Exercise 41: Shiny Surfaces

In this exercise, I will be taking photographs of objects with shiny surface

The exercise suggests that we find something flat and shinny and photograph it from above. This is really not exactly the kind of challenge I have in mind with regard to photographing shinny surface. Nevertheless, let’s check the boxes first before venturing into something else.

For a flat and shinny surface, let’s use a mirror. Before we do anything, let’s also put a grey card in to white balance the screen in post processing.

It is possible to shoot directly along the line of the angle of reflection (note: it is not possible to align the light source directly in front of the mirror and shoot in front of the mirror. I will just block the light with my head). If I do that, the surface of the mirror is very bright.

I can also shot side way that avoids the angle of reflection. Then the mirror part will be less shiny. Personally I prefer the previous image, given that the surface of the mirror is less than perfect.

It will be absolutely stupid to fries pop-up flash directly to the mirror. I am not sure if this is the “challenge” the OCA text is referring to.

Basically, I don’t see what the main issue is.

Let’s start something I am more interested in. Here is a teapot my mother gave me for my birthday some years ago. It can hold tea for three people. However, I rarely have that many visitors so I hardly use it. Let’s light it at 45 degree angle, shoot from the side.

Because of the curve of the teapot (precisely why it is pointless to use a flat surface), it reflects me, my furniture and the flash head. Notice that the size of the softbox matters little here. The convexity of the surface will make it looks like a little spot. As best, we can have the tea port so close to the softbox that it shows up as a light strip.

My first problem is to get rid of the reflection of myself and my furniture. Since the teapot reflects anything that is around it, I will put a plain piece of lining paper (for wallpaper) around it.


Then shoot from and angle so that my reflection is around the edges.

It works, except that the top half of the teapot is always white and the bottom half is always black (reflection from the coffee table).  My question is, if there is a way to control the amount of black/white so that I can potentially manipulate it to show the shape of the teapot better

I think it is possible to put is some white card around the teapot to make edge white, but then this white card needed to be removed in photoshop later.

We can move it to the edge as well, but then when it get too close, some photoshop work is needed.

We can put something under the teapot to angle it, but it is hard to totally conceal this something while getting the teapot at a good angle.

It  is possible to narrow the base of the lining paper surrounding the teapot. However, it will weaken the light.  The lining paper I use has some colour cast. It is a way to manipulate the black and white area. However, the smaller the base, the tighter the working area will be.

Well, why don’t we put the teapot into a pillow case and have the base completely covered in one colour? Well, that pillow case more or less has to be white to avoid colour cast when the main illumination. It is not possible to use a black pillow case and still get light in. Unfortunately the black goes very well with silver.

With such a small living room, it is very hard to avoid light spill. I think it will be a major problem to get nice dark background going forward. It is possible to get some deflectors, but I don’t have anything on hand to try this.

Exercise 32 Light Through The Day

This is the most inhumane exercise in this course. I am supposed to photograph a place at different time in the day from sun rise to sun set. At the moment, the sun rise time is 5:10 and sun set is 21:04. Basically you need to be camping somewhere for 16 hours. Even if you get the camp, hopefully the weather is nice. If not, you can come back and try another day.

With the weather pattern in England, this is the worst exercise ever. Anyway, there is only one sensible place for me to show up at 5:10 in the morning, and that is my house. I can photograph my garden and there include the sky.

There is a long history with my garden. A few years ago when I decide to buy my own place, I wanted a garden. I have been living in tiny flats in different cities all my life. Growing your food and having a dog running around is sort a city drawler's romance. I ended up in buying this place with a 100ft back garden. I never realize how long exactly is a 100ft, until I have to remove the weed that is overtaking my garden. With rainy weather like this year, weed grew so quickly that it has overtaken my vegetable plot. It seems like the slugs and the snails are having a bloom in this kind of weather as well. I have seen a slug as big as a scampi lurking around in my garden. I still remember when I first moved in, I plant some Chinese vegetable. Couple white butterflies landed on it, and the whole crop was eaten by bugs. Then the fences between my neighbour fell down. After two years, she finally came to term this is her side and she has to fix it, but then she told me that she has no money to fix a fence at the moment. 

