Seasons Portfolio Feedback

I have been away for a few weeks following my other hobby of triathlon racing. Whilst I was away my tutor sent through feedback on my Seasons Porfolio.

My tutor's feedback concentrated mostly on how the photographs worked together (or not) as a cohesive presentation. I must say that I had concentrated more on preparing individual photographs rather than the overall portfolio. This I now realise was a mistake.

My tutor commented on each of the seasons in turn, but her overriding observation was that it was not apparent that I had an underlying theme about what each season means to me visually. She also made comments on how I had sequenced the photographs. In particular she pointed out that in some cases I had presented images side by side which do not work well together and are not linked by being taken in a single season.

Looking back the failure to consider the idea of identifying the key signifiers of each season was an oversight. This is clearly an important lesson for the long run and one which I will keep returning to as my work progresses.

My tutor also suggested that I look at the print submission guidelines before submitting my work for accreditation. This I have done and I am reviewing options for presenting my photographs. I intend to test several different types of paper to improve my presentation.

I have represented the portfolio giving greater thought to sequencing and cohesiveness. I have also added an explanation of how I am perceive each of the seasons visually and how my photographs demonstrate this. In the case of the winter images, sadly, I would like to completely redo the portfolio - this is a project for later in the year.

Spring

For me Spring is the season of rebirth. New growth appears throughout the landscape. The days get longer and the skies bluer after the darkness of winter. The predominant colours are pale greens, yellows and pale blues. The three images I have presented all show signs of new growth, brightening skies and have a colour palette of yellows, pale greens and blue.

SPRING

Summer

To my eyes the English summer time is a time of abundant growth (of crops, meadows and pastures, wild plants and flowers and cultivated gardens). Greens and deep yellows are the most prevalent colours.  Sadly the source of this richness is a less attractive feature of our weather - frequent  and heavy rainfall. It is this ironic twist which I have tried to depict in my photographs. I  have changed one photograph from my original submission, replacing a detail shot of poppies with a broad landscape shot of the Manger near Uffington (with dark clouds looming above).

SUMMER

Autumn

In Autumn the sun gets lower in the sky, the shadows lengthen, the colours are rich yellows, reds and golds and the foliage falls from the trees and plants. My three images embody these elements.

AUTUMN

Winter

In my set of images I  have depicted Winter as a time of now covered landscapes and in two of the images blue skies. The truth is that this is a cliche of the English Winter and as such I now realise that my depiction is not really how I perceive the English winter. The reality is that winter is more about dark, cold, barren  and sometimes foreboding landscapes! I need to redo my photographs completely  to illustrate this more realistic theme. That said I am not able to do this until later in the year and so for now my depiction of snow clad winter  landscapes with frequent blue skies will remain.

WINTER

In this revision of the presentation of my portfolio I have drawn heavily on the comments from my tutor. I have learned a significant lesson - one which I plan to put to good use in the future.

Seasons Portfolio

My work on the portfolio is now completed. I forwarded my photographs to my tutor a few days ago. Here are the three images for each season.

This was a very useful exercise. It gave me lots of insight into the challenges of the different seasons. It also became abundantly clear to me why Autumn and Spring are perhaps the best times of year for landscape work. That said Winter also offers great opportunity. Summer is an all round challenge with long days, short nights, hard light and in the UK lots of green and yellow!

The second part of the portfolio was a set of four images taken from the same place. I found this project even more instructive. I had to think very carefully about location selection and to anticipate the conditions not just at the time of shooting but also on future occasions. I learned that one has to think about how the landscape changes, how the sun moves and how the weather impacts on the scene. I even had to think about how I would access the location when the winter weather was at its worst. This was a great learning experience for improving my skills in pre-visualisation. Here are my final four images of Cobstone Hill in the Chiltern Hills.

I await my feedback from my tutor and will post again to reflect on this.

Projects 12 to 15

The projects related to light are a challenging group.

Project 12 relates to the relative dynamic range of black and white film versus colour slide film. As I shoot exclusively digital, I will not be completing this work. However, I did undertake a detailed analysis of the dynamic range of my Canon 5d camera during my Progressing with Digital course. As such I feel I have a good appreciation of the issues involved.

Project 13 is essentially a repeat of a project I undertook in the Art of Photography course. It involves taking a series of identical images of a landscape at different times of day. Again as I have already completed this work, I am not intending to re-do this, unless a unique opportunity arises to set up my tripod against an interesting landscape - more of this later in the blog perhaps.

Project 14 I have yet to tackle. This involves returning to the same location 5 times during a day and recomposing the shot to make the most of the changing light conditions. I am looking for a suitable landscape and time to finish this work and will report back once the project is completed.

Finally, there is Project 15 which is a long run project to shoot the same landscape during each season. I have decided to come up with several options to maximise my opportunities to capture a solid image. Here are a couple of 'Summer' shots I have added to my files for future revisiting.

Windsor Castle from south of the River

Victoria Drive, Burnham Beeches Buckinghamshire UK

This project is very challenging and very instructive. It is teaching me lessons on how to anticipate an image. As I shall have to repeat the image I have had to think very carefully about framing and composition, including lens selection, rule of thirds, light conditions etc.. I have yet to find a 'killer' shot which I feel is strong enough - perhaps I am setting my standards too high. The images above are real possibles though and the final selection will depend on the quality of the other seasonal shots.

Assignment 1 - Tutor Feedback

I received the feedback from my tutor on my first assignment today. It was very instructive. Overall the report was favourable but I have some significant areas to work on. The overall selection of images and design of the submission was positively received as were some of the images. The key area for improvement concerns creating a clear focal point in the frame. Some of my images lacked this. The image below is an example:

Hedgerow and Field, Bledlow Ridge Buckinghamshire UK

The lines in this image lead the viewer to the hedgerow at the top of the frame where in fact there is little of interest. This is clearly a key learning point for me to build on.

Based on my own views and those of my tutor, I have decided to include the images below in my Seasons Portfolio for submission at the end of the course.

Bledlow Ridge, Buckinghamshire UK

Bridge over River Thames, Sonning  Berkshire UK

Sycamore, Northend Oxfordshire UK

Assignment 1: the season

I have just today sent off my first assignment on the Open College of Arts Landscape course to my tutor. I was quite please with the photographs that I included and so it will be very interesting to see what my tutor makes of them.

When compiling my observations on the images I included some comments on how I might have improved upon the images. There were two recurring themes.

 First, I might have waited for better light on several occasions. The location was good but the light could have been better. This is partly a function of having to complete the assignment in a reasonable timeframe and so I had to make compromises. But it is also because I need to work a good location more when I find one. There are one or two images which I think I should revisit later in different lighting conditions.

Second, I might have framed the view better in some images. This is about care and attention at the time of shooting. I MUST make doubly sure I am happy with the framing before I shoot a sequence of images.

Here is a contact sheet of the images I sent to my tutor. I will post a full report when I get the feedback.