Experimental Photography

Emma
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Multiple Exposure
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Evaluate:
Before taking the photographs, I knew what I wanted to achieve which made it easier for me to figure out the images I
wanted to take. The image with the 3 dogs took time to complete because I had to consider all of the photographs I had
taken to decide which ones would be the best to use. I think that the technique worked out well because it looks like one
image, rather than three. After the first attempt, I saw that there were a few problems with the colouring, which is why I
chose to continue with experimenting this technique. Im glad I did this because the other two turned out better than the
first one and its difficult to see whether there is a colour difference between the images. I like this image because looks
very natural. I wanted the dog to be in natural surroundings so that the image would look better. I think that the best
parts of the image are that it looks sharp, all of the details from the grass to the dog itself are highlighted well and
nothing is a blur, which is wanted I wanted to achieve. The picture on the right is a similar image to the one I created. As
you can see, they have taken 7 images and put them into one. They may have used a slightly different technique to me,
but they are very similar. I think that my image could do with some
work and I definitely could have put some more time aside
and take more images as I think I could have taken some
better ones. I think that a faster shutter speed would have
been good for this technique because it would make sure
that you get the photograph exactly at the right time;
although you would have to use a low aperture as this helps
more light in, which will be needed if you have a very fast
shutter speed. I do think that the quality of the photographs
are good, but I think that they could be better if I were to play around with the aperture and ISO settings on the camera.
On Photoshop, I used the polygon lasso tool to help me create this image. I started off by putting the three photographs
into Photoshop and made sure they had different layers, I then carefully cut around the dog in two of the three images
and pasted them into the third image. I then had to rearrange them so they would match up with the scenery in the third
image, which was tough as sometimes the colour was off, but I also played around with the brightness, contrast and the
colour balance to make sure that it looked right. I wanted to make sure the image was perfect so I created a line with the
dog so it looked like she was walking in a straight line. There is also a line element with the path as the dog follows it,
which helps draw your eye down the photograph so it is more exciting to look at. As you look at the photograph, you can
see that the background is a little but out of focus, which is not intentional and it shows that I do have to change the
aperture settings and make sure that the image is in focus before taking the images.
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On my second image, the black and white dog, It was difficult to try and get
what I wanted at first as I couldnt get the right settings on Photoshop to make
it work. After working on it I managed to get the image I wanted. I love this
technique as you can do it on anything, as long as you have a lot of white space
I tried the image out with colour and black and white; also with different level
settings and I felt like the black and white images looked better. With the
darker images, you can see the front outline of the dog, which I didnt want, so
after changing the levels, they disappeared which made it look better overall.
This image is very similar in the technique used. You can see from this one that
the cat has tree like features coming from its neck, and with mine, there are
tree features coming from its body. Its easy to see the similarities between the
two images. I think that I could have taken more images of the dog, although I
should have also taken images of other animals too as it would have be good to see these techniques on other animals
as they all have different shapes. It also would have been nice to have taken more photographs of the woodland or trees
as I have used the same one throughout and I maybe could have made something better with different photographs.
There are definitely some interesting shapes in this image because of the trees, I had to rearrange the trees to get them
where I wanted them to be. I wanted to be able to see the shape of the face, so you would know what it was, as well as
the back so it showed a bit of the outline.
I think that with this photograph, the shutter speed is important as you need to capture them in action, which can
sometimes only be a few seconds, so you need to be ready. I was lucky with this photograph as I hadnt planned to take
this, although it came in handy as I felt like I used it really well. I also used Photoshop to edit this image. I firstly gathered
the two images I was going to use and made sure they were on separate layers. I then proceeded to again use the
polygon lasso tool to cut around the dog as that was all I wanted. With that done, I changed both images to black and
white as I felt like this would look better than in colour; I then changed the tree image to the screen setting, which
helped to give the effect, after adjusting the curves and levels, I ended up with this final image.
There is a small line pattern in this photograph, as the outline of the dog is visible, your eye would follow the outline
which is a sign of the line element. By looking at this image, I would have liked the tail to have less of an outline; I think it
would have looked better if it blended in with the rest of the dog more as it stands out a lot. This is something to work on
if I were to do this technique next time.
