Evaluation
I have enjoyed shooting my photographs for the Major Study project over the last several months, even though I have had periods when I have felt my work isn't progressing quickly enough, but I believe that now, looking back to my initial research and recce stages, I believe that I have improved massively with this star photography technique since I started out in March.
As for my final photographs, I am happy with how they have come out, particularly after some work with Photoshop, the images really do stand out and give an accurate idea of what i saw when I went out in the evenings, which each time I went out, was something completely different, even though the same stars were always above me, the sky always looked different than it did the previous time I went out. As a result shooting the images was made incredibly hard as it was difficult to understand what settings were required in the camera to get the best photograph.
Most of the photoshoots went according to plan but as I wrote about in the blog entries, some didn't. Variables arose such as the intrusion of other people with torches, the appearance of Quad bikes and also the lens steaming issue I had back along. All these problems had to be overcome to make sure I produced some excellent images for the final submission, although it was difficult to go on after you realise that around 30 minutes of photographs have been ruined by a single quad bike going through your composition, quite irritating indeed!
But even with all the issues I had, considering the unreliable time frame I had to produce these images (waiting for clear evenings to shoot the photographs), I have produced some amazing images which show the full expanse of the sky above us, which many people just don't pay any attention to.
As for a contextual background and reason why I have shot the photographs, I would like to say that it has been a type of photography that i have waited a long time to do. As i already have an interest in astronomy and the night sky, I thought it would be appropriate for me to go out there and try to get a photograph which captures the mystery that is our night sky. I say 'mystery' because we pretty much know nothing, in reality, about what is up there and many people aren;t even aware of some of the name of the different constellations which are above us, so my reasoning for shooting my photographs by way of star trails rather than jsut the stars themselves, is to present the mystery of space and continue that idea the space is mysterious and largely unexplored by humans on earth.
As I described early on in my blog, my family have had an interest in Astronomy which has probably led me to have the interest I have today, so I want to present my work to my family and also as a new type of fine art photography which can be displayed in a gallery format for many people to see.
While I have worked on this project, I have looked at several different artists which have helped give contextual reasoning to my photographs, such as the work by Van Gogh, as I discussed in the blog entry, he uses a similar composition technique to me, even in a totally different artistic creation of a painting. So it is true that artworks can link, even when they are created by different means.
Bibliography
This section contains all of the links and books which I used throughout my project for research and illustration purposes:
Web sources
Chrystel Lebas
www.chrystellebas.com
Various Photographers
www.danheller.com
Illustrational Images
http://www.glyphweb.com/esky/stars/polaris.html
www.wikimedia.com
http://graemesdesigns.com/lsdartmoor.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon
http://www.artquotes.net/masters/salvador-dali/the-persistence-of-memory.jpg
Arnoud Quanjer
www.wildlifephotography.nl
Mapping
Microsoft Live Search
Multimap
Google Maps
Linda Connor
www.afterimagegallery.com
Books
Surrealism: Vilo Publishing 2001
The Photo Book: Phaidon 1997
The complete guide to Night and Low Light Photography: D&C 1999
The complete guide to Night and Low Light Digital Photography: Micheal Freeman - Ilex 2008
Lighting the Landscape: Berkhauser 2004
Saturday 6 June 2009
Friday 5 June 2009
My final Chosen Images
These are the final images I have chosen for my project which will be displayed in the Summer Show later in the year.
The plan I initially have is to display my image of Hound Tor at about an A2 size, while the other images will be at about A3 to supplement the main image.
I chose this particular arrangement as I want the image of Hound Tor to be the most prominent, as it depicts the amazing star trails in all their glory and it is important to have at least one image at a reletively large size which will give a good impression of how amazing this photographic technique is.
Job done!
Images shot by Matt Thorne 2009
The plan I initially have is to display my image of Hound Tor at about an A2 size, while the other images will be at about A3 to supplement the main image.
I chose this particular arrangement as I want the image of Hound Tor to be the most prominent, as it depicts the amazing star trails in all their glory and it is important to have at least one image at a reletively large size which will give a good impression of how amazing this photographic technique is.
Job done!
Images shot by Matt Thorne 2009
Wednesday 3 June 2009
Contextualising my Project
I have decided to write this entry which describes a little about why I chose to study stars and the night sky for my Major Study Project.
Freedom
Whenever I see stars above, I feel a certain degree of freedom from the life in which I live, I can look up and ignore any happenings on Earth, any problems, any issues or any deadlines or anything which is happening in my life can all be ignored for a moment while I look into the sky to see the most amazing natural spectacle, which many people ignore day to day, throughout their lives.
