Happy New Year

©2013HannahBennett

Hello Everyone!

Really quick post today as I just wanted to wish you all a happy new year, I hope you're all enjoying yourselves! 

See you all in 2014 for more blogging :)

[ p.s if you want to know how I took this firework photograph, check out this blog post here where I've written a handy little tutorial on how to achieve great images of fireworks :) ]

Karl Blossfeldt Inspired

About a month ago now, I wrote a blog post about well-known photographer Karl Blossfeldt, which can be found here if you missed it and would like to find out more about him. (Might be worth checking out if you're not familiar with his work otherwise this post may be quite confusing for you.) I mentioned at the end of the post that I felt very inspired by the style of his work and wanted to create a photograph of my own but in a similar style to Karl. Now that I have finally got round to doing so I have included the result below.

©2013HannahBennett

Although Blossfeldt focuses very much on the natural form, patterns, and markings of natural objects, he mostly focuses on plant life so I opted for a shell as my subject matter instead. I felt that this would work well because it's an extremely beautiful natural object. As Blossfeldt is quite an old photographer, he was shooting before digital cameras were introduced, his images were quite grainy due to the high film speeds he would have been using. To create a similar effect throughout my image, i shot this at ISO 800 to introduce the right amount of grain. ISO 100 resulted in too smooth an image, and ISO 3200 made the image ridiculousy grainy and reduced the amount of texture captured from the shell.

Blossfeldt never intended for his images to be appreciated on a photographic level, he was a lecturer and simply photographed plant life to show his students different specimens. Because of this his images are highly detailed and give very reliable representations of each plant species. To display my shell as reliably as possible, I used a high number f stop, f/32 to be precise, to create a deep depth of field across the whole frame.

Overall, I was very pleased with the outcome of this image, I like the amount of detail that I have captured and am pleased with the wide tonal variety across the images as a result of this.

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked the image, and I hope I've inspired you to check out Karl Blossfeldt's work and maybe try taking some images of your own in his style :)

Firework Fun

Today i'm just doing a quick post to show you some photographs I took recently at a local fireworks display. If you'd like to know how to shoot firework photographs you can check out my tutorial post I did here for some guidance.

Here are four shots from the night, the only editing that I have done to these is crop them all into square format, i have not edited the colours or anything...

Pink Firework
©2013HannahBennett

Green Firework 
©2013HannahBennett

Red Firework 
©2013HannahBennett

Orange Firework 
©2013HannahBennett

I hope you enjoyed viewing these images, I have a few more from the night which I shall upload sometime in the near future.

Tutorial Tuesday: Water Droplet Alternatives

After mentioning the oil and water technique in yesterdays post I decided to give it another go and create a step-by-step tutorial/behind the scenes of what I do to get these shots.

Things You'll Need:

• camera
• macro lens
• tripod
• colourful background (coloured card, fabrics, etc)
• glass container
• cooking oil
• lighting (in-camera flash or external flash)

Firstly you need to get a clear glass container, i use a fairly deep glass bowl, and some oil, as shown below. Fill the bowl with water and add some oil into it.

Then Set up your camera onto your tripod, placing it so that the lens is positioned to point down vertically. Place your coloured background onto the floor below the bowl then place the oil and water mixture on top of this. You need to make sure you've got plenty of lighting so I had to use the in-camera flash this time but managed to use just natural light previously, it really depends on the environment you're shooting in. Your set-up should look something like this pictured on the right

My second attempt didn't go particularly well, I had more awful shots than successful ones so I've decided to explain what's gone wrong with them so that you can avoid similar issues throughout your shoot.

When shooting, you can take choose whatever focal length you want to shoot from but you must remember to use a shallow depth of field so that only the water droplets are in focus and everything else softens around it. Here are two examples below where my f stop was set too high.

As you can see, the purple and green coloured card that i'd placed beneath the bowl have not merged together as the depth of field was not quite shallow enough. Another factor that may have contributed to this is the distance of the oil from the card below. You need to use a fairly deep bowl to provide a large enough space between the top of the water and the card below creating a wide enough distance to create the blurred effect in-camera.



Also, if you're f stop is set far too high, you'll capture way too much detail like I have done within this shot on the right. You can see all the tiny water bubbles and can also see the pyrex label on the bottom of the dish!




As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my aim throughout this set was to try and capture more "curved" bubbles, but as you can see within the examples above, the droplets still look flat. I have not been able to work out how to get them "curvier". I'm going to do a bit of research to try and find the solution but in the mean time if anyone reading this knows how to achieve this effect please leave a comment below! 

Random Photo TAG

For this blog post i'm doing the random photo tag where you take the 4th picture in your photo files and have to explain it. I have chosen the 4th picture which came up within my portfolio so that it's relevant to my photography blog. The image below was the outcome...

©2013HannahBennett

This image above is one that i took a couple of months ago using oil and water to replicate water droplets. It was my first time attempting this technique so the outcome wasn't brilliant but i was still pleased with the result. This technique simply requires filling a clear glass container with water and adding some oil to create "water-droplets". (I'm going to be doing a more in-depth tutorial post on how to do this tomorrow if you'd like to give it a go yourself so stay tuned!) I found that the oil didn't look exactly like water-droplets but i liked the effect this created, the different sized circles with their varying colours and patterns creates a very unusual shot. I'm also pleased with the outcome of the colours throughout the frame, the wide tonal range of blues i've managed to capture works really well. 

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/tropical-oil-and-water-ii-sharon-johnstone.html

For a first time I was very pleased with the outcome of this shoot but i'd like to give it another go to try and make the circles look more like water droplets. The edges should appear more curved, like the examples on the left here, rather than flat like they have in mine. This example is by a photographer named Sharon Johnstone who has done a number of amazing oil and water photographs which can be found here. 

If you'd like to view another image from this shoot then you can visit my flickr page here where i've included an orange version that I was pleased with.

In The News

After discussing the use of airbrushing and retouching in a previous post i felt that it was appropriate to write a post about a relevant news article at the moment, Debenhams latest attempt to improve the portrayal of body image within the fashion industry. They have recently started to use size 16 mannequins in their stores, starting with their department store on Oxford Street, becoming the first high street retailer to do so, in a bid to better represent "real women". The size 16 mannequins are being placed alongside the current industry standard size 10 mannequins. I think is a great idea because although not everyone is a size 10, not everyone is a size 16 either, I think it's important to have a variation of sizes and hope that they bring other shapes and sizes into the mix too. However, I agree that this a great step towards improving the body confidence of women but there's still a long way to go, especially within the photographic areas of the fashion industry. Are they going to start using size 16 women in their advertising campaigns or will they continue to use "thin", "perfect", women? Also, Debenhams are only a very tiny portion of the worlwide fashion industry meaning that it will take a long time before all companies begin to use "real women". I just hope that other retailers start to follow in there footsteps soon.

If you'd like to know more about this story you can read an article about it from the daily mail website here. 

What are your views on this? Leave a comment below letting me know!

My Photographic Kit

Sorry this post is a day late, it was supposed to be published yesterday but I forgot, oops! I am going to upload two today to make up for it. Todays post is all about the photographic equipment that I own.

          

(trustedreviews.com)

(crave.cnet.co.uk)

I use a Sony Alpha 330 camera which I've had this for ages, it was purchased before i became interested in photography so it's not your typical photographers camera (nikon/cannon), but i find that it works just as well. Whenever you're going out with your camera you must remember to check that you've got a fully charged battery and a memory card. I don't own a second battery but it is useful to invest in one as it's very frustrating running out of battery as you could miss the perfect photo opportunity.

The lens that I use for most subjects is the standard lens which came with the camera body (pictured in the photo above). It's a Sony SAL-1855 and is good for people who are just starting out in photography before they've decided what areas they are most interested in. It's important to buy UV filters to put on your lens as they help protect them from sun damage and any accidental damage, if you were to drop your lens you're more likely to smash the filter which can be replaced a lot quicker, cheaper, and easier than if you were to break the lens itself.

(the-digital-picture.com)

My favourite lens that I use is my macro lens as I love taking close-up photographs of pretty much everything! The macro lens that I use is a Tamron AF 90mm. It has a 1:1 ratio which means that you whatever you're photographing is captured at its real size on the sensor. 

(tamron.com)

My latest purchase is my telemacro lens, it is also made by tamron and is  a 70-300mm lens. I've only used this on a couple of occasions and have found it works best for landscape and nature hotdog rapt. The squirrel photograph that  I included into this post was shot using this lens. 

(apple.com)

If i need a bit of extra lighting i'll often use the camera flash on my iPhone as I don't own any external flashguns :( this works fine for quick snaps that need a bit more light but cannot be used for lengthy periods so it's not practical. I've been looking into different flashguns and am hoping to buy one soon which will hopefully result in a huge improvement to my images.  

(snowies.co.uk)

As I take a lot of macro photographs I find it useful to take a pack of different coloured cards around with me. This is especially useful for when photographing flowers in their natural environment as you can get a lot of background clutter which can ruin the shot. 

