Time Encapsulated

From being given the task of designing and making a captivating 'Obet D'Art' my brain has been working overtime in coming up with something amazing, new and innovative.. But until I know how I will present my blog (digital/archival print) my options are limited.

I have thought about making a trip to a scrap yard and just see if anything catches my eye, I have even pondered over mooching through a skip on the street.

I definitely want my time capsule to be made from something I have recycled, just not sure what this will be yet.

12/1/13

I plan to make my time capsule out of Acrylic in the form of a box a little larger than A4Which will hold an A4 file, that will be all my work on this blog printed out and made into a file spiral bound.

25/1/13
Problems with getting the acrylic box made have arisen. The piece of acrylic I already have to make my box out of is proving difficult to get cut, the people I have approached so far charge excessive amounts of money to cut it and others refused to cut a piece which was not their stock ( because they were unsure of what it would consist of and concerns of the product breaking their equipment).

8/2/13
A new concept for my time capsule, print my blog, roll it up and place in a piece of piping/guttering or similar, then maybe paint my name and date on it, using a stencil and gloss paint, or even scribe the details into whatever I use.

27/2/13
Whilst on holiday I thought about melting down all the used carrier bags from supermarkets we have in the cupboard at home, and making some kid of container which will hold my blog print out, until we got home and the mother in law had been round tidying up, and cleared out all the bags!!! Empty cupboard.

2/3/13
Time is a relevant factor for this task, and something I'm running out of rapidly...
Well unfortunately it's not going to be amazing, I have resorted to a ready made box which I will adjust to add a personal touch.

Saturday, 16 March 2013

Final Evaluation

Contemporary Food Shoot; http://www.stephenshawphotography.com/index.html

Stephen Shaw is a professional photographer living in Italy, who specialises in Wedding, Schools and Food photography. Whilst researching food photographers I came across his website which shows a range of various images in the different areas of photography that Stephen is working in.

I particularly liked his food photography because his images have a clean fresh approach and he uses a nice depth of field, focusing on the main subject yet there are objects relating to the food nicely obscured in the background. Here are a couple of his images.

These images were very influential to my final shot, not only this approach of lighting but also the positioning of food in relation to the everything else in the shot. Stephen Shaw shoots with a canon 5D mk 2 and a range of lenses. His website is basic and can be viewed in both English and Italian, which I thought was a nice touch making it accessible to a wider range of viewers. I was however unable to find out any information about the way he shoots i.e. how he lights food shoots etc, and he doesn't have a price list on the site for wedding packages. I think he could improve his website by adding these elements and in turn this could be an advantage to gaining more commissions in this competitive field.

My final shot for the Contemporary Food Shoot.

Contemporary Exterior Architecture; http://www.jcollingridge.co.uk/index.html

J.Collingridge has been a big influence in following a career in Architectural photography since first seeing his work, I have been in contact with him during an assignment last year and was fortunate to attend one of his shoots in a derelict building in Dewsbury. After assisting Collingride on a shoot, I have gained first hand knowledge on his work ethics on a shoot. I realise that these will differ depending on the circumstances and can therefore only comment on the shoot I attended.

Collingridge shoots with a canon 5D mk 2 and primarily a TSe lens, either 17mm or 24mm. There was no extra lighting kit used, although he did bring some with him, instead he used a long exposure in the dimly lit building, and had the camera set on self timer to eliminate shake, and the camera was set at auto bracketing, making it possible to process the images in HDR.

I gather that there is quite a lot of work done in the post processing of his images which he stated was done using photoshop, it is this process that adds his personal touch to each and every one of his images, making them unique and very attractive, it is this that has gained him awards within the industry and well deserved commissioned shoots around the world, in turn giving him exposure and popularity in this field.

Here are a couple of images taken from J. Collingridges website.

My Final Shot

Both of these images were my influence for my final shot in different ways, the first one in the angle and the second one, by including more foreground in my shot, which I personally think gives the shot a strength and sense of power, without distracting from the main subject.

I have learnt numerous valuable points during this module in relation to architectural photography and how the light and time of day have affect the shoot, knowledge of the sun's position is invaluable and can be the make or break of a shot. Unfortunately the weather has not been the best especially the days I was available to shoot, therefore I had to make the most of what I had, and although it was not great, I had some nice clouds in the sky which are also a added factor to gaining that perfect shot.

