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: