Activity 7.3.4 Visual Narrative

This particular activity is causing some anguish for students of T189 because of a perceived discrepancy between the instructions and the illustration of the concept on the website. The instructions actually say ” Spend up to one hour taking three images which, when displayed consecutively, tell a story” but the example, displayed above the instructions, shows a single image sliced diagonally into six sections, each illustrating one frame taken as a man with a rucksack on his back jumps from one rock to another.

I understood the assignment instructions to mean that I had to take three (or more) images narrating a progression of actions or situations. But many students have interpreted it to mean producing one image comprising several shots of the progression. Since this isn’t actually demonstrated in any of the tutorials, it has left many students feeling lost and frustrated because they don’t know how to go about it using the Elements digital darkroom.

Of course, the gurus and detectives of the T189 conferences were quickly onto the problem and came up with various suggestions and instructions involving opening multiple images, tiling, cascading, resizing and so on. So there is an interesting mix of images being put up on OpenStudio. You know, you could get seriously bogged down in Elements trying to learn and use some of these effects!

When you upload your three narrative images to OpenStudio there’s a good chance that the three won’t be displayed consecutively anyway – if a lot of students are uploading at the same time, which is often the case in the evenings and at weekends, then there may be two, three or more other images between your three. I think this is probably why so many students are attempting the three-in-one approach.

I’m trying hard not to get hung up on some of the more complex tasks. This week’s recommendation is a total of up to five hours ‘in the field’ taking photographs and I can’t see me getting anywhere near that! But I have successfully completed the tutorial to ‘age’ a photograph and now have some very nice sepia images of Arum Lilies, boats, coils of rope and Coastguard Tower. So I am making progress

Week 7 Assignment

I’m finding this one quite challenging because it requires me to step outside my ‘comfort zone’ and approach photography from directions I’ve never taken or even considered before. There are three activities included in Week 7 and the Assignment comprises six images but not all from the same activity.

So the first activity is:

Composing images in the frame to alter their meaning

Spend up to 2 hours taking photos using composition conventions such as framing, anchorage, juxtaposition and mis-en-scène. Can you create an impression of a false reality for the viewer? For example, can you make something look like it is happening when it isn’t? Or can you, for example, make one person look much taller than another? Remember that in this activity you should not use the digital darkroom to manipulate your images!

How much control over the representation of truth do you have with your camera? 

The second activity is:

Visual narrative

Spend up to one hour taking three images which, when displayed consecutively, tell a story. It could be a simple one such as people waiting at a bus stop, people getting on the bus, then the bus departing, or it could be something far more subtle or complex. What is important is to succinctly frame the key elements of the narrative. The aim of this task is to enable you to develop an awareness of the communicative aspect of your images [...]

The third activity is:

Exploiting conventions                                                                                                                                                               Consumer magazines use photography very powerfully to make us desire things. If you spend time looking at different types of magazine (for example travel, fashion, food, cars, wildlife, outdoors, hairdressing and beauty) you may notice that each category has its own conventions of the genre such as framing, angle, lighting, mis-en-scène, etc. Look through some different types of magazine and note the conventions of genre that you see. Spend up to 2 hours taking some photos that consciously exploit the aesthetic conventions you have observed.

I need to sit down with a big mug of tea, a notebook, and mull this one over, I think …

Words of Wisdom

Today, while browsing blogs, I came across a stunning image entitled ‘Patience’ with the following commentary by the photographer (I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting it in full here …) and it really struck me deeply.

As T189 has progressed, I realise that I often don’t take enough time thinking about a shot or assessing its potential- I’m often a bit short on time and have to grab the shot quickly almost in passing. The thought of having three whole hours to take a shot just leaves me speechless with awe and admiration. I really DO need to take more time over my photography.
Source Image Link

Truth be told, I still use the large format camera more than I thought I would be given the proliferation of digital cameras. It is so much easier using a small camera (ease of use, easy to carry, quick, convenient, etc), but what also gets lost is the patience factor. It’s like driving a Porsche. You don’t tend to drive it slow. So you miss out out on the journey. You become more interested in the car and the destination.

Recently I used my large format (4″x5″) Linhof for this shot. The fact of the matter is that using a large unwieldly camera slows me down (which can be a good thing in photography), become contemplative, and perhaps most importantly, enjoy the moment, the surroundings, and be patient. I waited 3 hours for this shot. Took me half an hour just to set up the camera down by the waterline.

I’m not sure I would have slowed down if I was using my Canon digital camera. I would have been more inclined to take some shots in less than ideal light conditions and then race ahead to somewhere else…………..

J Alan

Grab that camera again!

