Exercise 27

What: The main brief of this exercise was to examine colour relationship and first of all photograph the colour relationship of red/green, blue/orange and violet/yellow in the proportion listed in the text which were taken from Goethe’s theory of colour and the colour relationship taken from the intensity of each colour in relationship to the other primary and secondary colours. The second part of the exercise was to take a freer hand and photograph the colour relationships but not in the forced relationship showing that there is no real correct formula for complementary colours.
Where: In different locations, in all weather including a gale.
When: Various times, sometime with natural light and at other times utilising whatever light source was available.
How: First of all I had to find the right combinations of complementary colours in the correct ratios. Then for the second part take photographs were the colour relationship in complementary colours did not adhere to the combinations and also to take photographs were there may be more than two colours. Again like the previous exercise I found this exercise quite frustrating as repeatedly I would come up with an idea, which I would photography only to find that combination was not correct or that the colour saturations did not appear as I wanted. Also being restricted by movement and by the weather meant that I lacked the colourful surroundings where I could obtain the correct combinations.

What I first of all learnt that getting the right combinations was quite hard but in the end I was spotting them everywhere, I also started to spot combinations of colours which were not complementary but their clash of colours caught my eye.

As I captured each set of images I uploaded the images from the camera and did a straight conversion of the RAW image into a JPEG without changing any of the settings from the camera.

Complementary colours in their ratios

Red/Green

I expected this shot to come out fairly quickly as I was surrounded by the colour red and I thought that I would easy find the combination of red and green together. In time however I found that many of the ideas that I came up with (fruit and vegetables, cars, doors, signs, LEDS, etc) either did not have the exact hue or the right combination. I took a vast number of shots using differing lenses distances and composition ideas before I finally chose the combination of the red and green perfume bottles. I spotted them in a shot and although I had to replicate the same combination at home I was happy with the photograph

D80,Aperture f/3.8, Shutter Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, FlashWhite Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens, on board flash



I feel that this exposure has left the correct hues and that the red and green are balanced together in the 1:1 ratio. I was pleased that the two items sat together closely allowing me to zoom right into the objects. I also liked the composition as the eye is drawn in down through the curves and also into the centre from the sides of the frame.
I also liked this second red/green combination that I photographed where I closely focused into a pair of led indicators on a piece of computer network equipment. I have decided to include this as it ran a close second and I liked the contrast between the very dark background and the isolated spots of colour.

D80,Aperture f/5.3 , Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand held, 105mm lens.



Blue/Orange

I found in my surroundings that I had a lot of blues combined with other colours but not with orange. I photographed a number of sunsets where the sky was blue but the light was a deep red, a washed out yellow/orange or a washed out pink/red none of which was suitable.
It was while I was walking back over some rough ground that I spotted the orange lights reflected in some pools of water, on closer inspection I found that the tide was out in a small bay and this allowed me to walk right up to the edge of the water and while standing quite high look down into the water and capture the long fingers of orange light reflected over the blue water.

D50,Aperture f/4.5 , Shutter Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 1600, 70mm (35mm equivalent 105mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Manual White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens.



I was very happy with the final image as this allowed for the 2:1 ratio for the colours and I liked the repetitive nature of the waves and the ripples of light as they flow down the frame.

Violet/Yellow

This was one of the hardest to capture as at the dead of winter there were not many violet and yellow flowers about, which is the idea that I had originally. I played around with a few ideas consisting of car lights and reflected colours but the ideas just did not pan out and I was not happy with the results. It was while watching a colleague talk that I noticed that he had a number of brightly coloured balls and I managed to persuade him to set up a couple so that I could take a few shots. I am not entirely happy with the final image but I was aware that the lens that I was using was extremely slow to focus and that the lighting was very poor so that I had use the lens at a very open aperture to capture all the available light.

D80,Aperture f/3.5, Shutter Speed 1/10 sec, ISO 1000, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Centre Weight Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held supported on a bean bag, 105mm macro lens.



