Exercise 9: Scene Dynamic Range

Having not enjoyed the previous exercise I decided to give it another go to see whether I could get any better results - I achieved a 4 stop difference which was even worse than my previous result! With this in mind I decided not to complete this exercise. I did do some more reading about dynamic range however.

In his book 'Perfect Exposure', (Ilex 2009) Michael Freeman discusses dynamic range and how this relates to exposure extensively. He defines dynamic range as "the ratio between the maximum and minimum luminance values in a scene or in an image." He also concludes that "the highest image quality in digital photography comes from using the full dynamic range of the sensor to capture the full range of the scene." I am unsure about this statement. "highest image quality" seems a particularly loaded phrase and while I think I understand what Freeman is asserting I do not think I share his valuation of what makes an image of the highest quality. As I became more interested in photography I become less worried about making images that comply with an accepted notion of aesthetic beauty and more concerned about how a picture can be more interesting because it breaks convention. For example, previously I would always select the lowest ISO setting I could to achieve the smoothest tonal values in my pictures (and what I thought was the highest quality.) Now, I find myself often using high ISO settings and have come to appreciate the immediacy noise can add to a picture.

Freeman continues to describe (what he considers) to be the 12 types of exposure situation and how recognising these in combination with an understanding of the cameras dynamic range can enable the photographer to select the desired exposure settings. He says that he arrived at this analysis through experience:

"the way we assess types of scenes subconsciously has been built up over time and is embedded somewhere in our brains"

Analysing a scene relies on understanding key tones (one or more areas of a scene that have commanding importance) and average tone (most people expect most subjects to be average in tone.)

1st Group - The Range Fits:

1. Range Fits - Average

The dynamic range of the scene fits the range of the sensor - histogram within 5-10% of the limits.

Good practice - take a test shot (especially for action.)

Technique - spot maximum highlight and minimum shadow in a scene and make a decision which to set exposure for.

2. Range Fits - Bright

Examples - snow, white walls, white clothing.

Average meter readings would not give the right result, use centre weighted on the key tone and positive exposure compensation.

3. Range Fits - Dark

Opposite approach to 2 to keep dark details black and not grey.

2nd Group - Low Range:

Atmospheric conditions diffuse light and act as a filter that even out tones in a scene e.g.. Haze, mist, fog, dust.

4. Low - Average

Histogram will be cantered with room either side, often 'bell' shaped.

Sometimes called flat lighting

5. Low - Bright

No important shadow areas.

Will often need positive exposure compensation to keep bright but danger of highlight clipping.

6. Low - Dark

Not common - mainly due to taste - people prefer light rather than dark images. Most low key images tend to have small bright tones which raise the dynamic range e.g.. Dusk, dawn, night, deep colours e.g.. Purple.

3rd Group - High Range:

Also referred to as over scaled or high contrast. Important to make decisions about clipping.

7. High Key - Average

Extreme mixture of tones, some clipping inevitable. Most common lighting situation when range is high.

8. High - Large Brighter

Subject matter brighter than average and the surroundings.

Technique - centre weighted and positive exposure compensation.

9. High - Small Brighter

Difficult to measure - spot metering best. Histogram of little use because small area of brightness displayed as relatively few pixels. When key tone small danger of over exposure - care needed to avoid clipping but high enough to show detail.

10. High - Edge Lit

Most specific, rarest and difficult lighting situation. Effect depends on situation e.g.. Thin edge may blow highlights, broader expose as light, not clipped.

Bright edge usually key tone meaning loss of shadow detail is often acceptable. (An example of a low key image)

11. High - Large Darker

Background will suffer from over exposure unless contrast dealt with by adding light or in software.

Very common e.g.. Outdoor scene with a band of sky.

Choices - expose for average tone or darker or silhouette.

12. High - Small Darker

Background always dominates here and is where exposure decisions should be taken.

Freeman brings his analysis of exposure situations with a description of Envision - being able to imagine how a scene will look if you give it a certain exposure:

1. Learn to discount your eyes efficiency at seeing detail in deep shadows and bright highlights as your camera cannot see both.
2. Be able to imagine how a scene will reproduce of given 'normal' or 'average' exposure.
3. Decide how you would like it to look.
4. Anticipate how it might look under different lighting conditions that are practically possible, such as change in the angle of sunlight or under controlled conditions by changing lighting.

While I find the information here interesting, even invaluable, it remains difficult to translate into practical application. The notes imply the ability to consider a scene carefully and make adjustments as necessary without time pressure. Unfortunately, in practice this is not often possible. I guess this is where experience comes to the fore and becomes key. I imagine accomplished photographers like Freeman are able to analyse a scene quickly and come make exposure decisions almost intuitively. I have a tendency not to think too much about the exposure settings I make, partly this is because experience means I have a clear idea of the result that will be achieved but also it I because I always shoot raw and know I have a certain latitude to be to alter exposure in processing. I have never worried about this but increasingly I am beginning to think this is laziness on my part - should I be striving to have a clearer understanding of what a photograph will look like when and attempting to get my camera settings as close as possible to this or is it okay to make these decisions at the computer screen? I do not think there is a right or wrong answer to this and experimentation is probably the best course of action. I will attempt to apply the knowledge gained here to my shooting however and see if the results are different.

