Assignment 3: Colour? Architecture? Culture?

This is the other part of the continuation of assignment 3. Given that the assignment I submitted back in March was about urban landscape (more or less building was all I did), we are down to looking at what type of building I see around London. When I did the assignment, I didn’t visit anywhere particularly scenic. Given that there is strict requirement on colour, I gave up on finding the best looking, or most representative buildings and opts for the one with the colour combination required by this assignment.

About the Colour of Bricks

The colour in an architecture design usually associated with the building material used. For most English residential house built before 1970, the colour of the exterior is determined by the colour of bricks and roofing tiles. Even today, some of the modern housing designs still put a skin layer of brick on the exterior to preserve that aesthetic appeal.

Bricks are used in English housing frequently because of the speed and cost associated with creating a brick. There was a large demand of housing since industry revolution and bricks are often the material of choice. They are everywhere in the city and suburb area, although they are not particular glamorous or iconic.

Although one can put in dye during the brick making process, most of the brick used in the London and south east area are mainly yellow or red. Some bricks may appear to be black/grey. Some of them originally are yellow, but lost they appeal because of air pollution. The yellow brick is known as London stock. It is made soft yellow clay fitted into an iron faced block mould. It was once as seen as fashionable for working class housing.

In Victorian London, the bright red brick was chosen to make the building more visible under heavy fog. The goal was to reduce number of traffic accident in foggy weather.

Most of the roofing tiles I see around London are red. However, I cannot find any note on why they have to be red. I believe the material that made tiles are mainly clay, but what is not obvious is why no one dye it, or use difficult colour of clay. There are houses that recently re-tiled that have black tile.

Culture Aspect (again?) of Colour

While my tutor suggested me to look into culture aspect of colour, my assignment was about urban landscape. For everything to tire together, we are trying to link several elements together: 1) Colour 2) English culture 3) English architecture (at least on residential housing level)

As I note earlier that a major deciding factor of choosing building material is cost and speed (I wonder, if the right word is really availability instead of speed). There is nothing particularly English about the decision. Historically issue that favour yellow (availability) or red (particularity for reducing accident) has nothing to do with the culture here really.

Assignment 3: Cultural Aspect of Colour

This is sort of the continuation of assignment 3. On the last post, I mentioned that my tutor suggested me to research on the cultural aspect of colour. It takes a while because there is no authoritative reference text out there on this subject. There are a lot of loose articles from what-so-called “research”, but they are more of commentaries. Here is bit and piece of the summary on what I have read and some of my reflections.

Culture Aspect of Colour

Some articles talks about what a particular colour is used as a “symbol” in particular country. I put quote around the word “symbol” because the relationship between colour and the subject is more of an association, rather than symbolization. I prefer to use the word "symbol" as a representation. You see a symbol and this will come to mind even if there is no word or other message. For me, to say colour is a symbol of XXXX means that you will be thinking of XXXX if you see this colour.


An article I came across says that green is “symbol” of money in US. It is true that US dollar usually refers to as “greenback”. It is also true that the one side of the US dollar (it is the back side, if you like) is printed in green ink. However, what is not true is the Americans invoke the thought of money when they see green. For example, it is unheard of that somebody walks into a park on a summer day, seeing the beautiful green leaves on trees, and the screen triggers the image of cash.

Some of the old tradition on the use of colour exists because of the taste of rich and powerful in the past, or because of availability of the material. For example, certain colours are difficult to product in the last so it becomes “symbol” of kings. Some of the tradition, such as wearing black clothing to a funeral, is observed because the lack of interest for general public to do something special. However, these linking changes in many areas, because of technological advance make many colours become available to normal people and transformations in social structure that we feel we no longer need to observe some tradition appeal in a strict sense. As a result, if we need to discuss about the culture aspect of colour, we should also ask ourselves what we mean by the word “culture”. And, if we accept that “culture” is a constantly evolving breast composed on many individuals’ tastes and preferences, we should an also accept that the link between culture and colour is evolving.

Association with Colour

The links between colours and everyday subject is not entire zero. There are some permanent subjects out there that are immune to change. Here are some objects that we see every day and they are almost in the same colours.