I was surprised to see that although the yellow ball was further back and in a smaller ratio it still appeared to be quite large and to my eyes it makes the yellow ball appear to be larger in size than the violet ball.

I found this part of the exercise quite hard as some of the colour combinations and ratios were quite hard to find and some were almost impossible to capture at this time of the year


Complementary Colours not in their ratios or combinations

This part of the exercise was much more enjoyable, mainly because that I had found that I was spotting colour combinations a lot easier and that it was less restrictive and this allowed me a freer licence to use the combinations that appealed to me.

Green/Yellow

One of the colour combinations that I see a lot of and which appeals to me is the combination of yellow and green commonly seen here in the gorse bush. I liked the fact that the green is almost a background colour and the yellow is bright and almost separate from the rest of the bush. Even late in the day the yellow attracts my eye and the green which dominates the bush is pushed into the background.


D80,Aperture f/1.8 , Shutter Speed 1/100 sec, ISO 1000, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 50mm lens.



There is something about the yellow in the image that makes me happy and although it is a brighter and more intense colour that the green of the image, the imbalance where the yellow dominates the image although it is of a smaller ratio to the green. I feel that this imbalance works for the yellow and against the green.

Blue/Yellow

I spotted this image out the corner of my eye and I played with a few different compositions and framing before deciding on this one. I liked the reflection of the yellow on the blue and the intenseness of the blue against the yellow. The blue to yellow ratio is about 2:1 and I feel that this works for the blue as it makes it dominate the image and it drives the yellow back into the frame. The eye is drawn to the blue and to the reflections and away from the yellow.

D50,Aperture f/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/5 sec, ISO 1600, 50mm (35mm equivalent 75mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 50mm lens.




Looking at the image, there is almost a red tint to the image that was not there when I took the picture, I think that it may have come from the greyish wall which was behind the yellow grit bucket and must have been reflected in the car.

Blue/Orange

I like the fact that the blues in their varying hues outnumber the orange, but because the orange is so bright and isolated against the blue it allows the orange to standout within the frame. If you take away the blue grey of the sea and the white blue of the sky then the orange ration is higher than the blue of the boats hull.
I liked the repetitive movement of the waves and the fact that the orange bridge on the boat is high in the frame and slightly off centre. Certainly studying the image as a small thumbnail the orange is more eye-catching that the blues.

D50,Aperture f/6.3, Shutter Speed 1/30 sec, ISO 1600, 44mm (35mm equivalent 66mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held (in a gale) , 18-70mm lens.



Red/Green

I had seen this unusual coloured sign earlier on in the day and I went back to photograph it as the ratios of the image are almost but not quite 1:1. I feel that the imbalance in the rations makes the red less intense and allows the green to dominate within the frame.

It was an unusual choice to paint a sign in such a pair of complimentary colours as I would have through that they wanted the sign to stand out more rather than to be as “normal” as this.

D50,Aperture f/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/40 sec, ISO 1600, 55mm (35mm equivalent 82mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens.



Looking at this I feel that the red is lost amongst the green.


Blue/red/Yellow/Green

I was very happy to see this combination of colours in this ratio as it somehow allows the colours to flow down in size and intensity to the point where the green is almost not seen even though it is almost the same size and ratio as the yellow.

The blue dominates the frame, but I feel that my eye is drawn away from it to the red where my eye then slides down to the yellow and the green. I feel that the red because of its’ intensity is the main focal point of the image and the ratio of 4:2:1:1 somehow works against the blue.

D50,Aperture f/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/25 sec, ISO 1600, 29mm (35mm equivalent 43mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens.



I found this exercise quite frustrating at the start but after a while I did find that I was beginning to examine my surroundings constantly for combinations of colours and seeing whether they were complimentary colours or not. I am beginning to understand why some images appeal to me while others do not, and the use of colours to create certain effects within a frame and composition.

