Evaluation

Evaluation

Overall I think this project went quite well, I was able to get a series of images of what I set out to achieve, even after initial struggles at the start.

The biggest problem I found was transport, I had to rely on other people to get me to and from locations and so this meant I had to go to the places at times that suited them and not when I would of liked to ideally go, such as times around dusk and dawn for the ‘golden hour’ mentioned in my research. This meant I couldn’t go to shoots on some days that were planned, I could only stay a certain amount of time at the location, and so had to rush what I was doing, or go where they wanted to go.

The other major problems I found was keeping with the chosen aesthetic of a minimalistic style. I found it quite difficult to find locations where my subject could be portrayed with all the desired empty space around it. I found the scenes were often quite cluttered and contained more than I wanted to show and struggled to find compositions which isolated my subjects in such a way that I wanted to portray them.

It took a lot of research and going to many different places to shoot but in the end I was able to come up with some relevant locations where I was able to capture my subjects in my desired style while keeping everything within the brief and intent I set myself.

When it came to editing the images I tried to keep things as simple as possible, for most of the images the only changes I made were small adjustments to correct exposures, boost contrast and adjust the highlights and shadows when needed. Two of the images however I did make quite dramatic changes, both to composition and even the scene itself in one of the images. The image containing the bridge was the first to undergo a major change to composition, for this one I flipped the image so it led in from the right instead of the left. I did this because I felt it made a more interesting composition than how I originally took the photograph, I think it was much easier to follow and more pleasing to the eye.

The other major change I made was with the image of the tree in the field, with this image I adjusted the path so that it led towards the tree instead of away. With the original image the path was a leading line that led the viewers attention away from my subject, and I needed to stop this, so I flipped the path to lead to the centre drawing the viewers attention straight at my subject. I think editing the images in these ways could be quite questionable to my project, but I think I needed to make them in order to make the images stronger and portray my point more. As it was more of a fine art project and not documentary I think the changes are justifiable.

Overall I’m pleased with the images I produced and think the project went quite well. If I was to do another landscape project again though, I would look into alternative transport methods that are more reliable, and ones that mean I can get to the locations at the times I wish to be there instead of been dictated by others.

Artist Statement

Artist Statement

I am an aspiring landscape photographer who works currently exclusively digitally with my Canon 60D. I find this medium suits my style best because it's a solid camera that allows plenty of flexibility with attachments such as gradient filters, tripods, shutter release and strobe lighting. I find working digitally suits me best as its convenient medium that allows quick transition into Photoshop to enhance and alter the images I capture, to give them more of a personal touch, generating my preferred aesthetic, which is generally a black and white minimalistic approach.

Each shot I take involves a sort of ritual. I arrive on location, assess the area and look for places that offer the best composition on my subject. I then set the tripod up and take a light reading, dialling the settings into the camera. I then add the required filters, checking composition, focus, ect, and stand back to take the shot with the shutter release. This gives me the time to think about ways how I want to depict the scene, how I want an image to look. A lot of the time I use a 10 stop filter which grants me the time to stand back to reflect on how I want the next shot to look, or how to improve the previous. I like to use long exposures as I love aesthetic it gives, especially when water is involved, and so a lot of my images utilise many filters. I think long exposure is quite important to my work as it offers a timeless feel to the photographs, it portrays a world we can't see, but it is there.

This recurring theme of long exposure and black and white images help portray this idea of capturing a moment. You can snap away with a camera and take many pictures, but I feel this method of standing back, reflecting and using long exposures to capture chunks of time, instead of just a split second, helps take the images away from the world we live in, and into something else, something more. I feel its a more creative method that can really drive the viewers imagination.

Sequencing and final image choices

'Natural' Landscape?

When landscapes are thought of, an ideal comes to mind. A scene full of 'natural' elements. Trees, grass, rivers, mountains, etc. are the subject and contents within the frame that make up this landscape image. A scene with no human interference, a wild environment if you will.

In my photographs I want to be able to show that humankind and its creations are part of this natural landscape, that they are not something separate, not something different, but one.

The natural world we live in now has adapted and changed, its not what it once was. The day has long past when this ideal landscape was an accurate representation of the land. The natural landscape of the modern world contains these man-made structures. Cities are as much part of nature as forests and lakes.

Wildlife could appear within the frame and the image would still be classed as a 'natural landscape' photograph. But when something man-made is depicted with in the scene, such as a telegraph pole, a building, something as simple as a fence, the image seems to loose its 'wild' characteristic, it becomes artificial. But people are natural too, and its within their nature to build and create these structures within the land, so why are they not natural as well? Why do they carry this artificial label?

People are part of the world just as much as any other animal, yet when an animal such as a bird creates a nest, a structure, a home, it is deemed natural, but when humans do it, it's artificial, why?

My 'Natural' Landscape project will be a running series of images following a fine art style. They will have a black and white minimalist aesthetic and depict a progressive amount of human impact on the environment as the series goes on, starting off quite subtle and getting more aggressive and obvious towards the end.

Within my images I won't be trying to show the ugly, grotesque side of man's impact on the earth, instead my images will try and illustrate the beauty within these structures within the land.

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Editing

Editing steps and Study Task 7/8

The following page will be a short walk through of some of the post processing steps I go through when editing my images.

The before and after example image can be seen below. 

Before 

After 

RAW File Processing

RAW Processing

After selecting the images to be edited in bridge I then open up the RAW file in Photoshop's RAW converter.

I make necessary changes to exposure, boost the contrast and increase or decrease shadows and highlights when appropriate. In some of the images I go further and create a gradient across the sky so I can make further changes to adjust the exposure of only the sky if it needs to be darkened or lightened, depending whether I used gradient filters on camera or not for the image. Once I'm happy with these basic changes I then open the image up in Photoshop. I make sure the images open are set to 300DPI and and 16bit for optimum quality while editing.

Dust and Scratches

Dust and Scratches

This particular image contained a lot of dust and scratches, especially noticeable in the sky, it took several different steps to remove them all.

The first step I did was to use Photoshop's filter used for removing dust and scratches. As this blurs the image I only wanted it used on the sky. To do this I used the pen tool to create a path so I could make a selection of where I wanted the filter applied, this can be seen as the red line in the image above. This step removed some but not all of the dust/scratches.

Clone Stamp and Patch tools

A further step I took to removing them was to use the patch tool. Selecting each individual imperfection and removing it this way took time, but was much more effective.

Again I wasn't able to remove all dust specs this way accurately so I had to use another step, this time I used the clone stamp tool to manually remove. The highlighted areas are where the density of the dust was most prominent.

Reducing Noise

Reducing noise

This particular image featured a lot of unwanted noise that I wanted to get rid of. To do this I simply applied the Photoshop filter used to reduce noise. Due to the previous steps done to the sky I only wanted the filter applied to the foreground. To do this I simply made the selection by using the inverse of the previous path selection I made. 

Black and White

Black and White

To make the images black and white I created a new adjustment layer and selected black and white. Then using the given filters I selected a red contrast filter. I used this filter because it darkened the sky and made the foreground brighter, an aesthetic I quite liked. I was then able to adjust the colour sliders if I didn't like part if the image.

Crop

Crop

I wasn't quite happy with the crop of the original image, so thought I would make an adjustment. To do this I simply selected the crop tool and made my adjustments. I tried to apply the rule of thirds to the images and I tried to keep the most interesting parts of the images on the intersecting lines of the grid.  

Sharpening

High pass sharpening

Once I was happy with all the changes I sharpened the images ready for printing. To do this I simply flattened the image and then copied the layer. On this new layer I used the high-pass filter which turned the whole image grey and left a feint outline of parts of the image. These outlines were the parts of the image that would be sharpened. The final steps were to make this over-pass layer a overlay so the original layer underneath could be seen while overlaying the new outlines created using the filter, resulting in the image becoming sharper. The last step was to flatten the image once again. 

Final image

I avoided any major changes in Photoshop. The processing was just small adjustments to correct exposure and contrast, converting to black and white and a general clean up of the images.

Island Tree, Welwyn. 14/03/14

14/03/14

From the start of the project I was always looking for an 'island' tree to start the series off, just never finding the right one. I was looking for one in complete isolation, so that when I photographed it, I only got the tree and the surrounding field, I wanted nothing in the background so the focus of the image was completely on the tree and the field it sat in. I tried many many places looking for a tree suitable, but never finding anyway. Until one day when coming home on the train I spotted this tree in a far off field. I was actually on the Welwyn viaduct when I spotted it, so knew roughly where it was and quite annoyed that I had been so close to it before and just not known about it. Well anyway, after spotting it, I decided to go and find it.

The contact sheets from the shoot can be seen below. 

After walking around the village for a while and not finding this field I was about to give up and drive off, but a passing glance as driving away I spotted a small secluded, discreet ally leading between two houses, so I pulled up to have a look. And sure enough it was the right place, and there was the tree sitting at the top of the hill! After looking and looking I was quite relieved to find this location, and it being so close to another shoot location as well.

For this shoot I relied on using the graduated filters, I think I picked one that was a little too strong however, resulting in some of the images being a bit too dark, this was easily adjusted in Photoshop however.

I wanted a single tree to start the series off because it was a simple, subtle element that people don't think twice about. It's just a tree in a field. But its the story behind it that I was after.

There are these island trees all over the place. They are the last remaining tree of a woodland that once stood there before the rest had been cleared away to make room for other things, in this case to make room for fields in the agricultural business. I think this is a great start to a progressive series about man's impact on the environment.

As seen below I did make quite a major change to the image, flipping the path to move the leading line into centre of the image. I did this to draw attention to the tree not away from it. Although this does raise questions whether I should of made changes due to the nature of the project. 

Jaimie Golby

Primrose Hill, London. 10/03/14

10/03/14

For the finale of my series I wanted to end on a cityscape, I thought this would be an appropriate end as its one of the biggest impacts people have on the environment. I have chosen London for my cityscape as local and just an ideal place to visit. More specifically I have chosen to shoot from Primrose Hill. I have chosen this location because it offers an elevated view across London and should allow me to get the shot I'm looking for, I will also be able to photograph in Reagent's park for more landscape gardening as its on the way to the hill.

The contact sheets for this shoot can be seen below. 

Initially this shoot didn't look like it was going to work with the weather, but I carried on with it anyway and so glad I did. The shoot turned out to be quite successful and ended up giving me another final image for the series.

Initially I struggled with composition for this one, I didn't know how to frame the image so that I could keep everything as minimalistic as possible. From the start of the project I knew I wanted a cityscape to end on, but I couldn't work out ways to present a cityscape of London in a minimalistic aesthetic. It wasn't until during the shoot when I figured out a way.

As I was so elevated over the city I was able to frame the shot so I could avoid most of the foreground and have the city sitting on the base of the image, and have sky taking up all the other empty space.

I think the shoot might of gone better with different weather conditions, there does seem to be a lack of contrast in the images, and could maybe benefit from being shot in the evening with more directional lighting to give nicer highlights and deeper shadows, but overall I'm quite happy with the images produced in the shoot after some editing. I did remove some of the buildings in the foreground so that it was all trees along the base, I did this to remove distractions and make the images more pleasing to the eye. 

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Ashridge Estate 08/03/14

08/03/14

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/ashridge-estate/

As I couldn't get into Knebworth or Hatfield house, and because Hertford Castle wasn't very successful, I decided to look for other estate houses with grounds where I could document the landscape gardening. During my research I found Ashridge Estate.

Much like Knebworth house this estate is acres of landscape altered and maintained by people.

Again I chose a estate house because of the maintained landscape gardens and the grounds which may look like natural woodland but is maintained with deforestation to control the trees.