        Sun – Red/ orange
     Fire – Red/ orange

       Grass/ Tree – Green
    Clear sky – Blue

Therefore, one should not be surprised that red/ orange side of the colour wheel is called “warm colour” given that we can directly experience the warmth of the sun, while the sun is unlikely to change colour (with its current mass, it will never make it to a blue giant even before it blows up).

One should note that this association has to do with what we usually see. For example, fire does not have to have red/orange colour. If you use natural gas a fuel, the colour of the flame would be blue. While the flame is still hot, the association between “hot” and blue is rarely seen. I believe it is because we see colour as a visual observation. Most people use natural gas to set up a flame is in the kitchen. As soon as the fire is up, they put the pots and pans over it. As a result, they never really set up a blue flame, observe and appreciate the warmth of a blue flame. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what colour the subject can appear in, but what we usually see them.

Apart from the permanent fixtures, there are the “semi-permanent” ones. There are situation when a subject does not have to appear as one colour, but there is a social pressure to maintain such an association. An example of this is the application of the colour red in stop signs, traffic light. When we see a red sign, we are most likely to stop or slow down to see what the information is. This type of association works with the backing of the law to reinforce such belief. For example, one will get punish if he/she disrespects the red traffic light. Without such backing, the association have little strength. For example, while green traffic light is walk, one is not under obligation to cross the road. Green road sign is use for information, but people don’t usually hit the accelerator when they see a green road sign. There is no punishment, so the association of green and walk/run is not quite there.   

Gender and Colour

I happen to come across this topic as I was curious on why parents decorate the baby room in blue if they are expecting a boy, and decorate it is pink if they are expecting a girl. I came across online article saying that the tradition was reversed. Before the First World War, pink is the colour of boy because it has stronger colour, while blue is more delicate and more suitable for girls. Here is a magazine cover of in that age, notice that the girl is illustrated in blue dress.

At some point the specification with gender changed in 20^th century. Some said that because of the blue uniform soldier wore (which country though?), while other said blue dye is cheaper for school uniform. Someone suggested that NAZI used pink as the colour code for homosexuals, so men tries to distance themselves with this colour. I doubt this is the reason, because it implies that women are happy to associate themselves with homosexuals.

Uses of Colour

There are two areas that discuss about putting colour together to form some impression, and they are flouriest and interior designer. The general working process seems to be 1) pick if you want to have contrast or similar colour 2) put something together from that side of the colour wheel and see if they look good. The working process to match colour is about how you feel than putting in straight rule. Florists go about the “flower language” of different flowers mean. Honestly I struggle to see why red rose means “I love you” but orange rose means something else. I also wonder why there exists flower that means "I love you" but there is no flower means "I hate you". Given that both love and hate are constantly re-occurring human emotions.

Summary (?)

I am not sure that I should summarize given that nothing makes sense to me. I struggle to see a consistent link between culture and colour other than old wives tale or wishful thinking. Not to mention, in order to really analyze this topic, one has to be particular about which culture, what culture and what influence this culture. It is more interesting as a sociological or anthropological discussion than a photography discussion. However, I don’t think there is no link between colour and culture.

     1) There are object that we experience constantly that have consistent colour. An example of this is we experience warmth from the sun and the sun is red/orange

2   2) There are social agenda to associate certain colour with messages, with strong backing by law to reinforce this association. An example of this is red sign, traffic light means stop.
        3) There are other intentional or unintentional agenda to associate certain colour with messages, such pink for girls and blue for boys. Such association is usually back by media (advertising). It can change with time and the association may not apply to everybody in the society.

******************************************************************* 

To be honest, it is difficult to get back to assignment 3 at first because it really has been a while since it was submitted. I need to check my note and see what I have in mind when I was working on the assignment. To try to learn something around the topics around colour is one thing, but trying to tire this back to what I was working on (urban landscape) is another. With architecture, the exterior colour strongly associates with the cost and availability on building material, instead of social likings. I am reading a little bit more and write something about it. Hopefully it will tire back to my assignment somehow.

Exercise 39 Contrast and Shadow Fill. Part II

This is the second part of the exercise -- replace the white card with aluminium card. I separate this from the first part because the conclusion here is different and these set of images should be viewed without those in the first part.


