Work Diary - Blurring

Evaluation and Technique

When I was on holiday this Summer, I was on the beach at night, and I decided to capture some photographs that would look appealing and convey the technique blurring. I had fun doing this because it didn't feel like I was pressured to complete a shoot; instead I was just experimenting with attractive images on the beach, completing a task in the process. I managed to capture a variety of blurred images through exploring a mixture of styles. For the first few I applied a slow shutter speed to my camera settings, centred my camera facing out towards the lit towns across the bay and pressed the shutter. I then let go and panned my camera across the landscape whilst moving it up and down in the process. For the other photograph I simply put my camera into manual focus and blurred the subject, allowing for a circle/bubble formation to form across a dark black frame. I really enjoyed this shoot because I like how the blurred technique can work with some images. I feel that this shoot was beneficial because I have been inspired to apply a blurred background in the distance of my subject when I take photos of food products and packaging. I also think that it would look extremely successful to move the camera just slightly across a brightly lit beer bottle for example. as this would drag green motions across the frame that I feel has the potential to look like an extremely engaging piece of advertising photography.    

This first image is my favourite out of the shoot, even though I didn't manage to capture a large mixture of images. The reason that I like this photograph is because it is extremely abstract. It isn't clear to the audience at all, what it is, how it was shot and where It's been taken. All the audience can see is a mixture of lights against a black backdrop. I like this approach because I feel that it leaves a sense of mystery and would allow the viewer to just admire the combination of light streaks rather than comparing it to the day time version of the photograph; as I took this image at night outside. I like the one bold squiggle of yellow light that starts from the left side of the picture and creates two hills at the top of the frame as this stands out a lot more in the foreground whilst the thinner lines are overlapping in the distance. I feel as though the formal elements colour, lines and pattern have been used effectively in this image, and even though this image isn't relevant to my project and doesn't really look like anything at all, it has inspired me to be creative with colours and go a bit crazy in one of my shoots, just to experiment with the technique blurring and how effective it could be in my project.

This is the second image of my shoot, which I thought was just as successful as the first one, however less creative and less eye catching. There is no surreal or abstract approach in this picture that has been applied to the photograph, which doesn't allow it to stand out at all. However, I really like the bubbles that appear in an image from having an out of focus camera capture lights. I feel that this technique is an interesting one because it captures a variety of shapes in a line that consist of mixed colours. There is white, orange, red, green, teal, blue and purple filled in these bubbles which could be edited to look like the colours of the rainbow. This photograph would be interested to apply a computer experiment too, and the intense dark background allows the colours to bounce off of it in a much more successful way than if the black was patchy and grey. The contrast is evident and I feel like I got the composition just right. I would develop this type of photograph in my future work by having a subject stand out against the blurred bubbles, perhaps during daylight as this would be a more flattering image.

Progression

I have many ideas for progressing the technique blurring in my work, that I will most certainly be experimenting with, just to see how successful the outcome would be. I want to get beer bottles or any form of coloured glass bottle and slow the shutter speed of my camera in order to drag the bottle across the frame, creating a moving motion effect with lines and faded blurs. I may also be developing the blurred light technique in the daylight in order to create flattering and feminine white bubbles in the background of a plate of cookies for example. I could actually photograph a plate of Special K snacks in front of a blurred feminine background as this would correspond with the feminine approach, as Special K are light snacks that women eat when they are watching their diet. The few images below are what inspire me when it comes to mixing my advertising project with the blurring technique. The photographer behind these two photographs is Timothy Hogan who specialises in advertising photography, which would make him the perfect inspiration for this technique.