Project 5: “An Impartial View”: Assignment Work
(See separate posts for Project 3
and Project 8)
This project calls for the
student to document a subject in as objective a manner as possible, without
skewing its visual presentation towards a point of view.
I chose to produce a story about
the herring gull. The three main reasons for my choice were that (a) this would
give me the vital experience of using pictures in a documentary manner in order
to convey a message, which I could use when approaching my major project; (b)
some people deliberately feed herring gulls and (c) this practice, along with
other reasons, has led to some conflict between those who are “pro” and “anti”
herring gulls. Additionally, herring gulls make good photographic subjects and
I have a good deal of knowledge about them. Finally, I had already researched
the subject for the third assignment (“A Photographic Commission”) in my level
2 course: “Progressing with Digital Photography”, although ultimately another
subject was chosen.
I was puzzled by the remit for
the project, in that it stated that a rounded, documentary view of the subject
would require more than one image, so “feel free to explore in, say, three or
four different images”. Apart from the fact that one image would struggle to
produce a balanced view of any subject, the introductory section of the notes
to this chapter had referred to the influential picture stories of W. Eugene
Smith, in which several pictures are used to build the story. I decided to
produce a picture story, using several images and limited text, but
additionally to choose four of the images from the story that would produce a
limited, but hopefully balanced view of the subject. These would be produced,
uncaptioned, as a separate document.
There are two approaches to
producing an objective, balanced view of a subject. For simple, uncontroversial
subjects such as a spoon (an example used in the course notes), a
straightforward, factual presentation would suffice. At the other extreme, an
objective approach to a subject such as climate change is far more challenging,
particularly as the presentation of facts may imply rejection of strongly held
beliefs by one of the sides holding radically different, opposing views in a
heated debate. The topic of herring gulls falls more towards the latter end of
the scale (and is therefore quite interesting from a pictorial point of view),
although I was confident that I could produce a picture story that would be
fair, objective and factual.
Following on from research that I
had carried out for the assignment in my previous course I re-read the
references and also read the relevant sections of reference books such as
“Birds Britannica” (Mark Cocker and Richard Mabey), “Birds and People” (Mark
Cocker and David Tipling) and “The Bird Atlas 2007-11”. The latter reference
gives details of population densities of herring gulls around the coastline of
the UK, enabling me to choose suitable photographic locations; it also mentions
population trends, which were relevant to my proposed picture story.
Because my photographic work
would be carried out in March and April, before the start of the breeding
season, I decided to concentrate on the birds’ feeding behaviour and other
issues that give rise to their conflict with man. Although I couldn’t predict
what images I would come away with I was confident that I could build up a
rounded picture of the herring gull, as seen in the early spring.
Workflow
During the course of March and
April I visited Lowestoft (Suffolk), paid two four hour trips to Brighton,
spent two days on the Yorkshire coast (visiting Scarborough and Bridlington)
and finally spent a day at Eastbourne. With the exception of the time spent in
Yorkshire, these visits were dedicated to photographing herring gulls.
It is relatively easy to
photograph herring gulls, which are large and confiding birds, although it is
more challenging to photograph them in action. In particular, I wanted to
photograph them “pirating” food from people but witnessed this event on only
two occasions, once in Brighton and once in Eastbourne. On each occasion the
event was sudden and unexpected and I didn’t have time to focus my camera
before the gull had gone. It is somewhat easier to photograph gulls taking food
that is either discarded or given to them by people, although I had to rely on
quick reactions and a fast shutter speed to capture the action. I must admit to
feeding the gulls a few chips during my visits, although I was never able to
capture a sequence of events that was suitable for use, as I had hoped, in the
“Decisive Moment” project. One of these photographs is used in the picture
story.
It was too early in the season to
focus on gulls nesting. I narrowly missed an opportunity to photograph them
mating, although it is unlikely that I would have wanted to use the resultant
photograph(s) in the picture story. I took lots of photographs of gulls in
flight, but ultimately didn’t make use of any of them (although one or two were
considered as “high key” images). As time went by I grew more experienced at
photographing the gulls’ behaviour and on my final visit, to Eastbourne on 27
April, I finally managed to get some photographs of gulls scavenging for crabs,
molluscs etc. along the shoreline, “natural” behaviour that I have not
witnessed at close quarters before and that was important for the story.
I was keen to capture a
photograph of a gull in the foreground, with a typical seaside scene in the
background, as a “setting the scene” opening image. After numerous attempts (I
probably took over 100 images at various locations) I found what I was looking
for at Eastbourne, a few minutes before the end of my photographic odyssey.
Almost all the images were
captured using my Nikon D7000 camera with Nikon 70-300mm zoom lens. I worked
mainly using shutter priority, with fast shutter speeds, but also photographed
using aperture priority when required. The camera was hand-held. A handful of
images were captured on my “second” camera, the Nikon D90 with Sigma 17-70mm
lens, which I always had available but hardly ever used.
Post Production
The images were reviewed on or
shortly after the day that they had been taken, using the following standard
procedure:
·
The images were viewed on the back of my camera.
