Definitions

Dictionary definition - Personal - Something concerning someones private life, i.e. relationships, morals, and emotions

Dictionary definition - Opinion - a view or judgement on something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge

Synonyms - Personal - Individual, private, own.

Synonyms - Opinion - belief, outlook, attitude, viewpoint

Real definition: What you believe about a subject, i.e. it is my personal opinion that watching too much TV is bad for your eyes. Although this may not be true, it is my opinion and I am allowed to believe it, and indeed change my opinion when I find out something that tells me differently.

Personal definition: I think that for this task I will use the term personal opinions to show my opinions on things that matter a lot to me, for example feminism in both the first world and the third world, and how they differ. Or environmental issues like climate change and sustainability. 

Shoot Five - Work Record

Evaluation:

For this photograph I went to the bridge above the M25 near me, I brought a tripod with me so that I could do long exposure shots but my tripod was difficult to use as I had never used it before, so I decided to just lean it on the railing.

I took this photograph to show cars as an unsustainable means of travel, I think that this photo shoot went really well because I took a large amount of photos and many of them were good quality.

This is my best photograph from the shoot in my opinion, I have edited it too look more like Rut Blees Luxemburg's photography because I really like her style and the way she uses colour. I also like this photograph because it shows an equal amount of red and white lights on each side, which looks better than an unequal amount. I didn't take this using a tripod because, although I have one, it wasn't what I was used to and I couldn't keep it still to take the photograph, so for this photograph I leant it on the raining of the bridge.

The camera settings were:

Shutter Speed: 1.6 seconds

F stop: 14

ISO: 200

This photograph is my worst from the shoot, it is under-exposed which means that it didn't get enough light and is way too dark. It is also very shaky which also looks terrible, I should've checked my camera settings properly before taking this because they obviously weren't very good.

The camera settings:

Shutter Speed: 1.6 seconds

F Stop: 32

ISO: 200 

Progression:

Next time I will go out later because I don't think the photographs came out in the colours I wanted, which is why I had to edit them so much. Next time I will go out later because that way I can use a longer exposure time and have the car lights go further as this will improve the image immensely.

Shoot Two - Work Record

Evaluation:

For this shoot I took photos of the food I used as ingredients for my dinner, I really enjoyed this shoot as it was a lot more relaxed, although it was difficult to get good lighting because I was using the synthetic lights in my kitchen. However, this shoot was done quite quickly which probably hindered how good it was, so I would like to re-do it again better.

This photograph is my best photo from this shoot, I think that it shows the texture of the mushroom really well. I would like to retake these photos in better quality because I think that I could've done it a lot better. Next time I will take photos of a wider variety of vegetables.

Camera settings:
f stop: 5.6
ISO: 800
Exposure: 1/125 secs

Personally I think this is one of my worst photographs from the shoot, I don't think the background looks good because it attracts your eye away from the actual subject of the photograph. If I do this shoot again I think I might take the photos in a studio or at least somewhere with a plain background.
Camera settings:
f stop: 4.0
ISO: 1250
Exposure: 1/125 secs

Progression: 

Next time I will take a larger variety of photos as I only really got a few of what I was eating, when I re-do this shoot I will take photos of actual meals and their components rather than just components like I did last time.

Shoot Three - Work Record

Evaluation:

For this shoot I visited a water mill called Mill Green in Hatfield. I really enjoyed visiting this place because it was very idyllic, it was a museum with a water mill at the end. I didn't take photographs of the museum exhibitions because they weren't much to do with the actual water mill, although the water mill itself was very interesting, it was actually grinding flour whilst I was there and this made the pictures a lot better because I was able to take photos showing movement. I was also able to take photos of it not moving when I used a very fast shutter speed, however this sometimes made the pictures quite dark. 

This is my best photograph from the shoot, however in the actual photo it is a bit darker than this so I edited it to make it better, as well as turning it black and white, I also made it a bit lighter and reduced the contrast. For this photograph I used the camera settings:

Exposure: 1/250 seconds

F/3.5

ISO: 800

Shutter Priority

I don't like this photograph much because it is way too bright in the top left corner, additionally I think it isn't the right shutter speed, it doesn't look very good it looks like I've taken it by accident. For this photograph I used the settings:

Exposure: 1/4 seconds

F/3.5

ISO: 800

Aperture Priority

Progression:

Next time I will aim to take more motion photographs because I think I could've done better ones if I had a tripod, I loved taking these photos but it was difficult to get good ones because it was hard to take the photos without moving myself and ruining the photo.

