OCA – People and
Place
Assignment 2: People
and Place
The objective of this assignment
was to plan and execute a set of photographs of people in some form of
meaningful activity. It could be based around work, sport, stage performance or
a social event.
I selected to concentrate on
stage performance and in particular I wanted to try to photograph individual musicians
on stage as the focal point. Each photograph would need to be of a different musician
during the days shoot and I would try to find different compositions, although
the location for you to photograph from was very limited. I also decided at the
outset to produce the final photographs in black and white, with a grainy edge
to them.
I planned the days shoot at ‘The
Willow Festival’ in Peterborough on 13th July 2013 and used a Nikon
D800 with a Nikon 70mm-200mm f2.8 lens. I did not use any flash, so the ISO
levels needed to be raised within some of the venue tents.
From the 120 photographs taken on
the day, I finally selected around 18 photographs to process. After this
process I then selected the final 10 images which can be seen below.
Photograph 1
This photograph was taken from
some distance away inside a music tent as the crowd was very busy. I wanted to
capture the singer’s facial expressions whilst actually singing. The ISO was
increased to 2000 and an aperture of f2.8.
Photograph 2
This photograph was taking outside with a focal length of
105mm. I managed to get a little closer and focussed on composing this musician
on his own on stage.
Photograph 3
The sunlight had just started to
come through the clouds and I noticed how it was shining against the double
bass. I know the head is slightly in shadow, but I like the effect of the light
on the musicians t-shirt. I composed this photograph to focus on the double
bass musician, although I was not in a position to re-compose to the right. The
drummer in the background does not distract from the main subject.
Photograph 4
This photograph was probably the
most difficult to take. The area of the music tent I had managed to gain access
to was extremely dark. Due to this I increased the ISO to 5000, which was
partly to see how my camera would perform at this level of ISO. I do like the
concentration of the musician and the composition of taking the photograph from
below the subject.
Photograph 5
This is another photograph where
the location to actually compose the final image was limited. The performance
was later in the afternoon and the weather had improved, the natural light in
this music tent meant I only increased the ISO to 1600, with the focal length
set at 200mm. The composition is different with the main subject placed to the
right of the photograph and the drummer slightly out of focus to the rear left.
Photograph 6
With the majority of the bands at the festival having
guitarists, it was a challenge to come up with different compositions each
time. I had more room this time to compose, but decided to take the photograph
from the left of the stage at 100mm. This provided me with the angle to show
the face and not have it hidden by the microphone. This would have occurred if
I had selected to compose the photograph directly in front of the guitarist.
Photograph 7
This photograph was taken from some distance at 200mm. The
outside stage provided me with more room to compose and no issues with
increasing ISO. I wanted to catch the moment of the musician playing the
instrument.
Photograph 8
I composed this photograph to show the musician in full,
singing, playing and showing his facial expression. I did think about taking a
close up portrait photograph as well, but needed to take it before anyone
walked in front of my location. This proved virtually impossible and this
photograph was the only one I managed of this particular musician.
Photograph 9
I had to move between people and
tent posts to compose this photograph. The most difficult part was capturing
the guitarist playing on his own within the photograph, with no other band
members.
Photograph 10
This was another photograph where positioning yourself to
capture the moment was important. There were a few tent posts and this was the
busiest tent for the size of the audience. An ISO of 3200 was need due to the
low light conditions, but I feel I managed to get the action shot that I
planned.
I feel that my initial plans to
visit the music festival, with an idea to photograph sole musicians in a black
and white format has worked quite well. I know the grainy black and white
images are not unique for these types of photographs, but it works well here in
my opinion.
The collection of images is of
different people at the same event carrying out the same activity, which meets
the criteria set out for this assignment. It may well have been easier to
photograph the whole band, a mixture or even the general public, but I felt by
concentrating on photographing one musician at a time it would be more
challenging.
Assignment 2 – Tutor Feedback
Overall I am a little
disappointed with my tutor’s feedback for this assignment. The brief for this
assignment quite clearly stated that the subject should be in some form of
meaningful activity, which is why I concentrated on musicians actually playing
their instruments.
I had numerous photographs of the
people at the festival, but did not see this as being meaningful.
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