(snaptophobic.co.uk)

Sometimes if I need a bit of light directed into a shadowy area, i'll use my home-made reflector. If you don't think it's worth investing in a proper reflector a home-made one will suffice. They're really easy to make, just take some strong card (whatever size you need) and cover it in scrunched up tinfoil, just like this one someone has created in the picture on the left.

And that is my complete photographic kit. If you'd like to know any more about certain items leave a comment below, I'm happy to help, thanks for reading! :)

Photography TAG

Today is Day 3 of my week of blogging so i have decided to create a little tag to let you know a little bit more about me. (You can find day one here, day two here, and an introductory post to blog week here if you missed them/want to know more)

I have aimed this questionnaire purely at photography, I hope you enjoy learning a little bit more about me and my photography through this little "question and answer" post.

1.What is your current photography obsession? 

Macro photography (as always)

2.What camera do you use? 

Sony Alpha 330

3.What would you like to learn to do?

Learn more studio techniques, lighting set-ups, etc.

4.What was the last picture you shot?

An urban landscape shot of a building

5.Who is your favourite photographer?

Harold Davis, he takes beautiful abstract macro shots of flowers, if you’d like to learn more about him, you can check out a post I wrote all about him here.

6.What's the last thing you purchased for your kit?

A Telemacro lens

7.What are your essentials for a shoot?

My camera (obviously), memory card (obviously),fully charged battery (obviously), a standard lens, my macro lens, an external light source, coloured card, home-made reflector (will explain this in more detail in tomorrows post)

8.What's your photographic style?

Not sure really, I enjoy taking close-ups using shallow depths of field to create abstract shots whilst capturing eye-catching colours

9.If you could have any piece of photographic equipment what would it be?

Currently it would be a flashgun as I usually just use the flash on my phone which isn’t practical :(

10.Name a piece of your kit that you couldn’t live without:

My macro lens, i use it ALL THE TIME, i don’t know what i did before i got it! 

Thanks for reading this blog post, I hope you've enjoyed learning a little bit more about me and my photography style, be sure to check out my previous blog posts. If you don't already know, I'm doing a "post a day" throughout this week so continue to stay tuned for tomorrow's post where i'll be talking more in-depth about my photographic kit.

Also, if you liked this tag then why not answer the questions yourself? Leave a comment below or write a post yourself, I'd love to see what everyone else is interested in :) 

Ivory Rose of Innocence

Today is the second day of my week of blogging and after talking about Karl Blossfeldt in yesterdays post. I decided to follow on from that with a post about one of my popular flower images.

It's quite different from the style of Karl blossfeldt but also slightly similar at the same time. The lack of colour makes it similar to work of his as all of his photographs were black and white, however mine is much softer than the grainy, dark images that he produced. My photograph below has less tonal range than his work as he captured a huge variety of dark and light shades in his images.

©2013HannahBennett

The composition of this image is completely different to the simple overhead views that Karl was known for. I have cropped in tightly to the centre of the flower head and have positioned it within the top left of the frame so that it sits nicely, following the rule of thirds. I've also chosen to use a low f stop to create a shallow depth of field to soften the outer petals and give the image a soft, calm feel to it, which in unison with the lack of colour works perfectly.

I was very pleased with this shot as it was one that I discarded at first but with a little bit of work in Photoshop has actually become quite a successful image. If you'd like to view it in better detail it can be found here on my flickr page along with other pieces from my portfolio here.

Photographer of the Week:Karl Blossfeldt

Today is the first day of 'blog week' so I've decided to start it off by writing a post about a photographer who I've always loved but have been particularly inspired by recently and that is Karl Blossfeldt.

Karl was a German photographer well known for his simplistic yet highly detailed photographs of various plant life. He photographed the intricate details of buds, pods, twigs, tendrils, seeds and many other plant components, developing his own unique style in the process. He would shoot these subjects against stark backgrounds, arranging them as he pleased, to amplify the amazing designs naturally displayed within the plants. He enjoyed capturing their natural beauty along with their repetitive designs and wonderful textures.

I think his work is so impressive because he never intended for it to be seen as art, he worked as a teacher so he would shoot these subjects for educational purposes only, to use as learning aids for his students. He never received any formal training in photography, he was completely self-taught.

http://www.karlblossfeldtphotos.com/photos_details.asp?id=14&Photo_ID=103

There are so many interesting pictures of his that can be found in his book, 'Karl Blossfeldt' by Hans Christian Adams. This shot on the left is one that I find particularly interesting. I love the way he has captured the passion flower so simply whilst managing to capture all of it's beauty. I love the high contrast and tonal variety he has managed to capture, something which I've noticed is quite a strong theme throughout his work. His work is also very grainy, something that was probably as a result of shooting on film. However I think this also adds a very nice quality to the image, it gives it a very artistic feel, making it appear to look like a piece of artwork, more like a sketch rather than a photograph. 