Really, what a city drawler's romance...

Anyway, this photograph show about half of the garden. There are stuff behind the wooden shard and there are some ground behind me.

4:38am. The sun has not even come up from the horizon yet. One can photograph the sky, but it is almost pointless to photograph anything on the ground. The light from scattering is too weak that is provide virtually no illumination to resolve any detail of the grass (weed), etc.

5:17. This should be the appointed time when the sunrise happen. From this screen, we see nothing.

5:39. 

It doesn't look like anything has changed, but the sun has already risen. At this moment, if I point my camera to the left, we can see the sun coming out from someone else's roof.

6:08. Just 30 minutes passed, the ground start getting light on it. 

7:28. The weather went bad on the previous time, so this is taken on another day. If I need to photograph the ground and the sky together, I think this should be a good point onward. There is enough light to show the detail on the ground and in the sky. The shadow on the fence is still quite long and cover up a large area.

8:52. Really, no one should get out earlier than 9. The screen starts looking better. Even the shadow on the fence is getting shorter and let the light shine on the grass (weed).

9:52

10:20. Even you start your day in perfect condition, it only takes an hour or two to ruin it in this country.

12:30. The sunny day is gone.

13:10. Overcast day, the saturation in the grass seems to be lost.

15:04

16:04. Cloud clears up a little bit.

18:12. Long shadow from the fence starts taking over.

19:16

20:34. It is not obvious that we are getting closer to the sunset by looking at the sky. However, the shadow cast by the left hand side of the fence already hit those on the right hand side.  

20:46 From the left edge of the fence, we can see the sun is going down.

If it is not clear, here is a shot with my camera pointing to the left fence.

21:03. Should we call it a day?

So this is the end of this bloody exercise. Question: what is the best time to shoot? I think depends on what you do. For all the image above, I try to keep around 50:50 for sky and tree/weed below. This is because I was not sure what is more interesting as a subject. If I want to shoot the sky and shoot directly into the sun, I think the period near sun rise and sun set is more interesting. If I am more interested in the ground, I prefer doing it somewhere around 9 to 5 when the ground is well lit. 


At some point people told me that it is a bad idea to shoot at the mid day since the sun light is harsh. My experience is with your typical British weather, most of the "sunny" day is actually an overcast. There is not much of sun out there, so what is the worry?

OCA Study Day: Out of Focus, at Saatchi Gallery

I signed up for this study day as soon as it came online. It was interesting for many reasons. Gareth mentioned that it was “a little bit risky” for them to run this study day because there are works by too many photographers and he can’t study all in advance. However, I thought it is probably a little bit risky to introduce contemporary practice to people like me who are still in early stage of his/her study in photography.

Let start with the most important thing I have in mind: how can you tell the difference between a horrible piece of work and a new style of work? I look at this photograph and it says nothing to me, but it obviously says a lot to Charles Saatchi, who paid a lot to acquire the work and paid for space to exhibit it. Am I stupid? Or is he stupid? While I do think judging Art is a subjective exercise, but I hate to think that it is so subjective that we cannot even decide if the work is poorly executed or fantastically cutting edge. 

If we all shoot classical style, no matter it is landscape, portrait or still-life, any short coming in technicality is relative easy to spot. If we do something “contemporary”, then it is not clear how it should be judged and compared to. So what is the reason for produce such “contemporary” style work? Is it because there is no way for us to use any traditional mean/classical style to get our message across? Or is it because we can't manage to out-shoot the classical masters (say Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, just to name a few), so we have do something so out-of-wreck, then no one can easily points out that our works are just rubbish? So what is this? Rubbish or genius?