Exercise 8: Your Camera's Dynamic Range

This exercise is one that I put off attempting for quite a while because of how complex it is and due to the fact that I saw little benefit in completing it. I produced a set up similar to the one described in the text, set the exposure compensation to +0.5, the point at which the camera's highlight warning began to show. I then took spot meter readings from the highlight area (represented by the white A3 drawing pad in the centre of the frame) and shadow area (the area inside the house.) The readings I got were 1/1000 @ f16 for the highlight area and 1/125@f5.6 for the shadows. Using a dynamic range calculator I found through an internet search.

I arrived at a difference of 6 stops between the shadow and highlight area - about half the dynamic range I had been led to believe my camera was capable of through various tests I had read! A quick examination of the image in Lightroom however showed that I should have taken a meter reading for the shadows from the area underneath the children's sand table at the front left of the image. This shows the inherent flaw in this exercise - it is an attempt to be quite scientific in analysing dynamic range and yet provides too many variables to give accurate data. My understanding of dynamic range comes purely from using my camera in different situations and gaining an idea of how it will behave. At the same time I need to decide which elements are most important in the frame and whether my cameras metering will be fooled into under or over exposing - I have learned that the eyes can often fool you into how light or dark a scene is and to use the histogram to judge whether a full range of tones will be recorded. Completing this exercise has done nothing to further my knowledge in this area, maybe this is because I am already familiar with the way my camera operates. I doubt whether I would attempt a repeat of this exercise with a new camera - I would probably experiment with how the it behaves in real situations to understand its strengths and limitations.

Exercise 7: Your Tolerance For Noise

For this exercise I fixed my camera on a tripod in front of my bookcase and took a series of photographs increasing the ISO setting with each shot. The subject I chose featured both light, dark, detailed and plain areas. I then examined each image at 100% to note the difference that the increased ISO setting had on each image.

ISO 200 - no noticeable noise

ISO 400 - no noticeable noise

ISO 800 - small amount of noise in shadow and coloured areas, particularly purple of Parr book and black areas.

ISO 1600 - noise starting to take on an artificial look, definition of writing on the books seems less sharp.

ISO 3200 - noise now obvious across whole of the image and now noticeable in lighter areas.

ISO 6400 - noise has a more speckled appearance and looks less natural.

ISO 12800 - noise very prominent and visible evident without viewing at closer magnification.

ISO 25600 - image appears very degraded throughout and decrease in saturation is evident.

Generally I would say my camera handles increased ISO well - I would have no issues using settings up to 1600 and 3200 does not represent significant degradation of image quality either. Often the ISO speed chosen is entirely dependent on circumstances when an image is taken - given bright enough conditions I would always choose the lowest setting possible as this gives the best quality and most versatile output for the final image. Recently I have began to shoot in automatic ISO mode in situations where the light is changing rapidly and a fast shutter speed is required - experience has taught me that increased noise in an image is a necessary compromise to achieving image sharpness.

Exercise 6: Highlight Clipping

For this exercise I chose to photograph my bathroom window during the day - the textured window pain distorted the outside detail making the image abstract while a large range of tones from dark to highlight were represented.

I fixed the camera on a tripod changing the exposure compensation +/- 4 EV (in the second row of images I have taken screenshots from Lightroom with the highlight and shadow clipping warnings selected - highlight shown in red, shadow in blue):

The default exposure setting the camera has chosen has generally exposed well for this scene with only slight overexposure in the extreme highlight area at the top left of the frame. At -1EV this is almost gone and at -2EV the highlight area is exposed correctly although there is a small amount of shadow clipping in the bottom left of the frame. As the exposure is decreased the blue/orange/yellow tones become more saturated in the picture, conversely the higher the exposure setting the more muted and washed out the tones appear. Examining each image at close magnified detail I found that the texture of the window is lost until -2EV, although this is not very noticeable at -1EV.

In the +EV range saturation decreases along with increased exposure compensation. The screenshots showing highlight clipping show clearly where detail is lost on the textured window.

For the next part of this exercise I experimented with the raw files adjusting the highlight and white sliders in Lightroom. At 0EV I found that most detail could be shown in the highlight areas but could not be completely returned. At -1EV full detail could be achieved although the resulting image was appeared much 'flatter' than the -2EV shot, the histograms were significantly different as well with the altered -1EV shot being compressed towards the left while the -2 EV shot contained a full range of tones from highlights to shadows. Using the exposure slider instead resulted in much more similar looking images without any obvious negative factors such as noise. There was a slight difference in colour saturation however with the -2EV picture appearing more natural. The 'best' result I achieved was decreasing the exposure in the -1EV image by one stop and then decreasing the highlight slider by -48.

