As you may know from my previous posts or my FAQ page, I have seven lenses. Today I am going to write about the wide-angle lens and after this post throughout a long period of time, I am hoping to do a series of these for each of my lenses.
There is no right or wrong answer as to what to use a lens
for its all about your own self-expression but here I am going to tell you what
I use it for.
When I thought about buying the Sigma 10-20mm I wanted to
have a better landscape lens as before this I only had the 18-55mm kit lens and
the 55-200mm telephoto zoom lens which didn’t provide me with the depth of
field I wanted for my landscapes.
So, what is a wide-angle lens? A wide-angle lens is any lens that can view more than the human eye sees. Wide-angle lenses distort the subject and enhance perspective. This means whatever is in front of the frame will appear larger than anything that is further away.
I soon realised that you can also create creative portraits with a wide-angle lens. In my opinion, by positioning yourself at a lower angle than your subject you open up your surroundings to a whole new point of view.
In architectural shots, you want to use this lens to capture the entirety of a building so you can see all the detail and not just glimpses of it.
In one of my university projects during my master’s I used
the wide-angle lens to take images I wanted to create a perspective where I had
the full person and aspects of a building behind to convey the way in which we
use public spaces to this day.
A great use I’d say is these lenses are great for events as
they allow you to photograph much larger groups of people.
The final thing I have used this lens for is when I photograph fencing charity events. The reason is that I want to get every one of the participants in the frame which I can’t do with a zoom lens maybe I’d need a zoom lens in a larger venue where I need to be further away from the action.
I feel the wide-angle lens provides you with new perspectives that you didn’t even consider before. You can see a lot more with a wide-angle lens than a fixed perspective. Below is a gallery of some of my work using this lens:
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It all started in September 2017 when I’d been out of university for three years. I decided to go to a postgraduate advice event at UCLAN (the university of central Lancashire), looking into studying a master’s in photography.
A few days later I applied hoping to start straightaway. However, I was a little late applying so I waited patiently until September 2018 to officially start my course.
I walked into my first term not knowing what to expect and realising the next year of my life was going to me my biggest challenge yet.
In the first term I studied three modules, two double modules entitled socially engaged art and space, location and territory which both would continue into the second term. The third module was visualising the inviable which was a singular module. The first term all my subjects required me to present my projects in a self-reflective way.
I’m going to start by talking about socially engaged art. “Socially engaged art projects are those that involve forms of social engagement where the participants are directly involved in the creative process” by Stine Marie Jacobsen. For my project I chose to work with fencing and identity and as you may know from one of my previous posts, I am a fencer. This involved a questionnaire and then compiling a pdf with my participants information embedded. In this pdf I had to discuss the concept and talk about my work.
My project focused on a community of fencers at both Preston Fencing Club and UCLAN Knights Fencing Club. The sport of Fencing is the catalyst to examine the key theme of identity and how participating in fencing contributes to that sense of identity. This included showing that fencing is not just a sporting activity, it is very importantly, also a social activity that brings people together and creates a sense of community. and has a positive impact on their everyday lives, including helping them to deal with among other things, their own mental health issues.
It can be argued that all art is socially engaged because it is created to be communicated to or experienced by others. It is community based, collaborative, participatory, dialogic and public art. It involves working with groups of people in a professional capacity. It is an art form that connects with the world around us. It is either politically or socially motivated and can act through the representation of ideas and issues. Social interaction and connective experience ids the key to this type of project. Socially engaged art uses the arena of contemporary art to engage with communities to produce collaborative or participatory projects based around an identified social issue. Pablo Helguera states that “Socially engaged art is a form of performance in the expanded field and as such it must break away from self-referentiality.” You need to engage with others through conversation, collaboration, antagonism (make it confrontational), performance, documentation and trans pedagogy (blends education and art).
This project allowed my subjects to be involved in the process of taking pictures and recording their stories through the questionnaire.
