On going evaluations

Experimental PhotographyTask 6

Patrick Gouldsbrough

1

Harris Shutter

4

Realisation of ideas and intentions

This particular technique was selected in the planning process of this project and has not been changed, unlike some of my techniques for my final products. I wanted to capture images using this technique because I wanted to experiment with colour to make a surreal and psychedelic, which this technique, among very few, allow this to happen. At first, I was going to use the correct equipment to capture the images, due to it editing only the moving parts of the image, instead of the whole image, like when you attempt to amend it in Photoshop. For tis reason, I wouldn’t have to use many post-production techniques and my final products would exhibit my work, not just my skills in Photoshop. However, due to the time given in this project, the traditional Harris Shutter technique just wasn’t possible. Given that I had two spare days from college and one college day to try and acquire the filters and the Harris Shutter camera required for my experimental Photography, I had to settle for the Photoshop way of doing the technique.

The availability of getting this equipment was also a restraint in this technique. However, I carried on with the Photoshop way of doing Harris Shutter and got some interesting and surreal results from it. The only disadvantage of using the Photoshop way of doing Harris Shutter is the quantity of images required to do this. Where as one image would suffice for the conventional way of capturing Harris Shutter, three images were required to make the one Harris shutter photograph using the software method. Another reason why the manual method of doing Harris Shutter was ruled out, was down to the subjects I had available to me. Due to the short time I had to capture the images, I wasn’t able to find the wildlife required for some high quality nature shots. However, I did the best with what I had in the project and also the availability of old images that I had taken, made the project easier, due to me experimenting on them and getting some effective results.

5

Harris Shutter method one final product

Harris Shutter method two final product

This method involves collecting three images that are of the same subject but with some form of noticeable change within them. This will make sure that the images show movement between them and produce the conventional Harris shutter colours (Red, Green and Blue). This leads to a clean and clear end product. However, due to these images not been captured with the Harris Shutter equipment, it puts the colours on the whole image, instead of the parts of the image that conveys movement.

This method is the quicker and easier technique for Harris Shutter using Photoshop. This involves collecting three images that were shot at the same location but not necessarily very similar to each other. This then leads to massive red, blue and green stripes on the image. This is due to the big movement differences in the objects in the images. However, as you can see from the image above, the tree on the right has the technique added effectively, while the left part of the image looks a blur of colour that has been overlayed over the image.

6

Comparison with existing imagery

This Harris Shutter image has been completed using Photoshop, however, by the stripe of colour along the image, you can tell that the three images that have been amended are almost completely different. This is evident because if the images are similar, red, blue and green would feature throughout the image, not just bands of colour on the photograph. As well as this, another post-production technique has been used on this image. It could be one of two features: the sky part of the image has been removed of all Harris Shutter technique, which would allow the consumer to see what the original colours were, therefore, a contrast to the Harris Shutter is created. Another thing it could be is a filter on the top part of the image. This will also help create a contrast with the red, blue and Green. However, it’s less likely to be the latter, due to the colouring been darker, had a filter been added. A more likely explanation is that it’s had some brightening alternation, as well as a selective colour option selected on it.

Like the existing product, the images that have been used are totally different to each other. This, as you can see, led to a very different Harris Shutter image, compared to my other ones that I had produced so far. As explained on the existing product, due to three different images been used, it creates stripes on the image. This image was then heading towards a more surreal type of experimental photography. To further this, I wanted to try and some blur to the image. I managed to add some tilt-shift blur on the image, and as you can see, it still features at the top of the image in the plants. However, to make sure I got the blur on the overall image, I had to adjust every layer and channel in the Photoshop document.

7

How could I improve?Instead of capturing my three still images, before editing them and getting the eventual Harris shutter technique, I wished I would have used the proper equipment for a Harris Shutter shoot or captured more movement images. This would have led to some of my images been selectively Harris Shutter, instead of the whole image been coloured in the Harris Shutter effect. This would have added to the effectiveness of the image, like the image on the right hand side, which includes movement lines, and therefore is classed as edited shutter speed photography.