The contact sheet from this shoot can be seen below. 

The first shots of this shoot are of the woodland, I quickly realised this wasn't what I was after and so had to head for the house and its gardens. Unfortunately the house and woodland weren't close and so it took time to get the house by foot, so by the time I got there I didn't have much time left to shoot.

As shown in the contact sheets I went for compositions were the gardens could be seen but with leading lines into house. I felt the gardens were too bare, so I didn't shoot much here. This would be the same pretty much every where because of the time of year. I think the compositions worked well, and the photos would have been successful if taken in the spring or summer, when there was leaves on the trees and flowers growing, because as it was the flowerbeds were just full of stalks of flowers and not a lot else, there was no colour going on, and nothing exciting happening in the images. 

Jaimie Golby

In the image above I think it's quite obvious that it would benefit from having some flowers in the frame to make it more interesting. The composition works, but its just to bare and boring. The time of the year is all wrong for hots like these, ones that depend on the foliage to make the image interesting and to bring it to life.

Jaimie Golby

This above image is more interesting as it gets closer to the subject. But once again it suffers from the same as first, its too bare and boring and is lacking elements and colour within the image. 

Jaimie Golby

I really like the composition of this image, I think it works really well, and has a great sky in as well. The image just doesn't work for the series though. Perhaps it would benefit from being a quicker exposure, the long exposure used created the interesting sky, but sacrificed sharpness, the blur of motion can be seen in the trees, I feel its a bit too much, perhaps it would work in another image set. It also looks like composition could be improved by shooting from a higher perspective, and maybe using a wider angle lens to get more within the frame. 

The Humber Bridge 01/03/14

01/03/14

http://www.humberbridge.co.uk

I chose to use the Humber bridge for a subject in my project because it seemed a logical subject type to use. I was already looking for bridges on a smaller scale, why not use a massive architectural feat, that both dramatically shows natural landscape and man's impact on the area, in a scene that can be quite pleasing to behold. I used a similar ideology behind this location as the reservoir in the Yorkshire shoot.

The contact sheet for this shoot can be seen below. 

I took few images for this shoot, but I feel it was one of the most successful so far in this project. I set off to the location thinking it was going to be a clear day, I checked the forecast beforehand so I would know what to expect and prepare relevant. However when I got there I was presented with the scene show above, the low clouds making it appear like the the bridge was coming out of the fog, I couldn't of asked for much better conditions. Not only could I see most of the bridge with the nice directional light, I also had the element of the clouds and fog to give some drama to the images and make them far more interesting. The fog also helped to hide the other side of the river aiding to minimise the elements in the image, fitting perfectly with the aesthetic I was trying to achieve.

The reason I didn't take many images was because there wasn't many places to go where I could get a different angle or composition on the bridge. I went straight to an area where I thought it would be optimum and shot from there, I later did walk up and down the river side to see if there was better angles, but they didn't appear to be. And after getting so close to the bridge I found out the path was actually closed due to construction so I couldn't get to the other side of the bridge. This didn't matter much anyway as I already felt I had the best composition and conditions I was likely to get and felt I already had to shot I was after.

Below the before and after editing images can be seen. As shown the images were very dusty, I was unable to clean my equipment properly since the last shoot due to lack of equipment, I left the cleaning cloth, pens and air blower on my desk at home. I was able to remove most dust spots in Photoshop however. I also decided to flip the image as I felt it was more pleasing to see the bridge coming from the left than from the right hand side. This will almost definitely be one of my final images. A step by step editing guide can be seen for this image on the editing page of my blog.

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

  

Yorkshire Dales 28/02/14

28/02/14

The next location on my list for this project is The Yorkshire Dales. I have chosen this location for my project so I can focus more on the agricultural side of things. I want to show what farming has done to the countryside. The shots will be of the patchwork pattern of fields across the dales, the hedges and fences creating the borders, and the farm houses in the vales. I will also be heading to a reservoir for more architectural shots in a more scenic location. I will also be on the look out for more island trees like in the Watford shoot as I should be able to get better shots with the dales being so open.

