For this shoot, I will be collecting green, orange and brown leaves and I will use a macro lens in a studio to manipulate the composition, lighting and tone. I wanted to take a more in-depth look at the different seasonal changes present in nature and how these small environmental details differ season to season. I'm using leaves and berries to investigate this as the season is currently changing from summer to winter and so I have access to all the golden leaves and the last of the ripened fruits before they too fall and rot into the earth that gave them life.
Mood Board:
Photographer's Research:
The main influence for this shoot was a photograph by a Russian photographer called Dimitriy Evdokimov. His hometown is Russia's cultural centre - Saint Petersburg. Known for its beautiful architecture and for being a port city for the Baltic Sea Saint Petersburg has provided a rich source of inspiration for many artists.
Dimitriy Evdokimov has many other images, here are some of his other work from his screen name f0rm_and_v0id.
The above image was my main inspiration for this shoot as I like the use of negative space and field of depth in this image as it draws the viewer in so that the smallest of details are brought to their attention.
This image was taken in the Lisiy Nos, Russia. The whole scene is covered by a blanket of orange and gold leaves that has given the forest an other-worldly atmosphere. This engages the viewer as the giant hare's foot ferns create a connection back to a prehistoric past, so much so that a large dinosaur in the background of the image wouldn't look out of place.
The connotations of this take the viewer back to when they are a child as infants have a very warped sense of time, this leads back to the fact he used a fish-eye lens that slightly distorts the camera at the edges and makes the trees look curved which adds an Alice in WOnderland atmosphere.
This crimson forest is the epitome of autumn if you pair that with the bone-white tree that has been felled it adds a more sinister note to the images atmosphere. This image was taken in his hometown - Saint-Petersburg with a Nikon D750 with a 16-35mm lens. The only camera setting detailed was the F-stop which was F/4, which is unusual as the image would be classified as a landscape which is normally best suited to F/16 and above.
Contact Sheets:
Images that need improvement:
DS7_526.JPG:
This image is too dark as it is one of the first that I took once I arrived in the woods. The wind was also rather strong that day so the clouds kept moving in front of the sun which meant I had to keep changing my camera settings.
Both images DS7_5263.JPG and DS7_5274.JPG lack a an engaging composition. They are technically well shot as the subject is in focus and they aren't under or over exposed, it is the framing that is letting the images down. DS7_5263.JPG seems confused and doesn't provide the viewer with a point of focus and so it boring. I improved this image by moving back to the small path through the forest as this draw the viewer into the image (DS7_5270.JPG); it is amazing what a large side-step can change.
As I said previously the clouds kept moving which meant the light levels kept changing. During this walk I found some different species of mushrooms that I would have like to have taken home to take photographs under studio conditions but I was unable to as I didn't know whether they were poisonous. Instead I had to crouch a close as I could to the damp ground (my parents wouldn't appreciate a muddy car) to take the shots with a high F-stop. Due to the limited light I wasn't able to hold the camera still enough to take the shots I would have liked and so experimented with using a flash. The flash did improve the shutter speed and clarity, however the lens hood cast a shadow in DS7_5384.JPG and DS7_5419.JPG. I soon realised after some immediate reviewing and took the hood off; this presented me with another problem. The flash was creating harsh shadow that I didn't want in my images, look at DS7_ 5427.JPG. Eventually I resorted to using the image stabilisation on my lens and holding the camera as still as I was able to . The improved image is DS7_ 5441.JPG.
My best images:
I took this shot looking directly into the sunbeam so that I would create some camera glare that would add a theral atmosphere.
I particularly like this shot as I like the composition. The bright sunlight bouncing off of the trees seems to invite the viewer into the image and then the dark shadows in the background hint at something more sinister lurking in the undergrowth.
This was another shot that I specifically wanted to create camera glare in as it highlights the path deeper into the woods despite it being obstructed by debry. The sunlight seems to promise of something better just beyond the horizon.
