Assignment 1 Shooting Log 12th Feb 2011: Langstone

"Broad" and "Rough" 12/02/11

The promised sunshine arrived in bucketloads today. I packed up my gear and drove down to Portsmouth.  My first stop was on the western side Langstone Harbour at an old pier where I found some interesting possibilties for "Broad" and an alternative for "Rough" I have made up a contact sheet to summarise what I shot:

I have selected two alternatives for "Broad";   4446 or 4452 and possibly 4450 or 4457 for rough, all will need final edits:

4446

This has good flow through the image, foreground texture and the line of the channel with tonal contrast takes your eye to the horizon, which I placed just above the centre to include the foreground. There is little to do to this, maybe just a tweak to the levels and curves.

4452

This also says "broad " but is dominated by the quay. The figures and the vertical navigation mark give a dynamic balance on the edge of the quay. Their eye line is enigmatic. As they are in silhouette, they could be looking away from the camera at the horizon or across the field of view to the left. Either way, the contrasting edge of the channel take you to the horizon. I will edit out the flare if I use this image.

20/02/11 I have chosen to use 4446 for my Broad  contrast. I needed the mud flats to extend to both edges of the frame and  the channel to cross from side to side to take the eye across the frame and on to the horizon. To exaggerate the effect, a wide panorama may have been effective. This certainly contrasts to my narrow picture, both in orientation and location. See next post.

4450

 I was immediately struck buy the similarity of this rusting bollard to bark on a tree. As it was right on the edge of the quay, this was the only angle I could photograph it from. I may crop this and adjust the levels to see if it makes a good image

4457

        

More corroded steel, almost smooth compared to the image above but the smaller and more regular pitting of the surface is still rough to the touch. I may see if a really close crop works here.

20/02/11 I abandoned these images for Rough, my roughs seas turned out to be more appropriate and the texture of  4457 was very similar to the smooth pebble I chose.