Almost There..

It has been more than a month that I have not posted anything on this site. I just want to make a note saying that this is almost over.

I rarely talk about my progress on the assignments because it contains too many fail attempts, ideas that go absolutely nowhere. Some of those become rant posts and they all go to Spiral Labyrinth along with all my side projects and all those unnecessary readings/reviews. This blog remains, solely, for OCA tutors and assessors to do their box-clicking exercise.

Right, progress…

This is the first time I ever asked for an extension on the deadline, partly thanks for the varies accidents that happened, partly because I ran out of ideas. Ideas came by but either they are not good enough, or it is too difficult to execute.

All the shootings are done. At least I do not permit myself to make another shoot on this assignment before I send it off to my tutor. Yes, I am not totally satisfied with the work. And, I am sure I can put a better set together if you give me another 10 years, but it is pointless. I want to hit the deadline. I want make this as whatever best I can delivery with a fix timeline. In the remaining time before the deadline (first week of Jan 2013), I need to work on the narrative. As usual, the planning is a little bit messed up. The images I made don't quite stick to the original plan, so I am adjusting the plot all together.

Anyway, I’d better to keep the story short so that I can go back and do some real work (and hit the next deadline). Right now there is only title page. There is a quote that sort of drive the visualization on this subject. I would like to start with, I need to see if there is any space for it at all.

This pain I can see it but I can’t feel it
It haunts me
When I cut myself I can see what the pain
is coming from and watch it heal
And I can easily care for it
This pain doesn’t have a specific place
It moves around and creeps into strange places

Here is the title image.

Exercise 42: A Narrative Picture Essay

In this exercise, I have to use between 5 to 15 photographs with short caption to form a narrative picture essay. 

I want to expand on the exercise on "Evidence of Action". I posted that drug/suicide shoot on OCA and get some feedback, and I want to use the reshoot as part of this series. 

To be very honest, I find it exercise very hard. Very often I have some images in my head (call it pre-visualization?), but I cannot re-construction the same atmosphere no matter what I do. I believe it is because I have in mind the subject matter, but I am not very clear about the background (surroundings). I wonder what is the good way to improve on this.

Anyway, here is the story. I only use five images because it is too exhausting to shoot more.

***

I was looking at those old photographs of us when we were still together. I wonder how long has it been. There is not a day passed that I didn't think of you.

I played those old voice message you left me again and again... I want to hear your voice. I can call you on the phone now, but I afraid you never want to hear from me again.

I don't know. I just don't want to think about it anymore. The past will never disappear and you will never be mine again. So what is the point? 

I can't sleep at night. I have that same dream over and over again.

From time to time I feel as if I don't exist in this world anymore. Then I saw those blood dripping down my wrist. It reminds me that I am still here. It feels so good. Maybe, finally my body marks what I feel inside all these time...

OCA Study -- Prix Pictet at Saatchi Gallery

Last Saturday was the OCA study day on the Prix Pictet this year. I read up on the Prix Pictet’s website on what is the purpose of this award and the shortlisted portfolio. Basically, I have already had in mind what I like and don’t like before going to the exhibition, so I have two goals in mind: 1) To see if viewing the photograph in gallery setting in large print will affect my opinion, and 2) To see what other people find in the photographs that I have missed. I think latter is more important to me because I think it is almost too subjective to view a photograph along, have your opinion and call it a day. At this level I feel it is more interesting to see what appeal to other people.

With this in mind, these are some of the portfolios I have seen.

The Obvious One

I think Rana Effendi’s work on the Zone of Alienation stands out from all other portfolio. I like her use of lighting and colour to create such a desolate screen, yet full of symbols and hints of human inhabitation. It is the kind of conflict I feel that make me wonder: where are the people? What happen to them?

There are two types of photographs I have seen in modern photographic works. The first type is the image hardly conveyed any message, or even one finds it appalling to find it in an exhibition, until you see the background note on what the photographer is aiming to present. The second type is the one finds a certain emotion, context, of the image, and wish to find out more about the background. This work is definitely the later type.

Seeing the work in gallery in big prints makes some of the images more like a painting than photograph. This one, for example, looks like an oil painting when looking up close in the gallery.

