Printing & Framing

Now that I have my final images for the exhibition, I have had to consider where I will be getting my images printed. My tutor suggested that I should try the reprographics at the University of Hertfordshire, which is located behind the Film, Music & Media Building in the Document Services Department. I took along some samples of my work to see what results I would get with the different types of paper and I was pleasantly surprised, not only with the quality of the printouts but also the price.

I have decided that I will be using the reprographic department at the university as it will be beneficial to me, not only in cost but it will also allow me to have the prints on the same day and I will not have to send off for them and rely on the postal service. There is also the added benefit of being able to place the prints directly into the frames, decreasing the chances of the prints being ruined during transit.

Today I spent most of my time travelling to look at suitable frames. I already had an idea of the type of frame that I was after, and today I was on a mission to find a frame that lived up to my expectations. The frames that I had in mind for showcasing my work had to meet the following criteria:

• Box type frame
• White
• A3 in size (min)

A3 White Frame for the Assessment & Exhibition (x6)

The reason that I wanted white frames was because the walls that the frames will be hanging on will also be white and I wanted the frames to blend into the wall and the background, so that the frames did not detract from my image. I wanted the images to have a kind of floating look and feel to them, as if my images (small planets) were occupying their own space just as a real planet would. I will not get a true feel for how they will look until I have framed and mounted them, but I remain hopeful. I will be in university on Tuesday to have the remaining 5 of my images printed and I shall be framing them on site. Once these have been framed I can then go on to write my evaluation and to concentrate on producing my presentation that I will be giving on the 2nd September.

References

Herts.ac.uk, (2014). Document services | Brand Guidelines. [online] Available at: http://www.herts.ac.uk/brand/document-services [Accessed 8 Aug. 2014].

Panography

Reflecting on yesterday’s tutorial with Holger Pooten, I decided to do some research into some photographers and artists that use panography within their work. There are many ways that a 360º panorama can be captured and displayed, some of which are inventive and particularly eye-catching.

Mareen Fischinger

Mareen Fischinger is a German photographer and has a passion for everything that involves photography. As well as being a photographer, Fischinger is also involved with photo production services for national and international clients, including art direction, casting, booking of make-up/hair & styling, location scouting and retouching services. Her panographic images caught my attention, not only because they are aesthetically beautiful but because they are abstract in their nature and they have made me think about the other ways in which I can approach my work when shooting a landscape scene.

© Mareen Fischinger

© Mareen Fischinger

© Mareen Fischinger

The first image reminds me of one of my own images that I shall be using for my final assessment. My image also contains office buildings which are similar in their architectural style and I also have a crane present within my image.

As I had some images with me during the Photoshop tutorial, Holger suggested that I played around with these to experiment working in a similar style. We kept the images in a sphere shape (in keeping with my stereographic images) but in hindsight I think that the experiment would have looked better laid out from left to right.

Experiment with Holger

Image created with the help of Holger Pooten. Images © Richard Brochu-Williams

Holger showed me new techniques and methods within Photoshop that will come in very useful for future experimentations & creations.

Sven Fennema

Whilst researching I came across another photographer & artist by the name of Sven Fennema. Sven has an interest in landscape and architectural photography and is inspired by the geometry of buildings, their shapes and their lines. I have noticed that on his website he has also included panoramic tours, this is something that I experimented with back in April this year but I was unable to upload the tour that I created to this blog.

© Sven Fennema

Virtual Tours

Virtual Tours 2

I have also looked into the work of David Hockney, who also has created landscapes from multiple images. Due to copyright I cannot post any of his work to this blog but his images can be viewed on his website.

What I like about the images that I have found during my investigation, is the fact that they are stitched together rather crudely and not seamlessly (with the exception of Sven Fennema) and in my opinion this adds to the aesthetic properties of the image and creates an illusion of texture. This is definitely a technique that I will be experimenting with in the future. It’s a shame that I do not have enough time to experiment with this technique fully at the present time, as I feel that I could have produced some good work from using these methods.

References

4rtgallery.blogspot.com, (2014). Simply Creative: Panography by Mareen Fischinger. [online] Available at: http://4rtgallery.blogspot.com/2013/06/panography-by-mareen-fischinger.html [Accessed 5 Aug. 2014].

Hockneypictures.com, (2014). DAVID HOCKNEY. [online] Available at: http://www.hockneypictures.com [Accessed 6 Aug. 2014].