To start I looked at the work of Paul Floyd Blake Paul Floyd Blake’s Personal Best Project.This project focused on young prospective 2012 Olympians.He got them to create Journals to document their thoughts and feelings and photographed them partaking in their prospective sports. He involved his subjects in a participatory way by spending 5 years with them collecting their stories. I tried to do this over about 3 months but used questionnaires where I asked:
1. What Does Fencing Mean to You?
2. How Does Fencing Shape your Identity?
3. Can Fencing be used as a tool of escapism from day to day life in your opinion?
4. What is the most important reason why you fence?
5. Is there anything you take out of your fencing that you can apply to your daily routine?
6. Is there anything else you’d be willing to discuss that might fit into the project?
7. Feel free to add any questions and answers that might help me form this project.
• Blakes images pay tribute to the long slog towards glory that is not usually seen or celebrated, whilst excerpts from the athletes own writings offer insights into their personal hopes and fears. Blake’s approach emphasises the individuals own story and motivations beyond the values and structures of competitive sport, as the title ‘Personal Best suggests’.
Then I looked at Anthony Luvera who worked with the LGBT community.
He worked collaboratively with groups of marginalized people to explore issues related to identity,community, locality and self-representation which is what I aimed to do with my fencing group.
So how did I execute this project:
I started the project by collating questionnaires and getting each individual fencer to fill them out as part of the project. The first person I used in this project was myself as in order to understand photography you must first become the photographed. I am also a fencer, and this is a great way of understanding my own identity through fencing. After collecting the questionnaires from each of my fencers I did some portraits of them to showcase who each person is. I then showed my fencers how to take photographs on their phone and on my camera. At the end of the project I asked a few of my fencers to send me some images that reflected their fencing identity with an object that means something to them. I also had the fencers take photographs of each other in fights and in the way they wanted. One of my fencers even had a clever idea which was discovered late on to do a photo of himself.
No project would be complete without challenges and this one provided me with many. I really struggled with this project as I had trouble getting the questionnaires of the participants and finding the time duringclass to do the images as the majority of my participants were coaches. I also wasn’t allowed to use anylighting due to it being a distraction for the fencers and had to rely on only my camera and natural light. I also had some fencers agree to participate and others not so had to organize it so those who refused wouldn’t appear in any shots at all.
I initially also had issues with getting the fencers to agree to take photos themselves, so I took them in the beginning but as the project developed the fencers got more and more involved. Images played a very important role throughout this project because they helped the fencers to find strength in community and escape from the challenges, they face in their day to day lives, whether it be mental health, divorce or other issues.
I think that if I were to do the project again, I would reread the concept of socially engaged art to ensure I fully understood it and find more clarity in whether I could take the photos or whether my participants had to. I should have made my participants aware earlier on that they may have to take the photos and think of other ways to get them to participate in their busy working lives. Given more time I also would have gone to their homes, favorite environment or places of work to discover more aspects of their identity.
The second module was space, location and territory. We started of with two presentations on micro landscapes and urban landscapes where we had to take pictures and discuss them using a PowerPoint. Then for part 2 we had to use a concept called the Anthropocene to shape a 6000-word essay.
I believed that the Anthropocene is about how humans interact with and change the space around them. It is largely man’s footprint on the world that is destroying g the landscape which is resulting in a collapse of the natural world into the manufactured world. Photography has charted this footprint. Professor Will Steffen, who gave the opening lecture at the geosphere biosphere conference in 2000, offered the following definition: “the term Anthropocene suggests that humankind has become a global geological force in its own right.” In the age of the Anthropocene the ancient distinction between natural history and human history, between culture and nature collapses. We are woven together, intertwined in each other’s fates.
My project was about human relationships with public space. What did it used to be used for and what is it used for today? I focused on one particular area of Preston called the flag market where the Harris Museum is situated. I spent time both interacting with people in the space and documenting events that happen in the space. I also looked at the history of the space and discovered that the big events from the 1800s to about 1950s had crowds of around 40,000 people compared to the minimal crowds of today. People use the space for varied things, necessary activities such as going to work, social activities and communal activities.
For visualising the invisible we had to create a pechakucha which is a slideshow of images with minimal text and then write and article of our choice. I chose the representation of women in magazine advertising.
During the second term my singular module was titled the independent project. For this one I had three ideas. First was childhood memories, second was lost in books and third was the seven deadly sins. In the end I went with childhood memories, so I started off with a couple of images in the studio but then later it became a project about homelife and past times.
