Photography Brief

For our Photography brief, after having played around with the cameras and dabbling with the settings in manual mode, we were given the task of choosing a possession and then taking six photographs of it, each considering the aspects of; lighting, shutter speed and depth of field. At first a group of us booked a studio to play with the lighting, however the camera I was given was SO hard to get to focus, and the view finder was completely blurred so I couldn't see what I was doing. In the end I waited until I was back home to use my own DSLR and lighting.

Large depth of field

Shallow depth of field

Another shallow depth of field with different focus point

I started off with my favourite part of the Photography Induction, which was depth of field. This meant I had to play around with sharp and soft points. I found this to be the easiest of the tasks because I actually understood what I was doing. I differed the focus points in my shallow depth of field photos and also moved my source of light to see if I could change the shadows and reflections. I wanted my pictures to have some sort of aesthetic rhythm, so I experimented with the placement of the chain also.

Fast shutter speed spinning

Fast shutter speed swaying

The next few pictures I took where associated with shutter speed. Now this, I found to be extremely hard. Firstly, I had to change the ISO every time I switched from fast to slow, and I was completely getting confused in what was supposed to go with what. At this point I had moved my light source to the right hand side of the set up because I was having difficulty with the metallic surface of the necklace reflecting off the light from it being head on. However I really like the effect it gave the appearance of the necklace, because it almost changes the look of the material entirely. The first image is on fast shutter speed as I was spinning the necklace, and you can see the key still in the air mid shot. The second image I slowed the shutter down a bit so I think I kind of got a combination of fast and slow. Some of the image is blurred and the other is extremely defined, which I quite like.

Slow shutter speed.

Then finally I experimented with slow shutter speed. I found this to be the hardest out of all the different types of shots I took because all I kept getting was a silver blur for every picture. I think I had my shutter speed on too slow, so I sped it up a bit and then had some nicer outcomes. This took me the most time to take, but I think I got an image which portrayed slow shutter speed in the end. I also put an umbrella in front of my light to try and stop the reflection as best I could.

All in all, this brief took me quite a long time because i'm not used to all the different settings. I enjoyed the outcomes though and it has made me see how much you can actually do with a DSLR and the creative outcomes you get with one. I am definitely going to think about composition, lighting and putting my camera on manual the next time I want to take some pictures!