Exercise 26

What: There is main brief if this exercise was to capture the primary and secondary colours alone either filling or as a single point in each frame. The exercise also required that the image be bracketed by an exposure on either side to show the variations in brightness and saturation that it causes on each colour.
Where: In the house, due mainly to the weather,
When: Various times, sometime with natural light and at other times utilising whatever light source was available.
How: First of all I had to find the right hue of colour I wanted to capture for each part of the exercise.
I found this exercise quite frustrating as repeatedly I would come up with an idea, which I would photography only to find that the saturation and brightness did not differ enough to register, or that the hue was not right, or that the idea just did not work.
At first I expected to go through this exercise fairly quickly, but I quickly found that to obtain the exact hue was quite difficult and that many of my ideas failed to produce a satisfactory image.
In the end I spent a fair amount of a month and a bit just trying to come up with suitable images for this exercise.

What I was fully expecting to see was that the actual saturation of the primary and secondary colour would be affected by the amount of light going through the lens and the aperture of the camera.

As I captured each set of images I uploaded the images from the camera and did a straight conversion of the RAW image into a JPEG without changing any of the settings from the camera.

Primary Colours

Red

I expected this shot to come out fairly quickly as I was surrounded by the colour red, however many ideas that I came up with (curtains, fruit, cars, doors, post-boxes, etc) did not have the exact hue. I finally chose this set of exposures from a flower inside the house.

D80,Aperture f/4, Shutter Speed 1/20 sec, ISO 400, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



I feel that this +1 exposure has left the hue of the red looking much washed out and faded. The shadows from the overlapping petals don’t appear to be as well defined as in the other two exposures (the main one and the -1) and the shapes of the petals are not as well defined. The background also appears to very light and again washed out.

D80,Aperture f/4.5 , Shutter Speed 1/20 sec, ISO 400, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This normal exposure has the hue that I wanted, the hue appears to be less pink and the shape of the petals are well defined and the surface pattern of the petal can be seen clearly. The hue is not dominated by the shadows from the overlapping petals. The background is just right as it does not draw the eye away from the subject.

D80,Aperture f/5 , Shutter Speed 1/20 sec, ISO 400, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This -1 exposure almost has the hue that I wanted, the shape of the petals are well defined and the surface pattern of the petal can be seen clearly however I feel that the hue is dominated by the shadows from the overlapping petals distorting the hue away from the red and towards the black, this along with the slightly darker stripe in the background draws the eye away from the subject.

Yellow

I expected this shot to come out fairly quickly as I immediately had an idea and the subject that I wanted. The bright yellow hue of the boots is very eye-catching and I think it is the perfect subject. I was tempted to shoot the image on a black background to examine what affect this would have on the yellow of the boots, but unfortunately the room I use of shoot these images was flooded after the roof developed a leak and I have not had the opportunity to obtain the black background and use it.

D80,Aperture f/8 + EV, Shutter Speed 1/8 sec, ISO 400, 55mm (35mm equivalent 82mm), Centre Weight Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 55-200mm lens.



I went with the Centre weight metering mode as the lights in the room were overpowering and making the composition too bright and too yellow due to the colour temperature of the ceiling lights.

I feel that this +1 exposure has left a very bright hue of yellow and has spots of white which look burnt out with no definition on the white glare spots, especially on the upper areas of the boots where they catch the light from the ceiling lamps. I almost prefer this to the normal exposure as the yellow is quite bright and “happy” and it gives the greatest contrast between the bright yellow and the blacks.

D80,Aperture f/8 , Shutter Speed 1/8 sec, ISO 400, 55mm (35mm equivalent 82mm), Centre Weight Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 55-200mm lens.



This normal exposure has the hue that I wanted for the exercise, the hue appears to be less white and the spots of light are less burnt out and are better defined. The surface and shapes of the boots are better defined in this image as the shadows are easier to se, it helps to define the shapes within the subject especially around the ankle area of the boot on the left of the frame. The background however has taken on a red hue from somewhere and draws the eye away from the image. I also feel that it affects the hue of the boots at the toes and heels as they appear to have less of brightness and it appears to me to be affected by the red from the background, although they are not reflecting the light from the background.

