Assignment one Workflow
The topic I used for this assignment was 'Travel' we had planned for sometime a long weekend in Northumberland and having visited there before I thought it was a perfect opportunity to try and get a series of shots for my course work.
- Plan - As I have been to Northumberland before I had an idea of the areas I wanted to visit and the in my head a few of the shots that I wanted to take. I made notes about potential locations. Some of the shots that I was planning on taking would be weather dependent. As with a lot of shoots some of the shots and sometimes the best ones would be opportunistic, being in the right place at the right time.
- Equipment - All my equipment was checked and zeroed, memory cards formatted, batteries charged, lenses packed.
- Shoot - As per my plan I visited the following locations, Bamburgh castle, Alnwick castle, Holy Island, Lindisfarne castle, Beadnell and Seahouses. Also while I was in northumberland I upload the pictures I had taken to my ipad in-order to check the quality of the pictures that had been taken, as it would have been to late to re-shoot had I waited until I got back and uploaded them to my computer.
- Upload Images - This was the first task in the processing of the images phase, all the images were uploaded to a dedicated drive and then backed up straight away.
- Import photos - This was the second task in the processing stage. The images were imported (copied)into lightroom as DNG files, this meant that I would never actually be editing the original file. This is the option I always select when processing my images so as to keep the original intact and untouched.
- First sift - This is the stage where I discarded completely unusable out of focus images. once the discarded imaged were removed I then went back through the images selecting possible photos and adding them to the quick collection.
- Second sift - This is where I started to choose a selection of photos and removed the duplicates or images that were not suitable. once i had my selection of images I then created and added them to a new collection.
- Process the image - I now had my selection of images, this is the point I created a contact sheet of the unedited images. I then started to edit, crop and retouch were necessary.
- Export images - once the images had been processed the were exported to my hard drive and two versions made of each, a full size jpg file and a what I call web sized image file that I would use in the online blog.
- Upload Images - The web versions of all the images were uploaded to the web to be used in the online learning log.
Image 1, 2 and 3
I thought I would start with one of the most iconic images of the Northumberland coastline that of Bamburgh castle. It is often most photographed from the other side normally from the beach. I chose this particular photo as it nicely compliments and is almost opposite to the second shot.
The third image in the series is the large state room inside the castle. What I like about this image is it displays the grandeur of the castle and how the colors all blend together.
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| Image 1 - Bamburgh Castle |
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| Image 2 - Bamburgh Castle |
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| Image 3 - Bamburgh Castle |
Image 4, 5 and 6
Holy island is one of my favorite places in Northumberland. I like the idea of being shut off from the rest of the world for several hours a day as the tide comes in and washes over the causeway.
Image 4 is of the old kitchen inside the castle all the objects were arranged as per the photo and I thought it would be interesting to try to age the picture to add to ambiance of the shot.
Image 5 is taken on the rocky beach below the castle, last time I visited here this shot was not possible due to the tide being still quite high. I added the lobster pot to the foreground so as to give some more depth to the picture.
Image 6 is taken from the boat sheds on holy Island, Most of the old sheds are made from upturned hulls of old boats.
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| Image 4 - Lindisfarne Castle |
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| Image 4 - Lindisfarne Castle (Aged) |
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| Image 5 - Holy Island, view of Lindisfarne castle |
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| Image 6 - Holy Island, view of Lindisfarne castle |
Image 7
I picked this image as I thought it was an interesting and quite detailed shot of the very small harbor in Beadnell, Like many coastal village's that rely on tourism fishing is still a big part of coastal life.
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| Image 7 - Beadnell harbour |
Image 8 and 9
As well as an opportunity to take photographs this was primarily a family weekend away that is why i have included the following two shots in this series. The first is on one of the long stretches of coastline not far from Bamburgh. When shooting this I was trying to a get the family in silhouette, I think it has partly been achieved.
Image 9 was taken at Alnwick castle where my daughters had been taking part in broomstick training at the Harry potter school of flying, as you can see from the final image it really is possible to fly on a broomstick.
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| Image 8 - Northunberland coastline |
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Image 9 - Alnwick castle, Harry Potter
school of flying |
Reflection
When planning for this assignment I was mindful of the fact that first and foremost this was a family break, that is partly why I chose to include the last two shots as to represent why we visit these place's in the firstplace.
With regard to how the process of the workflow worked, on the whole I think it worked well, partly because this is my tried and trusted method which I adopt for pretty much all the shoots I undertake. As I have previously wrote in my blog because this is now my third course with the OCA, I had to have a process in place for the two previous modules, what I have now just simply has to be adapted for the particular assignment I am undertaking. I think more than anything this particular assignment on workflow, if it is not your first module, for most people should be a refresher on what you should in fact be doing.
If i had not had my process's and workflow in-place before now it would certainly have made life more difficult for myself when developing images.