Deciding which image has the 'correct' exposure is difficult - to my eye each of the shots has a different quality which appeals to my eye. In theory the -2EV image is the most correctly exposed as it has a full range of tones with neither shadow or highlights being clipped. This makes the picture very dark however with the histogram heavily weighted toward the left. The shot does have an appealing low key feel however and the colour saturation is pleasant. Although a small amount of detail is lost in the -1EV image this is my favourite as it has the best balance between highlight and shadow while having a good amount of contrast - for this image the loss of detail in the window texture does not really matter.

In manipulating the raw files of these images I could not really see any negative elements being introduced into the image such as noise. Despite this being a high contrast scene my camera has exposed the scene well, maintaining detail in both the highlights and shadows which leads me to think I should trust the cameras metering system because I will have a great deal of freedom to alter images in post production. This view does not take into account photographic intent however, and relies on the photographer making decisions about an images' use when at the computer. This concept is problematic for me - on the one hand received wisdom suggests notions like 'the decisive moment' and the idea that 'true' photographers only ever press the shutter when the picture is perfectly framed and exposed in the camera. While this is unrealistic, the opposite end of the spectrum is the photographer that snaps away at everything and then tries to make something of value out of this using software. This exercise has made me think a little more about where I sit on this spectrum. The truth is I fluctuate day to day. Currently I am trying not to get too hung up on overthinking and trying to follow my instincts more, pressing the shutter when I previously may not have.

Exercise 5: Sensor Linear capture

I must admit to feeling an element of 'interesting, but so what?' When I read through the notes for this exercise. Sensor linear capture refers to the way a digital camera's sensor records an image - basically in camera processing adjusts the tone curve of the image, if it did not do this the image would appear too dark. The exercise requires manipulation of an image's tone curve to simulate this and then the application of the opposite effect on the manipulated image before comparing the results.

Before beginning I decided to do some research in the hope that this might shed some light on why this exercise is important. Martin Evening in "The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book" (2010 Adobe Press) provides a good explanation. He asserts that all digital images contain data that is a linear representation of light hitting the sensor:

 "As the light intensity doubles, a sensor records a brightness level that is two times higher...human vision perceives things quite differently from the way a sensor sees and records light...our eyes compensate for increasing levels of brightness in a non linear fashion...Our human vision system is able to adapt to widely changing light levels by constantly compensating for such extremes."1

The way a sensor records light and represents image data looks very dark - even though it may be perfectly exposed. Therefore, in order for a digital capture to look right to our eyes the linear data must at some point be gamma corrected, that is effectively lightened at the mid point.

For further reading on linear capture Evening provides a link to an essay by Bruce Fraser on the Adobe.com website:"Raw capture, linear gamma and exposure."

The first paragraph provides an indication of why linear capture is important, Fraser states that by ignoring the way a digital camera captures an image you run the danger of "failing to exploit the camera's dynamic range, and creating exposures whose shadows are noisier than they need to be." He goes on to explain how levels are distributed in an image using the example of a 12 bit image with 4096 levels and 6 stops of dynamic range:

"If a camera captures six stops of dynamic range, half of the 4,096 levels are devoted to the brightest stop, half of the remainder (1,024 levels) are devoted to the next stop, half of the remainder (512 levels) are devoted to the next stop, and so on. The darkest stop, the extreme shadows, is represented by only 64 levels."

When the cameras processing is applied these levels are redistributed evenly across the image, hence if a photograph is underexposed to maintain the highlight detail the resulting raw conversion will have to open up the shadows and spread the darkest 64 levels over a wider tonal range which runs the risk of exaggerated noise and posterization. He suggests that the best exposure to achieve is one where the highlights are as close as possible to blowing out without actually doing so.

For the exercise I chose an close up image of a lego figure that had a full range of evenly distributed tones  in the histogram:

No adjustments

Linear image - curve adjusted

For this image I opened the photograph in Photoshop, converted to 16bit, made a curves adjustment with a steep but smooth downward curve which resulted in an under exposed image which simulates sensor linear capture.

'Restored' image - curve adjusted

For this image, I opened the saved version of the simulated linear capture image again converted to 16bit and made a curve adjustment opposite to that applied in the previous image, that is pushed up to increase brightness in a smooth curve.

I compared this image with the original until I achieved an equivalent result with a similar histogram.

No adjustment detail

Restored curve detail

Finally I examined the original and restored images at high magnification on screen. I found that there was evidence of increased noise and posterization in the shadow areas of the restored image. (The detail shots above show this a little although the effect is not pronounced.) I concluded that by performing these extreme adjustments on this image I was simulating trying to increase exposure on an underexposed image. I have always held the view, picked up from where I do not know, that it is important in digital photography to preserve highlight detail above all else as that cannot be recovered in post processing. I always believed that an underexposed image was preferable to an overexposed picture as underexposure is easier to compensate for in software. I guess this remains true, however, I am surprised at how few tones in an image are allocated to the dark and midtones. Correct exposure it seems is more of a minefield than I first thought the key to which I believe is understanding the image you want to create at the time of capture, understanding which tonal values are most important to the pictures success and using knowledge and experience to achieve this. In truth I rarely worry about exposure, my camera usually does a pretty good job and I always shoot raw so can alter the exposure in post processing if need be. This exercise is beginning to make me understand how little I actually consider exposure at the time of pressing the shutter and that I need to learn more about how my camera behaves if I want to produce optimum results.

