could take a much prettier photo next time around. 

If you click the image, you can see a close-up version of it. It may look blurry or out of focus to you, but it is actually the grainy effect on the picture. It is supposed to be this way, because it adds effects and a sense of 'photography from the old days,' in my opinion.