Assignment One: the theory and practice of contrasts
Ok, I think it is time to post my first draft of the pics for Assignment One. This is my first assignment that will be sent off to my tutor, so it will be good to get some feedback and then move on from there. It has been an interesting journey through assignment one, and has certainly tested my interpretation of the different contrasts. Dictionary meaning – Contrast is the dissimilarity or difference between things.
The aim of this assignment was to “identify subjects that best express the extremes of different qualities (contrasts) and take pairs of photographs, which bring out the essential differences”. The idea was to end up with 8 pairs of photographs showing different contrasts from a list provided, then a final picture that demonstrates contrast ‘in one picture’. My initial thought was that this shouldn’t be too difficult, once I could think of suitable subjects that gave suitable contrasts. The difficulty however was then how to turn these subjects in to pleasing/interesting photographs!!! This was brought home to me when I printed off my first attempts – I had picked a road to show the contrast Straight. The photograph showed an extremely long straight road – it did what it says on the tin, but was hardly an interesting picture. Thus I had to go back and revisit a number of my pictures.
Once I had taken a suitably large amount of pictures of different contrasts, the second problem then raised its head – which ones to select to send off for assessment. It is this problem that is now vexing me to the point where I am suddenly questioning every picture I have chosen and whether it is good enough! If the aim of the course is to make you more questioning and critical of the pictures you take, then I am close to becoming an A* student……the problem is i’m now at the stage where I don’t think any of them are good enough and thus aren’t sure that I should send them in! Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Below are the 17 pictures that I have currently settled on, with a brief description of what attracted me to that scene and what I was trying to show. There are a couple that I am probably going to replace, and I will update this post once I have settled on my final selection.
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- STRAIGHT – This is the picture that I had to revisit a number of times, to try and get something of interest. I’m pleased with the final outcome – I like the straight line of tree trunks running down the left of the picture and the line of small conifers running from right to centre. I think the castle in the distance adds interest without dominating the image.
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- CURVED – This was the contrast that was really vexing me and I have now changed the picture. I liked the first picture I had selected (of the curvy irrigation channel) but thought that this one of a farmers field in Germany showed the curved contrast much better.
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- SOFT – I had already decided I wanted to use a picture of the seperation wall in Israel somewhere within this assignment, but struggled to find a suitable contrast. I ended up settling on hard/soft and thought this picture of cuddly teddies and a “love you” message was a nice soft contrast against the hardness of the wall.
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- HARD – I really wanted to use this picture and had put it down against several different contrasts. In the end I settled on HARD because because not only is the wall itself hard, it has also produced a hard environment in which to live for parts of the population of Israel (although this isn’t shown in the picture).
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- SMOOTH – I initially wanted to use 17 pictures that weren’t staged, but so liked the smoothness of these three objects that I just had to do a still life. All of them are highly polished; which is shown in the reflections they give off. I also tried to give a feel for the different shapes and colours of the stones.
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- ROUGH – I had seen an example of this contrast in somebody else’s blog and quite liked the idea of showing a picture of a rough area. My initial intention was to take a picture of a rough UK inner city area, but I totally forgot during my three days there, so had to try and find one in Germany, where we were staying – not easy to do in Heidelberg which is one of the most picturesque cities in Europe!
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- SMALL – this is one of the contrasts that I am not totally happy with. I was starting to run out of inspiration when I went through some of my recent images and found this one of a small bird in Israel. I thought the image was quite pleasing – there is a diagonal lead in line, the bird is nicely in focus and I think the balance is right….the problem is – does this image say small and could I find an image to contrast it against?
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- BIG – I decided to use this picture for the contrast of Big. Although I liked the other picture that I had selected, I just thought this one was a more pleasing composition that showed the size of the barge more clearly
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- ROUNDED – This picture was taken at Tel Aviv airport while I was waiting for my flight home for chistmas. I initially wanted some pictures for a different contrast, but then this line of chairs in the departure lounge really caught my eye. I like the rounded effect of the armrests and also the abstract nature of the image. I am tempted to crop in tighter for the final submission.
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- DIAGONAL – Having got lucky with the rounded image at the airport, I then had to find something suitably diagonal. I struggled until I saw these escalators at the print media academy building in Heidelberg. It is a very modern building that allows some quite abstract images – I think this works well with the metallic abstract nature of the rounded picture.
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- LOW – I wasn’t too sure of my initial selection for Low – I liked the composition but wasn’t particularly pleased with the execution. I therefore took another series of pictures from the same spot, then converted one to Black & White. Although it shows the contrast in the same way as before, I think B & W has much more punch to it.
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- HIGH – This is a picture looking up at the top cable car station at the Massada Fort in the West Bank. I think this is a nice balanced picture that gives a sense of height (interestingly, the top station is still ten metres below sea level – should of used this for low instead lol).
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- NARROW – This was the first set of contrasts that I was totally happy with. I had this picture in mind long before I took it and am happy with how it turned out. This is a narrow irrigation canal in Germany and I like the fact that the canal has provided a nice lead in line and that the tree on the right has given the image a pleasant balanced feel.
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- BROAD – I had taken a picture of the river Rhine and was planning on using that until I took this picture of the Trent and Mersey Canal near the Anderton Boat Lift in Cheshire. It was a cold December day so I have kept the picture as cool as possible and I like the serenity of the image.
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- MANY – Heidelberg is a large university town and is ruled by the cyclist. Outside Heidelberg train station there is a permanent depository of hundreds of cycles – mostly abandoned. I quite liked the idea of using this location for MANY, and initially wanted to take a picture showing the whole scene. However I couldn’t get high enough to look down on the cycles, which meant the images just show a mass of metal with no obvious point to focus on. I then saw this line of cycles with the metal barrier in the middle forming a nice focal point for the image. I think the final image shows the contrast quite nicely.
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- FEW – This is a car park in the small town of Sandhausen in Germany. I have visited this car park on numerous occasions and have never seen it with more than 2 or 3 cars on it, even though it can hold several hundred. In fact the car park really only gets full when the local football team are playing, so I thought this would be a good image to use for FEW. I like the fact that the white line leads you all the way through the image. I’m also pleased that the picture gives you a sense of open space with few cars on it at that particular moment.
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- STILL & MOVING – and my final image is the one that shows two contrasts in one picture. I had a couple of ideas for this image, but fell on this contrast by chance. The picture is taken of the Caldon Canal near its terminus at Frogall in Staffordshire. The image shows a small weir that allows excess water to run off from the canal down to the nearby River Churnet. I liked the idea that I could get still and moving water in the same image. I think the weir provides a good lead in line, with the tow path continuing on through the picture. The stillness of the canal water contrasts nicely with the water running down the weir towards the river.
It has taken me a good month to get to this stage of Assignment One, and i’m still not 100% happy with all the images. I’m not sure if that is a good sign or not – am I now being over-critical of my pictures? I will update this post in the next couple of days once I have finalised my selection and have sent them off to my tutor.
I have now finished assignment one and have settled on my final images. I have replaced three of my initial selections above with new pictures. The ones that I have replaced are Big, Low and Curved. Although I was reasonably happy with my initial selections, I think these replacement images are a bit more punchy than the originals……but we’ll see!!
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You’re currently reading “Assignment One: the theory and practice of contrasts,” an entry on Pete35uk's Blog
- Published:
- January 7, 2009 / 9:53 pm
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- Assignments
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