I find it rather difficult to be brutally honest about how I feel about some of these art (or photographic) work, for fear that I have missed the point, and appear to be bigotry and uneducated. I remember seeing a very similar approach to photography in many degree shows I have visited this year. In fact, when I visited the degree show from the Royal College of Art (RCA), my friend Steve Eggleton, an event photographer, asked me why I would want to get a degree in Photography at all. He told me that I will learn more by assisting the other working photographers in the field. I have a feeling that what we have seen in RCA seem to give him the impression that an academic study in photography will only lead to the type of works that is very questionable in quality (which is 100% of what we had seen that day anyway). In fact, some photographers I spoke to, regard the current trend of higher education in Photography pointless. Some regard the idea to teach students to be experimental and go outside the path of traditional photography style just a gimmick to cover up the lack of solid foundation, which is becoming less an empathises in current curriculum.  Of course, I can’t comment if any of them is true. After one year in OCA, I am still confused what is the current curriculum is taking me to, what is the best way to learn photography, and what do I want to achieve by taking on a formal study in this subject. There is one thing I know for sure that is not on the current curriculum, and it is how to get a job as a photographer. I wonder, maybe the idea to head in a trend of creating un-understandable art work is to helps graduates to make sense on why they have £30k student loans and no job: General public just can’t understand my high art. It is always someone else at fault, but never mine.

***

Despite my scepticism on these types of contemporary photographic practice, the study visit itself is a success. I find it very useful as an educational experience because it gives us more to discuss about. In my opinion, there is less value to visit an exhibition of the work by any of the classical grand masters because most of us will agree how good it is, etc. By going to see works that even the tutors themselves have difficulties to come to term with, it opens the door to re-think and discuss what exactly is photography and how should we approach it.

With regard to the works being exhibited, I do think the first room with the punchy style portraits by Katy Grannan has the strongest work. It starts with a very questionable way to light portraitures, with funky subjects that share similar accents to the “freaks” that Diane Arbus photographed. There is no effort to light or pose the subject in a flattery way, and somehow this makes the subject more realistic: they are not your classical beauty and there is no point to make them one or pretend they are one. I wonder if the current trend of portraiture is to present as much texture and detail as possible. The work here reminds me of the work by Aleah Chapin, the winner of the National Portrait award this year. The work she submitted is her aunt. Frankly it is not the most beautiful subject, and having her paint naked is not particularly flattering.

Gareth has his comment on We Are OCA here: http://www.weareoca.com/photography/oh-superman/#comment-7196. He mentioned that if he has to live the rest of his life confined in one room and that will be gallery 10 with the triptych by Mat Collisaw. I will choose that room base on the space and the ceiling height, more than what is inside. It is not horrendous work but I have one question: what is the purpose to use mosaic ceramic tiles instead of making huge print? Is it more effective in communicate what you have in mind or it is just some sort of show off if not a gimmick?

***

Peter mentioned something about our work will take on its own life after it was created, and whole range of other factor will affect how the viewers interpret the image. He recommended John Berger and Roland Barthes analysis. Fortunately I have both read and watched the program by Berger (I have even written a blog post here!) Barthes' work is another 20 page of essay that is bury somewhere under the "to be read" pile (just keep getting taller). I think this point was raised in the forum at some point (also because of me). Not that I disagree, but  I have never felt comfortable about the idea that I have no control on how people read my work. In fact, I find the whole story about different interpretations on the image that won the world press photography award very annoying (the post is here).


Personally I look at this as a very linear problem. We are dealing with communication issue here. A successful communication is you understand what I have said. A failed communication is you don't get what I have said. I accept the fact that your understanding does not necessarily mean you have identical feeling, inspiration, and experience on the subject matter that I talked about. However, if I talked about an elephant, you have an elephant in mind but not a lion. 


For me, using photography as a medium of communication have to satisfy the same rule as using language. Therefore, if you are getting a totally different idea than what I am trying to show in a photograph, then this is a piece of failed work! There must be a central idea to the shot and it is my job to apply any mean necessary to make it as strong as possible. In fact, this is one of thing I keep trying in the Still Moving Project (here).


I think this is why I am more interested in what the photographer trying to communicate and how he wants to approach it, instead of what I think about the work personally. I always look at art work with a student hat on, and wonder if I can learn something from the approach and analyse why the approach fails. The work looks shit to me doesn't bother me as much since so many things in this world looks shit to me anyway. If the approach is good than I can pick it up (basically steal it) and improve it on my own practice.