The light is positioned on the right side of the screen, with a softbox. I try to do a better job in fixing the tiger toy this time and shoot slightly tighter (still some empty space at the top, but the eyes is at 1/3 level). There is also catch light on the left.


Same as last time, I will start with my observation first:


1) I cannot see the difference between produced by the dull and shiny surface of Aluminium foil. The brightness is almost the same on the left side at both 10 and 20 cm. However, the catch light on the left eye is more concentrate with the shiny Aluminium. The dull side is more diverse (larger area, but seem weaker)


It is either there is little difference, or the co-corp Aluminium foil is not shiny enough to differentiate itself from the dull side.


2) The brightness on the left side of order of strength will be: Dull/Shiny > Crumbled side > white card. It tells me that an Aluminium foil is a more powerful reflector than the white card.


Here is the set of images:


1) No reflector

2) White card at about 10cm away on the left

3) Dull side of the Aluminium foil at 10 cm away on the left

4) Shiny side of the Aluminium foil at 10 cm away on the left

5) Crumbled Aluminium foil at 10 cm away on the left

6) White card at about 20cm away on the left

7) Dull side of the Aluminium foil at 20 cm away on the left

8) Shiny side of the Aluminium foil at 20 cm away on the left

9) Crumbled Aluminium foil at 20 cm away on the left

Exercise 39 Contrast and Shadow Fill. Part I

I will post this exercise in two parts. 


In the first half of the exercise, I will start with a still life setting with fixed camera and light source location, then I adjust the distance of the reflector. 


It is hard to see the difference unless you look at the images side to side (in lightroom library). There is a graduate change in brightness, but it is hard to see if you are going to view the image sequentially. Therefore, I would like to start with the observation:


1) If you add a reflector, the left side of the subject gets the reflected light and appears brighter


2) The closer you get, the brighter the left side. However, 20cm, 30cm make little difference compare to no reflector at all.


Here is the set of the images with white card at different location. The light source is a flash with a softbox on the right hand side of the image.


1) No white card

2) White card on the left hand side 30cm away

3) White card on the left hand side 20cm away

4) White card on the left hand side 10cm away

5) White card on the left hand side as close to the subject as possible

Assignment 3: Comment from the Tutor

I heard back from my tutor, Matthew last Friday about this assignment. He told me that he was on vacation earlier and just saw my email.


The wording is not that explicit, but I keep wondering if my assignment got rejected. I don't have time to summarize, so I will post his comment and highlight the words that I think is important.


"I would like you to continue to develop your ideas along the narrative line that you have taken and also to remember to consider colour in as many contexts as possible. This may allow you to consider colour not only as you see it but also as symbol. I would like you to do some research into this and also the cultural aspects of colour. This could have an impact upon your work. Take time to consider what you are attempting to communicate in your images and use this time to develop the project in greater depth."


The official due date of this assignment is not until June, so I was finishing it at very high speed. I am happy to consider Matthew's comment, but I don't particularly want to redo this assignment. First of all, I absolutely run out of idea of what to shoot on this topic. Secondly, I have Swiss Cottage's match tomorrow, Arsenal ladies Thursday and Sunday, with some exhibitions I want to see and a pile of books I want to read before starting assignment 4 (and can't wait). I just feel so much pressure to get all of them done and now I get something more.


I guess there is no point of worrying at this stage. I will try to slow down on the exercise on section 4 and try to work along the suggestion he gave and see if I can come up with something new. In summary, it is basically:


1) Take time to consider what you are attempting to communicate in your images, and continue to develop your ideas along the narrative line


2) Do some research into colour as a symbol and also the cultural aspects of colour. 


3) Consider colour in as many contexts as possible.


Item 2 should be relatively straight forward, given the resources available on internet. Item 1 is possible even with the existing set of images. I need to sit down and write a better essay to link the images together. I might potentially have to reshoot the images to make them more integrable. Item 3 is sort of weird on its own. 

Exercise 38: The Lighting Angle

In this exercise, I will take multiple shot on one still life arrangement at different angles. I will continue to use the tiger because of its colour and texture. There are two angles I am adjusting, one is moving the flash unit from side to side, then up and down.

Language-wise, I will refer to these positions when moving the light up and down:

And moving the light side way.

