Instagram & Colour Solarisation

For some more digital experiments, I used some of the imagery that I had already taken of different buildings and other objects, to create this four pictures. 

This photo is apart of Trafalgar Square fountains, with the traffic in the background. I wanted to take a photo of this because it could capture all of the busy traffic of London. The lights of the buildings, cars and lamppost all add to the image. I wanted to make this experiment a bit different, so I followed the same steps in making a digital solarisation, but instead of changing the image into black and white. I kept the image its original colour and continued to follow the steps. This was the final outcome of the picture. I like the use of the pink/yellow/blue all in one photo because they really compliment each other. The yellow highlights the lights of the cars and buildings, the pink shows the mid-tones of the picture and final the blue indicates the shadows. I really love this experiment because of the amount of detail that you can still see even with the different colours.  

Another colour solarisation experiment I chose to do was this image of a big wheel in Hyde Park's Winter WonderLand. The original photograph was a little bit dark and you couldn't really see the people walking in front. So I thought I would try and to make the image look more interesting. I again followed the same steps as before to make the solarisation image. I wanted to make this as vibrant as possible so instead of only using two or three colours, I used a range of neon colours to create a better effect. I really like the colours because it looks a bit retro and rave like, because of the neon. I think this adds a lot more emphasis to the photograph and makes it look bait more eye-catching. 

The next experiment that I chose to do was making an Instagram effect. Even though my theme isn't Nature, I wanted to try and make this image of a tree more inspiring and eye-catching. Instagram effect is an app on the iPhone what many people use to get the best quality photos. Unfortunately I don't have an iPhone, so I decided to make an Instagram picture on Adobe Photoshop. The steps I followed on photoshop was to just to adjust the brightness and contrast, then making a layer of a light brown/cream to lay it over the original photo. After taking the opacity of the colour layer down, I played around with the settings of the amount of reds/blues/greens the image has. By adjusting that levels slightly on the colour balance, this was the final outcome. I do think that by adding the photoshopped instagram effect has made the picture of the simple tree more interesting and more detailed to look at.   

For the final experiment, I used the photoshop instagram effect on this photograph of the hotel Claridges in Mayfair, London. I followed the same instructions that I did for the Instagram tree image, but this time made this picture slightly lighter. In my opinion I really love this photograph and the effect because it really stands out in my eyes and works really well with the colour of the building and the christmas trees and decorations as well. I also love the fact that the whole image is of all the hotel and nothing else can really draw you away from it. Even though there are people walking past the building and the christmas decorations are very dominate, you still are drawn into the hotel more than anything else in this photograph.    

Digital Solarisation

For some digital experimentation for my personal project, I took some photographs around London of all the buildings with the Xmas lights on. I though this was a good opportunity to take them at night so you could see the architecture lit up in the dark. Below are the five best original photos that I took. 

Even though I took this pictures as experiments, I wanted to make them more outstanding to look at so I edited them on Photoshop and turned them into solarisation images. Firstly what I done was turned the picture into black and white and played around with the contrast. Then I added a curve to the image this meant that I was making the picture more grey and adding a lot more detail to the black and white areas of the photo. After that I added another curve to get more definition, then finally added a level. This meant that I was controlling the amount of black, white and grey scale into the different areas of the photograph. Here are my final outcomes.

The top two pictures are my favourite because of how in focus the camera was with the building and the big wheel. I really like the solarisation effect because it adds more definition to the photograph and makes it more eye-catching. I really love the use of Solarisation so I may use this technique for the personal project, because this technique has worked well for me in the past so hopefully it will help me get the best possible grade with the best pictures that I take. 

First Film Experiments

Here is the test strip of the fist roll of film that I shot. As you tell each individual photo needs to have a different timing and different aperture setting. What I took photos of were of different angles of a house e.g high angles, low angles. I also took photographs of an early morning when it was raining with lots of traffic. This made the lights on the cars  shine on the ground and reflect on the wet surfaces.  

These are 4 of the best photos off of the test strip that I took. Two were taken in the rain and the others were taken when it was just becoming dark.  I though it would be a good idea to take some photos in the rain because of the effect the wet surface would give the light bouncing onto the ground. I also think that the moving cars have added to the effect of the final image, because of the shutter speed i had the camera on. Hopefully this first roll of film will help me over come problems when it comes to processing my final film to get the best possible photographs. 

For some experiments on some on the photographs I decided yo make two of the best prints into solarisation prints.  Solarisation is a effect in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark. I choose these to images because I felt that they would work best. I prefer the top image because of the definition that has been brought out by solarising it. You can see the wet surface really well on this and also where it was raining so much you can see little droplets on the camera, which also adds something to the final image.

I really want to continue with making solarisation photographs for the mock exam because I feel that I could develop more of a higher mark by using the best photo and the right experiments. 

Ronya Galka​ ​Photog​raphy

Ronya Galka is another photographer that has also inspired me to take photographers of London. For example this first image I really like because of the weather condition that it is in. The fact that it has been snowing also added to the effect of the amount of the people around. This is because normally there would be lots of people walking up and down this road, so being about to capture the weather environment as well as the the Houses of Parliament as well is very effective. You can see there is a lot of detail and definition going on in this photo within the snow on the ground and the building as well. 

This next image is another favourite of mine because of the night sky and the location as well. Even though the main focus point is the old women on the bench, I also think its the lights of 'HoP' are a big feature too.  The reason why I think this is because of how dark the image actually is, but by having the lampposts on and the light reflecting in to the river from the building, making the picture come alive in someway or another.  


This final image is got a bit of everything in it from Nelson's Column leading down to Big Ben and the embankment. Even though the main attraction in this photo is the couple on the steps, I feel that but capturing the different architectural buildings and monuments really makes the image look and feel more special. There is a good use of depth of field and that everything is in focus even from a long distance. I really do like this picture because it combines architectural and documentary photography together.

Ben Thompson Photography

Ben Thompson is a photographer that has inspired me to take photographers of different architecture at night with their lights shining and all lit up. Here are three of my favourite images that he has taken around London of some of the iconic tourist attractions.  

The first image is of the O2 arena and the buildings up and down the river at twilight. He has captured all the lights lit up along the river and in the background as well to create a perfect scenery. Also the blueish/purple sky adds to the effect and makes the lights seem more bright and eye-catching. This is my favourite photo of Thompson's, but if I had any criticism it would be just to capture the Arena with out some of the many lights. 

Another photo that I really like by Ben is this one of the Houses of Parliament. The main reason why I love this photograph is the light reflecting onto the water. This is because of how something so simple can be so effective to look at. Another reason why I like this photo is because of the detail that the camera has captured of the building. The clouds in the sky are very dominate as well as you can just about see them fade away into the night sky.>

The final image that I really like is this one of the London Eye. One particular reason why I like this image is because of the slow shutter speed that has been used. If you look closely you can just about see the wheel slightly blurred, which means that Ben has captured the same image for a number of seconds or even longer to get the wheel seem like it has been moving. Also I like the different buildings lights in the background it added to the outcome of the picture and makes the 'Eye' more impressive.