D80,Aperture f/8 - EV, Shutter Speed 1/8 sec, ISO 400, 55mm (35mm equivalent 82mm), Centre Weight Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Hand Held, 55-200mm lens.



This -1 exposure does not have the hue that I was looking for, the hue is heading towards red and it is too dark and the shapes and shadows on the boots dominate the composition drawing the eye into the darkness and away from the yellow. It also shows up the dark marks on the boots that the other two exposures do not.

Blue
Again I expected this shot to come out fairly quickly as I was surrounded by blues, again I experimented with different ideas, sky, glass, paint, cars, fabric, but I could not find the hue that I was looking for. Again and again I would shoot the subject only to find that the differentiation is brightness was minimal or that the hue was not right. As my frustration increased I found that I was left only looking for two hues, blue being one of them. I spent a fair bit of time photographing different hues of blue until I finally found one that I liked. I wanted to closely control the light so I manually set the camera and adjusted the settings for each exposure.

D80,Aperture f7.1, Shutter Speed 1/6 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Centre Weighted Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



I feel that this +1 exposure leaves the main part of the subject with a slightly brighter hue of blue. But the bottom left hand side of the frame has a yellow tinge from the light above the subject. The contrast in the brightness of the hue is not too great and offers almost a uniform hue of hue due to the brightness of the exposure.

D80,Aperture f8, Shutter Speed 1/6 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Centre Weighted Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This normal exposure has the hue that I wanted; the hue appears to be well defined and there is a slight variance in the hue due to the brightness of the exposure, and this is to be expected as the subject as a slight curve to it. This in turn helps to show the shape of the subject (a cleaning brush) making it well defined and the surface pattern can be seen clearly.

D80,Aperture f9, Shutter Speed 1/6 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Centre Weighted Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This -1 exposure has a darkened hue caused by the reduced brightness. In the top of the frame the less bright exposure means that the top of the subject has lost a little definition and is lost to the shadow.

Secondary Colours

Green

Again I expected this shot to come out fairly quickly as I was surrounded by the colour green of almost the exact hue however like my ideas for red they did not have the exact hue. This was not helped by the snow which covered everything.

I finally chose this set of exposures from a leaf of a plant inside the house.

D80,Aperture f/9, Shutter Speed 1/40 sec, ISO 400, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



I feel that this +1 exposure has left the hue of the green looking very transparent which combined with the light behind it give it more of a yellow hue than of green. However the dried end of the leaf has very good definition and is almost the best definition for that part of the leaf than the other exposures.

D80,Aperture f/9 , Shutter Speed 1/50 sec, ISO 400, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This normal exposure has the hue that I wanted; the hue appears to be less yellow and has a good deep hue to the green. The shape of the leaf is well defined and the surface pattern of the leaf can be seen clearly. The repetitive detail from the window behind can be seen in the background but it does not draw the eye away from the subject.

D80,Aperture f/9, Shutter Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 400, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This -1 exposure has a hue which is too deep a green for what I wanted for the exercise. The shape of the leaf although well defined is too dark, the end of the leaf looked dark and dry and the surface pattern of the petal was lost at the edges of the leaf. I also feel that the final image is dominated by the repetitive shapes in the background which drew the eye away from the subject and onto the background.


Orange

I played around with various ideas, including logos, lights, flowers, fruit, spools of network cable and paints; None of the ideas worked out to my satisfaction and in the end I returned to a piece of fruit

D80,Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/2 sec, ISO 1250, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



I feel that this +1 exposure is too bright and the hue has lost a lot of its properties as it is too washed out, it feels as if the shape of the subject has been lost and it has become almost two dimensional.

D80,Aperture f/9 , Shutter Speed 1/2 sec, ISO 1250, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This normal exposure has the proper orange hue and is not too dark. I was worried that the normal exposure would not have the right hue and colours would not be bright enough due to the lack of overall light. The colours are not too uniform and the variations in brightness allows the subject to look curved and three dimensional

I especially like the dark loop of colour at the bottom of the subject where it is reflecting some of the black and it helps to make the subject pop out.