Another way in which I feel I could have improved in this project is the capturing of the initial images. The software method of Harris shutter exists only because three images have been taken with slight differences in them. This will then create the illusion of movement, so when the various colour channels are added, the movement parts, in this case, all of it, due to them been still images, appear in Harris Shutter colouring. Some of my image were captured well, while others looked very different and therefore it created a different type of Harris Shutter photograph: one which had stripes of colour on the image, instead of blurs of colour. An improvement then would be more accurate image taking. If my images were captured a little more accurately, a better and more effective image would have been created for this technique. On the other hand, I’m not saying that these images I could have potentially created would have been any better than the images I’ve got.

8

Fulfil the brief? (Relevant to all three techniques)

The first thing I had to do just before planning the project was to select the theme for my experimental photography. I had the choice between: Fear, nature, urban environment and family. I ruled fear out straight away, due to the difficulty and the dark nature of photography that I would need to collect, which I didn’t particularly like he idea of, I instead wanted to capture photography with a positive message, that also made the audience think.

Urban environments would have been the theme I would have selected, had I lived in a city, not a rural area, like I do. With nature and family left, I knew which one would be easier to capture with the resources I had. Due to double exposure been the only technique I had seen that looked effective, with a human subject, which ruled out the family theme.

Having selected the nature theme for my experimental photography, I then had to select the techniques I was going to use. In the planning documentation (tasks 4+5), I selected the techniques: high speed, multiple exposure and Harris Shutter. So with this planning documentation in mind, the Harris Shutter was the only technique that I used for my final images. I will go into detail why I decided to not select multiple exposure and high speed in my 3D and joiners sections of the evaluation.

In keeping with the brief, I made sure all the images were along the lines of nature and I made sure they were all experimental. As the definition states, I used techniques that aren’t used for traditional photography, such as blur, and specific to Harris shutter, colour channel changes. The brief was quite open, so didn’t say how many techniques you could use but I use a different technique for each of my three final images to make a varied final set of images.

9

The image started off like this. In the sea, the moon and the beach, I knew that I had enough layers here to create an interesting Harris Shutter image. I also knew that the sky (the background) would not change colour, so would therefore contrast the Harris Shutter colouring.

Development of my final image

After duplicating the image twice, I had three images that had been adjusted slightly so that the effect would work. In doing this, I would ensure that the technique would work effectively. After this, I had to select the different channels on one PSD document before selecting the same channel on a parallel PSD and then pasting the image over, which would then create my Harris Shutter effect. After doing the Red channel, I moved onto the Green channel, before moving to the Blue channel.

My final image is now created, after all the channels have now been filled. As expected, the background contrasts the various colours on the beach and on the moon. However, I wasn’t expecting the moon to separate and become two. In doing this, red and green is evident on each side of the moon, before the moon becomes a ven-diagram and the bright yellow is more evident, as the consumers eyes move across the image.

Aesthetic advantage – The colours that the Harris shutter effect added to the image, contrast well with the Blue background. I also like how the initial moon is replaced by the Red and Green colouring, as well a the overlapping of the two creating the yellow section in the middle, which provides the majority of the colour in this image.

Aesthetic disadvantage – The bottom portion of the image is overrun with Yellow colouring. While this on it’s own isn’t a bad thing, when combined with the Red colouring on the bottom third of the image, it creates an oil slick effect on the image, which I dislike. I did try edit this feature out, but just made it worse by first blurring and then filtering it out. For this reason, I decided to keep the image the same as before.

Technical quality – Aperture played a big part of this image. In this photograph, I wanted the central focus to be the moon, so decided to blur out the other features of the image. This was done by selecting a low f number on the DSLR, but was also done using Photoshop also. By selecting the iris blur tool, I was able to further the moon as the central focus by additionally blurring out everything, apart from the moon.

Technical quality – Due to the Harris Shutter technique, I’ve got the bright coloured moon shapes at the top of the image, which, as an aesthetical feature, is effective. However, technically, it’s not what I was looking for. As you look at the image now, it might not be clear that there is a moon shape that is just a bit lighter than the background that’s not that clear to see. I wanted this part, due to it adding more depth to the moon shape, but even though I tried to alter it through changing the construction of the channels on Photoshop, I was unable to make this shape look more prominent, so settled for this image, which is still effective.