It is too cumbersome to comment on the image one by one. I will summarize the observation here, then post the images.


1) Lighting at the same level of the subject will leave one side dark, and the other side light. By lifting the light higher at 45 degree, it lighten the dark side of the other half of the face. Like-wise, the object is better illuminated (less dark area) if we put the light at front 45 degree angle and lifted at 45 degree up.


2) My subject is a little bit flat. So front lighting at any elevation works fine. However, I was told that in portraiture with human, do not use front lighting as it flatten out the facial feature.


3) Back light on a opaque subject is a little bit awkward. I guess my kitchen is too small so that my subject is not totally a silhouette. The detail of the subject is disappearing. This happens because the exposure is not enough to preserve the details.


4) Lighting from the bottom is hard, as the tripod is too high. Anyway, the atmosphere is a little bit strange as the focus is at the bottom part of the image.


Now start with the images:


1. Light from the side, same level

2. Light from the side, 45 degree above level

3. Front at 45 degree, 45 degree above level

4. Front at 45 degree, same leve

5. Front, 45 degree above level

6. Front, same level

7. Back, same level

8. Front at 45 degree, Below at an angle

9. Directly below

Exercise 37: Softening the Light

After wrapping up most of the unfinish business in assignment 2, I am ready to move on to do something new. There is still no news from my tutor on assignment 3, so I will start on section 4. I am doing it in more or less reverse order. Since I have my flash unit set up for the re-shoots, I am using them for the photographic light section.

In this exercise, I will take photographs on a still life arrangement, one with hard light, another with diffused light. I have my tiger doll with some nice colour and texture on the table. 


First with the soft light.

Then with the hard light.

The clear difference of the images are in the shadow. The hard light casts more solid shadow. It is hard to maintain the tiger at exactly the same position because it is too soft to stand on the table on its own.


From the lighting textbook, it says the texture will be shown better if hard light will be used, and the colour will be more vivid. In the colour standpoint, I can't really see the difference of two. For texture, we have to zoom closer.


I pick the area just below the chin to look at. This is from the soft light.

This is from the hard light.

Again, the difference is not that obvious. I wonder if the meaning of texture is if you are doing portrait, the nose of a person is something stick out of the face. In this example, the tiger is more or less flat. It has "texture" in the furs, but the light cannot make this small "texture" stands out.


The soft light one seems to make the toy more round (look at the shade change on the lower right side). The tiger looks rounder around the base than the one with hard light.


Personally, I prefer the image with the hard light. The position of the tiger that it right eye has a catch light (very small, but it is there). The catch light make it more lively. 

Assignment 2: Re-shoot, Part III

Per the comment I got from my tutor on assignment 2, if the flow of liquid can be made into a straight line, it would compliment the diagonal and make a stronger triangle. So, let's try and see. 

This is the original image submitted.

The fluid is not in a straight line because the flow was slow. One can speed up the flow and make the flow faster, and straighter.

However, there is only limited volume of liquid the glass can hold. By having the liquid comes out of the glass faster means the time to shoot will be less. From the image above, the inclination of the glass is larger. As a result, the diagonal element of the shot is weakening.

It is possible to maintain the inclination and the speed of flow at the same time, with some effort.

Here are further trial-and-error:

 

  I think this is roughly what I am after. However, I notice that the background is not as uniform as I hope. I think I shoot too close to the edge of the soft box. It was not as noticeable on the set than on screen.

 So Instead, I prefer this image. The background is cleaner, the flow is straight and it reveal more on the stem of the glass.

Ways of Seeing

This book by John Berger is suggested by my tutor in the feedback on assignment 2. I watched some of the episodes on youtube prior in getting the book. They were very interesting, and I watched episode 4 on publicity several times. 


It is hard for me to comment of this book, because it is about commenting on someone else comment, which I don't have a strong feeling on. John Berger has his opinion on how oil painting was painted (largely and historically) reflects the prosperity of the owner or how he wants to see himself, and how the male viewing subject is not painting in nude painting. It does provides some explanation on why certain painting is painted a certain way. However, at this stage, I don't know if anything new coming from me (apart from what he has said) even if I go to the museum and look at similar painting. I somehow prefer looking at those paintings myself and ask if they appeal to me at all, regardless of the culture context or motivation. 