At the end of this exercise I feel I understand more of how a digital camera's sensor captures an image. The true importance of this however is something I am guessing will become more significant as I explore the next few exercises which are concerned with highlight clipping, noise and dynamic range.

1 p.629 The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers by Martin Evening (2010 Adobe Press)

Exercise 4: Editing

For this exercise I wanted to apply what I had learned about workflow, selecting images and editing to a real life assignment rather than something I had come up with myself.

The opportunity for this came up when my cousin asked me to take some photographs for his wedding. The only brief I was given was to take a number of group family shots after the service, apart from that I said I would take a number of pictures with the view to covering the day.

The day after the wedding when I downloaded the images I was struck by a sense of purpose that I do not usually feel - I mostly photograph for myself either pursuing personal projects or taking images of my family and children. Because of this I often suffer from not editing my images properly: I have files of hundreds of pictures on my hard drive which are either not started or only partially completed in the editing process. As I discussed earlier I think a remedy to this is to have an output source for my pictures. For this project I needed to select the best images from the shoot, edit in Lightroom and Photoshop, print the best images and produce a photobook to show the narrative of the couples wedding day.

Stats:

1171 photographs taken in total

Technical Edit:

697 Selects

38 Deselects

Approach - I examined each photograph one by one in Lightroom and selected with a flag images I wanted to explore further. Images that did not strike me as selects were not chosen (for example compositionally not very interesting) images that had obvious technical issues were flagged as deselects.

First Selects:

468 one star or higher

352 two stars or higher

208 three stars or higher

75 four stars or higher

Approach - I examined each selected image in more detail, removing the flag if the picture did not hit the mark technically and/or compositionally. I then edited each image in Lightroom - adjusting crop, white balance, exposure, contrast and saturation as necessary. To aid further selection I rated each image. As mentioned previously, I mainly use rating as a way of indicating that I have edited an image. I rate images with 3 stars to denote 'average' using 2 stars to indicate an image with something of interest but also some sort of flaw and 4 stars to show above average. I never rate images with 5 stars at this point as I believe you need time to decide which images are the absolute best and also because the highest available rating is not something I wish to overuse.

At the same time as rating images I selected images I wanted to print with a blue label.

Output for print (blue label):

205

For the final stage of the process I had 6x4 prints made of the 205 images I had selected for printing. The main output for the couple was to be a 100 page photobook. I find that seeing an image printed greatly aids selection at this point, with individual prints it is also useful to be able to move them around and play with the order or place pictures side by side to decide on alternatives. For the photobook I wanted to feature the images in chronological order to show the events of the day as they happened so choices were mainly based around alternatives for similar shots.

Producing these images for someone else combined with the pictures being of such an important occasion for the couple was quite stressful. In the end I know my final selection of 468 images that I gave to the couple on cd is too many - my reasons for including this many is that I wanted them to have as many pictures of their day as I could give. I ended up spending so much time looking at, pondering over, selecting and editing the pictures that I eventually found it very difficult to be objective. I do not know how much this feeling is driven by my relationship with the bride and groom and by knowing many of the guests. I wonder if I would have found editing the images easier if they were less well known to me? On reflection I should have asked for feedback and advice more - I pretty much made all decisions about which images to select and which to choose for the photobook by my self. Asking someone else may have been of great benefit, perhaps I should have asked the couple for their opinion about which pictures they wanted to include in the album? The biggest mistake I made however was taking too long to complete my edit. I really need to find a strategy to complete work quicker and recognise the distractions that prevent me from doing this.

Exercise 3: Histogram

Before starting this exercise I felt I had a good grasp of what a histogram is - a graph which represents the tonal information in an image in levels of 0-255. A 'well exposed' image has a full range of tones (no gaps either side of the histogram) with the majority being in the middle. A histogram bunched to the left suggests under exposure, and to the right over exposure. This however relies on the idea that there is such a thing as 'correct exposure.' In 'Perfect Exposure', Michael Freeman observes "the best we can say about correctness in exposure is that there are norms that are accepted and expected by most people."1 In 'Photographers Eye' however he points out that "shadows and highlights can contribute strongly to the mood and atmosphere of a  photograph."2 He gives examples of low and high key images that seemingly break the rules of 'correct' exposure and yet are powerful and atmospheric.

For the exercise I had to take images of a low, average and high tonal contrast subject. My first consideration was how I can do this to produce comparable results - I would need to produce a set up that I could manipulate to demonstrate the different conditions required. The exercise also calls for exposures to be taken at +/- 1 EV to compare.