I feel like both of my images are experimental as I have followed the brief which has been set. I think that I have
produced two good images within the multiple exposure category.
Light Writing
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Evaluate:
When taking these images, I found it hard to know what I wanted to do. I
thought that this technique would be good to recreate as I find it very
interesting how you can make images out of light, so I wanted to try it. I had
watched some light writing videos and I found one that I really liked, so I
thought I would try something similar. The video was of some jellyfish, but
the different frames made it look like it was moving. As I am only producing
images, I thought I would try it by just putting different jellyfish in an image,
so its similar. It was difficult to produce as I had to make sure the room I
used was very dark, so I couldnt be seen when writing with the light. You
could not see what you were producing so it took me around 30 different
photographs to get the three in my final image. I feel like I achieved what I
wanted to, although with some difficulty. The image on the right is a
screenshot from the video with the jellyfish. As I am not as experienced in
this field, my photographs arent as good, although if I were to practise enough, Im sure they would get better. You can
tell what my images are of, which is a good thing as people will be more drawn to it when they know what they are
looking at. I think that I definitely should have taken some more photographs as I could have produced a few different
animals or other things to do with nature. This technique may have worked better with something different, which is why
I should have taken a lot more time to try this out. What I like about my image is that its easy to tell what animal you are
looking at. I do think that I could have been more adventurous like using different coloured lights like the people in the
above image did as this would have created more depth as it looks like mine have been stuck on a page; I dont think it
flows together well.
The camera settings for this technique are vital as you have to get them perfect otherwise you will not be able to produce
the images you want. Firstly, you need to be in a very dark room with as less light as possible for the camera to pick up
the torch light. I had to try out different aperture and shutter speed settings to get the right balance. In the end I went for
a 15 second shutter speed as this gave me plenty of time to be able to make my drawings and move out of the shot in
case it picked up my silhouette. I also went for an aperture of f14 as this would let just enough light in and to not pick up
any surrounding light which were in the room. I left the ISO setting quite low at 200 because from each of the settings,
this was the one that helped to make my image stand out better.
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I used Photoshop to edit my images. The first thing I did was to gather the images I wanted to use in my jellyfish image.
The bubbles were on a separate photograph so I also had them into the image as well. I then proceeded to cut out the
second and third jellyfish so I could put them into the first image. This is the process I did for the dog image on the
multiple exposure technique so I knew how to do it which made it quicker for me this time round. There were a few more
layers because I had to cut out the bubbles individually to put them where I wanted. I did adjust the background levels to
make it darker because there were some outlines of some chairs which I thought didnt look very professional and that
meant having to make the images I cut out look the same as there was a colour variation, so I had to adjust the levels on
those images as well. If you look at the other experimental images, you can see the jellyfish on a sea background,
although I didnt take that image, I wanted to try something out which meant that I took the jellyfish image and then
pressed the lighten setting which got rid of the black background so I could play around with just the light which was
interesting to me.
I think that with my image, there is a line as you tend to go from the left to the right when looking or reading something,
which comes naturally. With me having three images in one, it helps your eye to do this as it guides you across the
photograph. I definitely tried to make it look like the jellyfish was moving off the page by changing the shape of each one,
although this was difficult because I couldnt see what I was doing. This would be something to work on if I were to do
this technique another time. Its very time consuming and you have to have a lot of patience with this. By taking more
time out to take the images, as well as giving time to think about what I want to do, it would definitely help me to
improve my work.
I do think that my images meet the brief set as the jellyfish come under the nature category which is what I chose to
pursue in this project. Light writing photographs are experimental because this technique helps your imagination as there
is no certain way to do it; it also gives you the freedom to do what you
want and try out your own skills. I experimented with my own designs as
well as trying out others that have been created by other people. I enjoyed
trying out this technique as its something I had never come across before
and I hope to revisit it in the future.
High Speed Photography
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Evaluate:
When I was taking the photographs for this technique, I knew what I wanted to achieve as I had wanted to do this
technique from the beginning and as I had planned this out carefully, it was easy for me to take the images I wanted.
