Shoot 2- Old Vs New; Work Record

Plans for this shoot, What I hope to achieve:

For this shoot, I intend to create a series of images which display the old Vs new within my town of Waltham Abbey. I used 3 of my shoots in my preparatory shoots to experiment different ways of conducting this shoot. As a whole, I found it really interesting and successful and therefore decided it would be a good idea to include it in my exam. The image on the left is of the work Ryan Francis, which displays how I was influenced in my test work to display my final products. Furthermore, this shoot was influenced by Jason E. Powell who is also shown within my research in my unit 2 blogger- thus showing how I completed lots of research to conduct this shoot. Furthermore, one of the key things which I want to show was a variety of different aspects within Waltham Abbey, not just the different in shops, because all the buildings are actually listed buildings so they cannot change all that much, it is the surroundings of these buildings in which I wish to focus on. Moreover, I aim to take images in the style of Lewis Baltz and Bernd and Hilla when I am editing I wish to keep these photographers in my mind as well because their work is quite old, and I think their style of editing would work much better when I place the images together. To complete this shoot, I will be using the website of http://efdhistory.org.uk in order to gain my old images- This is the website of my local museum.

This is the route I intend to take when I go out and complete this shoot, the circles indicate the specific locations that I want to go to- places I have found old photos of.

What I actually achieved:

I believe this is one of my strongest images from this shoot because I believe it clearly shows my aims that I wished to capture. This is because it is clear that both of these images are in the same location and that the one above is the older image. I wanted to include the car in the foreground of this image because it shows the difference in society in terms of technology; the way of travel use to be by bus, yet now it is car. What I also find really surprising is that as the bus stop is there in the older image, it suggests that Sun Street was actually a road- thus showing how little transport was used, because of the small lanes, if Sun street was still a road, it was be too dangerous as people walk up and down this street but also because this is where the market is. Another reason I have decided this is one of my strongest images for this shoot is that though the use of photoshop, I have been able to aline these images so they are nearly exact. Furthermore, I think it is clear and interesting in this image that these buildings are listed, meaning they are not allowed to be changed on the outside. I find it a part of history and intriguing how the outside of these buildings can never change yet the insides are forever changing. When finding different old images, I wanted to take a photo of this one in particular because this is one of the main buildings to me that I know have changed so many times. For example, originally, this building was a post office, and it has also housed shops such as a card shop and a barbers- it continues to change. Moreover, I find this image to be one of my strongest because the way I finally produced this image to me resembles my intentions of producing work in the style of Bernd and Hilla Becher- as their work shows on the left, they took images of different aspects of a building and presented them side by side- much like I have with the old and new images.

I believe this is one of my weaker images of this shoot. This is because even though I find that it successfully portrays the difference in society- people used to have much more community spirt; going out more together than is shown here, I find this weaker image because I was unable to aline the framing together. For me to have taken the image in the exact style of the old image, I would have to stand in the middle of the road and even though it does look empty on my image, behind me is one of the busier roadabouts in Waltham Abbey so would have been far too dangerous for me to complete this image. Originally, I wasn't going to even edit these images together because eI knew they would be too different, however, I thought it was quite good at showing my experimentation because even though the two images do not aline together, they still show the audience the difference between what the society used to be like and what it has become.

What I am doing next:

For my next shoot I will be completing a shoot in the exploration of doors and arches. This is because on two different shoots on my practice shoots in unit two, I completed one shoot on ruins and one on houses, I found both very successful and therefore want to display how my test shoots helped influence my work through combining the work together.

Shoot 2- Old VS New; Straight Images

Editing Technique:

To edit the following images, I put both the old and new images on one document and changed one of the opacity of the images so that I could see both of the photos on the image.

This is what the image looked together once I lowered the opacity. This enabled me to aline the images properly as even though I was able to get a round about the same image, I would have been able to capture the exact same dimensions to the same pixel, therefore this was useful to create similar images.

I then double the canvas size so I was able to place them side by side.

Once both of the old and new images were next to each other, I changed the whole image black and white, this is because some of the old images were in a yellow sepia tone and I wanted all the images to be the same, therefore I decided to make the whole photo black and white.

