Thomas WilliamsStill Image Portfolio

November 2011

Self Portrait

Low Light

Shallow Depth Of Field

Fast Shutter speed

Light

Colour

Texture

Self Timer

Lines

Balance

Movement

andre kertesz Image of Fork and Bowl

My replica of andre kertesz Image of Fork and Bowl

(Zoom in)

Original Image before Photoshop

My Image After Photoshop

Digital Culture and Social Identity : Me as a Cyber person/Terminator

CONCLUSIONDuring the past 7 weeks of studying “the still image’ I have thourally enjoyed it. I have found some of the tasks very challanging, but I feel I managed to complete the majority of the tasks to quite a good standard. I thought that one thing that I found difficult was the variation of cameras I was using. I used three different cameras on this project, a Lumix, a canon 450D and a Nikon D40 with an 18-55mm lense with an 18-55mm lense. It was good that I managed to use a varie-ty of cameras but I found it difficult switch between them as they were all slightly different. I think If I was to do this portfolio again I would preferably just use the Nikon D40 as this was the camera I became most familiar with.Throughout this task I found myself wanting to constantly re-shoot a lot of my images as I was becoming more compitant with the cameras. This therefore meant that I was constantly visiting different places to get the best images I could. The first image we had to shoot was the self-portrait. I thought the idea that I had of the black siluette with my face lit up reflecting in the mirror was quite an effective idea. I struggled a lot with this image though as I had the camera on a tripod behind me with the selftimer on. I found that the best setting was to have the shutter speed at 1/40 and the appature F.2. As I was holding the mirror I found it very hard to get my face in focus, but I think my final image didn’t come out as bad as I thought. The mistake I made was the fact that I left a piece of paper on the table to the right of me, but I didn’t think this was too noticable.If given the oppurtunity to do the task again I would remove that.The second brief was one of my favourites where we had 10 different images we had to capture, one of my strongest images from this brief was my self timer image. I was doing this picture with my friend which meant I was able to get her to stand infront of the camera so I could get the focus perfect, then I could go and join her in it. I also found that because it was a cloudy day it meant that the natural lighting made the image look very grasping.

Another image that I like from this brief was my ‘colour’ one. I managed to visit the m&m store in leicester square. I found the store was rich with colour so would be perfect for the colour image. I think that I managed to do a good job on this image as all four of the models and in good focus with good lighting too. I feel that my ‘Line’ image is average. I think that the image looks like the lines are slightly out of focus, but its actually because there was a window behind the lines which reflected the light causing this effect. I think if I was to redo this im-age I could possibly try taking the photography from the other side of the win-dow, meaning there would be nothing for the lights to reflect off. I used a tripod for every photograph in this brief appart from the shallow depth of field one. I think this helped me get the clearest photos I could. My ‘fast shutter speed’ image came out very well, I used a canon 450D to take this image, I set the

exposure to 1/125 and the appature to F.8, I think by doing this it meant I man-aged to capture a lot of detail and get a crisp image of my friend on his bike. I also thought my ‘movement’ photo was quite good. I set my shutter speed to 2 second and had the appature at F.10. I thought this setting was effective for the photo I wanted to take.The next brief was to create a replica of a photographer piece of work. I found this the hardest task of all. We were given several different photographer to look at to find a picture to re-create. I found it very difficult to find a photo I could possibly do. I found the majority of the photos taken by the photographers were of the naked body. I finally found a photo taken by Mann Ray of two ladies with their lips touching. I re-created this image but only had a lumix camera to do so. This meant that I found myself struggling to get the detail I would with the Nikon I was used to. As my replica didn’t come out very well so I decided to find a new image and re-shoot that. I found andre kertesz ‘bowl and fork’ image and the replica came out quiet well. The only issue I had was that there was a small part of the mantle piece showing on my photo which in the original image there was nothing there.The next task was to take an image and adjust its meaning within photoshop. Photoshop is one of my favourite programs, and I have become quite familiar with it as I enjoy playing around with different images, manipulating them in dif-ferent ways. I decided for this image I would base it around a halloween theme as it was halloween time. I spent several hours on this image and became quite engrossed in playing around with the hue and curves to get the womans cold look. I also enjoyed using different types of burn tool to darken the shaddows on her face, her eyes and her lips. then the marquee tool was used to select the eyes to adjust their colour. After playing around with her face to get this scary look I inserted some broken glass I had and used the cloud tool to change how opaque the glass was. Finally for this image I used different paintbrushes to cre-ate the blood look on the glass. I unfortunately only saved the pictures as small, so to view them properly the viewer has to zoom in. In future I will remember to save the picture as higher quality.Finally we were set the brief to create an image that presents digital culture and social identity. I was very stuck on this image. On our Thursdays lecture we were set to read Barlow, JP. (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyber-space. Whilst reading this I came up with the idea that I would turn a photo of myself into a cyber person, ie. the terminator. I enjoyed playing around creating this image and personally think that the end result is quite effective and captivat-ing.To conclude this essay I believe I have done well in this subject and have point-ed out the problems I made for if I was to redo it. I really enjoyed studying ‘The Still Image’.