Pranav Khetia Component 2 Sky: Work Record 1

Plan:
For my first shoot i wanted to develop my skill of long exposure photography when shooting images of the sky. my plan was to use a tree as a focus point with flash, then to exposure the scene long enough so that the dark night sky begins to achieve an eerie tone of colour. This would help me to set a mood for the series and ultimately help in progressing my skill of longer exposure photography.

I would set up my tripod with my camera mounted with a flash on my garden ;awn pointing up at the large overhanging trees, additionally I will attempt to photograph on such a day where the sky is slightly unusual and unique in terms of artefacts like clouds.

My setup would be a tripod, with my canon 5d mk1 with 24-77 mm lens for a slightly wider angle with a remote trigger release on bulb setting.

AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.

After following up research on night photographers, I found the work of Bill Schwab. He takes black and white night-scapes and his images have an eerie almost ghostly feel as a result of the conditions they where taken in. The images have a large amount of tonal range, as well as a strong element of sky which is the link to my exam brief. After looking into his work i have been heavily influenced to co-operate his style for experimentation in this shoot. In addition to the exposure, there is a strong emphasis on composition. Mostly with a 2/3 ratio on scape to sky i will attempt to use the same technique in my shoot.

Image result for bill schwab

Contact sheet:

Best images before editing:

AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.

Camera settings:

ISO 1600
Shutter-speed: 3.2 seconds
F/:10

The shoot was quiet short as it was done at 12:00 am, and i carried out the shoot as intended. I found it difficult to set my camera to achieve the correct exposure when relating it to the shutter speed. The images didn't turn out how I wanted them to as they where lacking the smoothness or tone of night-scape photography especially the sky aspect. I felt with more practise my skills in long exposure photography will develop greatly how ever the images did have some likeable qualities as they produced quite unusual and interesting scenes.

Images like the one below could've been improved by maxing out the ISO and lengthening the shutter speed so that the smooth texture of cloud movement can be achieve as well as the increase of grain size producing an organic looking photograph.

Additionally the extra purchase of neutral density filters would allow to have greater exposure times to the images as they limit light absorption of the sensor so that a more motion focused image is produced.

AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.

I put a few of the images into Photoshop, and by using levels to alter tone and exposure levels. this allows my to obtain a greater tonal range. Along with this I used the curves feature to burn and dodge the image to achieve more definition out of the image.