Shoot 1 – Structures in Nature
During this shoot I was focued on the structures of man made things breaking up nature. I have focued on things like walls, buildings, powerlines and temporary structures like road signs. Towards the end I experimented with shilouetes and trees, creating an interesting flat colour pallete that was near black and white. was this inspired by any artists work – which particular elements of their work – any technical process – aperture, shutterspeed, light conditions, fprml elements eg – rule of thirds symetry
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
While editing these photos I was focused on creating a dreamy style. Images have a very warm feel to them and I have done this by using masking alongside the temperature slider. I have also done some basic colour mixing and correction to change the colours of the images to either give them a warm feel or to add false colour. I have also used masking as can be seen in image 5 to add a focus point to the image by inverting a radial mask to create an almost vinette around the subject of the image. In the images of the dandelions I have used masks on the flowers to be able to add texture and clarity to them along with increasing their exposure to really make them pop in the image.
Lightroom Black and White Selection (Film Style)
In these edits I made a preset that appears with lots of grain and a heavy vinette. This is a styling choice to emulate the look of film. I have also avoided heavy cropping as with film you are stuck with the image you get.
Shoot 2 – Forest
During this shoot I was focused on lighting. Utilising backlighting to create dramatic and stunning images.
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
Shoot 3 – Detail in Nature
During this shoot I was mainly focused on hidden details in nature. Like the detail of rotting leaves or frost on grass along with up close images of stuff too. I also experimented with long exposure with a stream. This makes the motion of the water create a blurry soft look to the water.
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
While editing this selection, I was focused on bringing out detail and adding drama to the photos. Using temperature with masking to boost the effect of sun landing on parts of the image. I have also used colour mixing and HSL to adjust the colours of some photos to give them a warm feeling. I have also used masking to select certain areas of the image that I want the audience to focus on, such as the ice formed on the grass. To do this I have used masking with Texture and Clarity, therefore adding detail and sharpness.
Black and White – Lightroom Enhanced
Photoshop – Gradient Mapping
I have used Photoshop gradient mapping to take this black and white image and make multiple colours ways of it using the Graident Map single adjustment in Photoshop. This takes the contrast of the image and maps it to a gradient.
Shoot 4 – Low light
In this shoot I used mainly avaliable light after sunset, during and after blue hour. Using slow shutter speeds and flash at times. I also did mostly everything handheld and used some intentional camera movement during shooting to create abstract imagery.
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
During my editing process I was looking at making the best use possible of light. I also boosted colours to create a vibid and stylistic look. Also I utilised the HSL sliders to create a more natural look and remove some of the blue from the images, as I felt some of them looked too cold.
Black and White – Lightroom Enhanced
During these edits I was trying to go for a grungy, almost creepy style. Boosting the exposure and adding texture and clarity to boost the noise detail.
Intentional Photo Degredation – Scanning and Printing
I decided to take one of the photos from my black and white enhanced selection and then print it. Once I had printed it once I scanned it and printed it multiple times to degrade the picture and add intentional grain and artifacting caused by the printer.
Scanography – Distorting imagery
I took my printed photo and then scanned it in while moving it around to distort the image. I also then got two copies of the image and taped them together to create a physical mirror of the image, using the original print and final copy from the before process.
Intentional Camera Movement – Lightroom Ehanced
While editing these images, I decided to boost colours a lot and boost exposure too as I feel it adds to their abstract nature and makes them feel less realistic which I think suits them.
Shoot 5 – Foliage
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
Shoot 6 – Autumn
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
In all of these photos I wanted to go for a glowy autumn look. I acheived this by boosting the exposure of each image to create overexposed areas, along with reducing clarity using radial gradients in areas of background.
Shoot 7 – Flowers
For this shoot, I worked in a studio. During this shoot I swapped between using a Macro 105mm Sigma Lens made for Nikon but I adapted it to Sony E Mount and I also used an old Microscope with an adapter instead of an eyeglass to be able to mount my camera and get pictures from the microscope. I even managed to 40x Magnication and still manage to pull focus, although the focal plane was so fine that it was impossible to get more than a few bits in focus.
Lightroom Enhanced Selection – Macro
With these photos I did not have to do much editing, slightly boosting or lowering exposure to create an even light level and then doing some masking on flowers that did not let enough light through to be able to make the middle of them a similar brightness to their outer petals. I also boosted some clarity and texture to help create more detail in parts of the images.
Lightroom Enhanced Selection – Microscope
In these photos I balanced the exposure and boosted details. Then for the second image, of the red leaf, I used the remove tool to help remove some of the dust spots created by the microscope having dust on its lens. Using the remove tool helped to create a much cleaner looking shot that I think has beautiful areas of contrast and sharpness while also having parts that drift out of the focal plane creating a dreamy and rather special look.
Microscope Moving Image – Focus Pulling
Shoot 8 – Forest
For this shoot I was focused on getting the atmospherics of the forest and surrounding area. I shot this shoot during rainy weather with some fog in the atmosphere, the light was soft from the cloudy sky.
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
In my enhanced selection, I have focused on making images pop and adding deep contrast that really enhanced the colours in the photographs.
Lightroom Black and White Selection
In this selection of photos I wanted to create dramatic and moody photos, to do this I made use of Black and White editing to create rich, contrasty images. I did this by crushing shadows and boosting highlights, and decreasing blacks to add areas of deeper darkness.
Shoot 9 – Seaside
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
Lightroom Black and White Selection
Shoot 10
Lightroom Enhanced Selection
Lightroom Enhancement – Process
First of all I pick the image that I want to work with.
I then adjust the Exposure and overall lighting of the image. I change the exposure, highlights, shadows and contrast to help create a bright image that still holds details.
Once I have done the inital overall lighting and exposure I then move to masking some of the distracting areas of the image or otherwise areas that need attention. In this image I thought the grass at the very front of the frame was quite distracting being how bright and sharp it was. Therefore I darkened it using the Exposure slider and then also removed some clarity from it.
Here is what the image looks like after adding that mask. You can see the grass in the foreground is slightly softer and is less lit.
I then moved onto crop and rotate, I didn’t do much here just slightly rotated the image to be in line with the horizon which very slightly cropped in so I moved the image over to the right to ensure to not cut off the branches on the right hand side anymore as I feel if they become anymore cut off than they already are they will unbalance the image and make them feel less intentional.
I thought that the image looked a tiny bit cold for being during autumn, so I increased the colour temperature of the overall image, helping bring out the vivid oranges and yellows.
To further emphasise the autumn colours I did some colour grading to really help warm up the image and make it feel more alive.
I then also used the colour mixer to boost the saturation and luminence of only certain colours. By doing this I can adjust how much certain colours pop off the screen and this is a really good way to add more colour to an image without just increasing it’s overall saturation.
Final Image vs Original
Lightroom Black and White Selection
In these images I have toggled Black and White and then boosted the exposure, added some contrast and then pulled the highlights and boosted the shadows. Doing this helps to add lots of areas of light and dark making for a brilliant Black and White image that looks dramatic and powerful. I also then for a finishing touch and to make them feel correct, I add artificial noise in Lightroom.