There are a lot of high speed photographs around but most of them are based around bursting balloons and firing a
bullet at fruit, but as I didnt have those resources, I had to come up with my own ways to take these photographs. I also
felt like would be different to use food colouring as I havent seen photographs that use
that before. The photograph on the left is of a lime being dropped into some
water, which is very similar to my images, although I used orange segments and
a white background. I did have some limited resources as you can see the bowl in
the corner of my images which shows that I had very little space to work with. It
was difficult at first because the camera and lighting had to be set up in order to
create the high speed effect. I used a long lens on the camera as this would help
to zoom in and help capture the images as precisely as possible. I did some test
images to make sure that the photographs would be in focus as this was vital.
When taking the images of the orange segment, it was difficult trying to get the
correct shot as the orange is unpredictable as I wanted to achieve both splash
with it facing the camera. I didnt manage to achieve the shot I wanted but I did
manage to get some good shots as I could always Photoshop the images
together to create a new photograph. For this technique, it is good to use a fast
shutter speed because you can ensure to get a clear image and you are also able
to take various shots because of the shutter speed. After trying out two different objects, I felt like the food colouring
worked better than the orange for many reasons. I think that its easier to control the food colouring as you can change
the direction and speed rate when you drop it off the spoon. I like how the colours are naturally very vibrate against the
white background and the water in the bowl, this stands out well and you can see the different shades of red and blue
within the water too. I think that my fruit results are similar to the professional ones, although it is easy to tell which are
the professional photographs and which are my own. My photographs need a lot of work although with the limited
resources available, I feel like I achieved some good results. If I were to do this technique again I would definitely choose
a location where I could get hold of better resources because this will vastly improve my photographs. I would have to
use a much larger bowl because I would then be able to use larger objects like a whole orange as this might create
smoother splashes which is very effective. I would also try out different backgrounds as the black background makes the
lime stand out very well and draws your eye to it. After taking the photographs, I chose the best ones and then out them
into Photoshop where I did various post-production techniques which ranged from changing the contrast and colour to
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adjusting the image. In my final image, the post-production I encountered were adjusting the brightness/contrast to help
lighten up the photograph as originally it was quite dark to begin with. I also used the dodge tool on the blue food
colouring as this helps the colour stand out a lot more and it worked very well.
I think that there a lot of ways to help improve my work from everything down to location
to equipment. I wouldnt be able to take these photographs on my own as I would need
someone to take the images, or someone to drop the objects into the water, so I would
need at least two people to work on this technique. There are some formal elements in
my photographs, such as lines and shapes. The splash from the orange segment make
various shapes such as circles and ovals as these are from the bubbles that are made
when the orange hits the water. Your eye definitely follows the splash line from the top to
the bottom of the photograph and the bright orange colour stands out as the background
is white which keeps the photograph interesting. With the food colouring photographs,
your eye does the same, although there is a lot more colour in these images as it is
spread out in the water. As you cant control what the food colouring does when its in the
water, it makes interesting shapes and each image will be different, which will keep you
Interested. I think that if I were to do this differently, I would try to create something like
the picture on the right as this involves many colours with all different heights and looks
very effective. I would definitely try and use more than one colour in each photographs
as this might create something entirely new and original.
This technique is somewhat time consuming as it takes a while to set up all of the equipment including lighting, scenery,
camera and the camera settings. You have to take a few test shots as this will help you determine what the correct
settings are needed on the camera, so this can take a while. After testing out different settings, the exposure time I used
was 1/250, this is a very fast shutter speed as it was needed to be able to capture fast motion with a clear image. I also
wanted to make sure that the image was bright, so I set the aperture to 8 as this would help let more light in.
I think that my images do meet the brief but not fully. Water comes under the nature category but I have used it in a
different way, not for its intended purpose. Oranges are also natural so I have put the two together to create something
different. I really enjoyed this technique as it was very different and it helped to spark my imagination. I hope to come
across this technique again in the future as I would definitely want to experimental with it again.