D80,Aperture f/10, Shutter Speed 1/2 sec, ISO 1250, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



In this -1 exposure the hue is almost uniform and the lack of brightness once again flattens the subject too much, and the subject is lost to the darkness and shadows. The overall brightness I feel is too dark allowing the hue to overtake the subject and lessen the overall composition of the image.

Violet

This was quite a difficult hue to capture again as I was limited to finding a hue which was not too light or too purple. I finally found it on a piece of material which I then photographed under natural light.

D80,Aperture f6.3, Shutter Speed 1/2 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.




This is quite a bright hue of violet, the +1 exposure making the hue almost pink or red in tinge, I was surprised to find that it was not too blue as I expected it to be bluer than it came out. The definition of the material is easy to see and I was again surprised to find that the contrast was as quite good.

D80,Aperture f/7.1, Shutter Speed 1/2 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



In this normal exposure I can see that the violet is less bright and the darkness appears not to be in the hue itself more in the weave of the material itself. Although in direct comparison I can see that the hue has been affected by the exposure brightness.

D80,Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/2 sec, ISO 1600, 105mm (35mm equivalent 157mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 105mm lens.



This -1 exposure shows that the reduced light into the lens has caused the hue to be affected by the brightness; it has gained contrast and definition of the material but at the loss of the overall hue and colour of the subject. The weave appears darker and more defined by the shadows of the weave.

In this exercise I have found that once again the brightness can be controlled by exposure and aperture settings and that the hue of a colour can be helped or hindered by this control.

On a personal note I have however found this quite a difficult exercise and it has taken me the best part of two months to complete this single exercise, I have found at times that I began to doubt myself as I found due to my limitations that I could not always control the exposure and obtain the brightness of hue that I wanted.

Tutor led visit to “Another World” Surrealist exhibition at the Dean gallery.

I managed to get a place on an OCA Tutor led visit round the “Another World” exhibition at the Dean Gallery; this exhibition covers the rise of Dadism and Surrealism, not only in Art but as a complete movement. I learned of the rise of Dada as a style and movement at the start of the First World War; this rise was in reaction to the styles of government and society, the collective artists involved rejected the prevailing standards in art and through their “anti-art” stance they transformed ordinary objects juxtaposing their everyday use with the artist’s expression.
Both Dadaist and Surrealist art use symbolism, insect imagery, dream imagery, automatic writing, painting, drawing and photomontage. I was surprised to see that some artists used book illustrations from a previous age and used them as derivative art pieces to create new montages.

Some of the artists experimented with Automatic painting by placing objects over photosensitive paper and then placing them in the sun, as done by many very early photographers including “Robert Adamson” In a lot of these images, the extreme contrast between black and white made for stark images with intense shape definition. Other used Solarisation, the exposure of an image to sunlight during the developing process, to produce abstract images with less well defined shapes, whose edges draw the viewer’s eye in to the image in an attempt to construct the dark edges into everyday shapes.

I was surprised to see that one of the first exhibits we were led to was by Man Ray; up until that moment I was unaware of Man Rays work outside of the sphere of photography, we were shown “Man Ray 1914” the visual style of it reminded me of the use of light, shade and shape used by German Film directors and artists during “German Film expressionism”

As the tutor led us through these images, she mentioned Lee Miller who I had only heard of in passing at an exhibition on Vogue magazine photography and a single photograph by David E. Scherman of her sitting in Hitler’s bath in “The Great Life Photographers” I was very surprised to discover that not only was Miller a photographer herself, but of her involvement with a number of the artists in the surrealist movement not only on a professional level, but on a personal level. We were then given the opportunity for the group to split up and go off and examine, draw or study any of the pieces within the exhibition. I decided that I would like to wander around and see which of the exhibits drew my eye and made me think about them.

Among the works which were discussed I was attracted to a number of them on a personal level. I was drawn to “The Forest” by Max Ernst as it reminded me of slow shutter experimentation where the camera has been pointed at the lower trunks of some trees and then shutter has been fired and the camera moved up quickly before the shutter is closed, the same movement within the frame is caused by the lighter upward shooting lines from the dark bottom of the frame to the light top of the frame . It was not until I was looking at the painting for a few minutes that I spotted a green circle near the middle top of the frame which represents the sun.

