Assignment 1 - Final Version

The industrial estate, looking across the car park.

f20, 60s

The park, showing the way to go.

f7.1, 60s

The park from another angle.
f16, 60s

The arrow shows the way.

f20, 60s

The basketball court

f22, 60s

 
The shadow of the tree
f16, 60s

Traces of life in the industrial estate
f22, 60s

The barrier is finally open to the new part of the estate.

f22, 60s

Life but scarcely evident - the roundabout near Phase 5

f22, 60s

My street

f22, 60s

Security protect Phase 3

f20, 60s

The new furniture store stocks up.

f22, 60s

The entrance

f22, 60s

The roundabout at the entrance.

f22, 60s

The tree I like looking at.

f18, 60s

-          I did 8 night shoots and one day shoot in total for this project, and also spent some time driving around in the day thinking about shots and deciding what I wanted. I settled on the idea of night shots, and tried a few versions. I originally wanted to take the photos at twilight but this is so short in Borneo that it would have taken many more shoots over a long period of time to complete the assignment. I walked for some shoots and took my car for others (as I realised that for safety, if there was a power cut I would have more chance of getting home with my car!). A tripod was used for all night shoots, and I used my Lumix Gx-1 with a 14mm lens for all shoots. I took my time working out where to be for the shot, and also took some that I hadn’t thought of as I saw them.

-          For post-processing, I simply changed levels, then for some cleaned them with the spot healing brush or clone stamp tool, before adding unsharp mask. Two shots were not straight and so I used rotate to straighten them – I did attempt to take new shots but this was unsuccessful. I used Photoshop Elements 8.

-          I chose to use colour files as it seemed more relevant to the subject which is a current one – in the digital age, colour is more common and I like the effect of night long exposures more in colour. I have put them into a word file as requested by my tutor, but have also included a link to the larger processed files in dropbox if needed.

-          I have used web size files (72dpi, 500 px wide) to add to the word document as this is a size that can be looked at online easily and they will allow the word document to be attached more easily. I took the shots at a resolution of 4592x3448 px, 180dpi. This is the maximum resolution of my camera, and I wanted the file size to be large so I could do more with it if needed without losing too much quality. I used jpg files as I find this easier to deal with space wise – I use RAW occasionally if I feel I will need more control in post-processing. I use adobe sRGB colour space, to be honest as I was advised to a long time ago but I cannot remember the rationale.

-          After much thought, I decided to put the portfolio in shoot date order, with the post-processed shot before the original where each is on the same page for ease of comparison. I will also be putting the processed photos on my blog so they can be looked at together.

-          The finished portfolio is almost what I expected, but I am still a little unhappy with the lack of people in my shots. A few shots I had were almost added that had people, but they did not fit with the overall theme of the portfolio. I think the overall look is successful, although I feel like I could have re-shot some that have too much flare – this was more difficult to correct in post than I thought it would be. Some I did reshoot, but I was still not happy. I also think I should have experimented more with 10 second shot intervals with more shots before settling on 60 seconds. I am glad I challenged myself to stick to the 14mm lens and a relatively new camera though. I think if I reshoot, I will try to get more evidence of people living in my area, by being clearer about including traffic trails. I do feel, though, that the lights in all shots convey a sense of my neighbourhood being occupied.