INDUSTRIAL
Now the first two, rural and urban, are styles I've ventured into several times before - but Industrial?
This one actually took me some time to get my head round. The word 'Industrial', to me, conjures up images of ugliness and despoiled views - and whilst I had that sort of picture in my head, I found it really hard to frame any of the industrial areas I visited at first, in a way that to me, produced an image I liked.
The breakthrough came when, after looking at some of the images I'd found on the internet, I decided to play around with photographing pylons
And I found I had come up with an image that, although not one I'd be happy with for my final selection, looked striking and even attractive. And it dawned on me that I needed to get rid of this association with 'ugliness' and approach it looking for a scene where the light and colours and sky made it striking.
I took quite a few shots I liked, once I got my head round the approach I was taking . . .
This is Maes Fan Quarry - I also photographed through the wire fence that surrounds it, as I felt this added to the 'Industrial' feel
However, I've used this location in a previous unit, so decided against either of these images.
I also visited Tunnel Cement, and a small industrial park in Hawarden. Later, I turned a lot of the images monochrome.
I think, all in all, I probably took 200 plus images, over maybe 5 separate days, before I really started to get photographs that I felt totally fulfilled the brief, and that satisfied me as being worth looking at.
The final 3 images are quite different, but all are chosen because I felt the composition worked, and because I felt that the light and sky contributed to make a striking and not unattractive image.
This first image was taken at Llandudno - I chose to crop it to a panoramic style, as I felt that this complimented the long line of turbines stretched out across the sea. I really liked the simplicity of it, just sky, turbines and sea - and I really liked the 'drama' of the sky.
The second image I chose was one of those 'sheer chance' deals. We quite simply took a wrong turn, and ended up by a small industrial unit in the back streets of Aberystwyth. It was just going dark, and I liked the way the green of the drums and the red of the metal work caught the fading light. I also liked the line and pattern of the steps running down the side of the nearest 'drum' . It was a case of yelling 'stop the car', diving out, taking just one photograph - and then off. But I was really pleased with the result.
The last image was taken in Deeside. I used a wide angled lens then cropped to panoramic. I liked the 'clean ' lines of the bridge, and the whiteness of it - though undoubtedly 'Industrial' I felt it had an attractive 'scenic' quality, that I really hadn't expected to find in an industrial landscape at the start of this unit.
Urban
There is so much scope under the heading 'Urban' - city centres, shopping malls, housing estates, town parks, high streets, back streets - all can be photographed as urban. I spent a few days just snapping different aspects of the description, using a wide lens and a circular polarising filter, to maximise the impact of colour and contrast.
A street view
A black and white shot of a towns back streets
More back streets
Cityscape in Liverpool
Town Centre
This is a shot taken in Llandudno - for fun, I decided to try this one with a tilt shift filter applied - I really liked the end result.
This last image got me thinking about how there is something instantly identifiable about the seaside urban views - there are certain features which I think can identify a seaside town, even if there is no sign of sea or sand in the image. So, I decided for this part of the landscape project, to tie together my urban landscapes by using the theme 'Seaside Urban'.
This first shot was taken in Aberystwyth - as well as the style of house being so typical of seafront property, I liked this picture because of the 'rhythm' it has, in the houses, in the row of cars and in the row of bikes - and I made it black and white because I think often monochrome emphasises 'rhythm' within a photographic image.
In the next shot, I very deliberately upped the sats, as there was a fabulous sky as rain clouds rolled in, and I wanted to emphasise both that, and the colours of the flowers in the foreground, which are a big part of the image because of the angle of the shot and because of the wide lens. If you look down the street, I think that the horizon gives away the fact that this was taken in a seaside town - Llandudno, in fact.
The last Urban Image was taken in Aberystwyth, of the marina there - another feature that immediately identifies a 'seaside town'. I liked the actual view itself, which I thought was really attractive and picturesque, and I love the way the water reflects the light over the whole image.
Rural
I think we live in an area which is an absolute gold mine for beautiful scenery - within a short distance we have everything from woodland to mountains, and from rolling moor land to river views. I played around with all these choices in the rural section.
The choice of the final three came down to choosing 3 images where not only the view, but the light at the time of taking the photograph really appealed to me.
This first shot is taken just outside of Corwen - I liked the reflection of the hot summer sky in the river.
The second choice was because of the light caused by what I call a 'storm light' - its when the blue of a summers day changes to rain - there is a point where the sun and the clouds sort of 'meet', and I think the light you get then is every bit as gorgeous as the light you get at day break or sun down.
The final choice was taken not 5 minutes from my front door. Every time I passed this cornfield, I was struck by how it looked, no matter what the light conditions. I photographed it several times, over a few days, and finally settled on this shot, which was taken at dusk, using a tripod. I liked the rich colour of the corn and how it was transformed by the evening light; The area of dark shadow in the foreground really makes the colours 'pop'. And I loved the way the light caught the two 'gnarly' trees at the far end of the field.
I really enjoyed this part of the photographic section of the Summer brief - I ended up really enjoying the Industrial feature and really felt I learned something from it. I liked 'pushing' the Urban section slightly and tying myself to a theme within it, and with as I have said, such a wealth of locations on my doorstep for the Rural section, I think I made myself consider the light and the sky even more than usual.
Next Up - Movement - locked off camera and Panning shots.
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