Evaluation

Evaluation: Album cover

Before I started taking my photos for my album cover I had to learn how to use the correct camera functions. Firstly we learned how to set the F stop, ISO and shutter speed, After that I first set the shutter speed to around 1/25 second and I then set the ISO to 400 after I set the ISO up I then went on to the F stop I set that around 5.2, I was using a 50mm lens for the portrait because this is the right focal length. After this I made the decision to try it at different shutter speeds to see what the effects it had on the photo it made me more confidant with the camera and getting to grips with the functions. After I finished taking the pictures of the idea I had in my head I looked though them to see if they was in frame and not blurry or out of focus, some of the photos was blurry and out of focus so I retaken the pictures again to try and get a better result, I then went though the pictures to make my decision in the end for which one to go for.

I picked this certain style of photography because it’s elegant but yet it makes a bold statement with a classy twist (the twist being high fashion). After taking inspiration from various album covers like Adele and Lady Gaga I decided to stick with the black and white after looking over all of the photos I stuck with the portrait image it worked better then all of the other images I had taken. It looked great over all after I desaturated the colour, the contrast of the colours are varied its not bland and has a good depth of filed. The shadows fall nicely because of the lighting on the shoot I used high key lighting so we could see the girl and what she is doing within the frame.    

The historical context of my photo relates to pop culture. I wanted to brake the conventions of a standard pop album cover, pop music has been put into this category where we have to sort of stay within bounders where we just see the artist featured on the album cover I wanted to do something different and make it interesting. I tried my best to capture correct emotion as my photo represents a memory. The emotion I wanted to get from this is about when we go out to pursue are careers and go some where we leave a loved one, are family and friends behind but we still have that memory of being with them and that’s what I wanted to capture. I think it came across quite well I think it has a strong emotion behind it we can see this by the way the girl kisses the manikin and has her eyes closed so it makes her look passionate. I also wanted to bring society into it I wanted to show that everyone is different why should we care of what other have say and how we judge someone.

Focal length

 18mm focal length 

 35mm focal length

50mm focal length

Demonstrating camera techniques using are own images

Here i slowed down the shutter speed to create the blurred effect 1/15, as where if we was to increase the shutter speed his hands wont show up blurred 1/200.

In this image i have lowered the ISO to 200 and shutter speed and the F stop is around 8.2 to get an average depth of filed, but if i had the F stop on 12.0 or above it would of been a long depth of filed and the image would be more sharper where as in the photo above we see the foreground if sharper and the background isn't as sharp.

camera lenses

Macro lenses

picture taken from Wikipedia.

picture taken from Google images.

A macro-lens is a small lens, generally with a diameter less than a millimetre, and often as small as 10 micrometers. The small sizes of the lenses means that you can get some really good photos but sometimes it leaves so unwanted effects due to optical diffraction at the small features. A macro lens is normal used for taking extreme close such as bug or insets it captures a lot of detail as wee see on the grasshoppers face.

Wide angle lenses

picture taken from Google images.

picture taken from Wikipedia.

wide angle lens, these type of lenses allow more of the scene to be in the photograph. these type of lenses are used for architectural, interior and landscape photography, so the photographer cant move farther from the scene to photography it. Another way photographers use wide angles lens is to tell the different sizes of certain objects in the foreground and in the background, the fore ground image look really big and the background object seems really small as we see in the picture above.

Telephoto lenses 

picture taken from Wikipedia.com

picture taken from Photojojo.com

Telephoto lenses are long focus lenses, we see telephoto lens being used in in football match to capture the action from far away. But the slightest move of the lens the photo will be blurred and out of focus so you should always use a tripod when using these lenses, again this can be used we landscaping shots  of mountains and a city sky line.

Kit lenses 

image taken from digital-cameras-planet.com

These sort of lenses come with the camera when you purchase it, they are standard it produces a more look natural look like the human eye.

Album cover idea

The idea behind my album cover, i want to do a portrait of a girl who is making out with polystyrene head. The head will have smudge make-up on, background will be plain white and the model will be wearing a leather jacket and her hair down. My inspiration behind the idea is from looks like Lady Gaga and high fashion brand Coco Chanel, Coco Chanel use the classic black and white also they have some short of high fashion with some weird twist on it. The style of my album cover is pop, the reason behind this is you can create anything for a pop album cover there really isn't any limits to what you can create, which gives me the freedom to do what i want.

picture taken from Google images.

This is my version of the photograph i had taken all the colour out of it so it was just left in black and white, after i made it the way i imagined it i then went in and smoothed her skin out to take all the freckles and spots that i didn't want in the photograph. I didn't do much editing at all to this picture so it didn't take to long to do.

This is the final album cover when i added the text and borders to create it and make it square so it would fit an album cover 12"inch by 12"inch but apart from that i didn't edit anything else to do with the photograph.

White balance

auto white balance in natural day light 

tungstan with natural day light 

auto white balance in different day light 

Tungsten under darker light

Famous photographers

• Sally Man 

sally man was born in, 1951, in west virginia is america's most renowned photographers. she has won many awards including such as NEA, NEH, also Guggenheim foundation grants, and her work is held by major institutions all around the globe. She had written many books some such as second sight, At twelve, immediate family, also still time and many more. She also has a feature film out about her and her work,  a lot of her work is being held in galleries in new york and some in her home town Virginia.

pictures taken from her gallery on her web page http://sallymann.com

pictures taken from her gallery on her web page http://sallymann.com

i like her work because its different its not your everyday photograph she uses little children to feature in her work a lot, in obscene ways as you see the images up above where the little boys is on stilts , i think within these images there is a lot of personal messages trying to come though. in one of the images we have a long shot of a group of young teenagers one is smoking one is watching the little boy also the boys is on stilts as where as in the bottom image we see a little girl lay on the bed with a naked teenagers who is anorexic in the background so again this could be personal or trying to tell us something. the shot that sally has you used is a medium full shot, she has a really good sallow depth of field as we see, the shutter speed it high because its gloomy/dark also i like the way its in black and white, i also like the way the shadows fall and how it contrast really well. The lighting has been done by some form of light.

