Dance studio location shoot

For this shoot I went into the dance studio to photograph some of the dance students performing. As they was moving around I found it difficult to get a good still shot. I also found it difficult with the lighting conditions, as the sun reflected in through the window only at a certain part of the room, when the dancer moved into or away from that position my camera settings weren't correct for that lighting condition and the dancer didn't stay in one position for too long, so this was definitely an obstruction within taking these photographs. Although these things had been an obstruction I feel that a few of the images I captured turned out to be successful. 

Some of these images contain motion blur, due to having slower shutter speeds than needed. Which doesn't always necessarily make the image look bad and can sometimes turn out successful. Within these images there are a few images with motion blur within, some that look successful and some unsuccessful. I have also captured some successful and unsuccessful action shots. 

From where I had to stand while taking these photographs it was difficult to get a good composition within the images because I was only able to shoot from one angle, which meant when these dancers were moving around the composition within the images i was taking wasn't always a good composition. But I feel that in a range of these images there is a good composition within them which creates successful outcomes.

I think that there are a few strong images from this shoot, which are very powerful. They capture some of the strong point in the dancers routine that they was trying to express and the positions that they are in that can give out many different messages. Doing this shoot has taught me to create a good composition with a limit of being able to move around the room, as well as taught me the conditions of shooting in this location and what will create a successful images whilst photographing dancers. 

Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore is a very successful photographer who has been widely publishing and exhibiting his work for the past 40 years. I have looked into his work and have chosen to research into his work from the American beauty project. I have chosen to do this as I will use his work as inspiration in helping me to create my own works. I will use his work as inspiration because I feel with my idea of using train stations/travelling as my location and idea, it will help me to research into his work as I feel it could help me a lot as they seem to be a similar style etc to what I want my final outcomes to be. As well as researching and looking at the work he does I also found and watched this video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM2X1GnNSQ . Which also helps to understand how and why he creates the work he does and helps me a lot more in creating my own work. I feel that I can successfully create my own work using Stephen Shore as my influential photographer as help along the way and in the end create successful images and a successful outcome which will be a photo book.

Studio location shoot

For this shoot I went into the music studio to photograph some of the music students recording and performing their music. Shooting in these locations was very experimental and has given me experience of shooting in these different conditions and had its advantages and disadvantages. In the recording studio I was able to get good images of the equipment as well of the students, but as they was recording they was often discussing things which made it difficult to get a range of images in the time I was in there, but I feel that the images I did shoot are very successful and effective. The lighting in there was good and helpful in getting sharp and clear images.

After photographing the students recording their music I then went to photograph the students performing, which was a little more difficult to photograph due to the lighting, it means I had to have slow shutter speeds which caused some movement to be blurred, and a high ISO which caused much image noise, I think a way to prevent this in these conditions in the future would be to have a lens that opens up to a wider aperture, therefore allowing me to have lower ISO which will cause less image blur, as well as faster shutter speeds which will allow me to capture movement. Apart from the these technical things being a problem I feel that I have produced a range of good outcomes from this.

When shooting in these locations I felt more comfortable taking images of the students who was performing because they was performing song after song with very little pauses in between, therefore I could continuously capture images, whereas with the recording students a lot of the time they spent putting the music together on the computer which felt slightly awkward and uncomfortable, but was in a way a good thing because it gave me time to capture images of equipment around the studio. Going to shoot in these locations was difficult at first, not knowing what it would be like, but after a while it becomes easier and more comfortable to do and easier for me to capture loads of great images and create a range of successful images to show on my blog post as a location shoot. It has also gave me the experience of shooting in these locations and conditions and will definitely help me in the future.

After shooting these images I went onto photoshop and edited some of them, ones that I felt needed correcting or ones that I wanted to edit. For example some needed correcting, because of the bad lighting, which I did, as well as editing some of them black and white, and also bringing colour back into some. But there are also a few images that I felt didn't need editing, which are the ones in the recording studio, as the lighting conditions in the room were good which enabled me to capture good images therefore not needing editing. But one image from this set I did edit into black and white and bring back in some colour on the guitar pick. With this being a bright green colour I thought it would bring the attention to this particular piece of equipment and help it to stand out. 

I think that some of the strengths within this shoot are that within some of the images I had one main focal point, whether it be the guitars, or one particular musician playing. I tried to capture them playing their instruments with only the instrument within the shot as well as capturing their whole body within it to see their facial expression as they played. I also captured action shots well and sometimes struggled to capture an image without blur due to having to use high iso and slower shutter speeds but managed to capture successful images even with this obstruction. Some areas for development would be to try using different techniques and shooting from many different angles and moving around instead of standing in one place.