Shoot 2- Old VS New; Contact Sheet

Shoot 1- Shop Fronts; Work Record

Plans for the shoot, What I hope to achieve:

For this shoot, I intend to use the style of Lewis Baltz in the exploration of photographing shop window fronts. As my chosen topic is Manufactured Structures I hope to create a final series of images of buildings within my hometown of Waltham Abbey. The reason I have chosen shop window fronts for this first shoot is because during my preparatory shoots, I experimented with a couple of photos of different shop fronts and I personally found the final outcome really interesting. As shown in the image on the left, my main plan of this shoot with be to carefully frame my images in the similar composition to the work of Lewis Baltz and also of the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher, These are just 3 of the photographers who I found when research my project for my preparatory shoots that helped influence this project. In order to achieve the similar style of composition in a head on style format, I will be using the equipment of a tripod and focusing on the camera settings, this is be to gain a bright image, which is not too over exposed , therefore to achieve this effect I will aim to have as low as an ISO as possible this is because the higher the ISO the more grainy an image is and I want my images to be quite soft. Furthermore, within my preparatory shoot of shop fronts I found an issue with my final images and shadow, this is because at the time of taking these images, I did not focus on anything else other than taking the image, therefore I hope to achieve images in this shoot of sharp and aesthetically pleasing and interesting images for my audience to observe, by doing this, I will have to ensure that before I take the image, I look at what will actually be in my frame, will there be shadow, will there be reflections? I plan to keep these in my mind when I do go out to take this shoot.

The location route I will be following is highlighted by the red line, this is the high street within Waltham Abbey called Sun Street, the reason behind me choosing Sun St. for this shoot is because it shows how much of a small town this is, even though there are big shops such as Tesco, lots of shops are small boutique shops and as the shops of Sun Street are all listed buildings, the outside of them are not allowed to change from their original state showing the historic value in these shops.

What I Actually Achieved:

As Waltham Abbey is quite a small town, down the high street, it mainly consists of independent companies/ small standing boutiques. I decided to include this image in my work record because I believe it has highlight the style of the town within this single image, additionally, I find this image one of my stronger images of this shoot. This is because, this barbers was opened in 1940 and there a still relevance of the older era of this town. For example above the sign, even though it is not shown in this image, there is a barber pole which is quite old as it has faded. Furthermore, as this building, much like all the other building on sun street, is listed, this means that the outside can never change what it looks like, it is protected for historical reason. Another reason I believe this is one of my stronger images is because of the framing, I positioned this image in my frame so that one each side of the main building there was a similar gap on either side. I also find that my aim for focusing on the composition has been successful in this particular image because it signifies the impact that my research has had throughout my project- the image shown here is the work of Andreas Gursky who also captured images which focused on the similar composition to my work- head on.

This is another image which I decided to include in my record because I believe it clearly shows the historic factor of the town of Waltham Abbey. This is because this image is of a butches shop which are becoming increasingly less popular- independent companies such as this one in particular are being taken out of business by large conglomerate super markets such as Tesco, Asda and Morrison. Much like the barbers, this company was founded around the 1940s. I think this is important because it shows a sign of the small independent aspect of this town as the companies have been kept through generations, passing down and keeping it in the family. Many shops down sun street and very well known to the people in Waltham Abbey, where everyone seems to know each other and there is a great community spirt which is shown on different events which take place through out the year- different fates. For this particular image I find it to be one of my stronger ones in this shoot because of the framing work again. I stood in the middle of the shop front so that I could frame this image in the correct and most interesting way, at the same time this helped enable me to not be in the frame. I do however believe this image would be even better if it was a detached building so I could have gaps besides each part of the frame, although I can not help/ change the way the buildings are. Furthermore, this image could be improved by the removal of the window reflection, although again there wasn't much that I could have done with this due to the weather- it was sunny so it was causing reflections on the frames. Moreover, I believe this image is a stronger outcome of this shoot because much like the image above, I believe it consistently shows my use of research to help me complete this project. For example the image I have placed here is of the work of photographer Lewis Baltz who work I had aimed to take inspiration for in this shoot as he also captures really interesting images of structures, he is also part of the new Typographics movement which I believe is also relevant within my work and project.