I've been very inspired by his work as I tend to take a more colourful approach with my flower photography so I am planning on doing a shoot soon inspired by his work to focus more on photographing plants in black and white, stay tuned for that in the near future some time.

Blog Week Coming Soon!

Hello Readers,

Just a quick post to let you know that i'm going to be uploading every day for a week starting from tomorrow. I've got lots planned so make sure to stay tuned :) 

My aim throughout the week is to let you know a bit more about me and my photography whilst still making sure to discuss important photographic topics as usual, which I hope everyone reading will enjoy!

Firework Photography

With bonfire night fast approaching comes the perfect opportunity for some firework photography. Every year I take my camera out to firework displays to try and get some nice shots but have found it's a bit of a 'trial and error' game trying to capture them successfully so I thought I'd give you some tips on how how you're most likely to succeed by explaining what I've found works best so far.

1. Camera

Preferably a dslr camera, or one that you can set-up manually as you need to choose certain settings, a compact camera doesn't give you as much versatility as they don't always have a 'manual mode'.

Shot at 1/2 of a second which has captured too many fireworks

 ©2013HannahBennett

2. Shutter Speed

This is a vital component in firework photography as you need to use long exposures to capture the movement of the fireworks. I have found that using shutter speeds between 0.8 seconds and 1/6 of a second are fine. However, 0.8 second exposures work best when shooting singular fireworks but when loads of fireworks are going off together this creates lots of light creating overexposed images so it's better to use a shutter speed near 1/6 of a second during these periods of the displays. Also if the shutter is open for too long it can capture too many fireworks resulting in very busy shots like this shot of mine displayed to the left above.

Shot at f/2.8 creating a depth of field that's too shallow
©2013HannahBennett

3. Aperture

This isn't as important as shutter speed but still should be took into consideration. I've found that apertures between f/9 and f/32 work fine, you need to have a fairly big number f stop otherwise you'll create a shallow depth of field which could result in blurred fireworks throughout the scene. This shot of mine would have been a lot better had it been in focus, using f/2.8 wasn't wise as it created a depth of field that was just too shallow.

4. ISO Speed

Keep this as low as possible, i shoot at ISO 100 to help keep the bright colours from the firework as smooth as possible, you don't want grainy images.

5. No Flash

Flash is definitely not required when shooting fireworks as it will just take the light away from the fireworks themselves.

6. Focal Length

This one is entirely up to you, you may want to capture the whole scene or just focus on one firework in particular, maybe even get up close and abstract? I've been using my macro lens for the past few years and have found that it's not practical as you're too close to the subject and can't capture the full firework explosion therefore i'm planning on taking my standard lens with me this year to try and capture the scenes fully.

Shot without a tripod
©2013HannahBennett

7. Shoot with a tripod

This is absolutely vital for keeping the camera still enough during the long exposures that you'll be working with. As you can see in this shot of mine on the left, the lines of the firework are wiggly where I moved slightly whilst hand-holding the camera.

Here is my most successful shot from last year's bonfire night below

Shutter Speed: 0.8seconds            Aperture: f/32            ISO: 100
©2013HannahBennett

To summarise, here's a list of all the crucial things to remember when photographing fireworks

1. Take a camera
2. Use slow shutter speeds, between 0.3 and 1/6 of a seconds work well
3. Use high number f stops, between f/9 and 4/32 works well
4. Use ISO 100, keep the ISO speed low
5. No flash
6. Use a tripod

I also found some more useful on tips on the 'Digital Photography School' website, so if you'd like even more hints on how to photograph fireworks you can check that out here. If any of you reading this have any tips of your own i'd love to hear them so please feel free to leave a comment below :)

I hope you all have a lovely bonfire night and manage to get some successful shots of the fireworks. I'll be sure to post any successful ones I take!

Tutorial Tuesday: Bracketing

Bracketing is a very useful technique which photographers often use to capture a closer representation of the dynamic range within images. For example, if you’re shooting a landscape shot of the sea the sky may be very bright but the water very dull, so which area do you choose to expose for? If you correctly expose for the sky, you’ll lose detail in the shadows of the water, but if you expose correctly for the water the detail in the highlights of the sky will disappear instead. This makes it very difficult to decide on the correct shutter speed to capture the correct exposure over the whole scene. This is where the technique of bracketing comes in very useful. What this involves is repeatedly shooting the scene but using a different shutter speed for each shot to deliberately over-expose and under-expose, enabling you to capture detail within all areas of scene. Once this has been achieved Photoshop is used to stitch all these images together combining the various exposures to create one perfectly exposed image. Below is an example/tutorial to show you how this technique can be achieved.