In one room hang 10 pieces of art which are meant to be shown together, all these pieces by Man Ray simply use just primary, secondary colours along with black to form abstract layer shapes where two primary colours combined would produce a secondary colour. However where a secondary colour overlays a primary colour a different primary colour is produced e.g. orange overlay/interacts with red produced blue in one piece, this was not repeated in other pieces where the same interaction would produce a different primary colour or black. This interaction of colours is random and quite eye-catching. In some of the pieces there were wire frame shapes, some random, some organic and some geometric. This experimentation with wireframe geometric shapes also appears in the painting “aviary” where a geometric shape dominates the composition while not dominating the frame.

Alberto Giacometti - Head/Skull

I spent quite a long time studying the carving “Head/Skull” by Alberto Giacometti; by moving position around this sculpture I am presented with two interlocking fates. On one side a cubist face, the mouth open as if gasping for breath the eyes open staring forward into the middle distance. On the other side I am presented with a wide angular cheekbone of a skull, again the eye socket staring off into the middle distance, the angular jaw bone joining the mouth at the chin. On this side however I can see that the skull is locked inside the head and that one cannot exist without the other.

Leonora Carrington - Head

I was surprised to find that this painting by Leonora Carrington simply called “Head”

was not listed in the catalogue, this staring nightmarish face leers out of a haze of gray mist and swirls. Only the nose, the lower eye lids and the upper lip are defined. The eyes, irises white with small dark pupils stare out of the frame locking the gaze of the viewer, filled with anger and hate, the rest of the face and head dissipate starting with the cheekbones into the gray colourless mist. The imagery of the face leaning out of the mist was very attention-grabbing, it reminded me of a description of “DR Hyde” and even now the eyes from the image are stuck in my visual memory.

Salvador Dali - Exploding Raphaelesque Head

Dali’s Exploding Raphaelesque Head demonstrates Dali’s angst at the unleashing of the atomic age with the destruction of Hiroshima; The swirling disintegration and atomisation of the Raphaelesque head shows the artists fear that all creation, civilisation and art would be destroyed in an instant due to the immense power of the atomic bomb. I believe that I can see the formation of a mushroom cloud taking shape through the open cupola of the Pantheon; the force of the atomic disintegration ripping apart civilisation and art. The image can also be seen as a demonstration of Dali’s interest in the discovery of the atom and the scientific discovery that all things, pain, canvas and complete image are just vibrations of atomic particles. He plays with the idea that the image is flying apart as everything is basically made up of vibrating dots and wide spaces between the atoms.

Max Ernst - Sea & Sun

This painting split into two sections, one calm blue and white and the other reds, oranges and black mixed together with a black circle offset to one side. Could the lower portion of this painting be a sunspot on the surface of the sun? By 1925 when this painting was completed sunspots had been discovered and observed. The painting has a texture, within the frame caused by the movement of a comb over the surface of the painting; this comb has gathered some of the red and black paint from this lower portion and it has been transferred to the upper portion of the painting bringing a random chaotic rent to the calm surface. This rent also uncovers the red from a over painted section where a red diamond with a black dot peeks out from the reflected surface like a submerged object suddenly rising to the surface of a calm pond breaking the mirror like reflection.

Rene Magritte – Black Flag

In this image of dark blues, greys and blacks, nightmarish planes fly through the dark sky in a random chaotic formation. As soon as I viewed this image I was caught by the tension that these nightmarish creations should not be able to fly and that their rush to be airborne they are about to crash into each other, the implied movement in the image is that they are about to come together in front of the viewer. This I feel helps to create a sense of panic within the image, which is what the artist was trying to create as he was emotionally distressed by the night time bombing of a Spanish village by the German Air force in 1937.

