Feedback on Assignment 3

My tutor sent me his feedback on Assignment 3 last week and all I can say is:

WOW.

Joe gave me some massively positive notes on the series and I'm really glad that I took the time producing them, given the results. Joe liked them so much that he passed them onto Gareth Dent at the OCA and I'm now a featured artist!!! I've been on cloud-9!!!

Click here to see my work at the main OCA website and here for the OCA blog to read the accompanying article!


On a further note, it is interesting that the colour settings on my monitor were brought up in the feedback because I have been pondering about this recently. I received an email from the OCA about Peak Imaging as a photo developer and the importance of monitor calibration with colour cards. I also noticed that the colours of my submission for Assignment 3 were a little different on my friend’s monitor when I was showing him my work. Joe noticed some purple areas on the photograph '09 - Complimentary harmony' and I too saw this on my friend’s screen. The excess purple areas are of the light reflecting off the white material in the background because the sheet I used had a slight sheen to it. On my screen they are not visible and I thought my settings were quite good. Looks like I’ll have to get some colours cards and do some tinkering!!

Assignment 3: Colour

16 photographs

Click here to view flickr set

This assignment is a long time coming! Work commitments have gotten in the way of completing my submission photographs but I am glad I took the time to really get into the assignment and not add images just for the sake of it. That being said, I found myself getting quite frustrated at times; given my tutors feedback on Assignment 2 I was really working hard to avoid ‘record shots’. I wanted all of the submissions to be my own work and not simply capture someone else’s colours. Painted surfaces have been deliberately avoided and I spent a long time searching out colours occurring naturally and deliberately using colour to achieve quality submissions. I created a table of the colour relationships available to me to help with my planning and I have annotated it with the number of times I used each combination:


The photographs have been divided into x4 series in order to vary the subject matter and also provide separate themes to work to; staged scenes; autumn hues; still life; found scenes. All photographs have been taken with low ISO settings so that I was in control of the colour and, at my tutor’s suggested, RAWs edited in Adobe Lightroom. Also, given my love of experimenting, I have played with using light to affect colour in the way I please. I will discuss Von Goethe’s colour theory and you will see that I have both used it and deliberately ignored it.

Click here to view the photo album and read my notes.

Still overdue.....

Here's a sneak-peek at what's to come!

I'm getting extreamly frustrated that I've still not finished off Assignment 3. I've got maybe 2 more photographs to take but every time I get chance to do it the weather is shit or I've got extra work to take home with me. GRR!

I've got some time off booked next week and I'm visiting a friend in Paris, so I really want to crack on with the next chapter so I can take advantage of some photography in France.

Also, It strikes me that I'm not paying enough attention to anaylsising other artists' work. I'm looking at photography and visiting exhibitions but I'm not writing about it. This was a weak area for me when I studied art at college so I really need to force myself into it.

Working on Assignment 3 - pt 2

I'm nearly two weeks overdue submitting Assignment 3, but I managed to get out over the weekend and take some photos in Didcot with a friend, so I'm getting closer! Maybe just one more week!

Its autumn time and probably the most colourful season of the year! How fortunate that my colour assignment is due in with this opportunity! I have been obsessingly avoiding record shots after my feedback from Assignment 2 and my planning has inspired me to use nature and light rather than painted surfaces. I really hope my tutor likes my next submission because I’m very happy so far! I should be visiting home in the Forest of Dean next week so it’ll be a good time to get out to Puzzle Wood or Speech House to finish my photography for this assignment.

On a technical front I have been using a polarizing filter and slightly underexposing my shots by adjusting the aperture and/or shutter speed to bring out the shadows and make the colours stand out. However, I’ll go into more detail with the assignment notes.

I am also obsessed with Adobe Lightroom now that my tutor recommended RAW manipulation. Great bit of kit.

On the subject of capturing colour in landscape photography, Peter Lik is truly a master. I first encountered his work in a gallery at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. He is an Australian photographer famed for his panoramic images. True, the places he travels to are truly beautiful in their own right but the way he captures the colours is astounding. His planning and patience for the right light conditions is inspiring. Well, let’s see what I can do!

Working on Assignment 3

Well, Assignment 3 is now three days overdue and I only have 7 photographs so far. Work is really getting in the way of this submission!

When I first started planning for this assignment, I emailed my tutor and asked him the relevance of Von Goethe’s colour theory when composing the photographs for submission. The short answer was that there are arguments for and against the suggested colour rations and that it is, at the end of day, just a theory. I will experiment with the composition and bare the colour ratios in mind but I am not going to obsess about them.

My tutor has also recommended that I use RAW files and an editing program to really make the colours pop for this assignment; I will be downloading a few trial versions of RAW editing software and see what I can do with them – more to come!

Happy Halloween!

I was browsing the web to get some more inspiration for Assignment 3 and I came across this Horror Photographer; Joshua Hoffine.

Being the fan of horror movies that I am, I really like this artist’s work; it’s amazingly atmospheric and has such elaborate setups that you can’t help but love the elegant macabre of each photograph. Can I use this as inspiration? Inspiration maybe, but I do not have the skill, experience or resources for amazing photographs like these. Maybe when I'm better?

Colour: Project - Colour relationships

Exercise: Colours into tones in black-and-white
4 photographs

Click here to view album

I set about this exercise using some brightly coloured action figures I own and taking one exposure; the RAW was later used to create the B&W images using Adobe Lightroom. This will prove useful practise later on when using Lightroom for processing images for Assignment 3.

I’m not really too sure what I can say about this assignment as my results are the same as the example given in the course material. Furthermore, I will not be using anything learnt here for Assignment 3 as there is no requirement for submitted black-and-white work. Hopefully this will be something for later on in TAOP.

Click here to view the photo album and read my notes.