Final Shoot Idea

For my final shoot I want to combine all the different aspect of water which I have explored. Keeping in mind what worked well and what I'm good at. My favourite shoot was the one of the pond as I managed to capture some really interesting shapes in the water creating exciting sculptures. This also includes movement in the images which has been a main running focus throughout my research.

I want to create the same style of image with the water movement creating solid sculptures however instead of stones to create the splashes small and large shards of Ice. This keeps the water theme linked entirely through the image.

My Ice Time Lapse

This is my own representation of a melting ice cube time lapse. I feel the best part of this starts at 1.10 where the melting reverses. What I've done with this is place all of the images backward so that the melting reverses back to a solid state of ice. I'm really proud o the movement I have created within this time lapse piece and really pleased that I attempted to use other mediums to present my work such as film and still images. I feel that it's really linked together the concept of the exam question and I've explored many different mediums, states and patterns water can create.

The Creation

To differ away from the standard conventions of melting Ice I wanted to make it much more interesting to view. My idea is to dye the water which I'm going to freeze so that there is a wide range of colours. This is not only interesting but makes the melting process much clearer.

 I manipulated the colour using water paints. This allows the features o the water to remain the same while freezing and also give of the same properties when melting.


I placed the cubes in an Ice filled freezer and waited until they had completely solidified before I began the time lapse project.



I am really pleased with how well the shoot went. I spent around 4-5 hours taking an image every minute or so to capture all the movement and state changes while the ice melts. When taking all 184 images to create the time lapse I set up a smart working area of white background which reflects the light used and allowed all colour to be seen more appropriately. This is also why I chose to use a white place as the base so that the curve will collect the liquid as it melts and it's clearly visible against the background.

To create such a bright effect of colour I used artificial lighting, it's quite a hard light and can be seen reflecting of the tiles at the back however this also captures the glistening sections on the ice as it melts. To enhance the colour even more I also used flash. My reasoning for making the images as bright as possible is that when it comes to the editing I wouldn't be able to edit all 184 to an identical state however in completion of the video I did enhance the brightness over all very slightly once again to increase the obvious use of colours.

Time Lapse

Going back to the original exam  question:
"Observations of different aspects of water have inspired many photographers, video makers and artists. The surface qualities of water and the effects of water on an object have been explored in different ways by Ernst Haas, Bill Viola and David Hockney. Look at appropriate examples and produce your own work"
I because rapidly interested in the term video makers. This is where I turned to Youtube to look for representations of moving water photography presented as a video. The strongest idea I found was a time lapse.
Time Lapse is a series of photos taken over a certain time period then placed together to create a moving image. Ice was the best example of water I could find. Using Ice explores further into the different states of water especially as this style of photography shows the transformation between the two visible states of water. Creating a time laps creates movement of water and also the combinations of  images being viewed as a speedy motion challenges the concept of water movement. This really fascinates me so I've decided to attempt my own creation.

Mirror Ice

Ice on mirror

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As the Ice melted some of the patterns and oxygen spaces within the ice cubes became more prominent and obvious as they weren’t as obscured by the frozen frosty effect on the ice. These images are of Ice cubes melting on a mirror top. I decided to do this to represent the feature of reflection water has. In all my previous shoots I have mentioned how patterns are created by the light reflected through the water and also how object are reflected in water like a mirror. Ice however doesn't hold this refection factor.

Using a mirror within my images emphasised the ice as its duplicated filling a vast section of the image and only leaving one third blank. I have edited these images on Photoshop to enhance the patterns within the ice cube mainly but also to blank out the background so that it's purely black. This makes the rule of thirds more successful and also disguises the use of the mirror and tricking the eye into believing the quantity of ice.
 

Ice Shoot

Ice 1

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Inspirations from Nick Cobbing lead me to looking into patterns created by Ice in cubes and individual crystals. Nick Cobbing obviously focuses on larger Ice landscapes and patterns within glaciers. In these images I have focused on the smaller scale Ice attempting to capture the individual crystals and patterns within the frozen cubes of water.

Being able to capture the patterns links in with the rest of my work on water movement as these patterns were created by the movement within the water as if froze.

Ice edits

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To make the patterns within the ice crystals more visible I have edited certain aspects of the images.



In the first edit I have enhanced the shadow and lighting contrast giving the image a more defined depth of field and making the Ice crystals in the foreground exaggerated. In this image I really like the lighting. I used a standard desk lamp to give a hard light to the ice which also creates strong shadows. When editing the lighting on these the light goes through the block making the focus point the light perceived to be within the ice.



The second edit seems to capture the melting of the ice which in the watery effect reflects the light out of the image as a centre point. The section of ice in the foreground of the image placed slightly to the left third represents the patterns within the ice best creating a frozen water ripple effect.

Nick Cobbing

Another natural form water takes as well as rain is Ice.
Nick Cobbing is a landscape photographer his images he has recently become a focus in a time of climate change, retreating glaciers and shrinking sea ice cover.. Now these are on a much larger scale of photography than I will be able to achieve however some of the qualities involves within him images will be a great starting point for creating patterns.

Nick

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Rain Edits

These here are my edits of three recreations of rain images I deconstructed using my research, I'm really impressed with the improvement of my editing skills and the turn out of the images altogether.

 The edit in this image really focuses on the colour involved to make the patterns visible. As you will see the original is extremely bland due to the colour of the ground the puddle is over. All I've done in this edit is enhance the contrast levels, in turn making the water a more dominating feature of the image, the reflections within the water are more visible and also means the patterns of light creating the ringlet movements are much more prominent. The colouring had also become allot darker with the edit which symbolises the bad rainy weather and I feel it makes the image allot more sophisticated. This is my rain recreation of one of the blogs I mentioned.

I'm really proud of this creation and how well the depth of field has worked; the focus of the leaf in the four grounds is so prominent compared to the background not just with focus but also the contrast of colour. The Leaf is a vibrant green while the rest subtle down towards the back and have become submerged with darker tones. The leaf is placed on the right with the stalk of the leaf represents a line to draw the eye inwards down to the back of the image. I'm happy with the detailed droplets of water on the leaf, they once again support this reflecting quality about them glistening with the reflection of light, the water on the leaf is all so what gives the plant it's vibrancy. I'm proud of this image and the skills involved making it such a strong image.

The only edit I put on this image was a slight increase of contrast to make a more prominent difference between the background colours and the foreground.

This is my favourite image I've taken but it's one of the best recreations I have attempted to make. Taking my inspiration from the image of the man outside in the rain blurred by the glass of which the rain water obscures. Here you can see two obvious layers in the image, what stands behind the glass and what is on the glass. Having the water on the glass in the foreground then allows the depth of field to focus of that then obscuring the image behind not just by the droplets in front but also blurring the remainder of the image. The droplets are in a strong motion from the rain. This brings me back to my research on water movement, where as before I could see the oxygen bubbles moving around underwater here we see the water moving around on top of the glass. I used Photoshop to enhance the colouring of the image to make the droplets more prominent.