I like this image as the mushroom looks like it is on the verge of breaking and yet still remains standing. Mushrooms only grow when there is organic matter that is rotting underground and so are a necessary part of the ecosystem. They also have connotations of faeries which also adds a charming element to their (possibly) toxic beauty.
This images make the viewer seem like a miniscule part of the landscape. This is due to the low angle I took the shot as and because of this it feels like the trees are looming over you.
I like this shot of the mushrooms as they were sitting just beside the road going unnoticed by everyone and yet providing a service by removing waste.
I like this images as it shows both the immediate time and seasonal status in the same image. The season can be inferred from the varying colours of fallen leaves and the immediate time is sunset.
A03: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
My idea for this shoot was to document decay in a natural environment on a small scale. To do this I actively searched for mould or mushroom but unfortunately only found mushrooms. I also wanted to note the different seasonal changes that were in the landscape around me and to do this I focused on the sunlight and the different tones it gave my surroundings. For the mushrooms, I wanted to use a low F-stop so that there was a shallow focus of around f/6 or f/4 (depending on the light) on the mushroom instead of the other forest elements and for the landscape images I wanted to create a relatively wide depth of field and so moved the f-stop to 22. Changing these F-stops did prove difficult as the lighting kept changing and it is difficult to hold the camera still. Due to this, I will bring either a tripod, which is relatively bulky or a monopod so that I am more mobile when walking around forests etc.
In reference to my images that need improvement, I will bring a tripod with me so that I can better manipulate the depth of field and the lighting in my images. This will also allow me to focus more on the composition of my images.
I like my images of mushrooms and so will look into more images by different photographs to gather ideas on how I can improve the lighting and tone in my own work. I would also like to focus on my ability to take macro shot while out on a shoot as this is a skill I need to build on.
A02: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
On this shoot I took my Nikon D7200 with an 18-200mm lens. In hindsight I wish I had taken a macro lens and a tripos so that I could get better lighting and focus on my pictures of my mushrooms. I was also trying to use two techniques while I was out shooting including macro and landscape and because of the vast differences between the two different styles of photography I was limiting how well I could take either. Next time I will choose a style decisively or I will take out a macro camera and then swap the lenses after a certain period of time so that I can capture the best of both techniques.
A01: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
My research into Dimitriy Evdokimov helped me as I was able to identify what he does well in his work such as focusing and lighting as these show prominently through his work. I wanted to use the same type of lighting he used as I like the fantastical atmosphere that it creates in his images.
Improving my images:
To improve my images I opened them in Photoshop and because I was shooting in RAW format I can open them directly into Photoshop and begin editing them:
I first moved the temperature towards the yellow end a little more so that the light in my images looked more natural and like a brighter sunlight.
I then went onto the dehaze slider and moved it left which mean that the image would become more hazy, I wanted this effect as it would add to otherworldly atmosphere that I wanted to create in my images. I also enhanced the vibrancy an saturation in my images as the dehaze slider dimmed them slightly.
Here is my final image:
I used this editing technique for all of my images but I also used the blurring tool to create a better focus on some of my close up photographs as there was other forest debris in the images that drew away from the main subject.
Final Images:
I feel like I have made a meaningful response to the brief and to my artist's research on Dimitriy Evdokimov. My final images show the seasonal changes in the woods in both the foreground with my close-ups of mushrooms and on the wider scale, the landscape. One of the main themes that I had in this shoot was the early winter sunshine that burns through all of the clouds that will eventually come during the winter months. Another theme I focused on was the leaves that are slowly falling and carpeting the forest floor, I would like to look at leaves in a macro shoot to document the leaves gradually fading. In the future, I would also like to experiment with layering the different shots, of both macro and landscape photography as I have always thought of them as the polar opposites of photography.
A weakness of this shoot is that the looking up into the trees-type shots have become an overused cliche. I will try to distance myself from the stereotypical seasonal shots as although they are beautiful they don't engage the viewer and consequently leave no lasting influence or deeper meaning.
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