Formal elements – The lines used on this image, help to break up the various components. The different banks of land in between the water use line to great effect and with the addition of the Harris Shutter stripe, the effectiveness has been furthered. Even though you notice the moon shape, which is another formal element, the lines at the bottom are still a prominent feature of the overall photograph. If the only elements that featured were the moon and the land, the contrast between the Harris shutter at the bottom of the screen and the background wouldn’t have been the same.

Joiner

13


At the start of the project, my intention was to try and capture high speed photography for this particular brief. This was still the case until Task 4 of the project, which made me realise that high speed photography would not be very feasible if I was unable to obtain very expensive and specialist equipment which I did not have at my disposal at such short notice. For this reason, I decided to switch to an idea that I had collected for my mood board in Task 4 but hadn’t really given it much thought as a serious choice for this project. When I started researching this technique, I first realised that it was an effective and very intricate technique to carry out as well as been a relatively cost free and simple option for experimental photography.

However, as soon as I had established that I would be using the joiner technique for my experimental photography, I knew exactly what I wanted to create. Due to been limited to only a few themes for this project, I selected nature. While I realised it would be effective to capture a range of animals, wild and zoo, it would be very difficult, due to the lack of time and range of lenses I had. Even though I realised I would have to take some images myself, I also used some photography that I had taken previously. Working on the idea of contrasting dark and light in my joiners, I wanted to create very surreal images. As the project drew on, I started experimenting with joiners that featured both my other techniques (Harris Shutter and 3D). While these images were first thought to be very modern and surreal, they fulfil the experimental brief and definitely make for some eye catching photography.

14

Joiner method one final product

Joiner method two final product

In this project, I first had to think of ways to make joiners experimental, while making them eye catching also. Dark and light contrast (method two) was the first method I experimented with, before deciding that another method might be good to evolve the overall joiner technique. As my other techniques were 3D and Harris shutter, I wanted to try and merge the two together in a joiner style photography method. Using the rulers and the crop tool, I was able to cut different sections of both the 3D and the Harris Shutter images, before putting them together. Note that the sections that have been ruled must be of the same size or the final image would look disproportionate.

Joiners that adopt the same or similar colours sometimes don’t stand out or have the effectiveness, compared with the ones that have a clear colour contrast. To carry this out, I first had to ensure that the two images that I put together were of a similar composition and had the same central focus as one another. This was to ensure that the images fitted together perfectly, due to it been more effective if it’s done this way. The merging of the two images was done exactly the same as method one: with a ruler and the crop tool.

Joiner method three final product

In terms of aesthetical features, this method can be grouped in the same category as method two. However, unlike method two, it takes a more digital approach. Where as method two only uses the crop tool of Photoshop, method three uses the crop tool, along with the filter which will give it it’s various colourings. Even though you may think that two contrasting colours will work better together, as you can see from the above image, two colours near each other works equally as well.

15


This existing joiner image combines two completely different images and tries to make them look like a contrast of a calm peaceful setting, contrasted with a fierce looking stormy sea. Aesthetically, the birds in the top right of the image span between both images, making it look like they exist in both images and therefore make it look like the image is one in the same and not two images joined together. The most effective feature is how the light and dark contrast each other and almost have a light vs. dark, good vs. evil feel towards it. The only disadvantage/critique I can have of the image is that the end section of the joiner is not in-keeping with the proportions of the rest of the image strips. However, this is only a slight fault and with my image, I found it hard at first to get equal portions of the image to fit on the canvas, but eventually managed to sort it out.

In comparison, my image tries to emulate some of the techniques on the existing product. For example, I wanted to try and emulate the light and dark contrast image. The advantage that the existing product ah got is that the images are two very different images put together to try and achieve a contrast. However, my images were supposed to be the same image but with equal parts light and dark. But as I mention on the improvement section on the next slide, it’s difficult to capture an image, change the settings and then attempt to capture that exact image again. For this reason, I decided to move onto tones and 3D and Harris Shutter joiners and keep the contrast joiners as test photographs instead. Another improvement I could have carried out was to further emulate the existing product by using stock images I had saved. On the other hand, I didn’t want to further the contrast experiments after it proved it ineffective and wouldn’t result in an effective final product.