I find myself to be a photographer who likes to have a cartain plan on what I want to produce and also be fully aware of the type of photograph I should come away with, although I am not afraid to photograph any changing subjects as I also have an interest in journalism photography, I just find it more relaxing and rewarding to take photographs which require lots of subtle techniqal skill, but result in a very mysterious and detailed image at the end.
When I am out shooting these photographs, I experience a type of freedom from daily life which is only matched by a holiday away from my hometown, so I do feel very relaxed and do enjoy to shoot these photographs, so that everyone can see the amazing sky which is visible when many people have gone to sleep.
Meaning
My photographs have a deep meaning attached to them which presents how we live in our world today. We still appreciate landmarks, important sculptures and natural monuments across the UK, but often if you live nearby, the importance of the site is lost, so with my photography, I want to bring back the importance of various monuments and structures byt presenting them in a much more mysterious way, by using the night sky and blanket of darkness to bring mystery to the locations.
Anyway each of my photographs has it's own meaning which should leap from the picture itself, but as a set of images I have tried to intertwine a strong presence of how the objects I have photographed, all have a connection with the sky above by essentially pointing up at it; the rock formations, the building and the pylon all point towards the large expanse of the sky and stars above, essentially bringing the expanse into perspective with our real world object. As each star is as big as our sun, but when put alongside a stone structure or man made object, they all look so small and insignificant, so the composition also plays with the appearance of perspective and scale.
Similarities
My work relates closely to that of Christel Lebas, who I looked at a little earlier in my project. Her work is very much about being at one with her environment and features different parts of Europe in a surreal lighting setup, normally at night. She uses long shutter speeds to produce light trails as I have done in my work.
From Lebas' work I can see that she has an eye for a surreal image and has the ability to shoot a mysterious photograph with little in terms of foreground interest, but still the photograph captures enough of the 'mystery' which is in the situation at the time. This is how I have presented my images, with a fixed but small amount of foreground interest, but the viewer is led almost directly into the vortex that is the star trails above the foreground, which intially grabs the viewer's attention.
Freedom
Whenever I see stars above, I feel a certain degree of freedom from the life in which I live, I can look up and ignore any happenings on Earth, any problems, any issues or any deadlines or anything which is happening in my life can all be ignored for a moment while I look into the sky to see the most amazing natural spectacle, which many people ignore day to day, throughout their lives.
I find myself to be a photographer who likes to have a cartain plan on what I want to produce and also be fully aware of the type of photograph I should come away with, although I am not afraid to photograph any changing subjects as I also have an interest in journalism photography, I just find it more relaxing and rewarding to take photographs which require lots of subtle techniqal skill, but result in a very mysterious and detailed image at the end.
When I am out shooting these photographs, I experience a type of freedom from daily life which is only matched by a holiday away from my hometown, so I do feel very relaxed and do enjoy to shoot these photographs, so that everyone can see the amazing sky which is visible when many people have gone to sleep.
Meaning
My photographs have a deep meaning attached to them which presents how we live in our world today. We still appreciate landmarks, important sculptures and natural monuments across the UK, but often if you live nearby, the importance of the site is lost, so with my photography, I want to bring back the importance of various monuments and structures byt presenting them in a much more mysterious way, by using the night sky and blanket of darkness to bring mystery to the locations.
Anyway each of my photographs has it's own meaning which should leap from the picture itself, but as a set of images I have tried to intertwine a strong presence of how the objects I have photographed, all have a connection with the sky above by essentially pointing up at it; the rock formations, the building and the pylon all point towards the large expanse of the sky and stars above, essentially bringing the expanse into perspective with our real world object. As each star is as big as our sun, but when put alongside a stone structure or man made object, they all look so small and insignificant, so the composition also plays with the appearance of perspective and scale.
Similarities
My work relates closely to that of Christel Lebas, who I looked at a little earlier in my project. Her work is very much about being at one with her environment and features different parts of Europe in a surreal lighting setup, normally at night. She uses long shutter speeds to produce light trails as I have done in my work.
From Lebas' work I can see that she has an eye for a surreal image and has the ability to shoot a mysterious photograph with little in terms of foreground interest, but still the photograph captures enough of the 'mystery' which is in the situation at the time. This is how I have presented my images, with a fixed but small amount of foreground interest, but the viewer is led almost directly into the vortex that is the star trails above the foreground, which intially grabs the viewer's attention.
Monday 1 June 2009
Scarring Our Landscape - Pylons 29th May 2009
To add to my project, I have also decided to study how man has impacted on the environment by building objects which serve a purpose all across the landscape. Buildings such as Wheal Betsy, which I looked at a while back in my studies have previously served a purpose for the company which had the mine built, but it has now fallen into dis repair and has become a relic of Devon's mining past.