Finally, I do believe that this is one of my weaker images within this shoot. This is because I aimed to explore the different shop fronts in Waltham Abbey, showing the difference between the old stores and the newer one. This is obviously one of the images I captured revealing a newer shop on sun street being much more well known out of this town. However, I found that the newer styled shop fronts didn't work as well. This is because, even though the buildings are listed and nothing can actually be changed in the building itself, more well know companies such as this and the cooperative, have added a "fresher" look adding paint and a more modern name above the door. Personally,  I preferred the images with an out dated sign on the building because I find that they conform better with a small town atmosphere. Furthermore, I do think this is one of my weaker images due to my composition which I framed this image with. This is because I had to avoid being in the window reflection on the door so I had to stand slightly to the right which I do not think has worked very well because now the image doesn't appear central. More over, even though I cannot change this myself, I believe if I would have actually taken the image with the door in the centre much like it appears it should be, the sign would have been off centred which again wouldn't have the same effect that some of the other images I gained in this shot created.

What I Am Doing Next:

For my next shoot, I am intending to create a New Vs Old series of images, showing what life was like 100-70 years ago and compare it to what it is like now. A way I am going to be incorporating this into my project will be that the images will be consisting of structures, how somethings which used to stand are no longer here as they have been replaced by homes for example.

Shoot 1- Shop Fronts; Straight Images

Editing technique:

As I want to create a cohesive series of images, I wanted all the editing to be the same, thus helping the similarities of the images come through to my audience. 

Firstly, as I am focusing on the historic aspect of Waltham Abbey buildings, I thought the main way of editing should be black and white. This is because this helps my work conformed to the work of artists such as Lewis Baltz who's work helped influence my project.

Then to help create depth within my images, I used curves. This is because on certain images, I found without curves they looks like flat and plain. I didn't use the curves drastically because I didn't want to have a high/ strong contrast with the images in my work.

Furthermore, as I am shooting these series with the aim of a head on composition, I want them to be "straight" and "neat", however when editing I found not all of them were like this so I used the cropping tool and slightly adjusted the angle of the photo to make it straighter.

When going around Waltham Abbey I came across this small Florists which was down one of the small side alleys and I thought it was really intriguing due to the vintage aesthetic the appearance of the building has. This is because I believe it very successfully highlights the how Waltham Abbey is such as small town because many people know each other and even though florists are losing business to supermarkets because flowers are much cheaper there, if this were close down it was mean too much to people within the town. 

For this image, I found it quite hard to get the same composition as I did in the other images shown in this blog, this is because there was a pole behind me and a bench next to me so I was unable to gain a head on effect. However the reason I still wanted to edit it and put it on my straight images is because of the context behind this image. I think it is really symbolic and interesting to highlight to my audience how all these buildings on sun street are listed and they cannot be changed in any way on the outside, although what is contained within is a different story. With this building alone, I know it has been a variety of different businesses and I think it just shows how even though the outside of a building may appear really old and run down the inside can be so much newer- this symbolism can therefore show how my work is personifying the structures that I have captured, giving them human symbolic nature.

Camera settings: 

Focal length: across this shoot I wanted to try and use the same/ similar camera settings because I found that the wider my focal length was the more distorted the image became, it would become like a fish eye lens and curve the building. This is an effect in which I did not want for my work because I wanted the lines to clear cut and straight- parallel to each other. Although as you can see from the camera settings I have placed below each image, there were some anomalies as not all the images has low focal lengths, this was because that on certain buildings, they were too wide to actually include the whole building in one frame, along in this case I believe it did work quite well; it didn't distort this image.

In order to gain as similar images as possible, I ensured that I kept both the ISO and the F. stop the same. Although I couldn't keep every camera setting the same because of the weather- I relied on changing the shutter speed to fit the natural lighting better.

Shoot 1- Shop Fronts; Contact Sheet