However, I have to confess that you really can’t get that information by looking at the photographs. You can get this information by talking the photographer. Of course, they can always lie about their purpose. I can’t recall if I ever encounter someone has the courage to admit that their work is pointless and random, and some people happens to be retarded enough to pay him a million for it.


Then on Brian's question on Art vs Photography... Well, I am not really a photographer anyway. I think I said it at in the "About me" section. If you need to call me something, please call me a "camera user", not a "photographer". You can't dispute my title because indeed I use my camera (for whatever purpose and for whatever rubbish I produce).


I don't do photography. I am not sure what is that.

OCA Study Day: Bauhaus at the Barbicans

This is an exhibition on the works by the students and masters from the German craft/art school Staatliches Bauhaus. I didn't sign up for it until two days before the study day, because I was not sure if the study day is reserved for students who are studying in that particular discipline. I did make the call and got the last spot. 


There are two reasons why I am interested in an exhibition outside my field of study. First of all, I was suggested to read about Johannes Itten's work on colour on assignment 3. It happens that he was a master in Bauhaus. Therefore, I am curious what other work he did. Secondly, the assignment 4 is going to be another still life shot. The more still life set up I look at in magazines and books, the more I feel that I will be copying from one of the shot that I really like. Somehow I feel uneasy about the idea of copying somebody's work, intentionally or unintentionally. I was wonder if I should get inspiration from other fields instead of photography.


The work made at the starts of Bauhaus resembles a fine art school then it evolved into an architectural school at the end. Personally I like the work they made during the transition between the two: while it is not 100% practical, but it is not totally out of touch of the purpose of the work. I have a strong feeling that beauty alone doesn't impress me. I have been to some degree shows lately, and most of the works in fine art leave me wonder why we need artists in this world at all. However, when something is 100% practical, it becomes boring to look at. I think there is an art to strike a balance between the two.


There are a number of items that caught my eyes. Some of the photograms are very interesting. There is one photogram by Toni Von Haken-Schrammen titled "Household Spooks". He aligned scissors, knifes, paper claps to form two figures fighting each other and expose them on a light sensitive paper. It was a little bit childish, but it was very interesting to see what one can do with this medium. The part that I found the most interesting is the Typography they use for the school's advertisement. Even back in the 1920's, they have already had a design where letters wrap around the object, with strong and bold typeface. I think colour-wise, it is not comparable with the current printing technology. However, with only black, white and orange, the design look vibrant enough to present Bauhaus as a modern art school. 


Apart from the actual art works, the history of the school is also very interesting. Let's consider the statement form Walter Gropius when he advertised the school.


“Architects, painters, sculptors, we must all return to crafts! For there is no such thing as “professional art”. There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. By the grace of Heaven and in rare moments of inspiration which transcend the will, art may unconsciously blossom from the labour of his hand, but a base in handicrafts is essential to every artist. It is there that the original source of creativity lies.

 Let us therefore create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions that raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists! Let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future together. It will combine architecture, sculpture, and painting in a single form, and will one day rise towards the heavens from the hands of a million workers as the crystalline symbol of a new and coming faith.” 


Notice that it took place in Germany right after the First World War. With the country was suffering from defeat from the war, none of the work being displayed shows any sign of distress or suffer, which does not seem to reflect the period they were in. Gropius' word is so positive, especially on "create a new guild of craftsmen without the class-distinctions". Who is likely to come to Bauhaus? Poor people or the one who was injured in the war are unlikely to share such optimism. I have seen a painter called George Grosz in New York MoMA long time ago. He produced many pieces around the post-WW1 Germany, which looks at the society at a totally different tone. 


Anyway, there are a lot to write about this as for a study visit. However, I still consider the most useful thing is the typography, which I might be able to reuse for assessment, etc. Some of the painting from Wassily Kindinsky was very interesting. However, I am not sure if there is a logic to reproduce his work, therefore it is less useful for me. In any case, it is a very interesting study visit and I should attend more exhibition outside photography.

Presentation Matters

This post is a cross post from another blog I am writing. I will explain why at the end...


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In the past couple days, I was looking into how one presents their photographs.