As for the pylon, this object serves a very important purpose for people in the modern world, it effortlessly transfers thousands of volts of electricity instantly across the country providing everyone with power for their televisins, irons, kettles and ovens, allowing daily chores to be carried out quickly and easily.
These pylons stand tall over our natural landscape here in devon and act as a manmade skeleton which scars the beautiful landscapes all around the area, although some may argue that their use is more important than their effects, with which I agree.
The inclusion of pylons into this project may not initially seem relevant to the rest of the project but when you look at what I have studied so far, the pylon is the obvious next step for me to study. As I have moved through from many ancient stone formations on Dartmoor, I have now made my way through newer constructions such as the mine shaft and now, the pylon at Bovey Tracey which completes my journey.
Anyway My first expedition took me to just outside Bovey Tracey on the Hennock Road where the large pylons run through the Teign Valley, I found an opening where I could see a decent viewpoint for Polaris.
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600
As always, I shot a sample photograph on the normal settings above to see what the conditions were like and understand what sort of settings I needed for the longer string of photographs, which would then be used for the image stacking technique.
I need to reshoot this photo and get another sample:
Photo Factfile
Shutter: 4 Minutes
Aperture: f5.0
ISO: 1600
The second photo is a better exposure so I went ahead with 3 minute exposures set at f 5.0 and an ISO setting of 100.
After shooting around 20 photographs I finished the trip and headed home.
Here is the result of a commbination of 7 good quality images which I chose from the batch:
Here is the image after I changed the exposure slightly to bring out more details:
Why Leave the light pollution?
I have left it this way as I want to show how human intervention has changed the appearance of our natural landscapes, whereas in the other images I wanted to reduce the effects of light pollution to create a more natural environment, this image contrasts the others in a bigger way. By keeping the light pollution in the background, it also provides a backlight for the pylon which makes it appear more 3d in the image rather than being lost into the dark sky above.
As for the pylon, this object serves a very important purpose for people in the modern world, it effortlessly transfers thousands of volts of electricity instantly across the country providing everyone with power for their televisins, irons, kettles and ovens, allowing daily chores to be carried out quickly and easily.
These pylons stand tall over our natural landscape here in devon and act as a manmade skeleton which scars the beautiful landscapes all around the area, although some may argue that their use is more important than their effects, with which I agree.
The inclusion of pylons into this project may not initially seem relevant to the rest of the project but when you look at what I have studied so far, the pylon is the obvious next step for me to study. As I have moved through from many ancient stone formations on Dartmoor, I have now made my way through newer constructions such as the mine shaft and now, the pylon at Bovey Tracey which completes my journey.
Anyway My first expedition took me to just outside Bovey Tracey on the Hennock Road where the large pylons run through the Teign Valley, I found an opening where I could see a decent viewpoint for Polaris.
Photo FactfileShutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600
As always, I shot a sample photograph on the normal settings above to see what the conditions were like and understand what sort of settings I needed for the longer string of photographs, which would then be used for the image stacking technique.
I need to reshoot this photo and get another sample:
Photo FactfileShutter: 4 Minutes
Aperture: f5.0
ISO: 1600
The second photo is a better exposure so I went ahead with 3 minute exposures set at f 5.0 and an ISO setting of 100.
After shooting around 20 photographs I finished the trip and headed home.
Here is the result of a commbination of 7 good quality images which I chose from the batch:
Here is the image after I changed the exposure slightly to bring out more details:
Why Leave the light pollution?
I have left it this way as I want to show how human intervention has changed the appearance of our natural landscapes, whereas in the other images I wanted to reduce the effects of light pollution to create a more natural environment, this image contrasts the others in a bigger way. By keeping the light pollution in the background, it also provides a backlight for the pylon which makes it appear more 3d in the image rather than being lost into the dark sky above.
Thursday 14 May 2009
The Main photo shoot at Wheal Betsy 12th May 09
I decided to use the mine shaft which I previously visited at the end of April as my foreground interest for this evening's star photography. As the cloud moved away during the late afternoon I prepared my equipment so I could easily jump in the car and head up onto the moor and produce a good photograph.
The mine shaft is around 30 minutes drive from my home in Plymouth so I left at around 10pm to arrive at the location at 10 30pm when the dusk light will have dissapeared reveiling the full extent of the stars above.
I arrived and parked my car on the farm access road and made my way up the hill to the disused tower to set my equipment up on the South facing side, facing North. As always, setting up the equipment was difficult with only torch light to help me so I had to be careful not to move things too far from where I was working as to not forget about them and lose them.