Mareen Fischinger Fotografie, (2014). Mareen Fischinger Fotografie. [online] Available at: http://mareenfischinger.com/places/panography/ [Accessed 5 Aug. 2014].

Sven Fennema – Fine Art Photography | Panorama – Fotografie, (2012). 360° Panography. [online] Available at: http://www.sven-fennema.de/panography/ [Accessed 6 Aug. 2014].

Wikipedia, (2014). Panography. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panography [Accessed 6 Aug. 2014].

Finals for MA Exhibition

After much deliberation, I have now chosen my final images for the MA Exhibition which will be taking place in October at the University of Hertfordshire. I have 6 images in total and these will be submitted for assessment alongside my artist statement and evaluation. After the assessment has taken place, I shall be deciding whether or not to exhibit all 6 or a smaller selection. Once they have been printed and framed this decision will be a lot easier to make, this will give me a chance to see how they work together as a collection.

Time seems to have passed by so quickly and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of time left to get everything done and completed, but this is where my time management will be of the upmost importance. I still need to make some final adjustments and edits to a couple of the images but this should not take long.

The Photoshop tutorials with Holger Pooten have proved invaluable and he has widened my scope with my current project and I shall be experimenting with some new methods and techniques that he has shown me, to create some new and interesting landscapes. I shall be blogging about these techniques on a later post.

Overall I am feeling a lot more positive about the coming weeks.

Shoot & Reshoot

Today I decided to go out and do a reshoot of the Schlumberger Gould Building on the West Site in Cambridge, as the weather proved to give me the perfect setting. I am hoping that I can obtain a better image from this shoot and will be experimenting with stitching the images together tomorrow. I also decided to try and shoot at other locations. The first location was at Madingley Reservoir. Despite it’s name there seemed to be no evidence of any water or a reservoir that I could see but I did not venture in too far as there were warnings of CCTV in operation and I was not sure how safe the area was. I primarily went there because I had spotted some kind of transmission mast and this is what I was interested in. I also travelled to Burwell, where there is a sub station but I did not end up shooting there as there were too many obstacles in my way, mainly trees.

 

Madingley Reservoir

 

Madingley Reservoir © Richard Brochu-Williams

Madingley Reservoir © Richard Brochu-Williams

Transmission Mast © Richard Brochu-Williams

 

I shall be stitching and editing the images from the shoot tomorrow to see if I have obtained anything that will be worthwhile keeping for my final project.

 

Photoshop Tutorials with Holger Pooten

Earlier this week our MA Photography group had a Photoshop tutorial with photographer Holger Pooten. This I found to be very useful as I use Photoshop often within my practice. Just when you think that you know all there is to know about the Photoshop software, you find out that there are more techniques than you had originally thought. It is believed that most photographers only use a small percentage of Photoshops editing tools and these will be specific to the type of photography that they are involved with.

We began by looking at colour management:

We discussed the importance of calibrating your equipment so that you have a consistent workflow. However, calibrating your camera can be a little impractical, especially if you are shooting outside or taking pictures for documentary purposes. Calibrating your camera may be a good idea if you are primarily shooting in a studio with the same lighting set up. Corrections can be made in Photoshop. We also discussed the benefits of shooting in RAW.

We were shown the best way to deal with our RAW files whilst preparing and editing them in Photoshop.

The points highlighted are the most important and most commonly used.

The 4 most important elements within Photoshop are:

• Hue / Saturation
• Contrast
• Colour
• Brightness

I found this lesson to be really informative and surprisingly I did learn something new, as well as different ways (some easier) to complete a task. We will be continuing with more Photoshop Workshops next week and we are free to ask questions and seek advice on techniques that are specific to our final images for the upcoming Final Major Exhibition. I believe that we will be looking at Lightroom too.

References

Screen shoots are taken from a presentation compiled by Holger Pooten. His work can be viewed via the link below.

Holgerpooten.com, (2014). Holger Pooten Photography. [online] Available at: http://www.holgerpooten.com [Accessed 1 Aug. 2014].

Kirby Muxloe

I have been taking advantage of the good weather that we have been having and I travelled to Leicestershire to practice some more panoramic shots. This shoot was not the urban landscape that I have been photographing of late but it was a good opportunity for me to practice my technique and to keep myself familiar with the software that I am using. I find that if I do not do this on a regular basis, when I come back to use the software, it takes me twice as long to achieve my desired results because I have forgotten how to do certain things. By regularly practising, I become accustomed to what I am doing and I find that I work more efficiently.