It is followed by a discussion on the OCA blog about assessment. I have very strong opinion about it, but then I step back and wonder how this is done in the real world. After all, I can rant all day, but ranting alone does not solve my problem.


Why presentation? When you go to job interview, you won't wear pyjamas, right? Even if you are smartest, most hard-working, most beautiful and friendliest person in the world, you still have to dress for the occasion to get the job. If you wear pyjamas, people won't take you seriously in the first place, regardless on how good you are. I guess, good presentation open the doors for future opportunities. Bad presentation just shuts it right down. 


Of course, this is not new to me. The re-work for assignment 3 (The churches in the city) was done in inDesign (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9vxityaDZ2WVmpIbm1ibjhieFE). I felt that I need to put my work together to strengthen the message. I used open office word and power point in the first version of assignment 3 (Urban Landscape), but the presentation is not clean enough. 


Now I have to think one step further. How about if I have to create a portfolio of my work? I think, the assessment has a similar accent to this. I was looking around online and try to find what other people have done, and what the rules are. The most relevant I find seems to be commercial photographers or fashion photographers putting together a portfolio of their work to present to client. There are a lot of details on how to pick the images, even on which box you should use. One example is Martin Bailey's portfolio:


http://blog.martinbaileyphotography.com/2012/04/11/podcast-330-creating-a-photography-portfolio/

In general, I notice there is a big emphasis on consistency. It seems to me that there is an effort to present your work as one piece. For example, it is bad to use different colour of frames, or frames of different sizes. However, it will be a tough call in TAoP because we have five assignments, and each assignment is about something different. Not to mention that, assignment 1 is likely to be my weakest shots (assuming that I am improving). Why do I want to put it in front? Should I put the best shot at the beginning and at the end?


I think everything I have seen in an art gallery is mounted. So let's look at mounting image. The tutorial is here:


http://www.reframingphotography.com/content/mounting-matting-and-framing

So far so good. But think about this: each assignments requires roughly 16 images in this course. Forget about the re-work for a moment, so we are talking about dry mounting 80 images, and sending out a box of 80 images to the assessment. How much weight are we talking about here? Forget about cost at the moment, is this the best way to present my work? The images in assignment 1 is not so good anyway, does it look a little bit moronic to dry mount them. Wait, but those in assignment 3 probably worth dry mounting. Ok, then where is the consistency?


I need to think a little bit about what message I am trying to send and how to present it. I will definitely go for dry mounting if I am submitting my portfolio of a set of coherent work. For assessment on five separate topics for 80 images, I am not sure the traditional way of presenting photography portfolio works.


I seems to sign myself up for putting them in a book format, so I should investigate on how to layout a book. I only layout a 8 double spreads in the last assignment. This time I will have chapters and what not. Hmm...




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I got a comment from Catherine about the visibility of putting white letter on black background. To be honest, I have not thought about it. It is probably I see black letter on white paper all the time at work, so I wanted to pick something different when I pick the layout of this blog.


Well, the question is: does it make it difficult for people to read my blog? Should black letter on white background better? What is the general atmosphere I am creating?


I am not sure, but I think the best is to try it another layout and compare them side by side. Therefore, this post is cross-posted with the DFP blog, which I have not started the course yet :P

Recent Debate, and Reflection Post Assignment 3

It just recently occurs to me that I have a lot of difficulties in learning under this program. I am not sure if it is just because this is a distance learning program. To be honest, I prefer working independently, so less interaction with people actually works better for me. However, when I have question, where should I turn to.


The first day when I sign up for this course, I got warned (by OCA staff) on the forum that we cannot bother our tutor on every tiny question. The interesting part is then somebody put up a post saying that his wife quitted her degree in anger, because her tutor told her that he only get paid for grading the assignment, not the exercises. I don't know if I am "lucky" to run into all those posts just at the beginning of the course, but I always feel that I should not ask too much question but think more myself. 