Those that were obviously flawed (blurring, out of focus, bird movement, bird gone
etc.) were deleted.
·
The remaining jpeg images (I now always capture
jpeg + raw) were downloaded on to my computer and reviewed on the full screen.
Those with significant flaws were deleted, together with others that did not
add anything to my image portfolio. Raw files for the remaining images were
downloaded: the other raw images were deleted.
·
The jpeg images were cropped and minor
adjustments were made to the histogram (“levels”), highlights, shadows,
brightness and contrast, with a little sharpening being carried out where
deemed advantageous.
·
The images were categorised according to the
gulls’ behaviour (“flying”, “side profile”, “eating chips”, etc.).
·
Following the final field trip, all the images
were reviewed. Around 40 images were selected as being potential candidates for
a picture story. These images represented different aspects of the birds’
behaviour, with an emphasis on their feeding habits.
·
The images were reduced in size, transferred
onto a white background and printed out on plain white paper. The images were
then cut out from the paper and time was spent arranging them in groups, as I
looked to find a suitable selection for a picture story.
·
Following this procedure I chose 11 images, to
form an arrangement that would fill three sides of a four sided picture story
which was in a style and format that might be suited to a wildlife magazine
such as “Bird Watching”, “BBC Wildlife” or RSPB “Nature’s Home”.
·
Following research into the aforementioned
publications I chose an arrangement for the images that I thought would be
appropriate.
Generating the Picture Story
·
Following my preliminary research (see
“preparatory work”) I wrote a synopsis of the herring gull, its behaviours and
threats as a single sided A4 Word document.
·
Using “Photoshop Elements 8” I combined most of
this text, together with the 11 selected images (as jpeg documents) to produce
three A4 sized images representing the first three sides of the picture story.
I captioned the images (Arial font). The text was inserted as “Times New Roman”
and headings used the “Verdana Bold” font. The images were re-sized to fit in
with the other images and text using the planned arrangement and these were
inserted at 300dpi resolution.
·
A final composite image, featuring two
“posters”, was produced for the final side of the picture story. This involved
cutting out two images of herring gulls, one with an aggressive posture and one
with a more submissive posture, from images and inserting them into “wanted”
style posters, to reflect two sides to the animals’ behaviour, as seen by
ourselves. The images were then combined with two other images to provide a
final image for the picture story, which was combined with the remaining text
and a caption to produce page 4 of the picture story, which is reproduced
below.
·
The picture story is designed so that pages 2
and 3 fit together as a “double page spread”: this explains the arrangement of
the images and text, such that the text occupies the centre of the spread.
·
All the images used to generate the picture
story will be provided for assessment in their final, edited form as jpeg and
tiff images and as prints. The original raw images will also be provided.
Picture Story Page 1
Picture Story Page 2
Picture Story Page 3
Picture Story Page 4
Generating Four Pictures for an Impartial View of Herring Gulls
Four of the images that were used
in the picture story were selected as being most appropriate for providing an
impartial view of herring gulls, without words. The raw images were edited in
“Nikon View NX 2”, converted into jpeg and tiff images and printed for
inclusion with the assignment material.
The images (labelled A to D) are
reproduced below, with comments as to why they were selected. All the images
and the corresponding prints will be provided for assessment.
Image A
Image A represents a “romantic”
view of the herring gull as the seaside gull. The camera is focussed on the
adult gull; the background is thrown deliberately out of focus, but the outline
of a beach, a pier, the sea and people paddling in the sea makes this obviously
a seaside setting and the gull is therefore observed “in its environment”.
Image B
An immature herring gull holds a
crab in its bill. The project is largely about the eating habits of herring
gulls: here is a natural food item that is clearly going to be devoured.
Image C
In contrast to Image B, here the
immature gulls are eating “unnatural” food items. There is an indirect link to
their relationship with man, both regarding the food and the table upon which
they are eating.
Image D
In this composite image, our
impressions of the two sides of the species are represented by opposing
posters: on the one hand an aggressive, food-pirating thug and on the other
hand a species in trouble, which may even need a helping hand to ensure its
survival.
Whilst I have attempted to be
objective in my approach to this project, as a bird-watcher I am undeniably on
the side of the gulls. I find the herring gull a fascinating species to observe
and study: hopefully the decline in its numbers can be reversed!
Conclusions
This project required a
considerable amount of field work, but I gained valuable experience in learning
how to document in photographs the behaviour of a single subject. Professional
photographers sometimes talk about how they spend days or even weeks looking to
photograph specific aspects of the behaviour of a single species: I started to
get a feel for what their tasks might be like as I searched in vain for that
“decisive moment” when a herring gull snatched food from an unsuspecting
seaside tourist.
As time went by I became more
adept at recognising suitable sites for photographing aspects of gulls’
behaviour. It is noticeable that my final visit, to Eastbourne, produced the
most effective set of images (several of which are used in the picture story):
by that time I had become more accustomed to the gulls’ behaviour and I also
knew exactly what images I needed to complete the picture story.
During the course of the project
I have gained valuable experience in the areas of documentary and wildlife
photography, the two genres that I will be focussing on as I work on the major
project.
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