I was working with two possible final shots for this part of the module and one of the issues I had when shooting was moving cars being in the shot, because when shooting in bracket mode there is going to be different images of anything in the shot which is moving, in the hdr processing stage we will be left with a ghost image, on occasions this will not affect your final shot if for instance there was a moving car in only one of the three bracketed shots, as when they are put together this element is not visible. If the car is in all of the bracketed shots then you will be left with a ghost image of each position the car was in when the shot was taken, I suppose you could argue that this could work, it would depend on the context of your image.

Here is an example where this happened to me while shooting the Ibbotson flats. ( red car by the blue boards directly below the flats with scaffolding up)

The other issue I had to deal with was that after assessing where I should situate my camera to get the best shot, my car was actually in my shot, I had to leave the camera on tripod, and jump in my car to move it out of shot range. This was one of those times when I could have done with someone with me, since it is not the most desirable spot in town, and could have proven disastrous. The Ibbotson flats are due to be demolished to make way for a new Tesco store at the bottom of town. In the next image you can see the marked out area where I had parked my car, ( I deleted the images in camera as soon as I realised) this is another lesson learned- keep these shots as evidence!

I was pleasantly pleased with the outcome of both the Ibbotson flats shot and the Magistrates Court. I have walked past both buildings many times over the years and wouldn't of thought twice about shooting them until now, and how different they actually look. And after my initial decision of shooting the green M&S store, I feel much more satisfied with my final choice. (Always do a reccy before planning in future).

Contemporary Interior Space; 360 virtual tours.

http://www.regasys.com/services/virtual-tours/?ad=CAA_virtual-tour-photographers_03#Price_06_video&pano&photo_NP=1180_DP=88

On researching photographers who make 360 virtual tours, I noticed the search engine listed company's who create these as opposed to freelance photographers. the link I have included was the first one I visited, and to be honest, considering it is showing property's in London I was a little disappointed with the information on the business. The website is very basic, with only one page, there is no-where to navigate to, although there is a price calculator which gives an estimate cost of having a 360 tour produced by this company, an email and telephone number at the top of the page is all you get.. But, is that all you need??? maybe.. at least this gave me something to think about, in that setting up a business such as making 360 virtual tours, you don't require a complicated website. Why have 10 360's available to view, when the client wanting one obviously knows what they are, therefore they only need to see one example, and I guess if they can see the quality they will receive, then if the price is right, you will get the client.

Screen shot of the Regasys website.

I have been giving the 360 tours some positive thoughts so far, as a career opportunity. I am really considering this being a great opening for me, going forward as business option. and can see the advantages to any company, be it a small hotel or big corporate institute, to having this available for their clients and the public in general. I am excited to learn more about perfecting this technique to a high standard, and looking at ways of making it even more of a desirable asset for the client.

An Event of Significance; Time- Lapse

http://www.366days.org.uk
http://ollielarkin.co.uk

My event of significance was making a time lapse in Wakefield Cathedral, as they were undergoing renovations in the nave, as a result of celebrating 125 years of the Cathedral's existence. I became a volunteer photographer as part of this project and visited the Cathedral 3 times in total, firstly taking photographs and on the other 2 occasions I made time- lapse's of the contractors dismantling the scaffolding and laying the under floor heating.

In researching time lapse photographers, I found Ollie Larkin who only shoots time lapse, his website is currently being updated, it shows various time- lapse videos which he has produced and gives a little personal information, but it doesn't expose the equipment he shoots with etc.

Larkin has recently set up and managed shoots lasting from one day to several years, building and designing time-lapse solutions to be used all over the world. Including shoots for broadcast and corporate clients internationally, this involved a 10 week shoot in Scotland for an up and coming BBC project. his work also includes a commission for Qatar National Day, in which he spent 2 weeks shooting time-lapse for a film by Peter Webber.

I particularly like the time-lapse made in the Cribbs Causeway shopping centre, because he pans the camera around, giving a wider view of the area being shot. I can see how attractive and beneficial this product can be to any business. And since we have been shown how to produce a time-lapse, I have noticed that almost everything shown on TV lately, be it an advert, film or documentary, you can see a time-lapse. This makes me realise the opportunities out there as a photographer new to the business where the work is.

This could be a fantastic opportunity to get involved in a TV or film production, just like the 360 virtual tours, I feel that time-lapse is yet another popular photographic qualification to have, in order to obtain clients. There are so many ways that a time-lapse could be used for, from a new building being erected to the hustle and bustle of a shopping centre, to promote a business.