The last section on publicity is more interesting one. The goal of publicity, or advertising image is to prompt people to consume, by posing the idea that by processing certain thing, your life will improve. The publicity image creates a tension between what one wants to be, and the reality that one is not. 


Most of the photographs I have taken so far is driven by interest and curiosity, such as walking in the street and noticing something I like. Thinking of creating an image for specific purpose, say to make people to engage in a fantasy to fuel consumption, is on an opposite direction of what I am used to do in image creating process. Say I take a photograph of a beautiful woman, I am certain that other people will disagree with my notion with what beautiful is and disagree on the fact that my photograph is of a beautiful woman. However, what kind of woman I should photograph such that it appeals to general public that she is beautiful? 


I have post it at the end of December 2011 (http://art-of-photography-sip.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/review-photographer-or-not-part-1.html) on an interview I have read from a fashion photographer, Stephen Eastwood. He said the following:

"As a career, never make it about you or your views of beauty. If you want to succeed, understand that the client and the market the client is aiming for decide what is beautiful. "


Similar, isn't it?


Anyway, I think this set the tone for assignment 4, which I am still reading about during Easter. I have three if not four books on the line, so I think this assignment will really take a while to finish. Not to mention all the exercises in between.

Real World Color Management

After two weeks of idling, I am updating this blog again. I didn't really go idle, but was reading couple interesting books in preparation of assignment 4. Of course, I can't just start assignment 4 right now (sadly). There is a long chain of backlog issues I need to update before doing anything new.


1) Blog the reading for section 3, colour, which I am going to do now.
2) Blog the reading that is recommend by my tutor. That is the book "Way of Seeing" by John Berger
3) Post the remaining reshoot for assignment 2
4) Check if my tutor has feedback on assignment 3, which I have submitted a month ago. 
5) The long chain of exercises that lead to assignment 4 (Mine, how many of them are we looking at?)


First come first, the reading for Colour. Back in February, I pick up this book call "Real World Color Management" by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting. It is a very interesting book to start. It takes forever to read once it passes the middle, and I can't quite make it to the end. Why so? Because the theory is interesting, and why one need to pay attention of the colour consistency between varies input and output device is important. Then when it gets to actual calibrating, there is very little I can do with my existing devices.


The book begins with discussion on incoming light (electro-magnetic wave), and sensors in our eye (the cones and the rods). The wavelength sensitivity on the three cones cell link nicely to the R, G, B channel in the CCD sensor. 


The interesting concept introduced was something called metamerism. The way I understand it is if I send you a photograph, the computer can code it in a sensory input (RGB, so is the trisimulus value) and reproduce the same thing I see in your output device. It doesn't matter the internal function of the monitor and how it generates light and mix them together, but the existence of metamerism allows us to break colour and code them in just sensory trisimulus value. Of course, for monitor (output device), it makes sense. It doesn't work if we are looking at object reflected light under different light source. For example, the same sculpture displayed under sun light or fluorescent light, the colour may seems different even though the material that made the sculpture doesn't change. The easiest example I can think of is photographing dance under stage light that has colour. And of course the custom looks different compare to what it is under sun light.


Then the book introduce different colour spaces, with the aim to keep colour consistent as we go from device to device, regardless it is an inputting device (ie camera), or outputting device (ie monitor and printer). Along with device profile, they specified the reproducible colours in one to the other devices. Then when the device is incapable to output certain colour, a colour management scheme will map it to something else. This process is called rending. Apparently, the rending error is smaller if there is more colour bit size. 


It is all very interesting until I hit the calibration part. The truth is, I don't have any measurement device to check, well anything at all. A profile maker, and a colorimeter cost more than my monitor, printer and camera all together. I checked with other people in the OCA forum about this. I have a very old Dell monitor (bought back in 2005) and now the IPS panel can displays a much larger colour depth. They suggested that if I want to calibrate the monitor, I should invest in a entry level spyder and a better monitor. At the moment, I prefer spending money of fixing my tripod, and the broken wide lens first. 


So what is the take? We have probably underestimating the depth of the colour theory. It is great to think (or hope) the other people sees the same thing as we do as we capture the screen, but the truth is not that simple. When one day I have to think of having my work published (or even printing work to submitted to OCA one day), I should be aware of the issues with device profiling.

