Landscape Ansel Adams work diary 14th January 2016

During today's lesson, I took on my research from the lesson on Tuesday as inspiration and went out in town to take photos in Ansel Adam's style. I really like his technique of taking would look like simple images, putting a black and white filter on it, burning a part of it, and it looks so intriguing. I also used a tripod for this lesson, one of the first times I have actually done this, apart from in the studio. This made my images so much better! (well in my opinion anyway) This is because it meant I was able to show straight lines and depth very clearly and easily as I could position my camera straight.

A photo from today's shoot that I like...
I really like this image from today's shoot because I like the straight lines and the depth portraying in this. I also like how the graffiti creates a run down look. This was a really dreary day and it was really cold, this is why I think the black and white effect works really well.






A photo from today's shoot that I don't like...

 I don't really like this image because I think the burning of the image didn't work well at all and should have been at the bottom of the photo instead of the side. I also don't like how it's head on yet the main building in the photo is slanted. If I was going to get the "ultimate" head on photo, I would have needed everything to be straight even that building. It would also be better if it was in the middle more.




Progression... 
Even though these images can count as landscapes, I do not think they relate to Ansel Adams as much as I had wanted, this is because his images captures things such as mountains. Although, the number of mountains are pretty low in Harlow, so old run down building was the best I could really do. However if I were able to do so, I would like to take photos relating to Ansel Adams much more! For example a beach or a forest. I also like skyline landscapes images so would like to include this in my work. Example of progression are shown below.

Progression put in place...

landscape straight images Ansel Adams

These photos were inspired by Ansel Adams, his work is shown on a previous blog post.

The screen shot on the left here shows the "levels" of my last image. This shows the Zone system is really clear here and is also a key concept of my photo. Like most of his work, I used the dodge tool at the corners, varying it on the photo, sometimes I made it darker. On the first image on this blog I put the dodge on the right because this was the angle of the depth. These photos consists on the elements of leading lines and depth (these are the key ones anyway). I think the dodge works on all these images, apart from the 3rd photo as it is a head on photo- perhaps the dodge on this one should have been along the bottom. 

Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams born February 20th 1902 and died April 22nd 1984. He was an American photographer and environmentalist, which would be the reason when researching his work I came across many landscape images. Examples of his work are presented within this blog post.


Adams helped develop the zone system:

This is a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print.
The screen shot above shows the zone system and how it is laid out/ used.



Pre-visalisation:
This is the idea of planning your work before going out to shot. For example, if you are going up London to shot landscape, you would plan before hand where you will go, what part of London you want to shot- either Big ben or London bridge. It would also be a good idea to have in mind how you want to angle your photos because that way you have a mental image of what you war to produce, and you can work your hardest to make sure this would happen.


Group f64:
F64 is an aperture setting on a camera- the highest one (even though my camera goes up to 24). Anyway, when taking a landscape it is best to have a high aperture because you can present the zone system find converted into black and white.
However the Group F64 was a group of photographers who framed images seen through a particularly Western point of view.  They presented images which were based on precisely exposed images of natural forms and found objects.