As I was daydreaming one day staring into the distance in my living room I was struck by the way the daylight dropped off against the corner of my window. I was struck with the idea that this could be the subject I was looking for - the corner under daylight conditions I imagined would approximate average contrast and I could introduce artificial light to create both higher and lower contrast.

1: Average contrast

Window light and shadow

0 EV

+1 EV

-1 EV

2: Low Contrast

Light shone on dark side of wall to balance tones

0 EV

+1 EV

-1 EV

3: High Contrast

Strong light shone on dark side

0EV

+1EV

-1 EV

Observations:

The histograms in each sequence behave in the way I expected with the high contrast set showing peaks at either end of the histogram, the average contrast being closer together and the low contrast being bunched in the centre. The low contrast image shows little difference in either the + or - EV shots while the average and high contrast pictures behave in a similar way with the +1 EV shot having less contrast and the -1 EV sot showing more contrast.

The difference between the high and average histograms is less than I expected and when I compare the images the high contrast shots seem much more evidently so than is suggested by the histogram. This is perhaps due to the intensity of the light source used and also the fact that I relied on the camera's matrix metering mode - perhaps I should have metered for the average shot and then set the exposure manually after that. I also had the camera set to automatic white balance and maybe should have also set this to a standard setting. The average contrast appears much warmer than the high contrast image which could partly account for how they are perceived differently.

Another explanation perhaps is that my perception of how much contrast there was in each set up was not accurate, that is my eyes and brain have compensated for reality and made me believe I have created the conditions necessary for this exercise but the reality was quite different. This indicates to me that the knowledge I think I possess is flawed - if I had looked at the histogram on the preview screen of my camera as I took these images I would have realised that I was not creating the correct conditions for the exercise. My belief that I was producing the correct conditions and my willingness to push ahead with the exercise have led to the mistake - the main learning I will take from this project is to consider more fully what is being asked in the brief and be less overly confident about where my level of knowledge sits. I also now realise I have much more to learn about the way my camera sees and records the world.

1 Perfect Exposure p.50, Michael Freeman

2 Photographers Eye p.110, Michael Freeman 

Exercise 2: Your Own Workflow 2

The brief for this exercise requires an approach that is the opposite of project 1: instead of conducting a photo shoot in a controlled environment in a planned way the aim is for a shooting assignment that is unstructured and open ended. A possible example given in the brief is street photography and this is a format I decided to use straight away. I have an interest in street photography, particularly candid shots, but rarely set out with the specific aim of taking street photographs. A lot of my photography fits around my family commitments, for example I may take a couple of candid shots when I am out and about with my children. This alleviates any pressure about pointing my camera at people I do not know but also works as a kind of security blanket which prevents me from developing my confidence.

For this exercise I decided to head into Durham city which is about 15 miles from my home. I chose Durham because the city centre is compact yet diverse in terms of locations. Durham also attracts a large number of tourists so I knew it would not be unusual for someone to be taking pictures and I would therefore feel comfortable walking around with my camera. I would only have a short amount of time (around an hour) to take the pictures as I needed to be back home, I decided to use only one lens for the shoot - a 24-70mm zoom, however I quickly doubted whether this was the best choice as the lens is quite large - perhaps the much more compact and less obtrusive 50mm lens would have been a better choice. The discipline of using a fixed focal length could also have been a benefit. My initial feelings when I took out my camera were a little unexpected, I felt distinctly uncomfortable and uncertain about what to photograph. I realised how rarely I put myself in this sort of position where my sole purpose is to take photographs, even when taking pictures that did not contain people I felt ill at ease.

My approach was extremely free form - I simply walked around the city centre taking pictures of anything that caught my eye. The exercise brief suggests editing images on the go for this project but I decided not to do this as my experience is that images can often look stronger on the cameras LCD than on the computer and conversely images which do not seem worthwhile can be found to have merit when downloaded onto the computer. With plenty of space on my memory card I felt no need to delete images as I shot, also, the process of reviewing pictures on the go would potentially spoil the pace of the shoot. My nervousness meant that I did not hang around in a particular location for long and the majority of my images have a 'snatched' quality about them. Potentially I would have benefited from staying longer in one location and exploring the opportunities. I also felt pressured by time, an hour seems like a lot of time to spend on a shoot until you are actually in the position of taking the pictures. I felt like I was just starting to get into a rhythm with the shoot by the time it had come to an end, I was also doubtful that I had been able to capture anything worthwhile. Towards the end of the shoot I employed a couple of strategies which I think with further work could have yielded results. Firstly, I stood on Framwellgate bridge which is the main pedestrian bridge through the city - I pretended to be taking pictures of the river Wear with the Cathedral and Castle in the background when I was really using these as background to my candid shots. Secondly, I took photographs around the statue of Charles Stewart on horseback in the market square. This is a busy area of the city with lots of movement and people interacting so I knew it would be a good place for candid shots.

