Assignment Two – Collecting

Brief 

Create a series of between six and ten photographs on one of the following subjects:

Things | Views | Heads 

‘Fragments of a vessel which are to be glued together must match one another in the smallest details although they need not be like one another.’ 

(Walter Benjamin, [1936] 1999, p.79) 

The Walter Benjamin quote above expresses the idea that a collection should reflect a single coherent idea, but you’ll also need technical rigour to match the photographs to each other ‘in the smallest details’. Start by choosing your focal length, aperture and viewpoint combination in advance. Visually, similarities correspond so they’re easy to look at, but be careful of duplicates because repetition is boring. Differences are interesting because they contrast, but randomly changing your framing or allowing a confusion of detail into your backgrounds will distract from the viewing. 

Research & Reflections

My entire thoughts from the beginning of this part of the coursework and all the research done for this part and the assignment can be found here.

Thought Process

As mentioned in my previous post about brainstorming ideas for the Assignment Two, the first thought about my assignment was based on the book, The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowksi, my review of which can be found here. Referencing this to my approach to the assignment, I began by simplifying it in these five ways:

1. The Thing – At first, I want to attempt this assignment by showing things in their entire clarity. I am going to photograph the images against a plain black backdrop with no fuss. I do not want to focus on just one approach and then keep wondering how it would have looked had I done this. I want to experiment with ideas for this assignment, both in making the images as well as presenting them. I am going to make images both in colour and monochrome for this set, just to see how they look and behave. For the final set, the idea is to photograph images with a shallow depth of field, in hues of yellows and golds.

2. Time – Natural light is the way to go for this assignment as aperture priority is the mode of choice for this section of the coursework. For my first set against the black backdrop, I will be using normal daylight, the set being close to a large window to allow ample daylight to fall on the subject. For my final set, I will be photographing the objects during the golden hour in the evening.

3. Frame – For the first set, the framing is a tight one, focusing only on the object. The frame will only include the plain black backdrop and the object. For the final set, the framing is still going to be the same, but it will have minimal inclusions in terms of different backdrops, different lighting and occasional props.

4. Detailing – In the choice of things that made it to my final selection, some of them have fine detailing, which forms the core focus area of that object and requires the same to be highlighted in the image as well. For the immense detailing and sharp images that Zeiss lenses offer, I have chosen three of them to experiment with for this assignment – 135mm, 85mm and 55mm.

5. Vantage Point – Objects being small in size and requiring fine detailing, I have chosen to photograph them from the top so that the finer details of the objects can be highlighted. For the soft, shallow depth of field that I want to achieve, this point of view works perfect for me, creating the perfect angle, eliminating unnecessary elements and focusing only on the object.

Introduction

The objects that I have selected to photograph for this assignment are some of the things that I have either found or collected over the years, each one of them special to me – details about why I chose what I did and my thought process behind it can be found here. I have separated them into two categories so as to present a more cohesive set together – Collected and Found. I have chosen to photograph these images in monochrome and colour both, mainly for my own learning to see what appears better and to see how same things photographed in B&W and colour look. The first set that I photographed is against a simple plain black backdrop – I wanted to do this first so as to isolate the subject and document it without adding any distraction to the frame. For convenience, I have split the contact sheets into two as per the two sets that I will present. The contact sheets for the first lot of images taken against the black backdrop can be found below.

Please note that compressing the contact sheets resulted in pixelation, thereby defeating the purpose to study them for finer details if one wants to zoom in. So kindly bear with me if it takes a little extra time to download.

Experimentation

I tried photographing the chosen objects against various backdrops before finalising on the plain black paper backdrop as my first choice. The final set was more difficult to execute as I had to ensure that despite different backgrounds being introduced the subject should not get lost at any point, which it did, as can be seen in the contact sheets. I was happy with the outcome against the red wooden background but to my dismay when I put it together in the final edit, it looked too repetitive, something we had been warned against in the brief. So just when I thought I had finished my shoot and I was happy with the outcome, the editing process displayed that the final set seemed like a coloured counterpart of the black backdrop pictures as the backdrop was similar in all and looked weak. It did not bring in the desired effect that I was looking for. So I had to reshoot everything again. Good learning on how the editing process can trash out even your strongest images.

I started with the 135mm lens, shot a few larger products with it, then realised mid-way that it was too long a focal length for the smaller objects so shifted to the 55mm lens. In some of the images where my vision is different and I wish to make a set with a soft out of focus look in some areas without compromising the focused area of its detailing so chose to experiment with a 85mm lens to give it that dream-like look. Although none of the shots taken by the 85mm made it to any of the final edits, I did have some great images from it. It also goes to prove that things can turn out entirely different from how you believe they will.

Collected Things

This set consists of various special things that I hold dear to my heart and includes things and memories from a period of about three decades. If anyone is interested in additional information about each image I have added them separately and it can be found here.

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Individual images in higher resolution can be viewed below. Click on the gallery to view full size images.

Collected Things – Monochrome

Collected Things – Colour

Camera Settings

• Nikon D5
• ZEISS Otus 55mm f/1.4 ZF.2 Lens | ZEISS Otus 135mm f/1.4 ZF.2
• ISO 100 | ISO 64
• Aperture Priority Mode
• Exposure decreased by one or even two full stops to get the correct exposure
• f1.4 | f2

Found Things

Over the years of my going to the wild, I have found and collected little things, treasures from the wild, each one of them having a story behind them. The things in this set consists of natural objects found in the different jungles that I have visited in the last decade. Additional information about each image can be found here.

