Choosing Sets

I am now looking through all of my images and have decided that two pictures look better together than three.  I am going to try out a variety of different sets and see which ones I feel look the best together.  Thinking about it now I would like to display my images at around A1 size  so I think two would work better.

I have made sure that all my images were taken in raw files so I am able to enlarge them whilst keeping the quality.  

I have put an album of some of my favourite images on my flickr.

I prefer this set the best, the images came out really well and the depth of field worked out really well after using the spot focus.   I feel that these images turned out better than expected because I was using available light and at that point the sun had gone behind the clouds and went a bit dark, therefore creating more of a shadow in these images than in my previous ones.  They turned out not as warm and pink toned but colder with dark tones which adds to the pictures being more ambiguous.  I could possibly have 2 images of the darker ones then to contrast that have 2 images of the warmer toned ones.

Evaluating

Throughout this project I have learnt a lot, about lighting, cameras, and about the production of each shoot.  I feel like my ideas developed a lot from the beginning, and ultimately I feel as though I have achieved what I aimed for with my photography.  I learnt a fair bit about lighting and the what type of lighting works best in what surroundings.  For example with available light it can be tricky if the sun goes in as it meant I had to keep doing light meter readings, which got rather tedious at times however I like the effect of available light I feel more so than artificial.  I also learnt a lot about DSLR cameras and just how useful it is if you know how to adjust the ISO, aperture and shutter speed in 'manual' mode rather than just having it on 'auto',  as well as knowing how to spot focus on an object and how to change lenses correctly, as well as getting the best use of a tripod. Depth of field was also something I learnt a lot about because I had a lot of trouble with it but trough that it helped me to learn what to do to fix it, I did not count this as a bad thing however.   The effect of using an older model really helped my work to develop and move forward, the older hands were more suited to my aims and I'm glad that I looked more into it.  From referencing back to 'Earnestly Yours' throughout my project I feel like it helped me to stick to what I wanted to photograph but then also looking at photographers such as John Coplans and Bill Brandt helped to push me to vary my work much more.
If I were to do this project again I don't think I would change anything.  What I did wrong or didn't know too much about I learnt about and researched ways of developing my work so that I could fix the problem and change my work for the better.  Although maybe I could photograph men as well if I did it again just so I have more variety.  I believe my images engage my target audience because I feel that they will provoke their opinions and understanding more so than younger children for example.  Overall I am happy with my images and I believe they capture my intentions of portraying that you don't have to be young to be beautiful and interesting, through the use of macro photography I feel as though I was able to achieve this because the images are rather ambiguous when it comes to the age of the subject.

Choosing a set

I feel like these are some of the best images I have taken, this was after using the spot focus and realising that it really had an effect on my photos.  Now what I am trying to decide is whether I want to steer away from having a set of images that includes different aged models because i think even without the younger hands and skin that it would send out the same message.  I may just use the older hands.

More Hands

Toolkit

 I learnt a lot about lighting from this project.  I learnt that with available light it can be tricky if the sun goes in and then I had to keep doing light meter readings, which got rather annoying at times but I like the effect of available light I feel more so than artificial.

I also learnt a lot about DSLR cameras and just how useful it is if you know how to adjust the ISO, aperture and shutter speed in 'manual' mode rather than just having it on 'auto',  As well as knowing how to spot focus on an object and how to change lenses correctly, and using a tripod.    Depth of focus was also something I learnt a lot about because I had a lot of trouble with it but trough that it helped me to learn what to do to fix it.

Spot Focus

Here is where I am starting to see results with getting to grips with the depth of field problems I've been having.  I watched that YouTube video (on my last post) and got some help and after that I tested it out again using spot focus to see if it made any difference.  After I took a few images I would upload them onto my computer and see how well the focus is when I enlarged it on the screen.  After a few failed attempts at first, overall I feel that the spot focus certainly worked.  

Even though I have found out that with macro photography the depth of focus will never fully correct but you can try as much as you can to get it perfect.  

I think that some of these images will defiantly be in my final set.  I like that because of the available lighting, it isn't too bright from the constant lights I used in the studio, you can see some shadow and I think that helps to add to the ambiguous images I am aiming for.

Crit

After speaking with my tutor he told me to look into 'spot focus' and 'focus squares' so my images comes out a little sharper than how they are now.  I also spoke with the technicians and they showed me how to use spot focus on hands and more specifically with the 65mm macro lens I am using.  My tutor liked my images  and how they could be quite ambiguous to the audience.   Also to start thinking about putting them into sets, but at least have a go at attempting to deal with the depth of field and to make my pictures clearer.

Older hands continued

I have chosen not to edit my pictures as I feel that if I were to then it could possibly take focus off the detail of the skin which is what my main focus is.  I wouldn't want to change the exposures anyway so I have little post production to do so I have to make sure the lighting is correct also meaning that I can keep all my focus on producing the images so the depth of field looks ok, which is what I have been struggling with.

Available light

Coin Practice

From discovering that when using the 65mm macro lens the depth of field is so slim that not much of the pictures I was taking were in focus.  I decided to look up some tutorials on YouTube to see if there were any about focus squares and spot focusing, I found this video which was really helpful and after I watched it I decided to test it out on a coin.  I used a coin because its a small object and if I could focus on the scratches by using the spot focus on the camera then it would help me when taking pictures of the hands and skin.  Even though only a small section of the picture were actually in focus, the areas that are in comparison to my previous images the focus is much clearer.  I will have to keep working on it though in order to get more of the photo in focus. 

Older Hands

These photos were taken using available lighting, which was a bit risky because it wasn't as constant as I would have liked but it still gave enough light to work. 

I have begun using my gran's hands for a bit of contrast from my own hands here introducing the idea that being young doesn't necessarily mean you are deemed more beautiful, these images for me are about creating something just as beautiful and intriguing by using older models.  These hands are prefect and give a much better effect through the macro lens than young hands. 

Again still having to manually move the camera as well as zooming in and out to get the focus correct, although having the camera on a tripod does help a lot.