As I chose to do my course fulltime my final project which was about identity and performativity using the studio as a stage to obtain some natural and some performed imagery of my subjects. I worked with a lot of performance students and told their stories which I will discuss in more detail in my next post because I feel that this project has more than a short excerpt to discuss.
Conclusion
To conclude in facing these challenges through the year I became more confident in talking about my work. I also am proud that I can say that I have achieved a master’s in photography. Even though the last year was a rollercoaster with some success and failure I believe that it helped me to improve my work. But I would say my favourite part was my final project and I can’t wait to discuss that in my next post.
If you remember last year I did a Day Of The Dead Inspired shoot in the studio. This year I decided to plan a Halloween shoot with another photographer. We choose to do glamourous Halloween rather than dark and Gory.
Corpse Bride And Harlequin Shoot
The look I chose was a modern-day Harlequin/ Pennywise look. According to the Oxford English dictionary, a Harlequin is a mute character in traditional pantomime, typically masked and dressed in a diamond-patterned costume. However, I choose to simply get harlequin makeup done by a makeup artist and my model wore a purple tutu dress. Harlequin comes from the french Hellequin, the name of the leader of a legendary troop of demon horsemen.
The other photographer chose a corpse bride/ghostly look. Corpse bride was a 2005 Tim Burton animation where a man about to be married accidentally places a ring on a dead womans finger thinking its a plinth and she comes back to life thinking they are married. Im unsure whether the other photographers intention was to have it appear as though she dies and comes back to life but this is what i wanted to capture through my images.
This time the location chosen was a woodland setting and as part of my idea we used smoke bombs for part of the shoot. This was the most difficult part as you cannot touch them when your lighting them and they can accidentally catch fire. The smoke will also just flow in the direction it desires.
Killa Halloween
My second halloween shoot was for a new clothing company called Killa Clothing. They sell Tshirts and hoodies for men and women.This time Killa clothing hired two special effects makeup artists to do halloween makeup on the models. I went to go and take the images when the makeup was done at a woodland location and a bridge over a train track. Here is the photos from both shoots both shot on Nikond3200 with a 55200mm lens and a 35mm prime lens:
If you enjoyed this post stay tuned for more and follow me on social media @lucyandthelens
A lot of people think that Day Of Dead and Halloween are interrelated. However they are two different festivals that appear to unintentionally connect in a number of ways. As stated on the National Geographic website Halloween is a dark night of terror whereas day of the dead or Dia De Los Muertos celebrates our love for those we have lost. The people who celebrate this believe in spirits and use literary Cavaveras which are short poems like a satire that make fun of the living. They also have official flowers called Cempazuchiti which are believed to attract ghosts.
According to www.metro.co.uk website it states that Halloween came from the Celtic Samhain which marked the night where spirits could pass through and the distinctions between the living and dead were blurred. it is combined with the Roman Feralia which commemorates the passing of the dead and honours Pomona the goddess of fruit, which is why we have apple bobbing.
Day Of The Dead Shoot
For as long as i can remember i have been a fan of using skulls in art pieces and for decoration so a couple of weeks ago I organised a Day Of The Dead shoot with Mentally Fit Sam and Aara Beauty. I planned to shoot the doing the makeup shots with a flash in my bedroom and then go to Avenham and Miller Park. However instead I ended up working with another photographer in his studio in Preston called Open Air Studio North West. This was my first collab using a makeup artist as well as a model and I chose to do a Day Of The Dead themed shoot due to my strange love of skulls.
For The Day Of The Dead Shoot we used a red gel on a flash behind the subject which created a more halloweeny feel and made the makeup stand out more. I used my Nikon d3200 with 55-200mm telephoto zoom lens for the majority of the shoot to obtain close ups of the makeup look. However for the aerial hoop shots I decided to add more depth to my image by using my Nikon 18-55 mm lens so more of the body was visible as Sam performed aerialist manoeuvres.