(The full portfolio is here: http://www.prixpictet.com/portfolios/power-shortlist/rena-effendi/)

In discussing with other students about the exhibition, I was surprising this portfolio is rarely been talked about. Many students seem to like Effendi’s work, but the work is essentially a close ending which provides no room for further imagination, or speculation. In fact, very few students spend time in front of this piece.

Similar, but not exactly

I spoke to Eileen about the exhibition and she told me that she prefers Philippe Chancel’s work on Fukushima. Chancel’s work is also focus on a disaster. There is a Google map right next to each photograph of the aftermath of a tsunami. In some aspects, this work is quite similar to Effendi’s work, in which it also involve no human, but only the evident of past habitation. However, Chancel’s work doesn’t give me the same emotional impact, because its subject is too grand: a huge ship got washed on-shore, an array of damage car lining up orderly. Joseph Stalin once said, “One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” I find it showing the grand scheme of damage after a tsunami is not the best way to present a human tragedy. Also, the “use” of colour is brighter.

Having said that, the best photograph in this series is a damaged photo album of a family. It keeps me wonder what happen with the people there, where they are, and what happen to them.

What lies beneath

There is quite a lot of discussion around the oil spill work done by Daniel Beltra. Those are landscape with very beautiful colour. It is beautiful, but we are not very sure if we should be enjoying it given the context. I think it is the guilty pleasure that force everyone to question what they are looking at.

I wonder if the religious Catholics or Muslims feel the same when they watch porn image online...

Sky and BBC TV coverage for the Gulf coast oil spill do not show such beautiful colour, so I wonder, what time in the day did Beltra take the images? Or does he go on helicopter a lot?

The Oddballs

There are several oddballs in the exhibition. It will be too time consuming to talk about all of them, but I will pick one. Guy Tillim has one photograph showing the back of the head of the Presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba (http://www.prixpictet.com/portfolios/power-shortlist/guy-tillim/). The composition of this image is very disturbing, because we are so wired to pay attention of human face first, which is the body guard on the left hand side.

This photograph, when view in large print over a big gallery, is obvious the body guard is not in sharp focus, but the back of the head in the middle of the image is. Therefore, when I saw the image in the gallery, it is more obvious the person in the centre (the back) is the subject. The focus is not as different while viewing it on computer. Therefore, the photograph makes no sense to me initially.

Still, I prefer a smaller corp closer to the centre to make the subject occupied a larger area than the body guard.

Tillim also has a blurry image of a salute. This image looks so much better on computer screen than big print. In the big print I find myself completely lost. However, in computer, I can spot the salute right the way. I think the blur is overdone if the image is intended to print in such scale.

One thing I cannot tell if this is just technical deficiency or intentional. Helen seems to like his work a lot. However, I believe if the purpose of these photographs is to communicate ideas, they should be made less confusing as possible. I don’t think this is a novelty to make your image so obscure for average people just to make yourself look more like an “Artist”.

And the winner is...

Who care? I am impressed by neither the work, nor the presentation of the work. I am looking at a huge photograph with glass in front of it, only to see my own reflection. There is little coherence in the portfolio as a whole.

But then, who cares?

               

Sometime I wonder, how much does my opinion worth anyway. In the same light, how much does my tutor’s opinion worth? It only worth something if it helps me to learn or gives me an insight or enlightenment. If it is doing none of above, then maybe the activity of getting feedback is pointless. Then, let’s come back to the worth of my opinion: I don’t like it. There are better images on the other side. Let’s learn from the good one.

Gareth made a comment of giving the price to the less well known guys who survived on baked beans, instead of a very well known guy. I disagree. Reality never works that way. Forget about competition, if there is photographic job, who is going to get it when a bunch of applicants has roughly similar level of skill? The one living on baked beans? No. It is always the person the organizer seems to remember. We can do theoretical debate on which is a better picture forever. In the real world about getting a job or winning an award, it is about who you know. If you don't know anyone, you won't be nominated here in the first place.

Some other side notes

I had a short conversation with Miriam about how much information a photograph should contain so that there are enough clues for the viewer to guess. Against, it boils down to the question of what is the purpose of a photograph if everything is hidden in secret code? Some people compare photography to cross-word puzzle, which the joy is about solving a puzzle. However, if there is not enough hints and one will not solve it, is there any joy?