I don't have a problem with that, but what if I do need some moral guidance? It is sort of silly to ask, but is this blog setup ok? Can anyone navigate around here? By the way, is there anyone reading my post? To be honest, no one ever commented on my exercise, so I assume they are fine. Sometime (I think) I get what the exercise for, sometime I don't, but I just let it be. No one ever said I did something wrong, so it is a "good assumption" that it all goes perfectly. I have a feeling, that I won't hear anything about this until the assessment day, when somebody has to (hopefully) look at everything I do and comment on it. 


By then it is too late to do anything to improve.


It is the reason why I set up Spiral Labyrinth, the blog of my side project and my main blog, that I can mess around without any of the OCA stuff on it. 


Anyway, why I am writing about this? I have officially passed midway of the course. As a reflection, I have to face all the short comings in studying in OCA, and find a way to work around it. The OCA course note on Colour (previous section) and Light (current section) are too limited. It is not possible to get even the basic understanding just by reading and doing the exercise there. There is a reading list. However, at this stage, they are not just recommended reading materials, but necessary reading materials. 


I have some doubt if a degree in Photography is what I seek. I feel the current syllabus in this BA in Photography is not sufficient for me. I think I will have a better idea when I get closer to the end of this course on if I should consider the BA in creative art instead.


Last but not the least, I have a quick read from the degree handbook. It gives and idea on what we are aiming for at each level. In summary:


At Level 4:
1) Learn to study independently, set goals, manage your own workload effectively, and meet deadlines
2) Develop and ability to identify, present, interpret and research works of art
3) Learn to problem solve in relation to the processes and execution of your chosen disciplines and communicate creative ideas effectively
4) Experiment, explore, and take risks.


I think I have no problem in #1 and #4. Whether I know what is art and what is work of art is an issue. I am constantly presented with images, with many of them seriously shit, even if they manage to make it into a museum. #3 is more about execution, ie operating photographic equipment and doing post processing, I think I need more practice.


Interesting enough, there is something for level 5 and 6 as well:


At Level 5: 
1) Develop your individual research methodologies to find the material for assignments.
2) Cultivate working routines from which an independent style will evolve
3) Develop proficiency in comprehensive range of practices and techniques
4) Show a creative, critically informed and self-reflective approach to creative art practice


At leve 6:
1) Understanding of the professional considerations ... including an understanding of the vocational context... personal intiative and responsibility and decision making in challenging contexts
2) Aware of the social, political and economic issues which affect your chosen discipline
3) Demonstrate and underpinning understanding of theory and concepts and show that you can articulate and comment upon through debate.
4) Demonstrate a breadth of inventiveness, idea generation and techniques in the creation of your work.

Oil by Burtynsky

God, I wish that I have the time to write about the study day I have been to. This is from last week OCA study day to the Photographer Gallery. If I have time, I will write more about this exhibition some day. I am not writing it all out in one shot. However, there is one thing I want to mention: atmosphere as it presented to the audiences. 


The exhibition took place in two floors. 


The upper one focus on the structures that are used to drill oil , as well as the advancement (car, highway) the oil bring. The wall of this floor is painted in white and the room overall is brighter amd airy.


The lower floor focus on the aftermath: the destruction on land dur to drilling in Baku, the pile of tires, the graveyard of air planes, oil filters, helicropter. Then there is picture of oil spill and fire. The wall of this floor is painted in grey and thevmood is sufficiently darker.


Whatever the work is, the exhibitor have setup the room in a such way that the lower floor is gloomy. It might be because the aftermath of oil drilling is gloomy, but we don't exactly figure that out: the exhibitor guided us there. Although there is no personal commentary from Burtynsky, it is quite clear what he had in mind. 


Most of the photographs are taken during overcast day, early morning or late at night. As a result, the colour looks slightly washed off. There are only two pictures in the whole exhibition are taken in bright daylight where the colour is most saturated. In another word, most of the shots that are tken in an overcast day or near sun rise and sunset, look quite gloomy, or banal. The only two image that is taken in bright day light is the drilling platform fire, and the oil spill. The oil spill image looks the most confusing among all the images because it looks beautiful. If not by reading the description, you won't notice this is actually an oil spill.


I have not got to the photographic content, background and history yet, but the intention is clear. You don't even need to shoot anything, the setup and presentation already set the tone.