Photomontage
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Evaluate:
At first, I didnt know what I wanted to do with these images as they were originally holiday photographs, but when I was
looking at them, I figured that I could use them in this project by combining various images together. I like the
photomontage technique because it interests me how you can take various photographs and turn them into one and it
looks like one original photograph which is very clever. There are different
types of photomontage but I wanted to try both to see which one was more
successful. One type was based on David Hockney where he took lots of small
images and created them into one image, as you can see on the right. This is
very clever but is also very time consuming so you need to have a lot of
patience for this technique. As I didnt have the time or resources to produce
an image like this, I decided to take an image I had already took, and cut it up
into smaller images as for the final image they would look similar. I think I had
some good ideas for this techniques as I had over 600 images to work with so it
was difficult to narrow down the ones I wanted to use but after choosing the
ones I wanted it was simple after that. I used a bridge camera as this was
available to me at the time. It was a good camera as it allowed me to change
the aperture and ISO which helped me to produce clearer and more high quality photographs. I used an image of a deer
to recreate a Hockey montage as I felt like this would give off a good result in the end which I think it did. I like how all
the separate images are askew and dont fit properly, but I think that adds a nice touch and draws your attention to it. I
used Photoshop to cut up the image as I knew this would be easy to work with. I started off by using the rectangular
marquee tool to select section of the image, I then edited it slightly by changing the colour contrast, brightness and levels
to make it look more interesting to the eye. The deer photograph was taken behind glass so there was some glare but I
managed to get around that. I used an aperture of 4 as it was quite dark in the area so it helped gather more light to
brighten up the photograph. The ISO was also very high at 720 as it also helped the deer show up well on the camera. I
definitely would have liked to try taking individual images and putting them together also I currently do not have the time
or resources to be able to try this out. On the other images, I tried out something different which involved having one
main image as the background, and taking things from other photographs and incorporating them into the main image.
In the photograph of the one tall building with the flags, I used 9 different images overall to create the final one. I used
the grass, leaves and snow from other photographs and incorporated them into the sections of the Rockefeller centre
and other buildings as I wanted to do an interpretation with city and nature/jungle scenes. Out of the other three
images, I like this one the most as its interesting and actually looks quite neat, as well as not being overwhelmed with
detail.
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I also put these images into Photoshop to work on. I got the base image and then put another image over the top which I
proceeded to then cut out the parts I wanted and placed this over the buildings. I played around with the settings and
adjusted the colour, saturation, brightness etc. I also wanted you to be able to see the windows in the buildings, so I over
laid the cut out images so you could see the detail of the buildings. This photograph used a fast shutter speed at 1/640
but the aperture was 3.1 which was needed as this helped let all the natural sunlight in within a very short time. I really
like this image as its very clear and has a lot of depth to it.
I think there are a lot of things I would change about this technique and my work because I chose to do this last minute
so didnt think about it that much, which definitely shows in my final products. If I were to try this technique again, I
would have to give myself a lot of time as the photographs and final products will be significantly better if I were to spend
more time on them. I would really like to try and take smaller images and put them into one, although this would be very
time consuming, hence why I would have to think and plan this technique out carefully. This involves taking a lot of
photographs so I would need to have a high quality camera and also a memory card with a lot of space as I wouldnt want
to risk losing out on any potential photographs. There are some shapes and lines in my final products, for example in the
deer photograph, there are a lot of squares to look at with different colour
schemes so you are always kept interested compared to one with the same
colour scheme throughout. In the photograph of the Rockefeller centre,
your eyes are drawn up the building as its taken from a low angle which
makes it look superior. The bottom of the photograph is the busiest which
also draws your eye to there first but the flags also draw your eye left to
right so there is always something to look at.
I think that my images do meet the brief set as there is a lot of nature
involved in them. The deer is an example of a natural element, whereas the
buildings are something you always see in the natural world. They are
definitely experimental because they are different to what images are
already out there, although there are similar ones, mine are individual.
I think that I have produced some good images within the time scale I had and with the resources available. I would like
to explore this technique further if I get a chance in the future.