Halloween Shoot
On the 13/10/2018 i went to a photography session days event at Atlas Studios where there was a mystery set which was zombies. This fits perfectly with the Halloween theme. There were also some bloody knives over a door which enhanced this. I framed her under these to add to the terror of Halloween. I also enjoyed using the strobe under the stairs as it added a dark and moody feel to the zombies. The zombies caged and trying to break out adds a conventional, zombie movie-esque horror to the images and creates a sense of escape from reality.
Here is a selection of my images from both of the shoots:
I hope you enjoyed this post and for more stay tuned and check out my Instagram @lucyandthelens.
“An artists vision creates the image; the camera simply captures it.” This is the opening line of the book and also the most important. Before you even pick up the camera you must have an idea of what you want to create as the camera doesn’t do the work for you, you have to do that yourself.
Lenses
Lara’s description of lenses opened up a whole new world to portraiture for me. I usually tend to use my Nikon 70-200 mm telephoto zoom lens for portraiture, but Lara suggested that instead a wide angle lens can introduce a dynamic angle of view and distort an image excitingly. She also recommends using a macro lens for extreme close –up beauty work which is something Id like to try.
Photographing with movement
Photographing your subject mid-movement creates a dynamic shot and adds interest to the image. Lens baby creates creative lenses.A fast shutter speed freezes motion, and a slow shutter speed blurs movement. Manual focus works better for fashion shots as it allows you to focus on an eye or a strand of hair.
Preparing
To prepare to decide beforehand what you want out of the shoot and create mood boards or Pinterest boards before every shoot. Look on websites to find models and If you can’t afford a stylist choose or source the clothes yourself. Have a plan for whether you want a location shoot or a studio shoot. Decide which will work best.
Shooting
Location shoots are better for new models or clients, and studio shoots are better for experienced models. High key lighting creates a comfortable dynamic to an image, and low key lighting adds a dramatic mood to an image. The best time to shoot in natural light is the first hour after sunrise and the last hour before sunset referred to as the golden hour by landscapers. The light during these hours is soft and diffused, the angle low, and the colour warm. Don’t be afraid to experiment with over and under exposure to natural light. Use one softbox to provide soft and flattering light to your subject. Use a white reflector to highlight your subject and a black reflector on the right side of your subject to add contrast and for more variation use a black backdrop. Experiment with different coloured lights. Use a silver umbrella with a white backdrop for clear, detailed high key images. To enhance makeup use a beauty dish as your light source. Backlight create beautifully And visually dramatic photos. Add a second light for a simple backlit portrait. Use a softbox to flatter the subject and a second light behind to illuminate them. Try using natural light in the studio and enhancing it with reflectors. Use two white reflectors on either side to bounce the light back and a gold reflector to add warmth to the shot.
Personal Assignments
Setting yourself assignments is also vital as it helps you to find your style. Then Lara Jade sets us tasks to be open to our interpretation which I will discuss at a later stage as I’m going to give them a go. I’ve made several assignments personal to me; I’m planning a childhood memories project which I am accepting ideas of things to recreate. My crystal ball project is continuously ongoing and also the subject of my latest blog. I also like to showcase my hobbies in my work, and I’m planning a few special projects using models. The working photographer You need to be able to work closely with people, stick to a brief and create your own. Charge what you believe is a fair price for your time but never lose your integrity.
Retouching
To make your images pop this is something that is typically done after a shoot. I used to use photoshop files with many layers so I can always go back and adjust. Now I have changed my editing process using Lightroom to batch edit and then using photoshop to fine-tune whichever images I feel need more work. Lara states that she applies layer masks to create composites which is something I haven’t tried but id like to give a go. You can use curves to change the tone of an image by using it on the RGB channel. Use a hard healing brush to correct skin blemishes or use the spot healing brush or a clone stamp tool. Use textures to add a vintage film feel to your image. In Photoshop You can turn an image into black and white by creating a channel mixer adjustment layer by going to layer>new adjustment layer>channel mixer. Click the monochrome box. Move the RGB sliders. Then form a selective colour adjustment layer and select neutrals and move blacks slider to +30. For more contrast then select blacks and mover the slider to +10 or +20.
Marketing
Think about who your intended market is. Use push marketing to showcase your photography to potential clients, art buyers and directors. Also, pull marketing uses social media and word of mouth to create your brand. Think about your brand and how it appears to clients. Prepare both a physical and an online portfolio.