Kirby Muxloe has a wonderful castle and this was the setting for this shoot. I really enjoy visiting castles and I am enticed by the architecture. The sense of history and what has gone on inside these magnificent constructions really draws me in.

The well known British proverb “An Englishman’s home is his castle” meaning: An English person’s home is a place where they may do as they please and from which they may exclude anyone they choose, strikes a chord with me and I think that my castle images work well with the stereographic format, as this provides an environment of it’s own for the castle, suggesting further that not only is the castle a place of privacy but it can be encapsulated in it’s own little world, providing a kind of private retreat.

I am continuing to photograph castles alongside my urban landscapes and I shall be comparing the two, to see which images have produced the best results.

Kirby Muxloe Castle, 360º Equirectangular Panorama, © Richard Brochu-Williams

Kirby Muxloe Castle, Stereographic Projection © Richard Brochu-Williams

I was pleased with the results that I achieved during the weekend at both Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire & Rickney’s Quarry, Hertfordshire. It was certainly a productive weekend.

References

Oxforddictionaries.com, (2014). an Englishman’s home is his castle: definition of an Englishman’s home is his castle in Oxford dictionary (British & World English). [online] Available at: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/an-englishman’s-home-is-his-castle [Accessed 22 Jul. 2014].

Rickney’s Quarry

Trip to Rickney’s Quarry

Location of Rickney’s Quarry. Image from Google Maps

Location of Rickney’s Quarry. Image from Google Maps

This weekend I decided that I would travel to Hertfordshire and scout out a location that a fellow student had advised me about, as she thought it would be a good setting for my project. I did a little research beforehand and saw some pictures that others had captured at the same location but unfortunately when I arrived a lot of the old equipment had been removed. I still decided to photograph, as it had taken me an hour to travel there and I thought it would be a good idea to see what results I could achieve with the landscape and the materials that still remained. There were some concrete structures and walls that were covered in brightly coloured graffiti and I thought that this could work well within my images.

Rickney’s Quarry, Hertfordshire © Richard Brochu-Williams

Rickney’s Quarry, Hertfordshire © Richard Brochu-Williams

I found an image that I really liked which was taken at the same location but this piece of equipment had been removed by the time I went to do my shoot. The image can be viewed via this link.

When I first arrived here, I was a little apprehensive about gaining access. When I drove up to the location I quickly noticed that there were other cars parked outside of the gates and that there was no signage with “Private Property” so I saw this as my queue to enter. I assumed that the other cars parked there were owned by people who had dogs and that this was a location that was used frequently by dog walkers. I did not come across anybody else whilst I was there but the area was very large, much bigger than I had anticipated. I took my panoramic shots and then left. I was not too full of hope about the image that I could achieve from this shoot, as the main piece of machinery that I wanted in my image was no longer there. When I got home I played around with my images and was pleasantly surprised. Below are the panoramic images that I took before they were stitched together and I have also included the 360º equirectangular panoramic image, but I have decided not to post my stereographic image, as I still have work to do on it and it is a possible contender for being included in my final project and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

Panoramic Set

360º Equirectangular Panoramic

360º Equirectangular Panoramic © Richard Brochu-Williams

I am pleased with the results that I have achieved from this photo shoot, considering that initially I thought I would not obtain the results that I had hoped for. I am looking forward to working on my stereographic projection and having the image completed and gaining some feedback from it.

All images © Richard Brochu-Williams. All rights reserved.

References

Raven’s Eye Photography, (2014). Panoramio – Photo of 20th Century Fossil. [online] Panoramio.com. Available at: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/36949635 [Accessed 19 Jul. 2014].

Hatfield House Picnic

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a picnic, if not a little hot. We had the pleasure of meeting up in the park at Hatfield House and setting up a picnic to be photographed. This was a side project and was not strictly related to the work that we were producing for our final major project but it enabled us to bond as a group and gave us the opportunity to try and incorporate some of the styles, methodologies and techniques that we would be using within our major project. I decided to capture a 360º panoramic shot of Hatfield House and project this as a stereographic image.