16

How could I improve?As you can see from the images that I have exhibited on this page, most of them are green, due to the garden location used for these images. The restraints with regards to the locations was mentioned in the Harris Shutter section also. It involves time restraints making it very difficult to use a range of locations and therefore this is also cutting down the number of objects to be our central focus. Due to the theme been nature, I wanted some animal shots, as well as the flower shots that I eventually captured. However, due to me having to capture the images in just a few days, it became very difficult to find somewhere suitable to take such images. I could have improved on this by cutting into a bit of my contingency time to find a suitable location to photograph animals for the nature theme. However, I wanted more time post-producing the images than I planned on so therefore already planned to cut into my contingency through post-production. As I found out at the end of the project though, I didn’t use half the time I thought I would for the post-production, so could have used the time for finding more locations.

As for the initial capturing of the images, I needed to make sure that the two images that I captured weren't too dissimilar to make a traditional joiner. Even though I have created experimental joiners with: Harris Shutter, 3D and tone, I struggled somewhat with the traditional joiner. This was due to me wanting to capture a joiner that contrasted light and dark. As I was altering the settings on the camera, the camera jolted ever so slightly, meaning that the two images weren't identical and the images now look like two different images put together. I could have improved the camera support by adding a tripod to my equipment needed. However, as there were very few tripods readily available, I did without. On the other hand, for the most part, I captured my images correctly and to good effect.

17


+

+

=

Firstly, I started with the original image that I wanted to post produce. All the development stages would be done digitally, instead of an image been taken over the top of another image to then have parts cut out.

After this stage, I turned the image into a Harris shutter image using the various channel options on Photoshop.

The next thing to do was to make the original image that I had 3D. To do this, you must duplicate the photograph and have one layer Red and the other Cyan. After doing this, you must move one of the layers five clicks from the other one to create the look of a 3D image.

After creating the above two image, you could have made a joiner out of them after, like I have with a few other photographs I have compiled on the joiners pages at the start. However, I wanted to further the experimental nature of the photograph and add another layer.

To accomplish this, I had to take an image that I used for my final 16 3D images and add it onto the Photoshop document along with the other 3D image and the Harris Shutter image. It had now got to the stage where I had to cut the layers apart and make sure that all the layers were on display. To do this, I got the ruler tool on Photoshop and ruled equal sections, before cutting down them using the crop tool. After I had done this, I had separated the 3D image from the Harris shutter image, however, the other 3D images was not yet on display. To do this, I decided that I would cut every other square vertically and horizontally from top to bottom. As you can see from the final image (bottom right) it created a very effective and surreal final product.

Aesthetical advantage – The 3D image that I’ve added in blocks behind the original joiner image makes the overall photograph surreal and quite powerful. Without it, it would have been a normal 3D/Harris shutter joiner, which in my opinion, isn’t as effective or striking. Adding it in gaps of one also helped, instead of adding diagonal rows. Should diagonal rows have been used, the image behind would have been unrecognisable and the image would have been a blur of colour with no recognisable central focus, like there is in this one (the Japanese garden is still the central focus, despite the distortion)

Aesthetical disadvantage – Even though the backing image and third layer of the overall photograph is effective, it still doesn’t fit perfectly with the Harris shutter and 3D mages in front of it. This is because the image in question is a 3D image itself, which, in turn, creates too much colour on the screen and diverts some, but not all, of the attention from the central focus (the Japanese garden). To improve this, I could have added the image to the backing, but left it original instead of turning it 3D. This would have made for a clearer image, and in my opinion, a more effective overall photograph.

Technical quality– The way in which the squares and the joiner sections are perfectly calculated and measured out increases the overall effectiveness of the image. I did this by selecting the ruler tool on Photoshop, before calculating where I would need to place my ruler lines on the image. After I had done this, I used the crop tool to take every other line of image out. This of course led to the second layer to be visible, as well as the first layer, the joiner layer was now complete.