I hope you enjoyed this post and you stay tuned for more of what I’ve been reading and shoots I’ve done recently.
At the beginning of the year, I set myself 30 photography related goals. Currently, I have started 11 of them, and today I am going to talk about goal number 24 which was to begin using props within my photography.
My First prop of 2018 is a Crystal Ball because this is something I’ve wanted to try for a long time. Crystal ball photography is a type of photography that distorts your image, simularly to a fisheye lens except your subject will appear upside down inside the ball, which is the main reason it appeals to me. I also started following the #crystalballphotography on Instagram to find inspiration.
The first time I used it was sometime in mid-February when it snowed overnight, so I went into my garden the next morning and experimented with my Nikon D3200, my iPhone 8+, and my crystal ball.
I decided my sigma 10-20mm (wide angle lens) was the best one to use for this experiment, so I placed my crystal ball on my garden wall making sure I had foliage behind and shot at ISO 100 but kept varying the aperture and shutter speed to achieve a variety of different photos. I decided that the crystal ball in the snow tended to look better in black and white, so I adjusted this in the post-processing in Lightroom. I did this by taking down the contrasts and highlights and upping the shadows and exposure and then converting my image to black and white.
I also used portrait mode on my iPhone 8+ to test a variety of different types of lighting my crystal ball and edited these in photoshop express. My favourite set-up in portrait mode is the stage lighting in black and white as I felt it made the snow stand out.
The Second time with my Crystal Ball I went to Beacon Fell with a friend who held the crystal ball for me while I photographed some sunsets. Anyone who knows me knows that this is a type of shot I thoroughly enjoy taking so I couldn’t wait to try a new approach.
Finally the third time I took my crystal ball out it was also snowing except this time I went to Avenham Park using the landscape as my backdrop.
Here is a gallery of my Crystal Ball photos:
If you enjoyed my article be sure to keep checking out my website and for further reading check out what other bloggers have written about this topic in the links below:
So I thought I’d kick of 2018 by setting some goals to help me focus on how to move forward with my photography. So here is a list of what I want to achieve this year:
Sort Out Business Cards.
Enter National and International Competitions.
Start Putting my Ideas into Motion.
Start a hashtag a day project on twitter in order to improve my marketing strategy.
Start a 52 Week project and document it on my Blog.
Photograph more things outside my comfort Zone.
Interview other Photographers.
Do more solo days out.
Think more about the stories I want to tell, than the technical aspect.
Set more creative challenges for myself to refocus my vision.
Regularly Update my blog whenever I do new work.
Join some photography sites and upload images at least once a week i.e. update viewbug, Flickr.
Get more feedback from other photographers and make a note of it all.
Learn how to shoot with a new lens: Got a Fisheye 5.8mm for Christmas so will start with this.
Try new photographic software i.e. Luminar or Pixlr.
Create A Schedule for Taking Photos.
Shoot more personal projects.
Sort all Photos into dated folders for easy navigation.
Create more time-lapse videos.
Start doing a few tutorials.
Learn a new type of photography.
Study more techniques by reading books and doing courses.
Listen to photography podcasts.
Buy some creative props- not going to give this away just yet but I have two in mind.
Get rid of what’s holding me back.
Focus more on the blogging and business aspect of photography.
Talk about the why – Why do I do photography?
Finish the projects I started in 2017.
Photograph a completely new place.
Take more photographs.
Lets start the new year right by working through these in the upcoming months. Hopefully these goals are all achievable and im looking forward to the year ahead.
The first challenge is to write a list post and I thought seen as I’ve been busy lately I’d make a list of 10 ideas to unleash the creative photographer within you. This list is typically what I might do on a week when I have very little time to get out and about and photograph. This keeps me focused on getting out and about and not giving up because my time is limited. So here is just a few ideas of things i like to do to get inspired to photograph:
Find a local museum, familiarise yourself with the exhibits and challenge yourself to photograph every new exhibit. Sometimes I spend one day a week just wandering round the Harris Museum in Preston with my camera seeing what i can discover.
Create a series about something your passionate about. For me this could be reading, reinterpretting movie scenes through photographs, portraiture or fencing.