I spotted this male blackbird sunbathing on the concrete wall alongside the steps up to our Gallery this morning and fetched my camera to see if I could get a good shot or two. It’s the sort of opportunity that suddenly presents itself and you don’t have much time to think about composing or setting up the shot … even if it IS still there when you get back with your camera!

Enjoying a spot of sunshine!

Blackbird up close and personal

We have some very tame birds in our garden – I suspect this is the cheeky chap who comes into the house occasionally for a look round to see if he can blag some food. Fortunately our cats never really bothered with birds (although the local rabbit, mouse and rat population did come in for a lot of feline attention over the last seventeen years) and anyway the ones in our garden have a very loud and efficient warning system in place if they see feline intruders. I once found our tabby slumbering peacefully on the grass in the sunshine oblivious to five blackbirds all shrieking their alarm calls from the surrounding trees and shrubs.

Week 6 Assignment

Since our one course CMA (computer-marked assignment) is due for submission by June 18th, the Week 6 assignment is optional. Please don’t take my efforts too seriously – it was a bit of fun, quickly snapped and quickly edited (hardly T189 portfolio material …)
Take five photos that form a set linked in some way, for example in technique (e.g. motion blur, macro, small depth of field), colour theme (e.g. reds, natural colours, cool colours), or subject (e.g. portraits, landscapes, still life). Upload the photos to OpenStudio. Can you spot the linking theme on other students’ sets?

So I’ve posted six – can you find the subject that links them all together?

So these are bulldog clips

Quite a new rucksack – bought last month.

Yes, it’s a Tilley hat! (quite a new once since it was a birthday present in April …)

Rather old and battered – an easel.

Fabric roll of ‘tools’

Small steel vacuum flask (usually contains black tea)

I suspect that the input from students for Week Six may be rather less than for previous weeks. There are several probably reasons – it’s now mid June and people are going on holiday before the schools break up for summer, some students have said that they are behind and trying to catch up (mainly because of the DVD fiasco) and some are just busy with other courses and commitments.

I’m off to study my printout of the CMA ready to submit tomorrow (if all goes well ….)

Another ‘Grab the Camera’ opportunity

I rushed up to the office after dinner when a Chinook helicopter suddenly hove into view through our patio windows and passed overhead. Snatching my camera from its recharging cradle, I burst out of the front door and watched the helicopter slowly circling in to land at the heliport. Unfortunately I just wasn’t quick enough and it had vanished behind the trees before I got my camera fired up and focused *sigh*

But, in the meantime, I’d noticed en route through the office that the sunset had definite promise, so I kicked off my slippers, pulled on a pair of wellies and headed down towards the beach. Both our kitchen and home/business office are on the side of the house facing the sea so it’s impossible not to notice a promising sunset developing through the windows. It was a calm still evening which was why the Chinook’s double rotors had sounded so deafeningly loud – a very distinctive deep whump-whump – as it had passed over. I crunched down over the sand and headed for the water’s edge where I took a series of shots. I switched between the camera’s ‘auto’ setting, the ‘evening’ and ‘landscape’ modes, and used the full optical zoom on the 6Mb maximum image setting. This was the best of the bunch and no, I didn’t bribe the seagull to fly past just as I clicked the shutter!

Then, at about 9.15pm, just as the sun was disappearing from view and I was crunching back up the beach, I heard the Chinook’s rotor blades start up at the heliport. So I headed for the bank at the back of the beach and climbed onto the end of a boat trailer parked in the long grass where I teetered, a little unsteadily, waiting for the helicopter to lift off. I hoped it would pass overhead as it had done before but I was out of luck – it lifted, dipped to 45 degrees, circled round and headed away in the opposite direction. I did get a couple of shots but they weren’t very exciting although they were, recognisably, a helicopter. I suspect that, if the Chinook had indeed passed overhead, I would probably have had to crane backwards so much on my precarious perch to get a shot that I would have overbalanced and landed unceremoniously on my backside in the long grass!

On a side note, a gentleman came strolling along the path and stopped to join me as I waited for the Chinook to appear. We chatted briefly about helicopters and sunsets.  Being a T189 student, I couldn’t help noticing that he was dangling a top-of-the-range black Canon DSLR camera by its bright red Canon-emblazoned strap from one hand but I didn’t have the nerve to ask if I could have a look at it. In the event, he admitted that he’d spent so much time looking for a suitable spot to photograph the sunset that he’d missed his opportunity. He made no attempt to get a shot of the Chinook as it rose from behind the trees and disappeared in the opposite direction.

So not only does the early bird get the worm but the opportunist photographer gets the shot!

Unexpected bonus!