Photographer Research - Fay Godwin

Fay Godwin

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This photograph by Fay Godwin is beautiful, I really like her photography because it is so simple, yet it shows so much in my opinion. I really like how much contrast there is between the dark and the light parts of the photograph, I think that the photo is amazing even though the scenery is quite bare and looks as though it is dying. 

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I think this photograph shows two sides to our environment, on the left side of the road the environment looks dead and derelict, even the fence looks in bad condition, however on the right side of the fence, the environment looks beautiful and well kept after, I think it is an interesting picture and she may have taken it to show what is happening globally, with the majority of our land turning into land like on the left, due to disasters like decertification which leaves the land un-useable.

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Personally I like this photograph because it shows reflection really nicely, also I think that it shows texture quite well in my opinion. I would like to take some photos like this because it could be used to show how the land naturally is and that we should try to keep it like this, taking control of everything

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I really like this photograph, I think that it looks very british, the sky is quite grey in this photo which is quite a typical british thing. This photo shows the farmer leading the cows, he is standing ahead of the herd which shows that he has power over them. 

Summary: In my opinion, her photographs show Britain in their rawest form, she hasn't tried to make the country look any better than it actually is. I think that this works well because it looks more realistic.

Research Photographer - Zwelethu Mthethwa

Zwelethu Mthethwa

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This photograph by Mthethwa shows a small boy rummaging through rubbish piles, I think that this sort of photograph is very interesting, because it shows us what sort of world other people are living in, because although we may be told about it, without witnessing it, we are unable to fully relate. I think that showing what is really happening in third world continents like Africa is very important as it raises awareness.

 Source

This photograph was taken in Cape Town and is from of one of Mthethwa's series, it is a series about health, he's interested in putting a face to all the data about health in Africa and was interested in giving people the opportunity to document their own perceptions of health. I think that showing the actual health of people in Africa is important because if we just see Africa as a very poor continent with high HIV rates, we will have a lower viewpoint of it.

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I think that this photo shows how arid Africa is, there isn't any vegetation in sight and I think that it shows us how much people have to work, it is showing us how Africa is in reality and how much global warming is actually affecting the world, even if we aren't really seeing it in first world countries like England and America.

 Source

This photo is showing a man in Africa doing his job, to people in first world countries, this seems like a lot of work for one person to do, however in third world countries, people have to work harder for less money, which is unfair.

Summary: Zwelethu Mthethwa is a photographer from South Africa who takes photographs in Cape Town. He takes photographs of people doing their jobs, in addition to people showing their idea of health, and showing people that the health of Africa isn't just a number or percentage of people that have AIDS or Malaria, its actual people that have to fight these illnesses. Personally I really like portraits and reading in to portraits, so I may use this as inspiration.

Research Photographer - Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

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Ansel Adam took all his photographs in Yosemite National Park, they are created with very high contrast that gives them this look which makes them seem like they have been heavily edited on photoshoot

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I think that this photograph is beautiful because the entire photo is in focus, there isn't much depth of field at all which makes it seem like its all right in front of you, I also really like how he has used reflection in this photograph.

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I love the contrast in this photograph, I think that it makes the photo seem more edited, even though it wasn't edited digitally at all. The contrast makes the background stick out from the foreground a lot more which also looks very good in this particular photograph. I would like to use this technique in one of my photographs because I think that it creates more of an impact on the eye, it is almost like a hyper realistic drawing.

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This photo is very symmetrical which I think looks really good, I think that  this photograph is rather simple, although it shows a lot of beauty. In my opinion this photograph looks amazing, I love his use of reflection and the line in the middle where the water meets the ground. He has placed the photo very well.

Summary: I chose to look at Ansel Adam's photography because he takes photographs of beautiful scenery, I think that it is important to take photographs like this because it inspires people to keep scenes like this, if we carry on ruining the environment with global warming, we won't be able to see this scene again, so taking photographs will make people more inspired to strive not to destroy the environment. 

Photographer Research - Rut Blees Luxemburg

Rut Blees Luxemburg

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I really like the style of her photographs because what I personally love is urban landscape photography, especially at night because most cities like London, where Luxemburg takes her photos, are still very bright at night due to man made lighting. This photograph is called towering inferno and I like it because of the colours, the reds and orange lights makes it a much more fiery colour. Additionally I think that the background colour looks good in contrast, it is quite a warm yellow or green.

