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Research - Linda Hackett for theme 1

taken by Linda Hackett

                                                            Taken by Linda Hackett

I was looking at a book in college class ( Contemporary Photography And The Garden) and noticed some images by Linda Hackett.  They were blurry which gave a soft look with a dreamy sort of mood. There is a sense of  happy spring time in the above and its very colourful. The blur makes your eye search out things in the scene.  I decided to experiment with some blur and some focus in search of the dreamy look....

Linda Hackett is an American who started photographing an abandoned estate garden near her home in Southampton, New York in the mid 1980's.  She exaggerates colour and plant forms in her hallucinatory type imagery where elements of light and air take on an almost phisical presence.

She uses a pin hole camera which encompases extended exposure times to record the effects of wind movement through the garden.  She often places the camera so close to the subject that it would be unrecognisable without the written descriptive.  Hackett works exclusively at dawn and dusk when longer exposure times are required and adopts a "plants eye" perspective of the garden.  Her pin hole camera distorts light to give a metamorphosis mix of the light and intense colours resulting in the production of a surrealist atmosphere.

I have taken the following shots  in the garden at dusk in the shade.  I don't think the above was taken in any direct sunlight.  Here I am experimenting  firstly on smaller objects, to try to achieve a dream like effect, before I go out and try the full scene shots.  However I do not have a pin hole camera so will try to achieve the best I can with what I have.

shutter 1/6  aperture f4.0  iso 200  focal L 99mm

These 2 images contain some sky as in Linda Hackett's but not the same lovely blue.  I have included them because I like the curves of the twigs, but they don't have the appeal overall of Linda Hacketts, they don't really work the same.  Also these are where I have focussed in  a lot closer to the subject whereas Linda's  shot more of a full scene.

                                                shutter 1/25 aperture f4.0  focal L 105mm

I used a slow shutter speed and wide aperture which helped with the blur effect to the background and zoomed in to capture some detail.

shutter 0.4  f4.0  iso 200  focal L 105mm

The above image is better where sky is not included, I think it makes for a better composition and is more colourful because of the contrasts of the flowers to the dark green background.  Whilst the flowers are bright, they do look abit over exposed in parts, and  this loses detail, which could be ok here as I did not want all the details to be apparent anyway.

None of these images are completely blurred like that of Linda Hackett's which I think is not so easy to pull off successfully.  The sun was fading when I took this shot,  and no light was on the scene at all but because it had been a bright day and was now dusk, light still caught the flowers (above image) making them look bright. The dark shadows of the conifers gave the dark background.

                                                  shutter 1/25 f4.0  iso 200  focal L 75mm

The image above is more of a scene where I zoomed out abit.  I like it in part because it is unusual.  I think it captures dreamy slightly but it has hardness with the softness, given by the form of the tree trunks. In Linda Hackett's image the darkness on the left gives some drama and I wonder if the darkness here on the right achieves that.  What I do like is the triangle view of the sprigs, and it does make me think about the image more than my close shots above, which is what Linda Hackett's did.

                                              shutter 1/6  aperture f4.0 iso 200 focal L 105mm

The above is my completely out of focus image but it is only slightly so it still does not achieve the right effect.  I gained this all over out of slight focus by moving slightly as I took the shot hand held.  It has no dreamy quality and it left me wishing it was actually in full focus because I liked the colours and composition. 

 Again it is using hard and soft materials together and I had seen images that did this by another photographer in that same book, which I will look at again during class. 

 I took all these shots hand held thinking that any slight normal blur, by movement, may help what I trying to achieve.  If I was to attempt such shots again I could use a tripod and try tapping it as I released the shutter, but overall I think I need to use a slower shutter speed and move the camera around more.  I had had my camera set on a single centre focus point thinking this would also help make less of the scene in focus, but then I did focus with this centre point, in all but the last image, so this would not be the answer to achieve an overall blurry image either.

Other images I took:-

These images show some blur and some clarity in each just as my above ones do, hence still not achieving that overall blur look that looks correct.  However I do hope to capture the effect I am effect with digital manipulation later on:

                                                 shutter 4.0 aperture f4.0 iso 200 Focal L 105mm

shutter 1/8 aperture f4.0 iso 200 Focal L 75mm

                                             shutter 1/12 aperture f4.0 iso 200 Focal L 75mm

This is the cover of the book I have taken inspiration from in college class, Contemporary Photography And The Garden, Deceipts & Fantasies... where a group of artists in the mid 1980's turned to gardens as a subject for their photography.  It holds a wide range of artistic images whereby gardens are reflected upon as  sites of lyrical beauty and luxurient atmosphere to show them in a dark visual metaphor for the manipulation of nature.