I decided to shoot my sample image as always and here it is below:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600
The image shows that the standard period of time will be fine for exposing the full image stack, while I also used the sample image to check focusing and composition which I have changed slightly in the following image, show with the same settings, but just to check the composition was acceptable:
I was happy with this composition so I moved on to start the 8 minute exposure and then follow it with up to 20 4 minute exposures which wouldgive me some long star trails in the sky above:
Unfortunately around 20 minutes in, a quad bike made it's way straight through the image, so essentially meant I had to start over after seeing how this problem affected the Haytor images I produced. So I decided to continue with the 4 minute exposures for around 45 minutes, until i noticed a cloud drifting over from Plymouth towards the stars I was shooting, which was guaranteed to ruin the photograph. I took steps to try to complete my shoot by 12:30am as I predicted the cloud would take this long to approach.
I started by upping the ISO number to 200 instead of 100 and also shooting my 8 minute foreground exposure before I ran out of time!
Eventually the cloud made it's way over the composition and I was forced to stop shooting for the night, but I did manage to get enough photographs to work with so I was pleased I hadn't wasted 3 hours out on the freezing cold moorland.
Anyway below is a stacked image featuring all the photographs shot after the quad bike came through:
It is again, well composed but lacks any punch so I need to put it into photoshop and see if I can bring some more colour and kick out of the image through use of the different adjustment masks.
Photoshop
This section looks at how I edited the final image above into something with much more depth and colour rather than just the ambient lighting in the background, so here is how I did it all :)
Curves
I again used the Curves adjustment to increase contrast within the image and bring out the deep blue in the sky as well as bring out details in the building, all these changes gave the photograph more depth and clarity than before:
Hue/Saturation
I used this adjustment to knock out some of the Red in the photograph, as the ambient light took on a different tone than previously in other photo shoots. So I went ahead and reduced the saturation of the Red channel to -60 reducing the incredible colour cast on the whole image:
Again I did some changes with the Blue channel and increased the saturation in the blues, although this wasn't required as much, due to the changes in Contrast which I made earlier:
Final Image
Below is the final image! the result of the editing above which is clearly very different to my initial stacked image from earlier.
I am very happy with it's appearance since I have edited the image as the stars now stand out but still sit behind the silhouette of the old pumping station, so they aren't too prominent, they appear about the same as the building.
I really like how the shape of the building adds mystery to the photograph and how there are no lights in the building, clearly showing that it is lonely and derelict in the mass expanse of the moorland around us.
The star trails behind the building show how the structure stands through time without any change, even the 'slouch' in the chimney will probably remain for hundreds of years to come before it finally falls down. But my image does lead the viewer to think about time and how many photographs don't capture it... if you would like to know more about this, take a look at my blog entry about Time :)
The composition also follws in line with the previous image of Hound Tor where the foreground subject features on the right, with the star trails able to fill the other three corners of the image. I am aware of the continuity but I think it is important for my photographs to follow this rule because then they will portray a much stronger message.
The mine shaft is around 30 minutes drive from my home in Plymouth so I left at around 10pm to arrive at the location at 10 30pm when the dusk light will have dissapeared reveiling the full extent of the stars above.
I arrived and parked my car on the farm access road and made my way up the hill to the disused tower to set my equipment up on the South facing side, facing North. As always, setting up the equipment was difficult with only torch light to help me so I had to be careful not to move things too far from where I was working as to not forget about them and lose them.
I decided to shoot my sample image as always and here it is below:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600
The image shows that the standard period of time will be fine for exposing the full image stack, while I also used the sample image to check focusing and composition which I have changed slightly in the following image, show with the same settings, but just to check the composition was acceptable:
I was happy with this composition so I moved on to start the 8 minute exposure and then follow it with up to 20 4 minute exposures which wouldgive me some long star trails in the sky above:
Unfortunately around 20 minutes in, a quad bike made it's way straight through the image, so essentially meant I had to start over after seeing how this problem affected the Haytor images I produced. So I decided to continue with the 4 minute exposures for around 45 minutes, until i noticed a cloud drifting over from Plymouth towards the stars I was shooting, which was guaranteed to ruin the photograph. I took steps to try to complete my shoot by 12:30am as I predicted the cloud would take this long to approach.
I started by upping the ISO number to 200 instead of 100 and also shooting my 8 minute foreground exposure before I ran out of time!
Eventually the cloud made it's way over the composition and I was forced to stop shooting for the night, but I did manage to get enough photographs to work with so I was pleased I hadn't wasted 3 hours out on the freezing cold moorland.
Anyway below is a stacked image featuring all the photographs shot after the quad bike came through:
It is again, well composed but lacks any punch so I need to put it into photoshop and see if I can bring some more colour and kick out of the image through use of the different adjustment masks.