I use an analogy of watching opera in German without subtitle, and assuming you don’t speak any German. Do you need to know the story to enjoy? Or do you just enjoy the screen, and the singing alone even though you have no clue?

Final random note

It was nice to see other students and hear what their opinions are (which is why I went there for). I don't have a chance to speak to everybody (who does?), but it was fun to talk about the exhibition with a cup of chocolate...

It is strange, but I seem to forget what Vicki looks like.

Somehow I wonder what happens to Brian (the one with all the fancy gadget), since I ran into him every single photography study visit.

I did get a good photograph on Amano, but only blew it off in the development stage. I think I have to try again.

The new tutor (Robert) has a Nikon FM2.

Exercise 45: Juxaposition

This is the shot of the exercise “juxtaposition”. The title is “study”.

I have trouble in arranging this screen because the colours are mainly white. I am not sure what element leads the eyes, but in my mind I want to have the pen, glasses, and the book cover to stand out. I wanted to include a calculator, but it is too little space. There is also so tossed paper, which is a common sight when you work on a Physics problem… However, I find it very difficult to make a clean line with so many items.

I change the lighting so that it more toward the red side. I want a warmer tone on the screen overall.

Idea wise, I came across a BBC 4 radio programs titled “Too Many Books” (www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01351q2). It takes about people collecting books, and find it very difficult to get rid of them. One of the interviewee said, it is like losing a friend.

Currently, my bookshelf is completely packed and have a pile of book that I need to read for this course. I made an effort to donate the books I don’t really enjoy or unlike to ever use again to the charity shop. However, there are many books I find it very hard to get rid of. One of the book, is Jackson’s “Classical Electrodynamics”. I bought that book in my last year of undergraduate study, contemplating I will take an Electrodynamics course in the following year in graduate school. It never happens, as I take course on quantum physics and group theory instead. I don’t think I have the capacity to do Physics in the future, if ever. This book becomes a memento to remind me of my past.

So, what do you need to study Physics? A good Physics text book, a lot of paper, pen/pencil, glasses, good light and a lot stamina (talent is desired but is not necessary).  

Assignment 4: Reshoot - Shape

The last shoot to be discussed is the sharp image. Here is the original shoot.

Here is the comment from Alan:

“In this image you have adopted a more dramatic lighting plan with your subject in the same frontal position as in the last image. It is a well composed image but I feel that there is a certain amount of ‘overkill’ in the lighting because the shadow area at bottom right tends to obscure the outline of the shape of the subject.”

The bottom right is where the camera touches the table. I hope I understand this correctly, the bottom of the camera and the table is equally unlit, so you cannot see the separation between them. So is there any way to separate the two? Here are two possible solutions:

1)      Hang the camera in mid-air with fishing line and clean up the fishing line in Photoshop

2)      Fill light

Believe it or not, #1 seems to be the cleaner solution but it is also harder. It is less obvious how to hang a camera when there is only two holes on the side (for the strap) and keep it perfectly still and square to the camera. I need a third points to put the fishing line on, but it is not obvious where. Since I have un-used film inside the camera, I don’t want to open the film cover yet.

On top of it, so far I have never deploy Photoshop in this course. I don’t want to start yet. I have no ethical problem in using Photoshop (apart from I don’t really know how to use it yet), but I feel like I should use it to do something I can absolutely not get around with, instead of cleaning wires.

Fill light is doable, but there is trade off. The original shoot is very dramatic. Any fill from the front will spills to the background and will reduce the dramatic effect. It is possible to angle the light so that it spills less, but I find it impossible to eliminate the spill. It still won’t remove the table, or light up area between the camera and the table, but it gives more clue that this is a camera.

Here is the re-shoot, the fill is angle to a way such that it doesn't spill as much, but it still spill to background.

  

There is something I tried while moving the fill around. At the end I think it is possible to eliminate spill by using a very tight paper snoot, and angle the light directly downward. The effect of it is it gives more clue of the camera. Still, if a light shines on the camera, the aluminium will be brighter than the metal. Therefore, it is unlikely to create a separation using fill, but this method will give more clue that the subject is a camera because it lit up aluminium element at the top.