Contact sheets can be seen below.

Due to time issues I wasn't able to spend as much time as I would of liked at this location. Meaning I had to go to certain spots and take the shots then move on. I would of liked to spend more time there, explore more to get more of the shots I wanted, but was unable to, and due to the location being so far away, most likely won't be able to make another visit before the project ends. Because of this I chose to spend most of my time at the reservoir to get more architectural/scenic shots.

For the start of the shoot I went to a village overlooking a valley hoping for the patchwork shots described earlier, but I just couldn't make the compositions work for me. 

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

 The above images were taken around the back of the village looking out over the valley, with these shots I was trying to show the fields in the background with using the tree as the foreground. While trying to incorporate the walls within the image as well for a bit more human impact. I think I tried adding too much into the composition and over complicated things, drawing the style away from the desired minimalistic approach. As mentioned above, I would of liked to get closer to the fields to get better compositions and angles but time didn't allow, so I had to take the few shots around this village, and then move on the reservoir down in the valley.

 

Jaimie Golby

The above image is a stitched composite image of two photographs. Here I was trying to show the fields as well as the dam and didn't have a wide angle lens that was enough to show what I wanted so to put them together in photoshop. The sensor was quite dusty as can be seen, but the blots can easily be removed in Photoshop if using this image as a final.

The below images are some more of around the dam, using long exposure when possible to smooth the water out to make the images more appealing. 

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Jaimie Golby

Although the above image is quite cluttered it's still a possible final image. It portrays the patchwork fields I was after, a man made river cutting through a woodland, and the base of the dam, all strong elements in what I was after depicting within my images. The composition of the image fits with the style, with strong leading lines, depending on other images in the series it may fit, it may not. 

Hertford Castle and Welwyn Viaduct 21/02/14

21/02/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertford_Castle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digswell_Viaduct

Hertford Castle

For the transition between small impacts on the environment, paths, fences, etc, to the larger scale impacts of cities, large scale buildings, I wanted a stage between. For this I chose state houses and their grounds, as they usually feature landscape gardening. I thought this would be a good subject for my project as its deceptive natural beauty as it appears to be 'natural' but its actually shaped, designed and maintained by people.

Originally I wanted to go to Knebworth and Hatfield house but the grounds are closed to the public during the duration of this project. Instead I have chosen Hertford Castle as a possible location.

To get the minimalistic style I will be making use of a ten stop filter to use long exposure and try and give the images a more artistic feel about them, as my last image sets have been lacking in the artistic side, perhaps due to compositions.

Welwyn Viaduct

The road to Hertford Castle passes under Welwyn Viaduct so I thought I'd take the opportunity while I get it and shoot the viaduct as well.

Using large architectural structures seems to be a obvious choice for a subject in my series of images thats trying to show beauty in made made things within a landscape environment, and Welwyn Viaduct seems like a ideal subject to use. Even better that it happens to be located on a direct route to another of my subjects.

The contact sheet for these shoots can be seen below.

I got to Hertford Castle and immediately was disappointed. The 'grounds' was just a mowed lawn and gravel driveway, and the castle itself seemed to be just an overly sized house. There was nothing there worth photographing that would work in my project, but I took a couple of shots of the entrance featuring as much of the gardens as possible. I couldn't get any leading lines to work in my composition so used long exposure to get the fine art aesthetic but the subject was lacking. 

Jaimie Golby

On my way back home from the castle, I stopped at the viaduct. Being the time of the year it is the trees were all bare and not looking great so I wanted to try and exclude them as much as possible from the shot. This meant walking up and down until I found a spot where I could photograph the building between the trees and only have them bordering the edges of the images.

Unfortunately the side of the viaduct I happened to have access to was the side completely in shade, with the sun setting on the other side, everything was backlit and so resulted in a shady shot of the viaduct loosing out on highlights and details to make it that little bit more interesting.