• Fay Godwin

Fay godwin was born in Berlin, Germany1931 her work features in many gallery's in american england her photos sell for hundred's of pound. she moved to britain in search of a better life, she stumbled across photography when she was taking photo's of her children in her back garden when she realised she really like taking photos so she went on to go to study photography in one of london's best universities.

picture taken from google images.

Picture taken from google images.

The reason why i like fay godwin's work is because she captures everything in its natural form, like the tree in the water. Another reason why i like her work is because all her pictures look crystal clear, pin sharp. The picture looks peaceful and clear like an untouched world, Fay godwin has used a long shot to get in the background with the fog rolling off the hills to make it more dramatic, the shutter speed looks high because its dull but i think its just at the right shutter speed. Fay Godwin has also used sallow depth of felid, the reflection off the water says it all crisp lines no motion blur everything is still life, also we can tell by just looking at it she has used all natural light.

• Simon Norfolk

simon norfolk is a landscape photographer whose work over the last ten years has been themed around a probing and stretching of the meaning of the world battlefield in all its forms. As such, he photographed in some of the major wars in Afghanistan and also some in iran, he also went on to photography refugee crisis centres. after the war was over he went to photograph some of what was left behind and you will seen what was left behind in some of the images below. He also went to work on ex-nuclear boom site to show people the reality of what its doing to people. His work is known around the world and displayed in a variety of museums and gallery's around the world.

Picture taken from google images.

Picture taken from google images.

I like Simons work because it shows us what war does to countries and how it destroys life and others around them. i also like the way he capture it in its natural state, he tries to get a message across with his work saying 'war is bad' it almost screams at you. but on the other hand he tries to lighten up the mood by putting a guy stood in the bottom right corner of the image with ballon's so basically saying things are going to get better trying to find the good out of the bad. Simon has used a long shot to capture the state of the stage and all around it to show us what weapons have done to it, the lighting looks all natural again, but i think he has used a filter to create the yellow look. i think this images is powerful.

• Inez and vinoodh

Inez and vinoodh have been doing fashion and filming for over 23 years, they have worked with some of the top magazines and filmed some successful music video some included lady gaga and other successful artist. They are more known for there photography and art, some of there work its being held in beverly hills, california in gallery's also in new york. Here are some examples of there work:

 Picture taken from google images.

Picture taken from google images.

I like inez and vinoodh work a lot because its different because most of there work they put it in black and white and certain objects or items have colour, also i like the way they do contrast with the black and white. inez and vinoodh has used a close up shot of Lady Gaga's face i also think they have used a soft box to create the light.

what is photography

Photography is the science of catching light onto tiny little crystals or film. Photography is the art of capturing an image in history which us as humans find amusing, captivating. imagery/photography is one of the far better ways of communicating. we see it everywhere its surrounds us the world has become flooded with images. what is expression imagery, its not a recording process. instead, it is photography that interprets, rather than describe, we see to others. it tells the viewer a story going beyond conveying information for its own sake. it often becomes metaphorical, by expressing our own  metaphorically point of view about what we see, we can share ideas to others and to the world, provoking  emotional,  intellectual, and imaginative responses Expressive photography is based upon three important principles Abstraction, Incongruity, and Human Values.

Album cover research

Album cover of lady gaga taken from google images.

This album cover suggest this could be very emotional, I.e the blue lines coming from her eyes. This also suggest that it could be crazy because all the paint is smudged all over her face in a chaotic way, we are getting lots of message coming form this album cover. The director of the photography are inez and vinoodh they specialise in black and white photography with certain objects in colour they are famous for there work in fashion photography also some independent art commissions. I like this because its emotional, its good to look at because of its strong colour bold colours on the other hand i like the contrast of the black and white with the colours, The shot they have featured here is an extreme close up of the artist.

Album cover of daft punk taken from google images.

This album cover suggest its a lot to do with the future the way the 2 helmets are put together also the way the water and the sound waves flowing out, this also suggest its electrical pop which is big these days. i like this because the way them neon colours just strike at you, this also gets me excited to here there songs. The album cover has been designed in some form of software like photoshop to put the two kind of helmets together also the to create the water and sound waves.

Album cover of jay-z taken from google images.

Here we see jay-z's new album cover featuring a very famous piece of art work the HOLY GRALE, this suggest his album is very cultural influenced and has a lot to do with Christianity. This also suggest its a powerful album the reason for this is the famous piece of art work was a powerful peace and people who where Christians looked up to this famous piece of art. I like this album cover because you cant see the artist name properly so its hidden so we don't know what to expect its intrigues me so it makes me want to listen to the music, i also like it because you cant judge it the whole point of the hidden text. The photographer has used natural light to his advantage.

image of the fall out boys album cover taken from google images.

This album cover of the fall out boys suggest that its trying to make the world a better place, trying to reunite different  cultures. this also suggest that you get the good who is on the right who believes in Buddhism and follows the rules and the bad guy on the left who smokes and is dressed in black, the gloves also suggest that he fights. On the other hand, we see the two boys holding hands this suggest they support marriage equality so again making the world equal, if we look in the background it looks poor and rundown, bringing in third world countries. They feature a medium full shot for the cover so you get the boys and the back ground is blurred (sallow depth of filed)  so the main subject is the two boys, this looks like all nature light. I like the album cover because the way they have contrasted the two type of boys one good and one bad, i also like the way they have used natural light.