Turn yourself into an alter ego. If time contraints mean you don’t have a model this week why not take pictures of yourself in your normal state and showing different aspects of your personality. You can also create an entirely new persona of yourself by wearing something different or doing something that isnt usual for you.
Create a campaign about something just for yourself. I haven’t done this yet but i’m hoping to work on a few different ones but i’m not going to give anything away, just yet.
Get on a train and go somewhere alone and document your day.
Spend your day in a familiar place and find new ways of looking at it.
Go for a walk to focus your mind. I find that going for walks really helps me to clear my head and form ideas for new projects.
Only use one lense. This helps to improve your composition as your really have to think about making use of what you’ve got. Here is a more indepth explanation of why you should do this challenge: One Lense Challenge.
Add a signature motif to one of your images during a day shoot. I’ve seen this done many times by various photographers. Usually something simple like A Red Umbrella or a Yellow Coat.
Invest your personality into your images.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Here is a few photos taken during these challenges:
A Few months ago I went to Winckley Square in Preston to photograph a Victorian Fair with Preston Photographic Society. This involved people lots of people dressing up in costumes that depicted the victorian era and a couple of comedic acts.
There was a juggler and a magician who used a crystal ball as a prop. He was my favourite because it enabled me to get reflections in the glass and made it a more interesting shot.
I really enjoyed the fact that you could print your own victorian shopping bag by pushing down a wooden block through the ink to print the pattern on the bag and leave it to dry for 30 minutes.
Lastly, there was a theatre performance titled The Palace of Curiosities from some actors dressed in Victorian Attire and I rather enjoyed the afternoon. I decided to post this now because from the 13th May-9th June there is an exhibition for this in Avenham Park Pavilion Cafe where three of my photos are on display so watch this space.
So towards the end of 2015, I joined Preston Photographic Society and I started entering the competitions. One of these competitions is a theme competition, which changes each month and one of the themes was sport. I had two choices to photograph someone doing taekwondo or someone doing fencing because I do both of those.
As I thought fencing was less common I decided to shoot one of my friends doing that. The competition judge from this moment didn’t understand my image and didn’t classify fencing as a sport, it was this determination to prove him wrong that convinced me to use one of the themes for this year’s competition to change that view.
So this year I came across a theme called the faceless selfie which required me to think outside the box. So I got out my studio lights, set up a black background and my tripod and set my camera to a 10-second timer to photograph myself in a pitch black room. Then I put the mask on but my idea failed but In failing I created some half face selfies that I liked.
A week later I tried again and got the image I wanted, but you could see the background I shot again so I still need to go back to the drawing board until I obtain this shot. However in taking a series of selfies I have now decided that I still want to get my original shot idea to work but using a model, as I found that shooting myself was more difficult and a lot less fun than shooting someone else. However, I did learn a lot from this experience which I would like to share with you.
What is A Faceless Selfie?
In my opinion, the faceless selfie is a picture of you that doesn’t include your face or it can be something quite conceptual so something that embodies your personality.
A faceless selfie can be about how you see yourself or how you think others see you. I decided to use an idea that states that not everyone is who they appear to be to the world.
So I set up my tripod and put on my fencing mask aiming to obscure my face. I was going to call it behind the mask because if you put your hands up and ask people how many people see the real you, it’s usually two or three people. People only show what they want you to see and the rest should leave a mystery.
But as I wanted the mask in this instant to be an embodiment of myself, I used a pun and called the image daughter of mask because that is one of the many aspects of who I am. Everything in life has a purpose and you gain something from everyone you associate yourself with.
For example, when I fence I am a fencer but it doesn’t matter who I am beyond that at that point and it shouldn’t matter unless I choose to share other aspects of myself with someone.
In Conclusion, don’t let anybody disrespect anything you believe in and if you believe in it strongly make photography that changes their minds. Don’t just sit there and do nothing keep on photographing that thing until you create something for yourself that becomes a passion project. I admit that because of that one image that a judge was ignorant about fencing is currently not only one of my hobbies but one of my photographic passion projects and it is one of which I can test ideas out on myself.
Below is the shot that started it all off and two of my fencing selfies all shot on my Nikon D3200:
