Shoot One - Overlooked

"If your photographs aren't good you're not close enough" - Robert Capa

"Photography is about finding what can happen in the frame. When you put 4 edges around some facts, you change those facts" - Garry Winogrand

"You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures" - William Eggleston



This was about photographing things that on a day to day basis you don't really pay attention to but going out your way to notice them and photograph them. They aren't the most interesting things ever but I feel like I picked up on quite a few things that you wouldn't normally look twice at.

Project Plan

Where will I shoot?
I am planning on shooting in Manchester, on the streets taking mainly portraits of people doing everyday things and people that I think look interesting. I am hopefully going to be able to find some time to go to London and shoot there as it's a big city and I think there will be lots of potential for interesting photos. I like the page Humans of New York, it's based on taking portraits of random people in New York and asking them something and finding out about their life and is just an insight into the many different people that live in New York. 

I would like to use this idea and somehow do the same but in my own way. The photographer that has influenced my idea is Brandon Stanton who runs HONY. 

Equipment
I will be shooting with my camera, Canon EOS 1200D and a tripod. I will consider using a neutral density filter which acts as 'sunglasses' for your camera. Mainly using my 18-55mm lens but possibly sometimes using my 50-200mm lens. 

I really like my idea and I think it could potentially turn into something very interesting, it's just important to approach people politely.

If this idea falls through, another idea I have is to shoot some long exposures on the motorway, it isn't as exciting but I do think long exposures can look very nice if they turn out right. 

The best thing about my plan to shoot in Manchester is that it's very near by, just a train journey away and there is a lot of different places to go and potentially interesting people to meet. 

Location Shoot 1 (Manchester)

For this shoot I went into Manchester and my idea was insprised by Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York blog, in which he approaches strangers on the streets of New York and asks them for photographs and asks them a couple of questions and in return usually founds out something very personal about their life. I really enjoyed this shoot and it is an idea I am quite fond of following 

up on for my final idea for this brief. 

This was the first person I photographed based on my location brief and me and my friend spotted him outside the Co-Operative and decided to go over and ask him if we could get him some food or a drink. After that, we spoke to him for a little while then asked if we could take his photograph and he said yes. I like this photo and the vibrant colors in it.





Somebody approached me and my friend and was asking for money and explained he and another few men were on probation, so we gave him some money and asked if we could take some photographs in return, he didn't want to but introduced us to his friend 'Scouse'. I really like this photo, especially because everybody in the background is wearing dark clothing and he seems to stand out.




I spotted this arcade when I was walking past and decided to take a photo and liked how it turned out. I like the lighting and how people are walking through it.

I saw this lady outside the Arndale Centre and she was drawing the girl with the pearl earring with chalk and I like the colors and how she is the centre of the photo, however I feel like I could've taken a photo without the feet at the top.

I spotted these arcade machines because they are very colorful and placed randomly next to an art shop. I like the composition but I think it would maybe look better without the guitars at the side and just focusing on the arcade machines alone. This could be fixed using photoshop with the crop tool.

This wall caught my eye because it's very bright and colorful, I like the photo however I think it would look better if I had taken it from further down on the stairs so that the red staircase was cropped out and also the light is shining more on the far left.

This photo could be improved if I had taken it from a different angle, so you could see the painting and the side of the painters face, however I like how it turned out anyway because all the other colors in the photograph are plain and the painting is very bright.

Location Music Studio Shoot

Today we took some photographs in the music studios, the live studio and in the recording studio. I really enjoyed it and think it was different than what I usually take photographs of. The bad thing about shooting in the studio where the band was playing was that the lighting was quite bad and only in certain parts of the room, which meant some of the photographs were really dark and under exposed. I edited some of them on photoshop, just changing the brightness and contrast, some of the photos turned out very grainy as I had to change my ISO a few times and where the lights were, it made some photos slightly over exposed but I fixed these minor issues on photoshop.

 This photograph was slightly under exposed so I changed the brightness and contrast just slightly. However I still think that the photographs I took in the studio are quite grainy, the lighting wasn't great.

None of the photographs are quite good enough and I'm aware that there is plenty of room for improvement, however I do think this was down to the poor lighting within the studio. I enjoyed this shoot and if I get chance to do this kind of shoot again, I will be aware of the lighting and try to work around this.

Amphitheatre

                     

These are some of the photographs I took when we went down to the amphitheatre to take some photographs for the location brief, I took a lot more than just these ones I have chosen but they are just a couple of my favourites, I think they all have the correct exposure and I like how they turned out.