At the end of the shoot I had taken 61 pictures. I knew that I would have little of merit from the shoot but felt I had learned a lot from the experience. Firstly that I am not as confident at street photography as I had thought and secondly that I simply do not get out with my camera enough. I surprised myself at how much I enjoyed the process of simply getting out and taking pictures and that too often it is my self doubt that means I do not get out more. I need to be less worried about failing and more willing just to get out experiment and enjoy photography in general.

Selections

I have discussed my process for selecting images at length in my write up for exercise one so will not repeat myself here. I used the same process for choosing the pictures with the aim of arriving at two selections.

My initial thoughts of the pictures were that they were clearly rushed - a number of images suffered from camera shake which resulted from me not spending enough time composing and not being careless with my choice of camera settings. After my first review I flagged 15 images as picks for further review and deselected 3.

Final selects:

My initial thoughts from my review of the 15 images I had chosen as picks was that I did not really like any of them! I left a couple of weeks between my initial review and selection before coming back to them but found myself feeling the same way - I was struck with a feeling that the images have no purpose. I guess this is the result of having no agenda for the shoot, the advantage of this is that I could have captured a moment that I could never have prepared for, and if I had solid and immovable objectives this may not have happened. The truth however is that nothing I had taken fit that criteria which leads me to the conclusion that for me having an objective is something I need - the trick I assume is working with some sort of purpose while remaining flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances.

An example of an image I visualised much more successfully in my mind than I managed to capture is this:

When I took this picture I was drawn by the reflection of Durham Cathedral in the window of the bar, I thought the reflection contrasting with the modern building and the ladies enjoying a drink within would make an interesting juxtaposition of old versus new Durham. My aim was to show how Durham is now a bright, modern cosmopolitan city while still retaining its historic routes. I also thought that the interplay between the reflection and the transparency of the glass would be visually interesting. I do not know whether the image I previsualised is possible from the various elements here, but I do know I came nowhere near capturing what I imagined. Potentially if I had spent more time composing the shot so attention is concentrated on the windows and been more careful with my exposure settings the image would be more successful. This is an example of a situation where I needed to slow down and think about what I was doing before pressing the shutter and also one where I should have experimented more and taken a number of shots of the scene.

Final Choices:

Despite not being happy with the images I produced for this exercise I have chosen 2 pictures which I think show ideas which can be explored further:

24-70mm f2.8 lens @ 70mm, ISO 200, 1/60 sec, f9.5

For this image I was experimenting looking through the viewfinder from my high vantage point focusing my composition around the many triangles created in the frame when the two figures entered the scene. Their inclusion adds a point of interest to the image would otherwise be lacking. I like the purposeful way they are moving through the which adds a dynamism that is accentuated by the many diagonal lines, there is also a voyeuristic feel to the image due to the high viewpoint and the feeling the camera is peeking over the wall in the foreground which is a little unsettling. I am unsure as to whether the foreground being out of focus helps or detracts attention from the image - perhaps being a little more in focus while still being blurred would be more successful?

24-70mm f2.8 lens @ 24mm, ISO 400, 1/750 sec, f8

The most successful of my 'pretend to be photographing the Cathedral' shots! I like the way this image is bookmarked by the two purposely moving characters at either side of the central figures - their opposing directions also add an element of tension. The figures are also arranged in a pleasing diagonal, the Cathedral in the background provides a sense of location but is sufficiently obscured to not dominate the composition.

Conclusions

The main thing I have taken from this exercise is a better understanding of where I am at currently as a photographer rather than having produced a set of images I am happy with. Indeed, the process of having to look closely at pictures I would probably have discarded at first glance has been an interesting one. Firstly, I have learned that I am not as confident at street photography as I first thought. This exercise has made me recognise that the majority of my photography happens alongside other things I am doing in my life. For example, if I am on a family day out I will likely capture a few candid shots during the course of the day. Subconsciously being with my family (and therefore having a legitimate reason to be taking photographs) provides me a kind of confidence - before completing this exercise I would have said I am confident pointing the camera at strangers in the street but I can now see this is not the case. I also realise that this type of freeform photography probably benefits from exploring a particular area in more detail. I think if I had stuck with taking photographs on Framwellgate bridge longer I would have netted some better results. Lastly, I think I am someone who needs to be working towards a specific brief to be able to produce results. By that I mean that pursuing projects or series' of photographs is something I should pursue further - currently one of my main barriers to taking photographs is one of self doubt about the purpose of my photography. The main area I seem to be developing at the moment is finding excuses not to go out and take photographs, not having enough time, not feeling like it/being in the right frame of mind etc. etc. The biggest challenge I face currently is managing my time effectively, perhaps breaking goals down into manageable objectives could be a strategy. I also need to manage my self doubts and worry less about producing work I am unhappy with - the only way I am going to progress is through producing work , analysing whether it is successful or not and in turn learning from this.

Exercise 1: Your Own Workflow 1

For this exercise I chose to conduct a short portrait session with my eldest daughter. The shoot would need to take place indoors due to weather conditions, I set up a plain white background (to eliminate distractions)in my living room. The main light source would be daylight from the windows behind me, although I planned to experiment using flash for some images.