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In my opinion I think that this photo, although it is quite simple, is very interesting, I like the colours because they are very warm, although from the place of the photo it is likely that it would be very cold. I also really like it because of the shadows, the shadows in this photograph are very dark and I think that this shows how eerie and creepy places in London can be at night.

 Source

This photograph is called vertiginous exhilaration and it is of a building taken from the top pointing down, I think that it looks really good because the colours look quite a lot colder than her other photographs, I also think that the colours go together well, yellow and green are quite similar.

 Source

I like this photograph because it shows a lot of darkness which I think can refer to her emotions when she took the photograph, we show emotions in a variety of ways, one of which is through our art. I like her style of photography because I think synthetic lights can sometimes look better than real lights.

Summary:

Rut Blees Luxemburg is a photographer who was originally from Germany, however her photography is mainly taken in London, she uses a slow shutter speed for some of her photographs which creates a really beautiful effect of the cars moving across the road without actually seeing the cars. 

Although she doesn't take environmental photography, I think that I would like to do photography in her style and I may do a shoot or two in this style as I think that it will look good, especially if I am looking at light pollution.

Photographer Research - Cedric Delsaux

Cedric Delsaux

Source for all photographs - Source

This is a photograph from a recycling plant in Belgium, I really love this photo because it shows how much rubbish we throw away, although this is being recycled, it can still be damaging to the environment, and in addition we don't recycle a majority of the rubbish we throw away. I also really like the colours in this photo because they are very basic whites and greys and there isn't much colour which I think looks good because it looks like a lot of the same.

I like this photograph because it shows a great contrast, it is of living quarters in front of a casino in China, I think this shows us the contrast between the rich and the poor, the living quarters are very derelict looking, whereas the casino looks almost pristine and in addition the colours are showing the same thing, the greyish brown makes me think of poverty and unhappy living, but the gold looks almost royal and very well off, this contrast is very interesting and I think it's important to think about that contrast when you visit places like China or India

This photograph is from a tyre dump in France, I think this photo is really good because it shows such a contrast in both the colour of the tyres compared to the sky which is almost white, and also the forestry that is growing despite the amount of tyres blocking most of them from as much sunlight and rain, it looks like the tyres are replacing the greenery. 

This is a photograph from a chicken factory in Ukraine, it shows newborn chicks pushed together in small cages before they are killed/vaccinated depending on the sex, I think this photograph is very thought provoking as it shows the behind scenes of producing eggs and chickens. I also really like the colours in this photograph as well because they are pastel type colours which I prefer over bright colours.

Summary:

I really like Cedric Delsaux's photography because they make you think which I think is important, I also love the colours that he uses in his photographs because they aren't usually very bright and rich, they tend to be quite faded which I think looks good. He does a wide range of themes for his photographs which I also really like as he's not just focusing on one thing like some other photographers.

Shoot two - Final Images

Shoot one - Work Record

Evaluation:

For this shoot I visited Lea Valley Farm, I wanted to get photographs of the farm animals that live there rather than the other animals like Meerkats and Weasels that are there. I have taken these photographs for the personal opinions question because I am doing it on sustainable living, which in my eyes is incredibly important. I decided to take photographs of animals for the first shoot because animals, especially farm animals are a key part of living sustainably, the consumption of animals is degrading to the environment, due to the fact that it takes so much to raise them, especially bigger animals like Cows. 

I struggled to get good lighting in some of these photographs because the animals were usually in shed like spaces that had a big roof, meaning less light was able to get in, this is especially evident in the photos of the calfs.

I think that this is my best photograph of the shoot because the Chicken's eye is in such good focus. I love how well we can see the chicken, although this photo isn't perfect, some of the beak isn't in focus, this may be because she was behind a wire fence which made it hard to take the photo without some blurring in places.

Camera settings:

f stop: 5.6

ISO: 3200

Exposure: 1/4000 secs

I think that this is my worst photograph because I don't think that the lighting is very good and I just don't think the photograph is good in general. 

Camera settings:

f stop: 4.5

ISO: 3200

Exposure: 1/1000 secs

Progression:

I think I took very nice photographs for this shoot, however, I wish I had been able to take more photos, but it got very dark and rainy and the photos weren't good after this, I think the photos would be better in the summer when there is more sunlight.

Exam research mind maps