Again I chose to use long exposure for this location, resulting in quite dramatic images. Perhaps a little too different from the calmer images in the series, but they may work depending on future images. 

Jaimie Golby

Cassiobury Park, Watford. 18/02/14

18/02/14

http://cassioburypark.info/wildlife-and-nature-in-cassiobury-park/

Cassiobury Park is a nature reserve in Watford. The park is full of nature walks around rivers, canals, woodland, grassland and even some swampy parts. I have chosen this as a possible location for my project because it's an ideal location of natural beauty where man has had both small and large impacts on the landscape. The smaller being paths carved through woodland, bridges across flowing rivers and perhaps hints of forestry, while the larger impacts being the canal, built to control the flow and direction of the water and allow travel across it.

Below are my contact sheets for this shoot. 

The day didn't start off great, the weather was overcast and it looked like it was going to be another repeat of the Willingham Woods shoot where everything looked boring and depressing.

The time of year isn't great for shooting wooded area, or at least how I wanted to depict it, so it depends more than ever on the lighting to make things look as interesting as possible, to get away from the dreary atmosphere given by the overcast sky.

The days before the shoot the area had suffered from heavy rain, the rivers had burst their banks and the shrubbery around the base of the trees was looking muddy, flattened and not pleasing at all, which didn't help with the whole depressing atmosphere of the lighting. A lot of the area was flooded and so denied me access to a lot of areas, meaning most of the photographs I took were taken from the paths themselves, but I tried to get the best angles and most interesting compositions available to me at the time.

Around have way through the shoot there was a change in the weather and the sun broke through the clouds. I took the most of this opportunity and went back the the start of walk where there was a bridge I wanted to photograph in the better lighting conditions. Although the results weren’t great, I'm glad I went back, just to see how much the location changed in appearance under the different lighting conditions. The brighter highlights and stronger shadows completely changed the scene for the better.

The area around the canal was less affected by the flooding and so I focused my attention around this area as there was more to photograph and more places to go to get better angles on any subjects.

In the end I think the shoot went well, it would have been good to have more freedom around the area instead of having to stick to the path and photograph what every one else was, so I could get something a little different, but alas the flooding prevented this. 

Jaimie Golby

The above image is one of the bridge mentioned above. The image doesn't work for what I wanted to achieve because theres too much clutter, for my minimalistic style I need landscapes with plenty of empty space around them. I chose to show this image as a reminder and reference for the rest of my shoots of what I need to try and avoid. With the shoots in wooded area I find it hard to stick with a minimalistic approach, there is always to much happening in the image, too many distractions and it really takes away from the style that I'm going for with the project. 

I made the image square to try and remove some of the distractions from the sides, but I think it compresses the images to much, I used this technique with future images as well, with the same effect. The subject becomes too centred and cluttered around it. 

I used a bridge as my subject because they can be either a large or small impact on the environment, depending the size and style of the architecture. This one being quite small. 

Jaimie Golby

This next image was taken in the more swampy and flooded area of the park. Again I had to make the image square because of the unattractive shrubs around the base of the image, they caused distractions and weren't nice to look at. The tree is looking quite dark in this image due to it being back lit and me being unable to get any closer or move around the tree for a better angle due to the flooding. 

The idea behind this image was to have an 'island' tree with nothing much around it to show forestry works and the effect it has on a woodland. Britain is full of these island trees in fields showing the last tree where woodland once stood around it. 

Jaimie Golby

The above image is one of my better canal images. Again the image is too cluttered to follow the minimalistic style, but the strong leading lines from the base of the image definitely fit into this aesthetic so the image could possibly get away with being in a series depending on the other images. This image didn't suit being a square, and I think I will be trying to avoid making any further images a square format because it really takes away from the photographs. It reduces whats there too much and just makes the images too small, theres not enough empty space for the square to work. Also when putting images into a series I want all the images to be of the same format, and obviously some images suit square and some don't, but all should fit into the regular format of landscape/portrait.