First idea shoot

So, for this project, I've decided to look at bridges and now I need to start looking at the ways to shoot them, their is a huge amount of possible angles to shoot from and what lens i'm going to use and shutter needs to be considered. So today I went out to start trying some ideas out and experimenting, what I decided to do was using my tripod was the moment I stepped onto the bridge, being either vehicle or pedestrian, put the tripod w/camera on the ground and start shooting, this being at a low angle as I wasn't extending the legs and I decided to use my 28-70 lens with my wide-angle fish eye lens on to get more of the surrounding enviroment into shot. Also, due to me often having to be in the way of moving traffic I had a pretty fast shutter on so I could be quick.


The other shot that I experimented with was to try and get under the bridge and shoot up, using the same len combination but this time having the camera to my face. This idea is a bit more standard looking then the first idea but I still think it works pretty well, or even better then the shot from the surface of the bridge.
Both of these two shots work well I feel but I differently think that there is more to be discovered, I also would like to experiment with different cameras, these where taking with my Nikon D60 however I also have a 35mm Nikon F5 but also would like to use a cheap diposable camera to play about with.

Alex

After Tutorial

So today I had a tutorial with Gregg Lucas and I decided to put forward the idea of bridges which, I am happy to say, went down well, he thinks that it should be an interesting thing to try and pull of as bridges aren't exactly the most exciting pieces of architecture around but that's going to be part of the challenge. I have some idea about shots that I want to experiment with over the next week so, I need to start doing stuff and I'll post ideas as the come along .:See Sketch book for rough ideas:. What my main idea is to take two shots of each bridge I come across, when possible I will take one from the moment I step on the bridge, using my wide angel lens so you see the bridge, the use of the bridge and what on it, I will possibly use a slow shutter to try and make the photo a tad more interesting. The second picture an extreme close up of the bridge, or close to, I have a fixed 80mm lens which I think would work well for this as i'll try and take the picture from a low angle to show lots of the bridge details and possible even make it look like it's not a bridge.

Ideas for next project

So after the transitional spaces project, I would quite like to push on with the idea of bridges, I've personally never really seen much done with them but I think they could be an interesting object to look at. I think with bridges, you never actually relies how many of them there are, and, you normally only pay attention to the surface but I think it could be good to look at several different angles, maybe getting to a lower angle and looking up at the bridge could prove to be interesting.

A second idea that doesn't seem so strong but could prove to be a little bit of colorful is to look at trees. As we are entering the Autumn period a huge amount of the British trees are going to start dying back and loosing their leafs. What I am thinking of possibly doing is to select several trees to focus on, one would be something basic like an oak that aren't exactly rare, secondly something that's more urban or are seen around cities and thirdly and evergreen which stays green and keeps it's leafs all year round. Then what I would do is to take a picture of the intire tree and all its surroundings every day for around two months so that you see all the change of colours of two of the trees but then no colour change of the evergreen apart from all the leafs from pther tress. This would leave me with around one hundred and eighty photos and I could have as 'day 1' and have the three trees next to eachother, then 'day 2' and so on.

Alex

Screening

So, this afternoon we had the screening of the videos that people had created and for our group things went pleasingly well. Our video, we feel, went down very well, people liked it but also had some food criticism to give us which I am glad of. The main thing people liked about it was its randomness, when we looked at the footage we had and started editing and knew that we wanted to have a very random theme towards it and it seems to have been effective, our audience liked the sound a lot which was good as it was a bit of a play around and see if we can make anything interesting. The group that got our photos produced a very entertaining film, which was down to one image that they had seen of our and created the piece around it.

I think my main conclusion from the screening is to use the saying 'Short and Sweet', simple narrative, interesting sounds and nothing to shocking, but, try to make people interested for only a couple of minutes.

Alex

Editing

So, today we did some editing of the footage, as a group, we've decided to go with the narrative idea however we didn't have too much of an option and we kind of where pushed to that direction, so what we've done to living the video up and to make it a tad different was to play with the sounds. What we decided to do was to just edit the video to what we wanted and then to go onto the sound software on the mac and to just experiment with anything that sounded interesting, and the outcome is pretty, odd, but somewhat works and am pretty happy with it.

What I've seen

So, today the groups had to show the work that has been done over the last week, and after the trade, I'm pretty happy, theirs a pretty strong idea that goes with the work that we can work with and how the other group have shot the footage we are kind of pushed into doing a narrative film but that could work well. Will have to capture the footage and see what to do.

The first shoot

So, over the last week the group and I have done are shoot. When we met up to talk about what we where going to go out and take the photos of we decided to go down the canal which quickly turned into bridges which was actually a great idea, the architecture of bridges is always good to look at with them all being so different and also there's a wide range of stuff that crosses them and there location. The overall outcome of the shoot I am pretty happy with, got some interesting photos which I am glad with and overall found it more exciting to photograph then the train station which was out original idea.




This are my two favorite photo from the day, there wasn't a huge amount we could have done from the time we had but I am pretty glad of what we where able to do, is really irritating not being able to edit the photo...

Alex

The first assessment

So, the first assessment has been given out, and the title is Transitional Spaces, not too bad to get back into the way of things and several ideas already. When the groups where solid the idea that went around straight away was the train station, good idea, possibly, but a bit to obvious, also, it could be slightly problematic as I doubt the train station will want people taking photos, there are certainly more exciting thing that could be done and different places could be explored. One idea that I've thought could be interesting is to go to the road down from the clock tower which has several dozen bus stops and is contently busy. What we could try is possibly take photos of people whilst their unaware, for example use compact cameras and have it at a low angle where people wont realize a photo is being taken, or go to the other side of the road and play around with the composition of the photo. Another idea that could work is a door way, entering and exciting a building mean going through a door of some sort and that door then becomes an transitional space, you could easily spent an hour with two people, one inside and out contently taking photos, and if we choose a busy door way, like possibly the entrance of the union you would get a huge range of people going through and would see some interesting things going on.

So it begins

Here goes nothing, the start of my blogging experience starts now. Throughout my blog I was will be putting across ideas that I am working towards and also research that I am carrying out on current projects or just stuff that I'm working on. I will also be putting up my thoughts of any cinema I see through out the blog, including new releases or just dvds that I've picked up so I apologies in advance about any negativity.

A little about myself, my full name is Alexander L Hurst, a British born student at Demontfort university (Leicester) studying Photography and Video. My home town is a mid sized town called Ware in the county of Hertfordshire, lovely views and walks, but that's about it, a few pubs, a Tesco, Subways, Greggs and Peacocks as the only mainstream shops but it is a pleasant place to live, apart from slightly most of the time. My main interest is video, I love the moving picture, and all range of genres from unknown world cinema to modern day blockbusters or anything that I can find for £3 that looks remotely interesting. My main ambition is to become an editor, the whole process of seeing the film the being created such seems really exciting. As for photography, if it wasn't one of the hardest fields to get into I would love to work with wildlife and be the next Simon King and be able to travel the world and see the oddest and most colourful things alive....can only hope. But oh well, excuse any spelling mistakes, never been one of my strong points. Will blogg tomorrow after my first shoot of the academic year.

Alex