A well executed time -lapse of a plant growing from seed could be used by a garden centre as advertising for instance, I personally think that having the knowledge and resources to produce this and offer as a service to clients, could be a powerful tool and the making of a business.

Pop Culture; Video

My pop culture went from being a 360 revolving image, to stop motion and finally ended up as a video, which in the grand scheme of things is again a very popular means of media today. More and more photographers are turning their hand to making video, and shooting with the canon 5D mk 2 makes this even more enjoyable, giving a nice dof, and the ability to zoom in and out of focus on a subject, can give some great effects used correctly.

I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity of videoing for Snap On Tools, as they launched a new product, and required a training video for customers buying the product. I have included one of the videos on my blog as evidence, and some still shots of the equipment used in the shoot.

This proves how popular video is with large nationwide corporations and the options available for producing video for their products is an ongoing working environment. I included the Snap On Tools video just for evidence of my work with a reputable company.

My video for the Pop culture theme, is of a 13 year old boy, showing that as soon as he arrives home from school the first thing he does is go up to his room and start playing on his I-pad, then moves onto the x-box where he is playing live and talking to other people, who he doesn't know all over the world. He then moves to the laptop, and will be on this until the early hours of the morning at week ends..

The purpose of my video is to show the popular culture of society today especially in young children, that they seem dependant on technology for everything, and how easy it is for them to access websites that are X rated.

This part of the module, proved the most challenging, only because of the limited time I had with the young boy to actually make the video. Once we got started it was done in no time.. I have not edited a video previously to making this, or used I movie so I had to research first how to edit the video, add a title, pictures and music. Again, I can see lots of potential for this medium in various walks of life. From the music industry to local businesses who wish to promote their company/band.
You tube is a perfect example of how powerful video is in today's society, people have become famous from videoing themselves and posting it on the you tube website.

In theory, if you composed a really good quality video of an interesting subject and posted it on you tube, this could lead to being approached by someone with a job prospect.

My finished video can be viewed on this link. http://youtu.be/V-4gaqZYnaw

Monday, 11 March 2013

Snap On Tools video

Snap On Tools

I attended a shoot for Snap On Tools and shot video clips of a new product they are launching in the near future, the video clips were edited and a voice over was added, the whole project was put together to produce a training dvd for Snap On Tools customers to train staff on using this new product on purchase.

This was a great opportunity for me to experience a different media technique client based, it was the first time I had shot video and was pleasantly surprised how easy this came to me as a first attempt.
Although I cannot take praise for the editing, after watching the final version it is something that I would be interested in looking into for future commissioned work.

This could be used as an event of significance, as it is significant to my future, by being involved with the Snap On Tools project, and shooting all of the video footage to make up their training video could be the start of a career in video.

This video can be viewed at; http://cchrissy55.wix.com/chrissy-eastwood

Monday, 4 February 2013

Contemporary Interior Space

Statement of Intent

It is my intention to attend a local restaurant in Huddersfield and create a 360 virtual tour of the main restaurant, it will show the restaurants tables and bar area. I have asked permission from the owner and agreed to allow them to have the finished 360 virtual tour for their website.

I have made arrangements to attend the site on 3/2/13 and pre-booked out the 360 panoramic head, tripod and lighting kit from college in order to carry out this project. I have had my risk assessment approved by Katrina and I have already carried out a reky on the property, to know where the best position for the shoot would be.

3/2/13

On my arrival at the restaurant, I firstly checked out the lighting on site to determine if any extra lighting would be necessary, I decided that the lighting available in the restaurant would be suitable for the shoot. the next job was to choose where the best place to shoot from would be, taking into consideration that the space available was limited because of tables and chairs positioned close to each other.There was a more open space in the bar area, however I felt that this was not the best position because of wooden carved dividers that separated the bar area from the main restaurant.

After politely asking the owner to remove a tall advertisement which was covering the only open space between the two rooms, I had a better position for the shoot, which was in the main restaurant and yet the bar area could also be seen as the camera moved around its axis.having never done this style of shoot before I was hoping that my judgement for camera positioning was correct, I guess we will find out when I try and stitch the images together.