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Individual images in higher resolution can be viewed below. Click on the gallery to view full size images.

Found Things – Monochrome

Found Things – Colour

Camera Settings

• Nikon D5
• ZEISS Otus 55mm f/1.4 ZF.2 Lens | ZEISS Otus 135mm f/1.4 ZF.2
• ISO 100
• Aperture Priority Mode
• Exposure decreased by one and even two full stops to get the correct exposure
• f1.4 | f2

The final set

I actually quite liked how the black backdrop worked, maybe even more than the final set. But context becomes important and my aim is to represent these things as memories and not particularly in a sterile and straight documentation mode. My experimentation with different backdrops and my editing process can be seen in the contact sheets below.

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Individual images in higher resolution can be viewed below. Click on the gallery to view full size images.

Collected Things

Found Things

Camera Settings

• Nikon D5
• ZEISS Otus 135mm f/1.4 ZF.2 | ZEISS Otus 55mm f/1.4 ZF.2 Lens
• ISO 64 | ISO 100
• Aperture Priority Mode
• Exposure decreased by one-two stops to get the correct exposure
• f1.4 | f2

I have printed out these images and stuck them in an album, that can be viewed below.

Technical Details, approach and techniques incorporated

As required by the brief, I had chosen my focal length, aperture and viewpoint combination in advance. My chosen focal lengths are 55mm and 135mm. My choice of aperture is f/1.4 and f/2 for both these lenses as a large aperture would be ideal for isolating the subjects from their backgrounds firstly, allow maximum light into the frame and allow the shallowest depth of field that I want to achieve. My viewpoint is from the top. Keeping the ISO and aperture constant, I played with the exposure by reducing it from one to even two full stops to control the light coming into the camera and get the correct exposure.

My camera was on a tripod facing down. The subjects were placed on the floor or on a small stool if they were too tiny. I have tried to get as close to what I wanted in my camera, leaving only very subtle finishing required in post processing where basically I have darkened some shots, and thats all.

As explained in experimentation section above, I have used the Zeiss manual lenses for their absolute brilliance as they offer a wide aperture, vibrant colour rendition and a brilliant out-of-focus background. Their maximum aperture of f/1.4 and f/2 provide substantial light for sharp, high resolution imagery and lovely shallow depth of field. Even though I thought I will be narrowing down to shots taken by 85mm for my final set , it was too tight a focal length to include all objects within. 55mm lens was a suitable lens for all shots but I have deliberately kept the combination of 55mm and 135mm in my final edit due to the brilliant rendition of the 135mm lens. My choices in the final edit were influenced by what fits together visually and aesthetically as a set.

Camera and Lens combination

I have used Nikon D5 as the main camera body and Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 lens, Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 and Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 ZF.2 lens. Out of these three lenses, the images that made it to the final edit include images from only the 55mm & 135mm, as the choice for the final images was dependent on various factors. Whereas exif data of common settings is give above, details of individual exif data can be found here – Collected Things and Found Things, as thats the only thing that varied in the individual images. I have given it separately so as to not clutter the images here with information.

Strengths, Limitations & Learnings

The reason I chose to do things in the first place was that it is not an extremely familiar subject for me and hence a little out of my comfort zone. I wanted to do a lot of experimentation with settings, backdrops and lighting. It wasn’t about completing an assignment and submitting it – It was about taking up a project that I know will be challenging in a good way. It didn’t go entirely as planned but some nice experimentation happened and that was really great and the end result was satisfactory. Another thing that I took up as a challenge was to use fully manual lenses for this assignment, which is a tad more difficult to handle than automatic lenses. I am happy to have produced my images purely in the camera itself and reserved Photoshop for minimum finishing wherever required. The images above are all full size and as captured, which means that I was able to control my settings within my camera and that is indeed a big plus for me.

Having shot the objects in different ways also gave me a comparison on how an object reacts to a certain background and different lighting conditions and hence this assignment was a great way of attempting to do a comparative study that allowed me to make decisions based out of practical attempts and not just imagination.

I believe that the editing process is equally important and this was proven to me when I attempted to put images together for the final set. What I had planned to put together as a set turned out to be a disaster and it was a new learning as even though individual images worked brilliantly and were complete in every way, they didn’t work out quite as well as a series – suddenly these strong individual photographs looked bleak and appeared too repetitive as the background was similar. This made the following statement in the brief very clear – “Visually, similarities correspond so they’re easy to look at, but be careful of duplicates because repetition is boring.” I am glad that this point presented itself during the edit process, emphasising that the selection process is an equally important part of if not more than the photographs themselves. That made me relook at my contact sheets and led me to rework my final set.

The printing for the albums is not per my standards as my regular art print shop is not yet open and I had to get these prints from a local studio. Nevertheless, it does represent my idea and I am glad to have taken this project from the beginning till the end at least.

The assignment also helped me learn technicalities of the instrument and I really enjoyed playing with different combinations during my experimentation process. Mostly, it led me to explore things beyond my comfort zone for which I am thankful for and has been a great source of learning. Lastly, this assignment led me to a great learning of how nothing is permanent. As I took the last shot of the Ostrich egg and was done shooting it, it somehow rolled over toppling several other small things in its wake and landed on the marble stone and smashed into pieces. Boy, as saddened as I was, I was glad I had photographed it before. It still sits in my living room in this box – smashed but not forgotten!

Thoughts on developing this project in the future

I would definitely want to explore different ways of photographing products and further enhance my learning. It’s an area that I would like to explore and become better at. I hope to get more opportunities as I proceed further into the course to try my hand at product photography.