At the point of time of painting the term black flag had already become a term of anarchy, as it represented a state of no country or no government a feeling that the Dadaist and the Surrealists would have supported as part of their own manifesto.

I enjoyed this Tutor led tour as it helped me to understand a lot more about the methods, principles and philosophies of the Dadaists and the Surrealists. I now understand better what they were trying to achieve when they created their works of art and I have found several pieces of art that I have a deeper understanding of.

Exercise 25

What: There is no real brief for this exercise as I decided to emulate the examples in the exercise on Hue and shoot a location but vary the white balance within the camera
Where: Gifford Church on the main corner of the village of Gifford, East Lothian
When: Between 11:00 and 11:30 on a bright, but cold winters morning.
How: First of all I had find a good position that I could set up on and where the light was not too bright on the outer wall of the church. The wall is south facing and the sun is low on the horizon.

I was expecting to see that the actual hue of the whole image would be affected by the white balance of the camera.
I decided that I would go beyond just the first couple of white balance settings and I went right through the full set available on the camera. When I returned home I uploaded the images from the camera and did a straight conversion of the RAW image into a JPEG without changing any of the settings from the camera.

AWB - Auto White Balance

I expected this shot to come out with a white balance which was well balanced. I expected to see white whites and blue blues.

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



The Auto White Balance of the can have a mild affect on the image as the white was slightly golden with the low yellow sunlight. However the camera worked out the correct hue to apply to the image to stop it being too red or too blue.

Tungsten White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.

From the notes I was expecting a very blue tinted image, and in this image the hue has been affected by the white balance setting.



I was surprised to see how the hue of the grass was affected and how the blue made the colour darker and slightly more saturated. I can see from the white of the church how far the hue has been affected and how the blue of the door appears to be more saturated.


Fluorescent White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



I was expecting from this shot an image which had a red hue to it. I was surprised to see that this white balance did not make the final image redder. I was expecting the white to be affected in the same way as the Tungsten White Balance and it to have a deeper red hue to the image. On deeper inspection I would see a red tingle to the white of the church.

Flicking between these first three images I was very surprised to see;
that the AWB had a slightly green hue to it
that the Tungsten White Balance had a blue hue to it and
that the Fluorescent White Balance had a red hue to it.

This is effect was the camera using one of the three primary planes of colour within the sensor (RBG) when influencing the image from the point of the selected white balance.

Fine Weather White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fine White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



This white balance is almost the same hue and affect in white balance as the Auto White Balance.

Flash White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



As the flash did not fire this white balance is purely based on the sunlight coming into the lens. Again this has a slight red hue to it, but not as much as the Fluorescent White Balance.


Cloudy Weather White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Cloudy White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



I found it had to see a difference in hue to the Flash White Balance, if anything the hue was slightly red.

Shade White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



This white balance is affected by a slightly yellow hue to the image; this is caused by the Shade White Balance. I can clearly see in the branches of the trees that there is a yellow/red hue to the final image.


5000k White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, 5000k White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.




I was surprised to see that this White Balance had a slight blue hue to it. Having never used this White Balance setting before I was unsure what the final effect would be. The final image is again similar to the Auto White Balance

PRE (set) White Balance

D80,Aperture f/18, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, PRE White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70 lens.



Having used a bridge camera before and used the PRE setting for white balance I knew that this would have little effect on the final image. It is mainly used in conjunction with a white or grey card to set the White Balance which is out with the preset White Balance available. It is used instead of the Auto White Balance to better control the colours and hues for the final images.

Looking at the thumbnails of the images after uploading them, I could see subtle differences in the hues between some of the White Balance Settings. Some were easier to spot while others were quite subtle.

All in all I was surprised to how far the hue of an image could be pushed by the settings on the camera, again this has shown that the colours can be controlled through and by the camera.