Through experience (and making mistakes!) I have arrived at a workflow that seems to suit me. I have not really ever analysed my workflow so my intention for this project was to follow my tried and tested way of working and then analyse what works and what does not at the end.

Pre shoot planning

Before beginning, I considered the following to ensure the shoot would go smoothly:

Preparation:

I knew my daughter would have a limited attention span so the shoot would need to be quick. With this in mind I wanted to ensure everything was prepared so I could begin taking photographs straight away.

• I prepared the room, rearranged furniture and set up the background.

• Checked equipment - battery charged, memory card formatted, lenses and flash. I arranged my lenses and flash in an easily accessible way to ensure I could change quickly.
• Quick assessment of exposure required - I used the cameras meter to get an idea of the exposure settings that would be required for the shoot. I planned to shoot in aperture priority mode so I could quickly change the aperture to alter depth of field. I set the ISO high enough so I could hand hold the camera comfortably and achieve a fast enough shutter speed but as low as possible to maintain image quality.

• Other camera settings - I would shoot in raw format and use automatic white balance. Shooting raw I knew I could alter white balance easily after the shoot, also, since I would be shooting under pretty constant lighting conditions I did not worry about this too much.

Ideas brainstorm:

Before beginning the shoot I jotted down some ideas of different poses and techniques to try.

• Poses
• Full body
• Head and shoulders
• Close up
• Side on

• Limited depth of field

• Frame orientation - mixture of portrait and landscape

• Flash

• Lens choice
• Focus setting

• Camera settings

The Shoot:

I prefer natural looking portraits so my aim for the shoot was to achieve an image in which my daughter looked at ease and for her pose and expression  to be relaxed. I began the shoot using a 50mm f1.4 lens chosen because the focal length would give a 'standard' looking result and I wanted to concentrate on composition and expression so did not want to be distracted by using a zoom lens. The focal length also provided a comfortable working distance from my subject and the large maximum aperture could allow for very limited depth of field which was an effect I wanted to experiment with.

I started with some full length shots and moved in closer gradually. My daughter was quite stiff and tense, her expression on the main a forced smile. I directed very little and worked quickly, I changed composition to head and shoulders shots, I encouraged her to pose how she wanted - she crossed her arms and tried to hold back nervous laughter. I asked her to sit and began the same process of starting from a long shot and moving gradually in, this time however I started from further back. I took a few shots from above and experimented opening up the lens to produce a limited depth of field. I attached my flash and tried a couple of shots - this was mainly as an experiment as my preference is for natural light and I only really use flash when it is a necessity. I did however want to compare this to the other pictures.

At this point I decided to change lenses - again I opted for a fixed focal length, this time 105mm f2.8 macro, for the reasons already mentioned. In the time I had changed the lens Caitlin had adopted a strong man pose with her arm bent to show her muscles. Her messing about amused her greatly and I recognised she was now relaxing - but maybe also getting bored. I appeased Caitlin with some shots of her posing before moving in closer for some head and shoulder shots while she held the pose. I experimented with some alternative composition and tried to include only half of her face in close up. I realised the photo shoot was approaching an end as I was being asked "are you nearly finished dad?" So I finished with a couple of head and shoulders shots.

Import:

I imported the pictures from my memory card via Adobe Lightroom (LR) - I had taken 117 images. I always import my images into folders organised by date as I have found to my cost folders named specifically can be extremely difficult to navigate. The real difficulty comes however when your image library begins to run into thousands of pictures - how do you go about finding a certain picture? Using keywords is a great way to add extra searchable information to an image - it is possible for this to take over however. When I was first experimenting with LR I felt like the process of applying keywords was taking up more time than taking photographs! Now I add a set of simple generic keywords after import (such as date and location) I then add more specific keywords after editing my final selects.

I renamed the photographs to the capture date and added some keywords (Caitlin, the date, DPP, OCA, Exercise 1.) I then exported the images into a separate folder for my OCA work. The reason I did this is because I had a number of other general photographs taken on the same day which I did not want to interfere with the selection process. I did not view the photographs until they were all exported into the new location as I wanted to view them as a whole.

First Edit:

My initial impression when viewing the images was that the red jumper Caitlin is wearing is extremely distracting. I simply photographed her wearing what she had on at the time and did not really consider this which was a mistake, especially since the strength of the red is increased when pushing up the light tones for a high key effect which was my preferred processing method.

I viewed each image one by one selecting and deselecting the pictures with flags (either pick or rejected) the only basis for rejecting an image was if it was obviously technically flawed. After this initial quick review I ended up with 48 images flagged as picks and 10 flagged as rejected.

Second edit:

Next I filtered the selected images and examined each one in turn making adjustments as required in LR (for example crop, exposure, contrast, saturation) I find this part of the process helpful as it requires closer scrutiny of each image. During this analysis I sometimes decide that the image is not a 'pick' after all and remove the flag (for the photographs for this project I deselected 9 images leaving 39 'picks'.)