Comment: Lecture by Christopher Anderson

So I happen to come across a lecture by a photographer Christopher Anderson. He was a war photographer and currently work on Magnum. Some of his work can be seen here:

http://christopherandersonphoto.com/#/index

The lecture was about how his work first recognized in Haiti when he asked to get on the hand made boat along with the locals to smuggle to America. Then he got interested in people making effort to transport themselves to another country for a better life. Some of the work involves himself getting on an overloaded weagon traveling on a dersert for many days. Many of his work involved getting himself in a dangerous situation with the locals.

Sometime I wonder if we are working so hard to getting better technique and equipments, we have forgotten about finding interesting subjects to photographs. I was reading about flowers lately because it is one of the possible subjects for the colour assignment. Then I came across the line saying that flower is one of the most photographed subject in the world and most people get good but not breath taking images. I am not trying to minimize the effort to getting technically good images. Personally, getting the correct lighting set up is very difficult. However, when we step back and think about this: why are we photographing flower after all? Beauty? Yawn.

Fashion magazine is about beauty, travel magazine is about beauty. They are technically fantastic, but I wonder why they do get boring to look at.

At the second half of the lecture, Christopher Anderson said that he got burned out in photography, and decide to take random pictures he ran into with a Holga camera. There is next to no control with a Holga, so he just snapping in a almost reaction way. Believe it or not, he got a book deal out of it.

I think once someone is visually trained, any equipment is capable to produce good pictures. Some of the equipment might produce a good one after a thousand bad one. I remember this quote from Asnel Adams.

"Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop".

No one asks me about the thousands that are thrown away.

Assignment 2: Re-shoot, part II

In part I, I have modified some of the composition issue (seems to always be shoot tighter, does that mean I have tendency to leave too much empty space?) in Lightroom. Now for some other shots, I need to actually reshoot. This time I will consider the issue with the horizontal line and the rhythm short.


First of all, the two points shot. My tutor told me that there is a horizontal line across (along with other images I have submitted). While shooting assignment, I used two type of backdrops: white silk and lining paper (for laying wallpaper). The issue with white silk, or other type of cloth is that, they are very soft and cannot stand up by themselves. As a result, when I use cloth, it lays flat on the table as soon as it touches it. My table is brown and do not transmit light, so it creates a darker colour than the part that sticks up to the flash.


There are two solution to it. If I insist that I have to use cloth as backdrop, I need to create a frame with wire and mount the cloth to it. I can bend the wire on the side. The other (easier) way is to use paper as backdrop. 


This is shoot with the wall lining paper as backdrop.

Ok, but I notice there still a gradient from light to dark when I move from top to bottom. I am not sure if I can totally eliminate it if I stick with my brown table. However, I am sure that it can be reduced. First I increase the exposure (so everything is now brighter. I move my light source lower, and shoot tighter to get raid of the space at the bottom. 

I still wonder if it is possible to get raid of that gradient completely and have uniform background....

The second image my tutor talked about is the rhythm shot. There are two problem, first of all the stem of the glass is too soft. I think when I select the focus point initially, I chose to focus in the middle glass so none of the glasses will be totally out of focus. However, given that the viewer will see the stem of the front of the glass, so I can make the focus on the front and let other blur. 

The other issue is there is a hint of red below the main area. this is coming from the reflection between the bowl of the glasses. I can change my shooting angle to reduce this hint of red. For example.

However, this will affect the composition of how the glasses over lay each other. Personally I do not like this composition (even if I include the stem, the top is not overlap enough).

Alternatively, I can reduce number of glasses and make it less apparent (less repetitive).

However, none of it truly make that hint of red disappear. As a result, I think maybe it is cleaner to just shoot it without the red wine at the back. Also notice that in the bowls of the glasses, there is less reflection and the glasses looks cleaner in general. 

One side note about the pattern, the tutor notices that light was dropping off on the side. I have to admit that it is an issue of the backdrop. For example if I use the lining paper, I run to the edge very quickly. 

With the size of the glass I am using, I should have use a larger backdrop if I want to line them up horizontally. 

There are still couple more to re-shoot, but I will stop here for now.