Technical quality– The Harris Shutter and 3D images were effective colour wise. This was done by altering the channels of the image before slightly moving it for both effects. As you can see from the image, the colours blend to make a well constructed experimental photography. As well a the colour blending, the colours contrast, especially the black of the squares with the colourful rainbow pattern of the Harris Shutter image. On he other hand, you look at the bottom of the image and the green of the grass doesn’t look like it’s been effected much by the Harris shutter effect. If I were to do the project again, I would move the images further apart so that the 3D and Harris shutter images cover a wider area of the image.

Formal elements – Shape plays a huge part in this image, whether it’s the shapes made in the two front images or the squares of the back layer, it makes the image more effective than it would without. The squares help to split up the normal image, while helping to contrast the colourful Harris shutter/3D techniques with black. Line is another feature of this particular image. Even though there are no clear lines on the image, the line of squares down each row help to guide the consumer through the image and entice them in by making the image look broken up by these lines (squares).

21


At the beginning of the project, I wanted to capture Multiple Exposure as my third and final technique. This idea was carried on through the planning stage until I got to task 4. Like the high speed photograph technique that I ended up swapping for joiner photography, I found out that multiple exposure photography was difficult to do when I researched it. This now meant that I had two options for the project: I could either swap the technique for another one, such as multimedia, or I could just have two technique, due to the open brief only stating you needed three final images and didn’t specify how many techniques you were required to use. For the remainder of the project, I tried to go along with just two techniques for my experimental photography. However, I found out that it would be more beneficial to do three techniques with three different final products. It was then that I realised that the 3D technique was very low in cost to carry out, didn’t require specialist equipment and is quite easy to perform. Even though Harris Shutter and 3D both use colour spectrums and distorted colours, I believe that they are different enough work as very individual techniques in this project.

Now that I had my third technique planned for the project, I had to think of the central focus that would look most effective in a 3D effect image. For this reason, I took the images first because all the techniques that I had chosen were all post-produced on Photoshop, so the images didn’t have to be already completed before post-producing them. I tried all of my images in all three techniques and managed to try a lot of experiments, due to the time an extra contingency time to post-produce the images. As expected, some images looked effective with certain techniques, while other didn’t. This was the only one of the techniques that I used that I didn’t know what my intentions were with the images until I had post-produced them. After finding the images that suited the 3D technique well, I had a collection of images that were very effective and on occasion, surreal.

22

To carry out the 3D technique you must:

1. Import the image that you want to perform the 3D effect on. This involves you pressing the file drop down menu, before selecting the ‘place’ option. After this, you must select the file you want from the place in which you have saved it.

2. Duplicate the image layer by going to the layers menu on the right hand side of the screen, right clicking and selecting the duplicate layer menu.

3. After this, you will need to name the original layer Red and the newly duplicated layer Cyan (this is not key, but it will avoid confusion later in the process).

4. Double click on the original image layer that you have now named Red and deselect the green and the blue options from the channel tick boxes. Repeat this process on the duplicated layer but this time deselect the Red layer and keep the Green and Blue layers ticked.

5. To complete the process, select the original image (Red) and nudge it over five places to the right (you can do this using the arrow keys on the keyboard). The next step is to do the same thing with the duplicated layer (Cyan) before nudging this image over 5 paces but to the left. This should make the age look something like the image I have on the right.

This technique is the only technique that I have carried out that has only one single way of post-producing the image to get the 3D effect.

23


What makes this image effective and eye-catching is the fact that the 3D colouring contrasts against the bland and dull monochrome colouring added to the original image. Another aesthetical feature of this image is the fact that the central focus, the monkey, has shapes on him that silhouette when the 3D effect is added to it. On the previous slide, I specified that I nudged the two images 5 spaces each to give a relatively big gap. However, the fact that you can see the blur and the use of line been used on the trees, the creator of this image has moved the two images further apart and made it stand out more.

This image has some effective parts to it, such as the definition and the 3D colouring of the trees. However, due to the natural dark colouring of this image, the 3D technique doesn’t quite work on these parts. As well as this, the image is made up of mostly green colourings which doesn’t contrast the 3D colouring very well. If I was to post-produce this image again I might try ad emulate the monochrome and 3D contrast like on the existing image, as well as moving the two colour channelled images further apart to make the 3D technique more prominent, also like the existing photograph.

