Work diary - Wide angle and Close up

Evaluation and Technique

Today was an interesting photography session, because I had to use the camera in a way I'd never done before for the wide angle shoot. I had to go extremely close to the subject that I wanted to capture in order for the lens to curve slightly around the subject, for example, I used Paul's face, as this would be a clear example of how distorted his face would look in comparison to a normal picture. I wasn't too happy with any of my wide angle photography in this shoot because I have used a specific wide angle lens before, and I wasn't getting the same effect without this lens; therefore knowing what I could get from this tool meant that I was pretty disappointed with what I actually managed to capture as a result. On the other hand, I was more pleased with the close up photography that I captured. I mainly looked at flowers because I felt that these are always the most interesting to shoot when looking for detail and colour, pattern and texture in close up photography as these formal elements become the most evident the closer you get to something. 

This was my wide angle photography attempt which I found to be the only successful wide angle picture out of the whole shoot. The reason that this was the most successful is because Paul's face is completely distorted in comparison to what he would look like in real life. The lens has focused on his nose, and then curved around the rest of his face. This creates perspective and depth which makes this picture look extremely fascinating. It's also quite a humorous technique when photographing people because it's abnormal to regular portrait photography. I don't think I would use this technique through just the camera settings again in the future, only with my actual wide angle lens which would give me this same effect on everything I took a picture of, not just a human face. 

This was my close up photography attempt which I actually feel could have been a lot more effective I was given more time to do a shoot on this topic. I have never really enjoyed being set a task to photograph something on the college premises because I find my options to be extremely limited, however I made do with what I could find and decided to focus on flowers for close ups as these have the most detail on them which can be conveyed beautifully through a close up picture. I liked that I was able to capture the different colours and tones in this flower, as these are two formal elements which are clearly evident. I also like the dark leafy background as the flowers surroundings because a contrast is apparent between the bright colours of the flower and dark colours of the plants in the background.

Progression:

I will be progressing both of these techniques in my future work because I have many current ideas that I feel could be captured through applying a wide angle or a close up in order to make them more effective. I will be capturing close up photography when I take pictures of sweets and any type of food that I want to fill the frame. I'll go close up to liquorice allsorts, skittles, starbursts and maoam pinballs for example. Then I will develop these to create surreal close up photography. For the wide angle technique, I will use my actual wide angle lens and take photographs of sweets in hands for example of a landscape picture of two eyes, one with a lemon being held over it perhaps. This will allow me to capture the detail of the fruit along with the detail of the eye, as well as having they eyes looking 3D like they do in real life. I will experiment with these ideas before I shoot them officially just to see how effective they come out.