I was having to scrape around to find colourful images to post for my Week 5 assignment when I realised that I had the perfect subjects right under my nose – a pair of ‘Benfica’ amaryllis, newly acquired this spring and now about to come into bloom. They were described as ‘blood red’ and already they are spectacular. So, having posted eight images, I now completed my set of ten by adding the following two:

and

Now on to Week 6 ….

Some of my images from T189

I thought it was about time that I posted some images seeing as how I’m three weeks into T189 now! So I’ve selected what I think are my best three images from the first part of the course but you can see the rest on my Flickr photostream.

Aqua-Marina’s Flickr Photostream

Assignment One – “Select six letters from the alphabet and take a picture for each letter. Do not just look for letters on signs; think creatively about the shapes in nature and of objects – for example a rope laid on the ground may become an s or a w”.
This is my letter ‘S’.

Image submitted for Week 2 assignment of T189 – your favourite person, place or thing. I love our beach!
I spotted this incredibly dramatic sky developing just as we finished dinner, so I abandoned the washing up, grabbed my camera and headed out to the beach. It was difficult to catch the full effect because the sun was still bright enough to dazzle my Finepix F700 compact and I had to wait, fiddling around with the settings until I was rewarded with this shot. I took about twenty in all but this was the best.

Image submitted for Week 3 assignment of T189 – an exposure safari. This perky little chap(ess) is currently feeding two constantly ravenous youngsters and visits our kitchen windowsill several times a day for bread and scraps. I opened the window and took a photo while he/she looked at me as if to say “Stop messing around – I need food – NOW!”

I hope you enjoy them!

End of Week Three

Well, weeks one and two were quite fun and reasonably light but in week three we are starting to delve into the esoteric settings of aperture, shutter speed, ISO and f-stops. This is where things get very interesting and really quite technical. I don’t think my camera manual has been studied so intently since I got it in May 2005.

So what sort of camera am I using? Well, it’s a Fuji Finepix F700 which I bought as a refurbished camera in May 2005 from a shop in Exeter …. the day before I headed off to the Chelsea Flower Show for the very first time. It was incredibly exciting and I just charged up the battery then snapped my way around Chelsea on auto until the battery died

Fuji Finepix F700 Zoom

I think the course was written with compact cameras in mind but there are an astonishing number of high-end Digital SLRs turning up – mainly Canon models with breathtaking price tags. My Finepix F700 is quite capable but it can be used very simply on auto or with the ‘Scene’ modes (Night, Portrait, Landscape and Sport) or the macro mode for close ups. It has a 3x optical zoom and a 2.2x digital zoom. Unusually for a compact, its ISO range goes up to 1600 and the shutter speed can go from 3 seconds to 1/2000th second. Through some clever technical stuff, it’s actually a 3.1 megapixel camera but claims to be able to produce 6.2 megapixel images. I can set it to take images at 6Mb, 3Mb, 2Mb or 1Mb.

Of course, as I learn more about the technical and artistic sides of photography, I am starting to hanker after a more advanced and capable camera so I’m looking around for something suitable for a birthday present this autumn. Watch this space!

Oh, and if anyone is interested and would like to check out the images I’ve produced so far for T189, my Flickr site is:

Aqua-Marina

Major Glitch

It’s almost the end of the first week’s study in our ten week course and we have a major glitch. OpenStudio has been under so much pressure from students uploading their first ten images that it’s fallen over! One student worked out that, when he was uploading his images, there was an image being uploaded every ten seconds….

Of course, it’s a Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK so the Open University’s computer department is only running on a skeleton staff and it looks like the problem might not be fixed until Tuesday.

This was the cue for the course conferences to fill up rapidly with endless queries and pleas from students who are having difficulties uploading their images to OpenStudio. Moderators and other students fielded as many as possible – there was even an automatic-opening message posted in the conferences which popped up as soon as you double clicked it to open the conference. Some students are resorting to banging their heads against walls, others are heading for the coffee pot and many more for something stronger. Many are feeling angry, aggrieved, frustrated and just plain cross.

So this is probably NOT the start to the course that the course team wanted and there is obviously a lot of frantic behind-the-scenes activity going on trying to resolve the problems. Bear in mind that this IS the first presentation and that there are always glitches with the first run. Just be glad that we’re the ones doing the guinea-pig impressions here and not you – by the time you get round to tackling T189, we’ll have smoothed out all the wrinkles for you!

Setting all that aside, T189 is actually shaping up to be a very interesting course. There is lots of activity in the course conferences – help and advice being sought and given, plenty of interesting and constructive comments being made on student images in OpenStudio (when it’s up and running anyway) and, generally, a good atmosphere.