I stood in a tree

I do have a thing for trees and love to photograph them.  During Level 1 I researched Thomas Packenham, and his book  "Remarkable Trees Of The World."  I remember reading about  "the tree that looks like a troll" and how it had an opening base and looked like you could step inside.  I remember saying I have never walked inside a tree before......and now I have...

                                          shutter 1/160  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 24mm

This is the tree I stepped inside of.  I exposed for the base of the tree in the above shot which has come out clear with the lone branch in the foreground also showing clearly.  I like the ragertiness of this scene with branches everywhere, and the colourings. It also has some depth.

                                                                          Out Of Africa
                                                shutter 1/400  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 60mm

The same tree taken from a different angle gives the scene a different overall colour and mood.

                                       shutter 1/12  aperture f7.1  iso 400   focal L 24mm

The above image is taken inside the tree looking up.   I had to have a higher iso as it was dark inside the tree except where sun light poured in through various openings.

                                            shutter 1/5  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 47mm

These images  show where I stood inside the tree, taken from the outside peering in.  They reveal the colours and textures found inside.

                                                                        Tree legs
                                         shutter 1/40  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 24mm

                                           shutter 1/6  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 24mm

As I said my influences for these images was born during level 1.  Also I am now reading "The Life And Love of Trees by Lewis Blackwell..."a collective work of many great photographers, writers and thinkers who have been inspired by observing trees."

A quote from therein:-

                               "Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath,
                                            no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does"

My planning for this trip out was that I would go to Calke (a favourite place to photograph and walk) and find a new walk.  I would carry my camera hand held because I believe this can lead to more creative shots, and look for close ups of nature that catch my eye.

Comparing my work to Heather Angel

These Heather Angel images come from websites:
'Heather Angel Wildlife Photography Photographer, lecturer, author' and
'Plants-Heather Angel-Wildlife Photography-Photographer'.

For my research I also watched a Heather Angel presentation when I attended the Photo Imaging Exibition at the NEC this year, where she showed some of her macro work of flowers.  Some of her work presented there was also where she hadn't used a macro lens... she said, but had included them for their close up properties anyway, and this is where I am relating my close up work in nature to hers, because I will not be using a full macro lens.  My lens when zoomed to its maximum is considered 'macro' on the lens barrel.  In order words 'macro' just means getting close, but my lens is not a dedicated macro lens which get very much closer to the subject.

This image of a Lightning Strike taken in Sherwood Forest by Heather Angel shows details of bark Oak, so I compare it to my 'Pieces' of bark (see previous blog) in Tree Story, and Rockface below.

                                                               taken by Heather Angel
                                                                     Lightning Strike

The image here tells the story of what happens to the bark of a tree after nature has played a hand in the way of a lightning strike.  It shows damage, colour, texture and pattern.  My 'Pieces' image also shows the story of how nature's weather effects bark with flaky peices,  though these platelets also serve towards protecting the tree.  My images again show colour, textures and pattern.

                                                                          Rockface
                                            shutter 1/s640 aperture 7.1 iso 200 focal L 105mm

I like this close up  of a piece of bark I took with the sun catching the surface here and there just as it looks to have done in Lightning Strike.  The textures and colours stand out.  It appeared to me to look like rock rather than bark, and wood bark can give this effect,  so I wanted to capture the edge detail too.  Again it shows weathering in the shadows.  The blue top background of the sky may be a little distracting though.  I wonder now if next time I could have taken it from a higher level that would not show that. I am pleased with it however.

                                                             taken by Heather Angel

This image to me is all about the water brightness from the sun's reflection with animals passing through, it looks like elephants, and the contrasts of the dark and light, with shape and form (siluettes).  It shows warmth even though they are in water.

I took this image of reflected bright sunlight  with a duck passing through, again shows contrast of light and dark though my duck is not as obvious to see as the elephants.  The duck does not take on the siluette look either, so my reflections come from the trees. The duck has recently landed so the water shows the movement just as the water of the elephants shows in the ripples. It is a cooler looking image than that above even though the sun is there brightly.  This is a crop of the full scene, see below.  It is not a great image but I did like the bright water reflection where the duck lands.  I didn't like the way the same bright reflection is too bright in the foreground of the scene so is best cropped. Next time I would want to wait until the ducks came closer and take the scene from a different angle.

                                           shutter 1/50  aperture f7.1  iso 2oo  focal L 105mm

Planning:
Both images were taken at Calke hand held because I had not taken my tripod on this journey, wanting instead to do a long walk around the wooded areas and so from a health and safety point of view I did not want to carry a heavy load.  I had prepared by ensuring my camera was clean and had a full battery and empty flashcard. When holding my camera to take the images I stood still with legs slightly apart to give steadiness and hold the camera firmly with its strap around my neck.