Photoshop
This section looks at how I edited the final image above into something with much more depth and colour rather than just the ambient lighting in the background, so here is how I did it all :)
Curves
I again used the Curves adjustment to increase contrast within the image and bring out the deep blue in the sky as well as bring out details in the building, all these changes gave the photograph more depth and clarity than before:
Hue/Saturation
I used this adjustment to knock out some of the Red in the photograph, as the ambient light took on a different tone than previously in other photo shoots. So I went ahead and reduced the saturation of the Red channel to -60 reducing the incredible colour cast on the whole image:
Again I did some changes with the Blue channel and increased the saturation in the blues, although this wasn't required as much, due to the changes in Contrast which I made earlier:
Final Image
Below is the final image! the result of the editing above which is clearly very different to my initial stacked image from earlier.
I am very happy with it's appearance since I have edited the image as the stars now stand out but still sit behind the silhouette of the old pumping station, so they aren't too prominent, they appear about the same as the building.
I really like how the shape of the building adds mystery to the photograph and how there are no lights in the building, clearly showing that it is lonely and derelict in the mass expanse of the moorland around us.
The star trails behind the building show how the structure stands through time without any change, even the 'slouch' in the chimney will probably remain for hundreds of years to come before it finally falls down. But my image does lead the viewer to think about time and how many photographs don't capture it... if you would like to know more about this, take a look at my blog entry about Time :)
The composition also follws in line with the previous image of Hound Tor where the foreground subject features on the right, with the star trails able to fill the other three corners of the image. I am aware of the continuity but I think it is important for my photographs to follow this rule because then they will portray a much stronger message.
Monday 11 May 2009
Hound Tor 9th May 09
The sky was clear yet again so I packed up all my equipment and headed up onto the moor, this time I went over to Hound Tor, very near to Bowerman's Nose, in fact, from the top of the Tor I can imagine the Nose would be visible, although at 10pm not very much was visible to me.
Tonight I was also joined by Alex who helped carry a few of the bits and pieces up to the tor from the car park, we also brought some drinks and food to keep us busy while the photograph was being taken.
The video below discusses Hound Tor and the positioning of the camera and North Star:
For this photo shoot, I did bring a Hasselblad 500CM with me to try to get a photograph of the stars as well, I set the camera up with a 50mm wide angle lens which easily allowed me to get the whole rock face in which I could see with the Canon Digital Camera. I used another tripod to support this camera and loaded the film into the cassette at the back. More about this later.
Anyway firstly I shot some sample images with my digital camera to make sure the lighting and exposure were correct so that I could begin the long process of shooting for stacking.
Here are the tripods, one which has the Hasselblad on ready to shoot, while the other tripod was being used for the digital camera:
A closer image of the Hasselblad:
Sample Photos
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 1600
This image was shot using the standard sample photo settings although it has been overexposed, all the details in the sky have been lost, while the composition of the foreground rock is quite poor, so this sample image gives me a chance to change these errors so the photos taken for the stack, will look the best they can:
I did a few variations on the standard 5 minute exposure to find out if I needed a slightly different setup. For the image below I used the following settings:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600
These settings gave me a better image, which has also been edited in terms of composition, so that the rock is more prominent in the foreground of the image. I used the following table to understand how long the exposure would need to be, based on the ISO number:
ISO | Timescale
100 128 minutes
200 32 minutes
400 16 minutes
800 8 minutes
1600 4 minutes
For this particular photo shoot, I decided to go for the full 128 minute exposure time, as it wasn't too bad an evening and I believe it would be worth the time. As the moon was rising quickly I decided to get going with the stack images.
The video below briefly talks about how the Moon can have an effect on my image shooting throughout the night:
Starting the Shoot
As I am following some of the rules I read back in the article I added about stacking images, I shot an initial 8 minute exposure to give the foreground some more lighting which would help it stand out in the final stacked image at the end:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 8 minutes
Aperture: f4.5
ISO: 100
I went for the slightly smaller aperture to reduce the overall exposure slightly, as I still believe it is slightly overexposed according to the 4 minute test shot I did earlier.
After completing the 8 minute exposure, it was now time to continue with at least 15x4 minute exposures which would form the image stack later in Photoshop, here is a sample 4 minute image, bearing in mind the others look exactly the same except for a marginal star movement above:
The Hasselblad Medium Format Camera
I did try to use this camera while I was up at the rock, unfortunately it was just too difficult to get any decent results with the camera, I couldn't properly make out what was being framed in the focus square and I had to concentrate on the photos being taken with the digital camera, so unfortunately, I had to let the Hasselblad fall by the wayside as I concentrated on the digital camera. Although by no means do I think the Hasselblad isn't up to the job, I just think it requires more attention than I could give it, in order to produce an amazing photograph, I will still be using the medium format camera in the future to shoot star photographs.