I think this is a possible solution without damaging the atmosphere I tried to create.

Assignment 4: Re-shoot - Texture

The second shoot to be discussed is the texture image. Here is the original shoot.

Here is the comment from Alan:

“You have chosen to concentrate on the stippled area of the body of the subject.   In my opinion there is too much strong contrast in this image because the unlit areas in the frame are almost too dense to discern any detail. You have avoided this problem in all your other images by the arrangement of your lighting to fill the shadows. An image which showed some of the areas of brushed aluminium or the carrying strap would have also been quite appropriate for this task.”

So, the problem with this image (according to Alan) is the contrast is too high. It is possible to put a fill light in to reduce the contrast, and bring up some details on the originally unlit area. Let’s try this one first. This image was the one that I took earlier but didn’t select for the assignment. It is on a different orientation, because I prefer the details on the exposure dial instead of the rewinding knob. The idea is the same, one side of the prism area is lit by a hard light to show the texture of the leather, but this one has a fill for the front.

My feeling is: it is a little bit too distracting. There are more things to look at instead of just texture on the leather. It might not be the first thing viewers will pick up on.

Personally I prefer the original image. In theory the viewer can only focus on the aluminium and one side of the leather: One is smooth and one is rough. The contrast is very high, but I think it is more obvious on where you should look.

I wonder if I should have chosen something different to photograph on “texture”. I have another image on colour, which shows the texture on the strap quite well. However, I choose this one as the “texture” image, because the strap is the only thing that has strong colour in this camera, and I want to keep the strap associated with “colour” as much as possible. On the other hand, I could have done a macro shot with the leather fills most of the frame, I can have less contrast while showing the texture across the board. At the moment, I cannot try this type of shoot because none of my lens has marco capacity and cannot focus that close. I think maybe the next gear I should buy is a lens reversal ring to try this idea out.  

Assignment 4: Reshoot - Form

My tutor got back to me on assignment 4 two weeks ago. Because I have to work on the Life in the UK exam, I can’t get around to reshoot some of the images.

This is the first tutor report I got from Alan. The comments are generally quite positive. To be honest, it is somewhat too positive for someone at my level. Somehow I wonder if this is how the British education system works. When I was young, I don’t remember getting a nice word unless your work is so stunning that it shocks the teacher. I have a look at the last assessment result in July. Only one person get above 80 for this course, which is consistent with what it was like in my Chinese composition class. My teacher used to say if you get above 90, that is Literature with a big “L”.     

Never mind, let’s focus on the negative comments.

Reshoot

There are three images I am looking at: Texture, shape and form. I will put them into three posts. So let’s start with the shape. Here is the original image.

  

This is Alan’s comment.

“This is a good angle and lighting plan to demonstrate the principle shape of your camera.  Unfortunately, although the manufacturer’s logo on the front panel is sharp, I am afraid that the rewind knob on the right and the lettering on the ring on the front of the lens have both drifted out of focus.   I suspect that the aperture was too wide open to create sufficient depth of focus.”

The re-shoot in theory is simple, but it takes a while to setup the subject, camera and light roughly the same to the original shoot. After some trial and error, here is at f/32, flash at full power (compare to the original image at around f/13).

We can see that the “Nikkor” letter is sharp, while there are more detail on the rewind knob. Still if we look at this at 100% corp, the knob is sharp but not exactly pin-sharp. I think there is limited depth of field (DOF). I will go into this in more discussion later. However, since the DOF is limited, I prefer to have the front “Nikkor” to be as sharp as possible instead of keeping the knob sharp. I think it is too easy to spot if the letter is not sharp.

DOF

I have to admit that depth of field is one of the thing I rarely pay attention of. Why? Because most of the photographs I took are sport related. Most of the time I need to shutter speed to be very high. Trying to keep the ISO noise to a manageable level, there is rarely any room to maneuver the aperture. To be honest, I am not sure how small I should set the aperture in assignment 3 when I do urban landscape piece. It is more of a guess work if this f-stop is good enough.

As a result I look at the DOF calculation on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field). The calculation is done by using thin lens equation in classical optics, combining with some geometry (similar triangles). I replicate the formulas and put it on a spreadsheet. Here are couple questions I am interested in:

1) What was the DOF of the setting of this shot?
2) Apart of from stopping down, what else can I improve on the DOF?

