Feedback response

Unit 9 Evaluation

We were given three subjects: Nature/Decay, A School Brochure and a photo essay, and we had to take, edit and present the photos of each subject.

The nature photos I took were all landscapes,  and two of them were panoramas that capture more of a scene than  an individual frame. I wanted  to take landscapes at they wit within the nature theme and I had a large number of landscapes that I had taken in the last couple of years that I could use for this subject. Since it was winter, the images that I used for the school brochure had a grim look straight out of the camera, so I decided to run with this idea and gave all of the images a dark look. using sledging as a subject for my photo essay was something of a spur of the moment thing, as we were not expecting snow on the weekend i planned to shoot. so a few friends and myself decided to  go sledging, and use image we took for our photo essays. I wanted my images to convey the excitement, energy and movement of sledging.

My favorite parts of this project was Taking and editing the images as I have some experience in taking and editing photos, as it is one of my hobbies, so I had past experience with operating a camera and using image editing software (although I primarily use Lightroom as opposed to photoshop). The parts of the unit that I least enjoyed were the annotations and planning stages, simply because they were a lot of typing and writing, as opposed to being out shooting or editing images.

The top image is one of my personal favorite images that I took. I think it works well due to the combination of good lighting, nice composure and  the blurring of the stream by setting a low shutter speed. The professional image below works for the same reasons.

The image at the top is probable my least favourite  image of all of the images that I took over the course of the unit. This is due to the focus being slightly off, and the lack of contrast in the photo. The composition is also pretty uninteresting, and the image is too dark. The professional image below mine is similar, but works because of the better contrast and focus.
I improved my photography skills by reading magazines and online articles on photography, and watching instructional videos on the internet. I was lucky going into this unit as i already had some experience with photography. I improved my editing skills in much the same way, watching and reading instructional videos.
I chose flickr for my photo essay and nature photos, as it is a simple, clean looking way of presenting photos, and it is easy to embed a slideshow onto the blog. The only way to present the brochure was... in a brochure.
I created this using Adobe Photoshop.

I got feedback from my images using  a free online form called freedback. I created the form and then embedded it onto the blog. them, people could fill out and submit the form, and I would receive an e-mail that told me who had filled out the form.

Freedback feedback

Name:
Email Address:
Please comment on the suitability of the photos used in the school brochure
What impression do you get from the brochure images?
In general, how could the images have been improved?	Better original images Improved focus More interesting subjects Less obvious editing none of the above- They're all okay.
Looking at the photo essay photos, is the subject of the photos clear?
What impression do you get from my photo essay images?
In general, how could the images in my photo essay be improved?	Better original images Improved focus More interesting subjects Less obvious editing None of the above- they're fine
What do you think of the nature photos I have taken?
What impression do you get of the Nature images
In general, how could the images in my photo essay be improved?	Better original images Improved Focus More Interesting Subjects Less obvious editing None of the above- They're Fine
Out of the three subjects, which set of photos were the best and why?
Out of the three subjects, which set of photos was the worst and why?

Get your own free form like this one.

Photo Essay: Sledging

School Brochure

Flickr Slideshow: Nature

                           
Probably best viewed on flickr's actual website due to the aspect ratio of the panoramas.

Editing images: School brochure 4

 Original image: Not bad as it is, but lacking contrast.

 Increased black colour in selective colour mixer to boost contrast and increased exposure slightly to compensate for the darker points.

Editing images: School Brochure 3

 Original image: could have just bumped exposure a little and it would have been fine, but I decided to make it black and white.

I decreased the exposure slightly, and then increased contrast by increasing dark levels in the selective colour mixer, as the photo was lacking contrast and looked too grey.

Editing images: School Brochure 2

 Before: I don't need most of the image to the right, as the focus of the image is the student in the classroom.

 Cropped to portrait to remove the large, dark segment of the image, and toned down the saturation a little, as the image was oversaturated.

Finished Image. The dark doorframe and corridor frame the student in the classroom.

Editing images: School Brochure

original photo: correctly exposed, but feels a little dark, I think the camera determined the exposure by metering the clouds.

Bumped exposure and saturation in an attempt to make the school look brighter.

increased black colour using selective colour mixer  to add contrast.

Finished image: has a somewhat "dark" look to it. I tried adding a warming filter, but it just looked odd.

I couldn't make the school look too bright without blowing out the highlights.

Photo essay pt.4

Original image: A little unsaturated and dark

Used selective colour mixer to increase the brightness of the snow and boost blacks.

Photo essay pt 3

Original Image: Image is a little underexposed and undersaturated.

 Boosted exposure by the equivalent of 1 stop, boosted saturation and boosted contrast, as the photo was lacking contrast.

Photo essay pt.2

Before: max is in the frame on the far right, and the image is a little dark. There is also some minor colour fringing on ollie's shoulder

Removed chromatic aberration around ollies left shoulder, increased saturation and exposure to make the image a little brighter, Cropped the image, and used a brush to blur the background to give the photo more depth.

After.

Photo essay pt.1

Before: A little dark, 

 Cropped, and then used Lens correction to remove Chromatic aberration, which can be seen outlining Adam's Trousers. Lens correction also removes barrel distortion, but the difference is barely noticeable.
I also increased the exposure of the image.

Nature photos 4

This is one of a collection of images that I have taken from the top of grinshill.

I Stitched them together using a tool in photoshop, creating this panorama, which I then cropped to make it a rectangular image again.

This is the final image.

Nature photos 3

before: a Stitched panorama taken handheld; the software that stitched the image together has left black bars around the image. This is because the image was taken handheld, so not all photos were taken flat. The photo has already been processed in terms of exposure.

 I cropped the image in photoshop to remove the black lines around the edge of the image.

Nature photos 2

 Original Image: again, I probably did some processing in Lightroom when I took the photo.

WIP: Playing with colour levels to give the image more dynamic range.

Final Product: Converted to B&W, and then changing colour levels some more to preserve and bring out detail in dark areas.

Nature photos 1

Original image, Post processed in Lightroom to bring out the sky using a graduated ND filter.

Landscape lacks contrast and sky is a little oversaturated.

               Mid- Processing- boosted darks and shadows to add contrast to the landscape, 

toned down the sky a little.

  Finished product: Added a Deep Yellow filter to  give the photo a warmer look.