As i sat and waited for the photographs to be taken, I was talking to Alex about the conditions on the night, they were excellent, exactly the right brightness, not too much interference from the moon as yet at least and it wasn't too windy or too cold for a change!
I also got talking to him about how it is such a timeless environment which isn't affected by time at all, the only way anyone can tell that my photos are shot over a long period of time, is how the stars rotate in the sky, as these photos can well be mistaken for photos taken during the daytime if they are overexposed. The idea of 'timeless photography' is being presented through my work as the artifacts I am using to act as foreground subjects, have stood for many years unchanged by any humans. The artifacts are protected for people in the future to enjoy, which leads me to consider how my photos could be seen in the future? Will they have a place in the future? Will we need photographs? I will look into this deeper in a Thoughts.. Blog entry after this one.
The Stacked Image
Now it is time to gather my images together and create an image stack with them. By using the exact same technique I mentioned earlier in the blog, i will proceed to add all the images into a single image:
Below is a contact sheet, showing all the images I shot on the night to make up the sample images and the stackable images:
The result of the stacking is shown above, a very dull and 2D image which is very well composed and exposed, but simply lacks any 'kick' and doesn't stand out, so this is where Photoshop comes in.
The image below has been edited using Photoshop, changes are described in more detail below the image:
Curves
Firstly I introduced a Curves Layer Mask to edit the contrast within the image, the print screen shows how I changed the Curves below:
I created a 'S' curve which heightens the contrast in the image giving it more 'punch' and depth than it previously had. I also selected the Blue Channel to further improve the contrast in the image and bring out the blue colour in the background of the image.
Levels
To increase the lighting in the photograph, which has been knocked out by the curves editing, I moved the right hand slider towards the left to increase the lighting in the image and give it some more depth:
Hue/Saturation
This also needed a little bit of work. Take a look at the original image and you ll be able to see the heavy yellow colour cast over the rock face, this is apparent in many of the shots I have taken on the moor and this is an easy way to correct it.
I used the Yellow colour channel and dropped the saturation of yellow out to zero and also gave the overall Master channel a slight drop in saturation as the colours just looked to 'over the top' or too punchy:
Final Image
Below is the image after the editing I did above, as you can see, I haven't changed or cropped any features in the image as I did my very best to make the composition the way I wanted it to be, on location.
This image shows how the technique of stacking has come into it's own and given me this amazing image!
I am very impressed with this result and I am also glad I didn't leave it as it was and that I did have a go at trying to change the image with Photoshop.
I love how the deep blue sky above contrasts with the rock formation and also how the white star trails are very punchy and stand out in the void that is the sky at night.
The composition is the best it could be, if the image included anymore of the ground, it would reduce the effect of the vortex above and if there was to be any less of the Tor, it would have the illusion of floating in the foreground of the image which would also look incorrect.
This image has really inspired me that star photography is possible. I have had many setbacks such as the shoot at Bowerman's which failed due to the camera steaming up, this really deflated my hopes of ever getting a decent image, but since shooting this image I have high hopes for the next several weeks when I will try to get some more equally amazing images.
Tonight I was also joined by Alex who helped carry a few of the bits and pieces up to the tor from the car park, we also brought some drinks and food to keep us busy while the photograph was being taken.
The video below discusses Hound Tor and the positioning of the camera and North Star:
For this photo shoot, I did bring a Hasselblad 500CM with me to try to get a photograph of the stars as well, I set the camera up with a 50mm wide angle lens which easily allowed me to get the whole rock face in which I could see with the Canon Digital Camera. I used another tripod to support this camera and loaded the film into the cassette at the back. More about this later.
Anyway firstly I shot some sample images with my digital camera to make sure the lighting and exposure were correct so that I could begin the long process of shooting for stacking.
Here are the tripods, one which has the Hasselblad on ready to shoot, while the other tripod was being used for the digital camera:
A closer image of the Hasselblad:
Sample Photos
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 1600
This image was shot using the standard sample photo settings although it has been overexposed, all the details in the sky have been lost, while the composition of the foreground rock is quite poor, so this sample image gives me a chance to change these errors so the photos taken for the stack, will look the best they can:
I did a few variations on the standard 5 minute exposure to find out if I needed a slightly different setup. For the image below I used the following settings:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 4 minutes
Aperture: f4.0
ISO: 1600
These settings gave me a better image, which has also been edited in terms of composition, so that the rock is more prominent in the foreground of the image. I used the following table to understand how long the exposure would need to be, based on the ISO number:
ISO | Timescale
100 128 minutes
200 32 minutes
400 16 minutes
800 8 minutes
1600 4 minutes
For this particular photo shoot, I decided to go for the full 128 minute exposure time, as it wasn't too bad an evening and I believe it would be worth the time. As the moon was rising quickly I decided to get going with the stack images.