Tree story

I prepared before going out by making sure my battery was fully charged.  I took my kit and started out to Calke grounds with the intention of taking some shots of trees for  theme 1 and some close ups for theme 2 within the same journey.  Once there I parked up and chose a walk route.  I carried my camera hand held, leaving my tripod in the boot in case I wanted to return to collect it.
In these images I have concentrated on form, pattern, colour, texture and perspective.

                                         shutter 1/640  aperture f.4  iso 200   focal L 50.0mm

I have used the rule of thirds in most of these images.

                          

                                        shutter 1/328   aperture f.4   iso 200   focal L 50mm

                                        shutter 1/1000  aperture f4  iso 200 focal L 24mm

These images show pattern, form and colour.

                                          shutter 1/1328  aperture f4  iso 200  focal L 24mm

                                                 shutter 1/1000  f4  iso 200  focal L 24mm

Tree Story depicts  different angled shots of the same monster of a tree showing off its shadow patterns and perspective that appears to look like its branches reach out to meet  the trees in the background behind the fence, when in fact there was quite a lot of space between them.  The above image looks like the branch is suspended in mid air, it is a close up of the image above, which is a part of the image above that...

                                                                        Sunny Side
                                         shutter 1/1600   aperture f4  iso 200  focal L 24mm

Sunny Side shows the tree from the other side showing which way the  sun light  is coming from  providing the hard shadows and more of  a siluette appearance. The image shows pattern and form.

                                                                           Arms                    
                                           shutter 1/1000  aperture f4   iso 200  focal L 28mm

Arms shows form whereby  tree arms and shadows form  together to create  a jigsaw look over the whole scene, showing pattern and form.

                                                                       Down Below
                                          shutter 1/250  aperture f4  iso 200  focal L 35mm
The above image shows texure and form.                          

                                                                          Up above
                                               shutter 1/1000  aperture f4  iso 200  focal L 35mm
The above image shows pattern, form and texture.

                                                                           Platelets
                                       shutter 1/500  aperture f4  iso  200  focal L 105mm

A close up shot shows the barks flaky peices... a hard form left contrasting to the delicate leafy twigs of the right and blue light touches coming through from the background. The image shows form and texture.

Research -Heather Angel (theme 1)

I have been  inspired by the work of Heather Angel at the Focus On Imaging show at the NEC, Birmingham recently, where I sat in on a talk and viewed slides of her work.  I am going to look at some more of her work here from the web to compare to my own.

                                                             taken by Heather Angel

This is about colours, shape, form and texture with good contrast of the deep blue water to the bright flower and lily pads. The texture of the lily pads stands out to the eye as a first focal point, and then you start to look beyond at the other brightness. The pads take on a surreal sort of appearance especially the one to the right background, gives a perspective of hovering.  The reflections I studied last, adding more interest to the scene in a delicate way, bought out by the flower petals.

 

taken by Heather Angel

This is an example of a frame within a frame that leads the eye through from the foreground to the background. I like the perspective and the way the white of the snow carries through the scene to the background cloud. Again it shows shape, colour, texture and lines to lead the eye, from a 'through' a keyhole effect.

shutter 1/1000  aperture f4   iso 200  focal L 24mm

This is my version of a keyhole effect with wood and greenery instead of rock and snow. The wood of the tree frames my keyhole view, as does the rock in Heather Angel's.  Both images also show pattern and form.

taken by Heather Angel

I love this bluebell scene and want to catch one too:

Bluebell wood

shutter 1/160 f4.0 iso 200 FL 80mm

This is my Bluebell wood to compare and I am as pleased with this as Heather Angel probably was with hers.  The blue carpet looks more dense in her image, and the canopy looks more dense in mine, simply because mine features more trees.  They both portray pattern, form, colour,  and perspective ,with their carpet horizons approximately in the top third of both images.

taken by Heather Angel

I have taken the bottom of a tree trunks (see next blog) in tree story, and below. I like the wide shapes and colours of my images.  Comparing them to the slim shapes and masses of root trunk  above,  with colour too, Heather Angel's composition holds more interest.

shutter 1/250  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 24mm

 I took this trunk base from the scene below to highlight the root structures of the scene as in Heather Angel's image.

