Interim Evaluation

I researched a number of still life photographers throughout my research logs and image bank, which I feel have greatly influence my shoots. I looked at the composition and framing of photographers such as Andre Kertesz, who often captured everyday objects such as cutlery. From Kertesz, I learned about the use of tone based upon shadows and lighting, and how this can help you create a duotone effect. I tried to take inspiration from this in my third shoot, in which I shot plates and bowls left out in the kitchen from high angles to attempt to cast hard shadows in my images. Another photographer that influenced my shoots from my research is Laurens Kaldeway, from which I learned of using the rule of thirds composition rule effectively. I tried to incorporate this into my second shoot, positioning the post it notes that I was photographing in a way that your eye is immediately drawn to that area of the image.

Over the course of this project, I have learned a number of new technical and aesthetic techniques which I may be able to use in the future. One technical aspect I developed was the use of macro in my close up images; creating a narrow depth of field in order to make my images appear larger than life, which creates a sense of the object being the main focus of the image and removes distractions from the image. A photoshop technique that I developed throughout my project is white balance correction; due to the dim lighting in a lot of my shoot locations, as well as my unwillingness to use a flash as this would often make the lighting too high key, my white balance was often too warm. I developed a method of fixing this in Photoshop, involving finding the blackpoint of the image and adjusting the levels. This allowed me to create a neutral colour balance, meaning my tonal range is increased.

For the remaining three shoots, I intend to incorporate all of the techniques that I have discovered across my project. My three shoots will involve macro photographs capturing the objects in each room of my house from a very close up perspective, in order to make them appear larger than life. I also want to incorporate both wide angle and panorama shots of sections of the room with lots of objects concentrated into one place, which I hope will create a sense of narrative and bear a central theme personal to the person who put them there. My first shoot will involve the kitchen and the living room, my second shoot the two bedrooms and the third shoot the bathroom and hallway, and I hope to create a collage of each shoot; a snapshot of the objects around my house, in a sense.

Connecting Essay - Andre kertesz

Here is an image from my third shoot, which took place in my kitchen and involved capturing plates with food waste left on them after a meal. The image was taken from a high angle and depicts two spoons and a fork that have been left in a bowl. It was taken from an incredibly close up perspective with a narrow aperture, meaning the cutlery appears to be larger than life. This could be portraying cutlery as a tool with a lot of power; it is the tool which is used to feed yourself, and it's therefore, in a sense part of keeping you alive. I took care in capturing texture in this image, selecting cutlery that has had some wear from extensive use and therefore presented some scratched and rusted textures. This helps portray cutlery as an object that is used very frequently, as well as having a long lifespan, as it is still in use despite these textures being present.

This is an image by famous still life photographer Andre Kertesz, who often captured everyday objects in everyday settings such as restaurants. This has been taken from a very high angle, being close to a bird's eye view shot, and depicts a clean bowl with a spoon in it and what looks like three sugar cubes. The image has been taken using a very greyscale black and white film, meaning a monotone effect is created, however, there is some tonal contrast created by the low-key lighting used in the shoot, which casts a hard shadow both inside the bowl as well as on the table, which is cast by the bowl. This could be linked to the presence of sugar cubes, creating connotations of the good side and bad side of eating one. On the plus side, a sugar cube tastes nice, whereas it has a bad side in that it's poor for your health, as it's excessive amounts of sugar.

My image drew inspiration from Kertesz' image, mostly in composition. I liked kertesz' use of high angle shots to create a sort of architectural type plan shot, in which you can see the whole scene, therefore I shot from a high angle to try and recreate this atmosphere. I also took note of kertesz use of texture; he used mostly smooth textures apart from some contrasting rough textures shown on the table, and this texture contrast is something I tried to replicate through displaying rough textures in the cutlery and contrasting them with the smooth textures of the bowl they are in.

Connecting Essay - Suzanne Cummings

This is one of my images from my fifth preparatory shoot. This has a very narrow depth of field, with only a small section of the wires in the image being in focus and the focus dropping out for the rest of the image. There are several red and black wires shown in the foreground of the image, and the background displays a black surface to the right and a red plug adapter to the left of the background. Since the composition consists of almost entirely black and red, a duotone style effect is created, in which red presents light tones and black presents dark tones. The red could create connotations of love, while the black creates connotations of hate, meaning this image could be a metaphorical representation of what the person who uses this work space feels about their work; part of them loves it and part of them hates it.



Above is an image by Suzanne Cummings, as part of her "Be Still" series of still life photographs. This has been heavily edited in photoshop, using a filter that makes the image appear as if it is an oil painting. Some scratches have also been made across the image, creating an agitated mood. The lighting in the image is low key has been positioned behind the subject, meaning the subject of the image, which is a fruit bowl, casts a hard shadow in the foreground of the composition. Tone has been used effectively throughout the composition of this image, with there being strong dark tones featured in the foreground, further creating a dark atmosphere and a dark representation of everyday objects.