The video below briefly talks about how the Moon can have an effect on my image shooting throughout the night:
Starting the Shoot
As I am following some of the rules I read back in the article I added about stacking images, I shot an initial 8 minute exposure to give the foreground some more lighting which would help it stand out in the final stacked image at the end:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 8 minutes
Aperture: f4.5
ISO: 100
I went for the slightly smaller aperture to reduce the overall exposure slightly, as I still believe it is slightly overexposed according to the 4 minute test shot I did earlier.
After completing the 8 minute exposure, it was now time to continue with at least 15x4 minute exposures which would form the image stack later in Photoshop, here is a sample 4 minute image, bearing in mind the others look exactly the same except for a marginal star movement above:
The Hasselblad Medium Format Camera
I did try to use this camera while I was up at the rock, unfortunately it was just too difficult to get any decent results with the camera, I couldn't properly make out what was being framed in the focus square and I had to concentrate on the photos being taken with the digital camera, so unfortunately, I had to let the Hasselblad fall by the wayside as I concentrated on the digital camera. Although by no means do I think the Hasselblad isn't up to the job, I just think it requires more attention than I could give it, in order to produce an amazing photograph, I will still be using the medium format camera in the future to shoot star photographs.
As i sat and waited for the photographs to be taken, I was talking to Alex about the conditions on the night, they were excellent, exactly the right brightness, not too much interference from the moon as yet at least and it wasn't too windy or too cold for a change!
I also got talking to him about how it is such a timeless environment which isn't affected by time at all, the only way anyone can tell that my photos are shot over a long period of time, is how the stars rotate in the sky, as these photos can well be mistaken for photos taken during the daytime if they are overexposed. The idea of 'timeless photography' is being presented through my work as the artifacts I am using to act as foreground subjects, have stood for many years unchanged by any humans. The artifacts are protected for people in the future to enjoy, which leads me to consider how my photos could be seen in the future? Will they have a place in the future? Will we need photographs? I will look into this deeper in a Thoughts.. Blog entry after this one.
The Stacked Image
Now it is time to gather my images together and create an image stack with them. By using the exact same technique I mentioned earlier in the blog, i will proceed to add all the images into a single image:
Below is a contact sheet, showing all the images I shot on the night to make up the sample images and the stackable images:
The result of the stacking is shown above, a very dull and 2D image which is very well composed and exposed, but simply lacks any 'kick' and doesn't stand out, so this is where Photoshop comes in.
The image below has been edited using Photoshop, changes are described in more detail below the image:
Curves
Firstly I introduced a Curves Layer Mask to edit the contrast within the image, the print screen shows how I changed the Curves below:
I created a 'S' curve which heightens the contrast in the image giving it more 'punch' and depth than it previously had. I also selected the Blue Channel to further improve the contrast in the image and bring out the blue colour in the background of the image.
Levels
To increase the lighting in the photograph, which has been knocked out by the curves editing, I moved the right hand slider towards the left to increase the lighting in the image and give it some more depth:
Hue/Saturation
This also needed a little bit of work. Take a look at the original image and you ll be able to see the heavy yellow colour cast over the rock face, this is apparent in many of the shots I have taken on the moor and this is an easy way to correct it.
I used the Yellow colour channel and dropped the saturation of yellow out to zero and also gave the overall Master channel a slight drop in saturation as the colours just looked to 'over the top' or too punchy:
Final Image
Below is the image after the editing I did above, as you can see, I haven't changed or cropped any features in the image as I did my very best to make the composition the way I wanted it to be, on location.
This image shows how the technique of stacking has come into it's own and given me this amazing image!
I am very impressed with this result and I am also glad I didn't leave it as it was and that I did have a go at trying to change the image with Photoshop.
I love how the deep blue sky above contrasts with the rock formation and also how the white star trails are very punchy and stand out in the void that is the sky at night.
The composition is the best it could be, if the image included anymore of the ground, it would reduce the effect of the vortex above and if there was to be any less of the Tor, it would have the illusion of floating in the foreground of the image which would also look incorrect.
This image has really inspired me that star photography is possible. I have had many setbacks such as the shoot at Bowerman's which failed due to the camera steaming up, this really deflated my hopes of ever getting a decent image, but since shooting this image I have high hopes for the next several weeks when I will try to get some more equally amazing images.
Friday 8 May 2009
The Barbican, Plymouth 6th May 09
As a totally separate project, I decided to visit the Barbican, which is a location in Plymouth near the Hoe and also the harbour. The reasoning behind wanting to visit this location is because I have been considering how my star photography could be related to activities in the centre of a metropolitan area. Basically so the two completely different settings would contrast with each other and create a good mix of night time photography to show in my final show in Summer 2009.