This is my full image which I compare to Heather Angel's image below for the design of the composition, as in my main tree sits in the frame at a similar place to hers with background trees also showing.  The main trees arms are very visual in their expression too, seeming showing their dominance over the other trees.  I find Heather Angels image quite dramatic and the contrasts of the dark tree to the light mist emphasis this drama.  My tree holds some drama too, to a lesser extent.   I just need to add some mist to give it a similar feel.

taken by Heather Angel

I love the way the mist here (in Heather Angels image) gives the scene a ghosty look, that together with the form of the tree and its arms add mystery and an air of forboding.  I compare the scene to my tree images in Tree Story (see next blog) for the tree arms wiggly shapes and in the scene below for the misty appearance:

shutter 1/50  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 105mm

Again I took this shot on my Calke visit.  I like to visit the water lakes there to check what is happening with the light on the water and action of any wildlife.  My settings here give a similar look to Heather Angel's image above with a mist effect so I like it in that respect.  The clarity could be better, but I took it without the aid of a tripod so that would account for that with the slow shutter that was chosen by the camera, when I selected the aperture I wanted.  Also this was ok because I was experimenting purposely without a tripod... Any slight haziness or soft blur adding to my  research of looking into dreamy effects.

taken by Heather Angel

Again I have cropped in to take the interesting parts of 2 scenes above and below, ducks against the background colours of the bank. Light shows the ducks off with their white just as in Heather Angel's Swan image, but her light sits nicely inside the swans wings.  She manages to capture the full reflection of the swan too, which I have not yet.  Her image is also bright and beautiful, it shows serenity and mine are abit lack lustre in comparison.  I need a brighter scene for shots like these next time.

taken by Heather Angel

shutter 1/64  aperture f7.1  iso 200 focal L 105mm

I am looking at my water reflection as a comparison to Heather Angel's water scene, where her reflects land and cloud, mine reflects land and trees.  Hers is more vibrant, bright and jolly, where mine has a different feel and mood, calmer and slightly mystical.  The overall pattern structures are what are  similar between the  images; as in they both have their subject patterns running the the centre of the image, with their frames halved into the what is above the centre line, to what is its reflection below the centre line. 

taken by Heather Angel

This scene depicts nature. I like the green water as the background with more colour contrasts in the foreground of the twigs  against the bold colours of the coot looking for food.

shutter 1/20  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 105mm

I took some images of a pheasant looking for food. I am comparing the above image to the one above by Heather Angel in that they both feature birds looking for food.  My image is somewhat busier than hers, but my bird is very prominent the same, with the same dominant highlight of its white beak, though in my image the brightest highlight is its white collar.  Patterns are similar with the grasses of mine to the twigs of Heather Angels, and mine holds a front foreground bunch of brown follige in similarity.

shutter 1/20  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 105mm

shutter 1/20  aperture f7.1  iso 200  focal L 105mm

by Heather Angel

by Heather Angel

I love this  Bamboo forest too.  I find it inviting, making me want to walk through it.   It shows lines, pattern, form, colour, texture and contrast.  I like the way the light catches the trees.  There are contrasts between the softness of the canopy and carpet floor with the hardness of the tree stalks... they look more stalk like than trunk like in appearance because of their slimness.  The horizontal lines of these stalks contrast in scale to the horizontal lines of their full length.  The  scene's subtle colour palette is lovely and gives easy balance to the eye. Though the trees are hard in texture the picture has an overall soft appeal to it, due to its colourings.

Wood figures

shutter 1/500 f7.1 iso 400 FL 24mm              

Wood figures is my image to compare to Bamboo forest, from a design point of view.   Mine differs with the inclusion of sky and shadow details, but they both hold similar colours.  With that said with mine its overall feel is not as soft which is probably due to its colour palette, a harsher light (being taken at nearer midday), and hard texture carpet compared to Heather Angel's soft, fluffy carpet floor.  Because  Bamboo forest has a dense canopy it holds no obvious reflected shadows of the trees, as in mine, even if it was taken at similar times of day, which is not known.  Out the two, I find Heather Angel's has the most appeal.  Bamboo forest also holds more mystery, maybe because it has no set path, making it seem more experimenting to go to explore there. I like the fact that in my image it appears there is a figure standing in a gap between the trees (right background), hands and legs astride. If this was a person, it  would show great scale.  On close inspection however, it is in fact a wood figure.

by Heather Angel

by Heather Angel

Water slide

shutter 0.3 sec aperture f.14 iso 100 FL 60mm

My Water slide compares to Heather's Falling water because they both depict their titles. I chose a landscape close composition from an angle which I consider shows the waterfalls speed, and I think Heather Angel's long portrait frame emphasises the waters height that it is falling down.  Comparatively both images do not show the start of the waterfall and theirs waters expand throughout the majority of the frame, but show its surroundings too.  The lighting in brightest in waters on both. I took this image on my day trip out to Lumsdale Falls. (see blog day out to Matlock Bath and Lumsdale Falls)

Planning: 

 I had planned to take a series of slow shutter speed shots of the waterfalls on my day out to Lumsdale falls for comparison with my research work, and experimented with taking the falls  from different angles with the use of a tripod.  (Water slide image).

I had planned to visit Calke Park in order to capture nature images for comparison to my research work, and experimented with slow and faster shutter speeds without the use of a tripod (other images in this blog)

Equipment used: