Ass 3 Update after tutor comments - Jane Pennington

Tutor comments

You appear to have a few images of people with outstretched hands (was this intentional?). I actually prefer the unchosen image as it has historical interest and Jane looks as if she has an affection for the little Polio lad by the way she is cupping his head and charity box with her hands – perhaps a look of nostalgia on her face? I agree with you that due to the bright window in the background, this has probably affected your overall exposure so I would recommend a re-shoot. 

I went back today top retake this picture ensuring that I kept away from the windows which allowed plenty of light in but had were all blurry and blown out.

I moved the statue to another part of the room which allowed light to come in from the left hand side but didn't show the windows.  I positioned it on a low stand which brought it up to a more acceptable height.  Then Jane held it as she had held it before but this time from the other side.  This gave a much better image although I had to use a low level flash burst to bring out just enough so that there were no blown out areas.  All together, it was a much better picture and Jane was happy with it too.

Ass 3 Update after tutor comments - Chris Sellers

Tutor comment:

I agree with your choice of image for this one, just because of the photo of his baby with an expression which says the piano playing is awful! I see an element of humour because of this, but I also like all the interesting artifacts on the piano and in the room. It can be a little busy (don’t be afraid to ask someone to move clutter on the stairs, for example or replace one object on the piano with the Leica).  I perhaps would have tried to crop a little off the conservatory door as the objects in the room beyond are a little distracting). I think the reflections in the piano are really interesting and I would like to have seen more photo opportunities in this room. Be careful of photographing people with their chin down as this does not look flattering. 

I printed this set of images in black and white partly due to hide the clutter in the room.  Hence the comment by my tutor about clutter.  Here's the original black and white image:

 And here's the same image printed in colour:

I didn't make any changes in this image, just reverted to the original colour picture.




The black and white picture of Chris and the baby pulling faces is here:

And now the corrected image in colour as suggested by my tutor:

I've cropped it on the right hand side to omit the glass door.  I think this image is fun with father and daughter pulling the same faces.

Ass 3 Update after tutor comments - Dougie Adams

Tutor comments:

I agree with Dougie that his image is the strongest, particularly as I am now seeing the link with history, whereas the one with his collection of cameras is more of an obvious choice. As you say, he is such an interesting person with lots of stories to tell that you have managed to capture this well in the image where he is talking about his medals. Did you not think the cheetah was too prominent to warrant post production? I am not convinced that his face is pin sharp (the focus seems to be on his shirt collar).

Here's the original images:

Here's the image post processing.  I've sharpened Dougie's face and blurred the leopard in the background.

I think I've both sharpened the face using shake reduction which allows you to sharpen a particular part of the image as much as you think is necessary.  Then I used Gaussian Blur to fade out the leopard to be virtually unnoticed.
 

Ass 3 Update after tutor comments - Pat Chambers

I've been reworking the images from this assignment to improve my submissions.  My tutor suggested that the Pat Chambers images could include something historical as all the other images used old items, ie, Chris Sellers had an old Leica, Jane Pennington was holding an old collection box and Dougie had his old medals which he won for skydiving.

I talked it over with Pat and she told me how she collected old pottery and in particular Carltonware.  These pieces of pottery were often in a distinctive green colour which she had arranged in a mahogany display cabinet.  We worked through various items but finally came up with the idea of using a teapot, cup and saucer which I thought would blend in well with her other pictures of making drinks.

I tried several poses and finally came up with one of her pouring a drink into a cup from a Carltonware teapot.

This was the original image before post-processing:

I was a bit disappointed at the angle of the cupboard which was skewed so needed straightening.  Also the pictures on the left were cut off but luckily there were a couple that

had the whole images included.

 When I added them to the original image having removed some of the reflections I thought it a shame that they faced away from Pat so I flipped them vertically and added them to the picture.  I adjusted the colours of the back wall and saved them as one file.

Here's the final image which I'm really pleased with

Moving on

Time to start working on project and assignment 4, advertising.  I will be revisiting this site to improve on what my tutor comments about, but my focus has to be on the next assignment to get it finished by the deadline.

You can find my project 4 work at the following web address:

http://jenhollandsgandmproject4.blogspot.co.uk/


And assignment 4 work at this web address:

http://jenhollandsgandmass4advertising.blogspot.co.uk/

Found a very touching exhibition in a back street church in Sorrento,Italy

Found a very touching exhibition, called The Light of God, in a back street church in Sorrento,Italy. A photographer called Rafael Selantano was allowed to photograph Mother Teresa at her orphanage in India, something not many people were able to do during her lifetime.

The pictures were not just of Mother but of the whole orphanage. It was very moving see how the nuns all lived and worked together with the children. 

I'm surprised, if you read the history of the photographer above, how he was given access to the nuns and watch them praying, eating and working. I would have thought a female photographer would have been more acceptable but who knows what motivates people. 

Jane Pennington's portraits

These are the pictures I took of the lady who writes the press releases for the camera club.  She has a good imagination when it comes to describing activities and competition winners and has a very steady hand to get pin sharp images in her own images.  Jane supports the social secretary when it comes to suggesting and organising days outing and ad-hoc trips.

Jane's favourite image

Having shown Jane what I considered the best three images of our session at the local Heritage Centre I was surprised when she chose the image above showing her in the unrestored paint store at the back of the site.  What she liked about this picture was how she was standing looking around and raising her hands in despair and hope at all the work that would have to go into transforming this derelict store into a tea room.

My favourite image

I liked this image as it showed her climbing the shelves to look at the back to see what was in the boxes.  She looked interested in exploring the store room and discovering exhibits that could be used in future displays.  Jane explained that even though on each of the boxes there was written what should have been in each box, it was not necessarily so.  The volunteers and staff had a bad habit of looking in the boxes and removing items already listed or adding extra items if there was extra space in the box but then not noting it down on the contents list.

The third image I chose was the one below.

I liked this image because it showed a caring side to Jane's nature.  That probably sounds weird about a plaster boy and collecting box, but it was just the way Jane was holding it that was caring.

The whole shoot was fairly difficult as it took place in old buildings or store cupboards which had very poor lighting.  Add to the fact that I had turned my on camera flash to reduce the output so that I didn't get heavy black shadows behind the subject meant that whole areas were quite dark.

It was quite difficult to get into different positions for shooting pictures as the areas were so full of boxes, packages and equipment.  I would have liked to get round the other side of this 'boy' and shoot away from the windows but it was impossible as it was surrounded by parcels and wrapped stuff.

Jane is very committed to both the camera club and the heritage centre where she has been volunteering for about 12 months.  The area she enjoys investigating and organising is that containing old prints and photographs of Axminster.  As Axminster is a very old town, recorded as early as the 9th century, there's plenty of historical pictures of the town since photography began.