Events - Stow Fair Evauluation

The end of October we travelled to Stow on the Wold for our second event to photograph. It was a real eye opener into the world of photojournalism, having to ask the public and stall holders to photograph them but also the world of gypys and how they live their lives and their religions. As per he other event we shot, we had to have 4 final images and below are the ones that I chose to print;

This is my favourite image of the shoot because I feel like it really shows the gypsy culture and how they live and travel around. Even though this is just a show caravan and not actually in use, it still shows what the culture used to be like and how they used to live and travel. This was just a quick snapshot walking past but I'm so glad it came out as such a good image. Taken using an exposure of f/5 to let in as much of the gold detail on the caravan as possible and shutter speed of 1/100 because its just a quick snapshots. 

This man stopped us as a group and spoke to us about his religion and upbringing for a good hour or more, this is my favourite image I took of him because I feel like it shows how he was being so serious and taking about such an important subject to him. Yet also it shows how they dress and how they live. I'm also quite glad that the image came out with little background detail apart from the trees because it doesn't remove any attention from him and his hands. This image was taken using F/5 and a shutter speed of 1/50th so that it could be a snapshot of him talking.

This is a quick overview shot of the fair, still quite early in the morning so it was just starting out and wasn't busy. You can see all the stalls and vans all set up and the public walking around looking at the stalls and buying gifts, clothes and much more. I don't really like this image because it don't think it shows much of the culture but I think it does show an overview of what the fair was like and how it was. This image was taken using F/5 and then a very fast shutter speed (1/320) so that it could be a quick snapshot of what everything looked like.

This image was taken off the gentleman's fire in the above image. We just wanted to take some photos of the fire that he'd set up and he then came of his caravan and moved his kettle and cookery pots into the frame so that it would give us more of an understanding of how they were living. I really like this image because it shows how they would of just lit a fire and made their coffee and food on an open flame. I also like how the chairs in the background are still there just where he would of been sat using the fire. Taken using f/5 and a shutter speed of 1/80 so that there would be a little bit of motion in the flames of the fire.

Events - Tewkesbury Mop Fair Evaluation

Back in October, one of our event photoshoots we travelled to Tewkesbury Mop Fair for the evening to photograph the fairground rides, families and fun. As part of our assignment we had to have 4 final images from the this event and below are the ones I chose;

We arrived at the fair around 4 in the afternoon and photographing the bright lights at this time was very difficult, this image was taken stood holding the camera using a small exposure of F/5.6 to let in as much light as possible and the colours from the balloons on the ride. I like this image because you've got the colours of the balloons and the lights of the ride, but also the children riding it and the parents stood watching over. 

This image was taken stood just outside the waltzer ride as it was starting, the lad you can see on the right hand side was one the boys running the ride and was pushing the seats round so they spin faster. I really like how this image is a snapshot of the ride, with the seats and lights all snapped in actions. Taken using an exposure of f/5.6 and shutter speed of 1/15th second.

This image was taken stood in the queue for this ride, just as it was about to pass over our heads, because I knew I wanted to take a quick snap shot of the ride passing over I used the flash. The use of this has also light up the shoes and faces of some of the people on the ride, and illuminating the parts of the ride that the normal lights wouldn't. I like this image because you can see the lights in the middle of the smoke and how the shoes are light but still blurry because they're moving on the ride and excited about it. Taken using exposure of F/8 and shutter speed of 1/50th second.

This is my favourite image out of all 4 of them, and it was actually taken whist on the ride. I like this image the most because even though its very smoky, it shows the young boy working on the ride spinning the seats around, all the motion blur in the lights in the seats showing which way there moving but then the lights through the smoke from the other rides at the fair too. I feel like this image really summed up what the Fair is about in this generation. Taken using exposure F/8 and shutter speed of 1/20th second, using ISO 800 because of how dark it was.

Tales of Gloucestershire - Final shots and Evaluation

After shooting in just the few boys bedrooms I wanted to get more images of different rooms to get more of a comparison of how all the students have got their own individuality and how each one has made themselves feel at home.
To do this, I sent out a message over Facebook to the students in Pitville halls and asked if I could photograph the book selves in there rooms and set out with my camera and tripod going around different flats and blocks. After a couple of days of shooting I got images of 50 different bedrooms shelves which I had to get down to 6 to print and submit. Below are the 6 images I chose;

This image is taken using a tripod and the artificial light from the LED lights on both sides of our student rooms. Using a shutter speed of 1 second to let in as much light and detail from the shelves as possible.

Using a long shutter speed the same as before, I also used a exposure of F/20 to give as much detail of the books, photos and alcohol bottles in the images. This means that you can zoom into the images and its still perfectly focused and detailed.

As you can tell the I took the images around Christmas time, meaning some the students had decorated their rooms with tinsel and trees. I like how all the images are perfectly square and the bookshelves are square in the centre too.

When photographing in this room, Charlie moved the guard dog from the door on to his shelve because he wanted to include him in the picture as something he'd brought from home and made him feel settled when being here.

After looking at my images in more depth, I think if I was to do this shoot again a way I would improve the pictures is by using a fill in flash or speedlite to fill in all the gaps where the artificial light cant get to, and also to remove the shadows. 

Out of all my images I chose these 6 because I thought they showed the individuality of each student, from the alcohol bottles and books/folders of student life to the stuffed toys, fairy lights and pictures of family. Even though the bookshelves are the same in each room (whether they face left or right) are built the same and are the same colour. Overall I really enjoyed shooting this project because I got a small insight into how everyone is individual and getting to know everyone a little more, but also photographing the shelves and seeing the outcomes of each shoot and how different each one is even though the set up is exactly the same for each.

Tales of Gloucestershire - Test shots

As per my last post, I photographed some of the students bedrooms, and their bookshelves. Below are the image I got of the shelves, note they're all boys bedrooms.

After cropping these images I realised that the way I'd set up my tripod meant the were shot slightly to low which meant the when I cropped the images down to 10x8 the bottom corners of the bookshelf was cut off and not perfectly square.