Exercise 24

What: The brief of this exercise was to examine the how I could control the strength of a colour
Where: Various Locations
When: On afternoon in dull overcast weather, the light was very grey and sullen.
How: First of all I had to read the text a couple of times to fully understand the that I had to use the camera to take a “normal average” exposure and then take 2 photographs where the subject was underexposed and two photographs where the subject was overexposed. Each under and over exposure had to be done by a half of one stop and then one full stop. I first of all made sure that my camera was in aperture exposure so at the start of the exercise I could double check the aperture and speed settings before moving the camera into manual mode. I then took the shot and then changed the aperture setting on the camera up and down to get the under and over exposure settings.

I had a good think about the brief of this exercise as I have been reading Johan Wolfgang von Goethe – The Theory of Colours and Johannes Ittens – The elements of Colour as I had wanted to refresh myself on colour theory, something which I have not really approached since my school days in Art class.

I was expecting to see that the brightness of the colours in the images varied with the exposure setting but not the saturation.

I also decided that I would go beyond just photographing a single image with differing aperture settings that the exercise specified as I wanted to see if different colours behaved differently, so I chose four different subjects to see if I could easily spot the differences at processing and writing up time. From reading the above books I knew that depending on the background of the image that the colour would vary.


I decided to first of all shoot a primary colour and see what happened.

Red Jersey

One stop underexposed.

D80,Aperture f/10, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Underexposed

D80,Aperture f/9, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Average Exposure

D80,Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/7.1, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



One Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/6.3, Shutter Speed 1/400 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



I then decided to shoot another primary colour which had a different hue and saturation level to it as I wanted to see if primary colours behaved in the same way when over and under exposed. I decided on the yellow grit bin as it was one of the brightest things in the surroundings

Yellow Grit Bin

One stop underexposed.

D80,Aperture f/10, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Underexposed

D80,Aperture f/9, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.




Average Exposure

D80,Aperture f/8, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/7.1, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



One Stop Overexposed

D80,Aperture f/6.3, Shutter Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 140mm (35mm equivalent 210mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



I could see from the thumbnails of the images that the red example was slightly better defined in the range of colour due to the exposures, I could see that the colour became brighter but lost none of its saturation. The yellow example was a little harder to spot the differences.

I then decided to photograph an orange Physalis as I wanted to see what secondary colours would do under the same conditions. I was drawn to the Physalis as I knew that light penetrated the subject and it thought it may differ in brightness and saturation due to it being almost back light. I expected that the light coming through the subject due to its transparency would destroy most of the detail of the subject when overexposed.

Orange Physalis
One stop underexposed.

D80, Aperture f/18, Shutter, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Underexposed

D80, Aperture f/16, Shutter, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.




Average Exposure

D80, Aperture f/14, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/13, Speed 1/60 sec , ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



One Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/11, Speed 1/60 sec, ISO 320, 300mm (35mm equivalent 450mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.




I was surprised to see that the back lighting of the subject did not make it become too washed out and loose all its detail when overexposed. I thought that it may have become lost in a bloom of orange white and I was very suprised to see that it retained details as well as some of its colour

Finally I wanted to see what would happen to white when under and over exposed, I wanted to see if the white would become grey when under exposed and when overexposed the subject would quickly lose all detail within one stop and become very bright and blown out.


One stop underexposed.

D80, Aperture f/29, Shutter, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual Mode, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Underexposed

D80, Aperture f/25, Shutter, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Average Exposure

D80, Aperture f/22, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Half a Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/18, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



One Stop Overexposed

D80, Aperture f/16, Speed 1/200 sec, ISO 320, 220mm (35mm equivalent 330mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Auto White Balance, Manual, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens.



Again just looking across the thumbnails of the images I could quickly how much of a difference it made in the appearance of the colour just by choosing an exposure. I was suprised to see how much of a difference in the colour of a white door could be made to differ just through exposure.

As I was writing up this exercise I referred back to the notes paying attention to the examples for saturation and brightness as I did not want to confuse the two concepts as I had already made that mistake when I first looked at the range of colour from each selection of images that I had taken.

This was quite an interesting exercise; as it verified some of the points in the books I am reading, it also showed that the colour of a subject could be varied and influenced by under or overexposing the image. This means that the colour of a subject can be controlled to a certain extent by the camera and the photographer.