The first one is simple. At f=70mm, the subject is about 40cm away (near the minimal focus distance). Let’s say the distance is 50cm since the subject has depth. With the circle of confusion set at 0.02mm, I get 3.98cm with f/22 and 5.63cm at f/32. The subject depth (from the “Nikkor” to the knob) is about 10cm. Thus, it explains why the knob is not sharp enough even at f/22. f/32 barely makes it, but as I said earlier, the knob is not exactly pin-sharp.

The second question is more interesting. In the solution to the DOF calculation, there are 4 variables: focal length, subject distance, f-stop (which is the same as focal length/aperture diameter), and circle of confusion. I can adjust each of them to get more DOF. So what is the post and con?

Circle of confusion (CoC): The most foreign term is the fastest way to improve DOF. The CoC is defined as the diameter of a spot to spread to be considered to be unsharp. It has to do with the grain or sensor size. The larger the sensor grid (not the number of pixel, but sensor size divide by the number of pixel), the bigger CoC. Some says viewing condition as well, but it is less controllable. This is a short extract from Wikipedia, with the calculation of the DOF at f/22 and f/32.

Image Format	Frame size	CoC (mm)	DOF at f/22 (mm)	DOF at f/32 (mm)
APS-C Nikon	15.7 mm × 23.6 mm	0.019	40	56
35mm Full Frame	24 mm × 36 mm	0.029	58	82
6×6 Medium Format	56 mm × 56 mm	0.053	106	152
8×10 Large Format	203 mm × 254 mm	0.22	540	999

One can see that, while I only have 5.6cm to maneuver in an APS-C frame, I will have three times more in a 6x6 medium format. Simple! However, as Henry Louis Mencken said, “For every complex problem, there is a simple answer – and it’s wrong.”, here is the price list:

Image Format	Example	Price (GBP)
APS-C Nikon	Nikon D7000	559
35mm Full Frame	Nikon D600	1,429
Medium Format	Hasselblad H4D-60	22,962
Large Format	Deardorff View Camera V8 (film)	3,795

The Hasselblad H4D is not a 6x6, but something like a 4x5. It costs 41-times more than my D7000. There is no digital large format camera around, so I find a film one, it still cost 6 times more than what I have. Then, I also have to process my own film because there is no shop that does large format film processing.

Focal Length and Subject Distance: These two go together. Unless I corp, I cannot move the subject further away and maintain the composition. Assume that I don’t corp, then I have to increase the focal length as I move the subject further away. Re-run this calculation, this is what I get.

Focal Length (mm)	Subject Distance (mm)	DOF at f/22 (mm)
70	500	38.67
135	1,000	41.79
200	1,500	42.91

I am not sure if this works at all, given that I am not getting even 1cm worth of improvement.

Aperture: I went all the way down to f/32. I am glad that my lens is old enough to have f/32. Most modern lens only got as low as f/22. If somebody is making an f/64 lens, I can put it in and get a DOF of 109mm. Here is a problem: someone told me that with small sensor camera (like mine), I have to worry about diffraction when the f-stop goes below f/16. I am not sure how to check diffraction pattern in an image. I can’t see anything very exciting at f/32, but will it be the same at f/64?

The Airy disk function is just a 2D Fourier transform of a circular aperture. Adding two together side by side will give me an idea on how close they have to be for the sensor to fail to detect two peaks. To be honest, I haven’t done math for a while. Therefore, I used the online calculator from Cambridge in Colour (http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm). At f/32, the diameter of the Airy dist is only 41 micron, larger than the CoC of 21 micron. A quick calculation with the thin lens equation assuming that my maximum resolution at the sensor is 41 mircon, with 70mm focal length, at f/32, subject at 50cm, it implies that I will not be able to resolve two points that is 0.252mm apart (only at the 50cm plane).

For the sharp shot, I have to say that I don’t care about a resolution of 0.252mm. It is probably more important if I am doing the texture shot, when the small details make all the difference in the texture.

Anyway, that’s all for the sharp. This analysis is simply too tiring. I am sure I will never finish this course if I keep doing this. I will write less for the next two re-shoots.