To my astonishment the restaurant was open to the public and there were some members of the public sat at tables eating, I asked my client if he would please make sure with everyone that it was alright for me to do the shoot, they were all co-operative. This was another reason for not using the lighting I had taken with me, it would not have been safe to use with so many members of the public and staff walking past every few minutes. ( had I needed to use the lighting, I would have re-arranged the shoot for when the restaurant was closed).

I set up the camera in my chosen space, which was also out of the way of staff and customers, and made all the relevant adjustments i.e. finding the nodal point, and no parallax before starting the shoot. I had set the 360 head at 45degree angles, which meant that I would take 8 shots not including the Zenith and Nadir, 10 in total.
As each shot was taken I checked that no people were in the shot, since the restaurant was now becoming very busy, and staff were walking in and around the camera, but they were very patient and considerate of me working.
As I came to take the last shot in the set of eight images ( 3 images for each shot, to make hdr shots) there was a chair directly to my left and very much in the shot, on the chair a man was sitting and he had hung his coat over the back of the chair, I apologised for interrupting the couple as they ate, and asked if I could possibly remove his coat while I took the shot, the couple were very obliging and allowed me to move his coat.
To shoot the zenith (ceiling) I simply turned the camera until it was facing the ceiling, and took another auto bracketed shot. For the nadir shot I hand held the camera at approximately the same height the camera had been previously on the tripod, and standing as still as I could I took the shot, as my camera was set to auto bracketing and a 2 sec delay this proved very testing, hopefully the outcome will be good enough for the 360 panoramic. Below are four of the images taken for the shoot after post processing them in Photomatix to hdr.

After this process I then uploaded the images into PTGui a software that stitches the images together as a panoramic shot, as shown here after upload, I took a screen shot to show this.

After clicking align images PTGui will prepare the images for a panorama shot, however if for some reason any of the images don't match up, you will be asked if you would like to add control points, you can do this manually simply by clicking on the same point on two different shots, so that PTGui can align the images. In this case my images all lined up perfectly because I left a 20% overlap on each shot, however the Nadir didn't match up and so I had to manually add contact points. The more contact points you add the better the match will be, but beware that it can be very confusing and easy to make mistakes placing the points. I found myself having to move points around because of the wide angle fisheye lens used, it was a little confusing as to which chair was the same one in my nadir shot.

Here is a screen shot of PTGui placing contact points manually.

After re-visiting this blog the day after it was posted, to check everything, I noticed that some of the
contact points 9.10.11.12 and 13 are on the wrong chair (right image), they should be on the chair behind the one with in the matching points on (left image).

Once you are happy with the points placed go back to " Project Assistant" and continue creating your panorama image, below is a screen shot of my panoramic image created.

Looking good so far.

Now we go to Pano2VR with our panoramic image this software enables us to create the 360 virtual tour, we simply upload the image as shown below.

In the above image I set the pan to 360 and I also changed the viewing limits for the bottom because when I viewed the final 360 there was a black circle showing on the floor where I had shot the images from, as yet I have no idea why this happened but found that by setting the viewing limits I could prevent this from being shown in the finished product without affecting the 360 at all, I also thought about adding the restaurant name on the floor, I will look into this after doing more research.

FINISHED 360

www.cchrissy55.wix.com/chrissy-eastwood

I tried everything to upload my 360 on to my Blog, with no luck, and after much deliberation I

finally I managed to upload it onto my website, it can be found on the link above.

At the bottom of the website are links to pages, the 360 can be found in the MORE section, along with contact and About me.

Although I am very pleased and excited to have completed my own 360 in a local restaurant, looking at the final product I can find a couple of faults within it. Firstly the bright blue sky at the windows caused by making hdr images, a slight double image on the gentleman sat eating, (he must have moved whilst I was shooting my auto bracketed shots for HDR). I can fix the blue by making slight adjustments on each of the images before stitching them together in PTGui, but there is nothing I can do about the man's head other than re-shoot and make sure that no-one was in the shot.

I have really enjoyed learning about 360's and I intend to experiment and improve with this technique in order to be able to offer it as a service to clients in the future. I can improve on my final 360 by adding hot spots in certain areas of the restaurant, such as the menu, or wine list. By adding a hot spot I can zoom in on a close-up shot of the menu/wine list and it will show more details i.e. prices and choices.

I would have done this for this project but due to some un-forseen circumstances I didn't have enough time to execute this. I will however do this on my next 360 project and further my progression in this specific field.