With these images I wanted to show built up areas with all their artificial lighting still feature the massive expanse of space above which is largely unexplored by us, while we all go about our daily lives in these small areas such as on the Barbican in Plymouth.
As for composition, these photographs would again be shot in a portrait style with the sky above featuring in at least 1/3 of the image and the port area featuring in the bottom proportion. The area of man-made structures will feature many artificial light sources such as lamp posts, interior lighting and other light sources on at the time.
Here are some of the images which I shot to try to get to grips with how the idea would pan out:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 10 seconds
Aperture: f8.0
ISO: 100
This image only shows the buildings and the artificial lighting being produced by them, which doesn't show the expanse of the sky above, so doesn't fulfill the idea I discussed above:
Whereas the image below, does begin to fulfil the idea as the moon can be seen drifting in and out from the cloud cover above while the foreground subject is overexposed due to the ambient light, so getting a photograph which makes the most of both the sky and the foreground is difficult:
Composition
I did decide to move the camera slightly to make the most of some foreground interest which I found nearby, in the shape of these railing shown in the photograph below:
Having shot the photograph, I found it very difficult to get a medium exposure which took into account the foreground and background of the image, as now it featured three different elements: the railings, the buildings and the sky.
With the image below, I tried to bring out the details in the sky by capturing the moon when it appeared from behind the cloud and followed it through till it went behind the clouds again:
Then for my final attempt, I allowed the shutter to stay open for a little longer to get more detail amongst the clouds above giving me this effect below:
The Vibe Cafe/Bar
I decided to move locations and see what I could get from a slightly different angle, I found this bar a little way from where I was originally stood which gave off a different lighting than your normal orange glow so made about composing it into an image with the moon in the background:
I tried some different photographs as shown above, which were taken from the bottom of a stairway outside the bar, I really do like the composition in the photograph but I just can't see now how it would work with my star trail photography, it is completely different.
Unfortunately with these photographs taken on the Barbican in Plymouth, i couldn't really see how they would fit with my other images of the star trails, so I have decided to cease my development of this idea as it simply doesn't sit alongside my star trail photography. I may well choose to look at this in the future as I can see, with a little more work, I can produce some good images here, however for now I am going to stick with my star trails to make sure my project doesn't lead off on a tangent.
With these images I wanted to show built up areas with all their artificial lighting still feature the massive expanse of space above which is largely unexplored by us, while we all go about our daily lives in these small areas such as on the Barbican in Plymouth.
As for composition, these photographs would again be shot in a portrait style with the sky above featuring in at least 1/3 of the image and the port area featuring in the bottom proportion. The area of man-made structures will feature many artificial light sources such as lamp posts, interior lighting and other light sources on at the time.
Here are some of the images which I shot to try to get to grips with how the idea would pan out:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 10 seconds
Aperture: f8.0
ISO: 100
This image only shows the buildings and the artificial lighting being produced by them, which doesn't show the expanse of the sky above, so doesn't fulfill the idea I discussed above:
Whereas the image below, does begin to fulfil the idea as the moon can be seen drifting in and out from the cloud cover above while the foreground subject is overexposed due to the ambient light, so getting a photograph which makes the most of both the sky and the foreground is difficult:
Composition
I did decide to move the camera slightly to make the most of some foreground interest which I found nearby, in the shape of these railing shown in the photograph below:
Having shot the photograph, I found it very difficult to get a medium exposure which took into account the foreground and background of the image, as now it featured three different elements: the railings, the buildings and the sky.
With the image below, I tried to bring out the details in the sky by capturing the moon when it appeared from behind the cloud and followed it through till it went behind the clouds again:
Then for my final attempt, I allowed the shutter to stay open for a little longer to get more detail amongst the clouds above giving me this effect below:
The Vibe Cafe/Bar
I decided to move locations and see what I could get from a slightly different angle, I found this bar a little way from where I was originally stood which gave off a different lighting than your normal orange glow so made about composing it into an image with the moon in the background:
I tried some different photographs as shown above, which were taken from the bottom of a stairway outside the bar, I really do like the composition in the photograph but I just can't see now how it would work with my star trail photography, it is completely different.
Unfortunately with these photographs taken on the Barbican in Plymouth, i couldn't really see how they would fit with my other images of the star trails, so I have decided to cease my development of this idea as it simply doesn't sit alongside my star trail photography. I may well choose to look at this in the future as I can see, with a little more work, I can produce some good images here, however for now I am going to stick with my star trails to make sure my project doesn't lead off on a tangent.
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