Firstly, you need to take your shots, preferably with a tripod as it will be a lot easier to layer up your images in Photoshop later on. Here are two images below that I shot a while ago which demonstrate perfectly the need for this technique. I shot this flower in direct sunlight which resulted in a very bright, harsh light that was too much for the white areas in the petal yet not strong enough to capture the shadow detail in the pollen itself, the sun was positioned behind the flower slightly creating this ‘back-lighting’ effect. Being the main focus of this image, I need the pollen area of the flower to be perfectly lit.

Shutterspeed =1/160
©2013HannahBennett

    

Shutterspeed =1/400

©2013HannahBennett

If you feel the scene you are shooting needs bracketing then take one shot at the exposure your camera tells you to, then move the shutter speed by 1 stop to underexpose, and also 1  stop to over expose. For example, if your camera says to shoot at 1/160, to overexpose by 1 stop you’d then shoot at1/100, and to underexpose by 1 stop, you’d shoot at 1/320. For the example included in this post, I shot the overexposed image first at 1/160 then underexposed the second image by 2 stops and shot at 1/400. (This can be seen clearly in the pictures above)

©2013HannahBennett

To combine these two images, I opened them up into photoshop and placed the two layers on top of each other, then labelled them accordingly, whilst making sure that they were correctly positioned above one another. I then used the ‘Eraser Tool (E)’ whilst on the overexposed layer to remove the washed out petals, leaving behind the correctly exposed pollen area of the image.      

As you can see in the final picture below, I now have one perfectly exposed image, full of detail throughout the whole frame

©2013HannahBennett

Photomanipulation: Is it necessary?

I’ve been doing a bit of research lately about the use of photo manipulation within the media and the affect it has on the self-esteem of people viewing these images, and came across this interesting article on dove's campaign website for real beauty. It features a game which highlights the extensive use of airbrushing that is used within the media on an everyday basis. Below is a snapshot I took, whilst playing the game, of one of the examples they use.

Shockingly, this is a retouched image. It’s so difficult to tell because the shot is of a young girl whom you’d expect to be naturally beautiful like she is in this shot, eliminating the need to retouch anything. However, this image has been retouched. The amount of subtle changes that they've done to this image is shocking.

Here’s a long list of all the areas that have been altered:

-Lips darkened

-Eyebrows darkened

-Eyes made bluer

-Bust enhanced, uplifted and increased

-Left arm made thinner

-Right arm made thinner

-Back/shoulders made thinner

-Skin has been lightened

-Blemishes removed

-Under-eye bags removed

-Cheek creases toned down

-Teeth whitening

-Hair neatening (filled out and smoothed)

Would you have been able to notice all these alterations just by looking at the image, unaware it had been retouched? Probably not. I was only able to identify a couple at the most.

You can see the effect of these changes in the comparison screenshot below...

As you can see they are barely noticeable, the girl is already naturally beautiful, she doesn’t need these adjustments at all. The adjustments that have been made are extremely hard to notice when you’re unaware that any editing has been done, which I feel is when photo manipulation is at its most deceiving. 

(Source: http://jennifersproject.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/examples-of-airbrushing.html)

If something is quite clearly airbrushed like this example of Madonna then young girls are possibly more likely to realise that serious manipulation has been done and may not feel as pressurised to conform to this unrealistic representation of beauty. However, with this example in the game, young girls are more likely to feel pressured to look this way due to the fact that they've felt the need to make more adjustments to her, despite her original photograph being naturally beautiful. This will make young girls especially feel like they’re not good enough as long as perfection is still being “perfected”. I find this hard to put into words but I hope you can understand my viewpoint?    

                                                 

This 1-minute timelapse film by dove shows the full extent of the work that goes into fashion advertising campaigns and shows just how unrealistic it all is. I just wish everyone was able to realise the extent of the use of photoshop within the media so that people can become more confident within themselves and forget about trying to conform to these unrealistic representations of beauty which we are forced to view subconsciously on a daily basis.

If you'd like to find out more about the dove real beauty campaign follow these links below to the related websites:

• http://selfesteem.dove.co.uk/
• http://www.dove.us/social-mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx

Or if you'd just like to play the retouch roulette game yourself then follow this one direct:

• http://selfesteem.dove.co.uk/Articles/Application/How_to_spot_airbrushing_beauty_tricks.aspx