24

How could I improve?

After using the 3D technique on this project, I realise that it can look effective, powerful and often surreal. However, on a few of my experiments (right) the colour of the 3D isn’t evident and it doesn’t look like a 3D effect at all, it just look massively blurred. Despite putting the same technique on them, compared to the rest of my other 3D images, they still don’t have the same effectiveness. On reason for this could be that I haven’t moved them far enough apart to make way for the colours to fully be seen. This would be the reason, however, it doesn’t seem like it has effected other images in the same way. I would still make sure I moved my images a couple of places either way if I repeated the project again, this would prevent the images looking just blurry and look more colourful as well. On the other hand, I don’t think this is a problem with the software and the editing of the images, I think it has more to do with the taking of the images. As you can see from the images on the right, the main colour that feature in them all is green. Due to there been not many other colours in the image, you can't use a 3D technique and make green loom effective if that’s the only colour in the image (direct right in particular).

25


I put the image that I wanted to transform into a 3D one onto the canvas. Without the technique, it is already an effective and powerful image but I thought that I could make it look more surreal and thought provoking photograph. I had to duplicate the image first and then I was ready for the next stage. I had to make sure that the image was slightly different so the 3D effect would be visible. I had found this out while post-producing this exact image using the Harris Shutter effect. I didn’t make them different in any way and it stayed the same because there was no way the colouring could attach itself to the image.

The next development stage was to adjust the channelling options of the two images. This would allow the images to get their different colourings and therefore give it the desired 3D effect. At this stage, the red channel had been ticked, with the blue and green options deselected. As it is, it’s looking effective, which I hope is furthered with the addition of the cyan channel layer been added.

Here is the final image after both images have been nudged to make the 3D technique. Even though it looks sharp and crisp through 3D glasses, the image looks neither eye-catching or surreal, as well as looking exactly, if not very similar to, the original image. In my opinion, just the red channel addition was a more effective image than the 3D effect. If I was to repeat the process again, I would ensure that I nudged the images further apart to make the 3D a more prominent feature because, after all, it’s meant to be the main feature of the experimental image. On the other hand, the final image that is exhibited above doesn’t look anything like my final image on the next page. This might be due to the image been shrunk down to accommodate the text on this page. The 3D final image on the next slide looks more powerful and effective and has a very surreal nature to it.

Aesthetical advantage – The way in which the green of the trees and the blue of the sky contrasts each other really helps to make this image effective and well constructed. As well a s the colours of the photograph, the angle of it also helps, if the camera were tilted slightly and wasn’t looking up to the sky, the image would have been plan and not fulfilled the effective and experimental nature of the brief.

Aesthetical disadvantage – While the photograph, to some extent, looks very effective, without 3D glasses to look through, this image makes little impact on the consumer. Through the 3D glasses, like every other 3D image, the photograph looks crisp and life like. However, take the glasses off and all you see is a distorted image. On the other hand, some 3D images have the red and blue lines or shapes behind to show it’s a 3D image, this image doesn’t. To make more of an impact on this image, I would have to drag the layers further apart o more of the colours come through and make the original image, as well as the image with glasses on, look effective.

Technical qualities – The use of colour changing on the layer options enabled the colours of the images to be changed and therefore the 3D technique could be performed. First, I had to ensure that I changed both the channels on my two layers. It is important to check because sometimes the first layer is done and is hiding the second layer that is not changed, due to it been above it in the layer list. After both channel and colour options have been changed to Cyan and Red respectively, it is time to move them apart and this will create the 3D technique. Using just the layer and the channel tool, you are able to create 3D images.

Formal elements – Unlike my joiner image, the use of shape I not evident in this image. However, the use of line is used throughout the photograph. Through the use of the lines, which in this case were represented by the trees, help to guide the consumers eye along the lines and up towards the light, which in turn, has a contrast to the trees (lines). I could have added a pattern overlay to the image, but I decided I didn't want to attempt to make it more effective and compromise some of the effectiveness in doing so.

On going evaluations

Entertainment & Humor

Transcript of On going evaluations