Hatfield House – Stereographic © Richard Brochu-Williams

Hatfield House – Equirectangular © Richard Brochu-Williams

This was also a good opportunity to capture more images to form part of our Instagram mini project (#picnicification). These can be seen below and also viewed at instagram.com/brochuwilliamsphotography.

All images © Richard Brochu-Williams. All rights reserved.

When we had finished our picnic, I took a walk around the gardens of Hatfield House and took some photographs. There were plenty of sculptures to see and I was pleasantly surprised with how big the gardens actually were.

Picnic

Hatfield House

Entrance to West Gardens

Hatfield House

Hatfield House

Hatfield House

Rose in the West Garden

Sculpture

Sculpture

Water Fountain

Water Fountain

Photo Shoots

Over the last couple of days I have been busy organising photo shoots at various locations. My first location was at the University of Cambridge. I chose this location because there is currently a lot of building work taking place and I thought it would be a good opportunity to capture some landscapes of an industrial nature. The buildings that I photographed were a mixture of newly finished buildings and buildings that were still in the process of being built, therefore there were some cranes and other building paraphernalia around.

University of Cambridge

West Cambridge, University of Cambridge © Richard Brochu-Williams

West Cambridge, University of Cambridge © Richard Brochu-Williams

West Cambridge, University of Cambridge © Richard Brochu-Williams

West Cambridge, University of Cambridge © Richard Brochu-Williams

West Cambridge, University of Cambridge © Richard Brochu-Williams

All images © Richard Brochu-Williams. All rights reserved

The buildings around the West Site of the University of Cambridge that I photographed are recent builds and in my opinion they are not the best looking buildings in the world. I tend to be more drawn towards older buildings like those that you will find in the centre of Cambridge, such as the old colleges (e.g. Kings College) as in my opinion these are more aesthetically pleasing. Not everyone will share the same opinion as me but I found these buildings a good example of how modern infrastructure shapes the environment around us.

Dungeness

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

Dungeness, Kent © Richard Brochu-Williams

All Images © Richard Brochu-Williams. All rights reserved.

When I arrived in Dungeness, I realised that I had arrived at the best time for my shoot, as the sun was directly above me and therefore did not get into any of my shots whilst shooting 360º. From this I have deduced that the optimal time to shoot is from the hours of 11.30am – 2.30pm whilst the sun is still high up in the sky.

What I liked about the shoot in Dungeness (apart from the fact it was a beautiful day) was the contrast between the nuclear power station and the surrounding buildings with the beautiful untouched environment of the beach and the sea. Hopefully this will be depicted within my images.

Albert Renger-Patzch

Albert Renger-Patzsch was a German photographer associated with the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). Renger-Patzsch was born in Würzburg and began making photographs by the age of 12. In the early 1920s he worked as a press photographer for the Chicago Tribune before becoming a freelancer and, in 1925, publishing a book, The choir stalls of Cappenberg. A second book followed in 1928, Die Welt ist schön (The World is Beautiful). This is his best-known book and is a collection of one hundred of his photographs in which natural forms, industrial subjects and mass-produced objects are presented with the clarity of scientific illustrations. Renger-Patzsch believed that the value of photography was in its ability to reproduce the texture of reality, and to represent the essence of an object.

He wrote: “The secret of a good photograph—which, like a work of art, can have esthetic qualities—is it’s realism … Let us therefore leave art to artists and endeavor to create, with the means peculiar to photography and without borrowing from art, photographs which will last because of their photographic qualities.” 

Schmied 1978, p. 86.

© Albert Renger-Patzch

© Albert Renger-Patzch

These images are reminiscent to those that were created by Bernd & Hilla Becher, in the way that they capture architecture and buildings within the landscapes. Again, these images give me more inspiration when thinking about the possible landscapes and architecture that could be included within my own set of images. These images have a lovely quality to them and seem to be rich in texture, I believe that this is due to the fact that they were shot on film.

References

Encyclopedia Britannica, (2014). Albert Renger-Patzsch (German photographer). [online] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/498113/Albert-Renger-Patzsch [Accessed 11 Jul. 2014].

Juxtapoz.com, (2014). Juxtapoz Magazine – The photography of Albert Renger-Patzsch. [online] Available at: http://www.juxtapoz.com/photography/the-photography-of-albert-renger-patzsch [Accessed 11 Jul. 2014].

Tate.org.uk, (2014). Albert Renger-Patzsch | Tate. [online] Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/albert-renger-patzsch [Accessed 11 Jul. 2014].