My image bears some similarities and connections to Suzanne Cummings' image. One example would be the use of tone; Cummings' image presents a strong tonal contrast between the light and dark tones of the image, which is something I carried into my image, using the red and black, as well as the hard shadow from my camera flash. Cummings' use of blur is another part of her composition that I attempted to carry over to mine; she used motion blur to blur the image and create a sense of motion, while I used depth blur to eliminate background detail and keep the focus of the image as the wires in the foreground.

Connecting Essay - Sam Kaplan

Here is one my images from my third shoot. I focused my camera on the fork in the shot, and due to the narrow depth of field used, this meant the rest of the image was out of focus. The spoon displays a smooth and shiny texture, with there being some small interruptions to this in the form of scratches on the metal. In the background, there is remainders of tomato based pasta sauce in the bowl, which presents the shade of muted red that makes up most of the composition. This shade of red could represent the person who is eating losing their love of food, and a result, there is an amount of sauce that was left in the bowl to be wasted. The use of the smooth texture with scratches interrupting the smoothness could act as a representation of the spoon's current state of usefulness; though it is old, which is clearly shown through the scratches, yet the shine left on it shows that it is still a useful object.



This is an image by still life photographer Sam Kaplan. It has been taken from a low angle, facing down upon the subjects of the photo. The image depicts several wooden plates with platters of various foods neatly organised on them and decorated. Kaplan has made strong use of colour throughout his image, with there being prominent saturated shades of yellow present in the corn in the foreground. The lighting appears to have been natural and is very bright, as it casts a hard shadow on the table coming from the plates and glasses; this creates a clear tonal contrast between the light tones shown on the plates and these shadows, presenting the fact that while the food looks appealing, it is of a large quantity and therefore will likely not be good for you. There is a large amount of salad on the plates, which could represent the presence of natural ingredients in cooking, and the yellow tones throughout the image create a sense of hope for natural and healthy food.

These two images have some clear links. The both follow the same topics of food, and therefore everyday objects, and both present a sense of excess in foods, with mine showing food waste from excess and Kaplan's image showing excess from having large amounts of food in the frame at once. They also both make use of texture, with mine showing some scratched textures on cutlery, indicating that while it's old and has been used, it still functions. Kaplan uses texture to present a sense of the outdoors; there are lots of bumpy, natural looking textures throughout the image, shown both on the plates and the table they were photographed on.

Shoot Seven - Contact Sheet

Shoot Seven - Straight Images

Shoot Seven - Work Record

For my final preparatory shoot, I have decided to move back to the setting of the household for a final development of my focus on household objects. Since we have just bought shopping, my plan for the shoot is to capture this in macro style while it's still left out in the kitchen, in hope to create a snapshot of what my kitchen feels like when it's full of bags of shopping. I am shooting handheld, as there are a large variation of angles I want to get and I feel a tripod would restrict me in getting these angles.





 

 I shot this image on 1/60, with an aperture of f5.6 and an ISO of 640. I needed this image to be shot on over 1/60 due to the prevention of camera shake, therefore I needed to increase the ISO of 640, and as a result this is some image noise visible. This image makes strong use of colour, with the subject of the image being an ibuprofen box, on which there are three distinct sections of white, grey and a lighter grey. The use of such shades link to the the uses of ibuprofen, as these colours are very dull and reflect how you feel when you need to use Ibuprofen. There are mostly dark tones in the composition of this image, with the only light tones being on the tube of toothpaste to the right of the image; the hard shadow that's cast over the ibuprofen box connotes that it's the object in the photo that has the darkest context to it, in that it's used in times of pain. The yellow that's visible behind the ibuprofen box is out of focus, and yellow can represent happiness, therefore it could be seen as a representation of happiness not being the focus of your mind when you are in physical pain; the ibuprofen is as that's the thing that will relieve the pain.



This was shot using the same settings as the previous image (1/60, f5.6 and an ISO of 640); the majority of the shoot was shot on the same settings as the lighting used was evenly spread, meaning most of my location was lit the same amount. I wanted to emphasise depth in this image, therefore I tried to get a narrow aperture and shot through the hole in the bag where the handle is, focusing on the tin of peas that's inside the bag, which leaves the bag handle out of focus. The tin mostly consists of shades of green and brown, both of which are colours that represent nature, which creates contrast to the plastic bag, which comes from entirely man made materials. The use of focusing on the tin could present that nature will always eventually overcome the creations of people, as it is always present and will be still when we're not. Because the bag is translucent, there is some muted yellow that seeps through it around the tin of peas. This could represent the small amount of hope there is that nature can still survive in a world dominated by human-made constructions.

For my exam shoots, I plan to focus on my topic of everyday objects in the household, as this is the topic that I feel I've refined the most. Since I have focused on the kitchen, I plan to expand this by capturing every room within my household, photographing the various objects positioned around the rooms. I also would like to make use of framing by moving my objects before I shoot, rather than leaving them as they naturally are.