So I know I have reviewed a particular image I apply a star rating - usually this is 3 stars but sometimes I mark lower at 2 stars to denote a picture of interest but flawed somehow and sometimes higher at 4 stars to denote that there is something special about this picture and that it is a possible favourite. I never mark pictures with 5 stars at this initial edit stage as I think it is too early to place the maximum rating on an image at this stage. Every few months I go through my picture library and revaluate, at this point I may upgrade an photograph to 5 stars but I have very few at this rating in my catalogue.

Final selects:

Sometimes the process of arriving at final selections can be extremely difficult, especially as in this case I have a number of images that are similar. I often find it useful to leave a little time between the second edit and making my final selection. Also, it can be worthwhile making prints as this can often show up both an images strengths and weaknesses - I sometimes like to pin prints to the wall to aid consideration over a period of time. In real life after editing down a batch of images I might be left with a similar amount as I have for this exercise, around a quarter of the amount shot. The problem then becomes what do I do with them? Under normal circumstances I do not take pictures with an end point in mind - the discipline of this project has focused my mind on the fact that this is where my workflow is failing. Going forward I think my photography would benefit greatly from this. Two ideas off the top of my head are that I could use personal projects as an avenue of following a theme or simply upload a minimum of two images from each photo shoot to Flickr.

For this exercise there was quite a gap of time between the pictures being taken and my completing the editing process. With 39 images flagged I went back and reviewed each one by one, I also reminded myself of my original aim which was to produce a natural looking portrait. I used red colour labels this time to separate my favourites arriving at a short list of 12 pictures.

To choose my final two images I went through the pictures one by one and relied more on my instinct to arrive at a decision. I was also conscious at this point to choose two images that would sit well together, in this case that meant two pictures that differed in some way.

My choices:

50mm f1.4 lens, ISO 1000, f3.3, 1/60 sec

 LR adjustments made:

Cropped to concentrate attention on head and shoulders, auto tone applied, auto white balance applied, white balance adjusted (+155 to 4800k, originally 5150k) tone curve adjusted (+52 light tones, -31 dark tones), red saturation decreased (-14), sharpening applied (+37), luminance smoothing applied (+33)

Analysis:

Caitlin's smile in this picture seems natural and unforced which is what I was aiming for and something that led me to disregard many other images. The tonality of the image is bright and strong which gives a modern feel to the image. (Interestingly however, the image is significantly brighter when viewed on screen in LR versus the picture I have embedded in this write up) The eye contact is strong and I like the detail, saturation and catch lights in the eyes. The composition is uncomplicated but slightly quirky as although Caitlin's head is straight in the frame her body is at a slight angle - maybe it is this small detail that led me to choose this image over the others as they are all shot straight on?

105mm f2.8 lens, ISO 1000, f3, 1/125 sec

LR adjustments made:

Cropped to 4x5 aspect ratio, tone curve adjusted (light tones +75, dark tones -7), contrast increased (+24), sharpening applied (+32), saturation decreased (-7)

Analysis:

The lower key and contrast in the tones of this image along with the landscape orientation are what attracted me to choose this picture. Again, the eye contact is strong in this image and although the saturation is less the catch lights still add an extra element. The white balance has a cooler feel here and the composition means less of the picture is taken up by the red jumper and white background.

Conclusions:

On the surface this exercise is extremely straightforward and is about actions to do with my photography that are second nature to me. To my surprise however I have found a number of benefits in exploring my workflow. Firstly, I think I have potentially misinterpreted the exercise completely. I took the purpose to be an examination of post shoot workflow and did not really consider the most important aspect - the shoot itself. For this exercise I was so focused on taking the pictures to use that I did not fully consider the outcome. For example the impact of the red jumper in the pictures, the folds in the white background (which could have been eliminated by having Caitlin stand a little further forward and having the background thrown out of focus), how shots with a lot of white background would influence exposure, having a clear idea of poses and compositions and offering enough direction to achieve these. The way I shoot is to keep an open mind and to use my instincts. This can work well and can mean I can sometimes achieve an image through experimentation that I would not otherwise have taken if I had been rigid in my approach. I feel I need to work on being able to shoot within boundaries however and focus on my intentions. If I was taking these pictures as a commercial portrait photographer I would need to ensure I had captured a number of poses I know work before experimenting. After analysing these pictures I should maybe have completed a second shoot using the knowledge acquired and see how many more shots are successful.

Approaching the post shoot edit I felt quite blasé initially - this is a process I complete regularly so felt there was little I could learn. Working through the exercise however I was struck by how many images and files of images I have not finished editing - basically I know what an effective workflow is but I do not stick to these rules myself. I began to realise that often this is because I do not have a specific output for the images - perhaps having prints made more regularly or even uploading to Flickr will help with this. Also, I probably think I am more effective at editing than I actually am. I can often be indecisive which can lead to inactivity, by putting my work in a position where it is open for others to see either as a print or on line should help focus my attention - if I have doubts about whether an image is good enough for others to view or not then it is likely that it should not be in my final selection.