Brief 4 – Home

Robert Adams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Adams takes photographs that most people would think fairly plain. However I think that the composition of these photographs are really interesting. The one above is particularly as the image seems to be very vertical, with the two men standing there and the parallel lines of the houses around them, this is something I want to explore in my own work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This image again I think has really interesting composition, as the lines of the plant life seem to move vertically, up to what looks like the horizon of the image. it’s also a really interesting use of creating depth in a natural landscape, the field blurs as it moves back creating a sense of depth leading up to the horizon of the image.

Thomas Heaton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Heaton is another photographer I take great inspiration from. As I believe that his use of objects in the foreground to draw the eye is really effective. His images are also very vibrant and contrasting with its colours, he also splits colour between the foreground and background, giving it subtle contrast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another one of his strengths in my opinion is capturing movement, in this image you can see that the shutter speed has been lowered to slightly lower than needed to capture a sharp image to add motion blur to this photograph. I think this helps bring the movement into the picture subtly and seamlessly. Sometimes I think motion blur can be overdone and end up making the image look like it was shot poorly, this example shows how I think it can be done effectively.

 

Development

I started by thinking what made me think of home, and what I decided on was that locations and objects that look familiar reminds me of home more than anything else. However these don’t always have to be places I’ve been before, it might be a rock formation that I think looks similar to something I’ve seen on a family holiday, or a colour set that I know I’ve seen somewhere a lot growing up.

 

To explore this I carried a camera around with me everywhere I went, and every time something I found nostalgic, I took a picture of it. I’m very happy with the results and think that given more time I could of found a lot more locations than the ones that I ended up with.

This bridge between two buildings reminds me of a very similar bridge in the town I grew up in, I would often walk past it on my way too and from school so I had normally seen it in a sunset/sunrise lighting.

This street reminded my friend of the street he grew up on, mostly the slant that lets you see much further into the city than you would if it was flat was what he said reminded him the most.

Whenever we saw one of these bee’s while out walking, my dad would always stop us and tell us something he knew about it from his days as an ecologist. I was always fascinated by how much he knew about nature and him talking to my sister about stone mason bee’s might be one of my earliest memories.

There is a very similar quarry not far from where I lived growing up, we would often go there for walks and I can remember spending a lot of time there as a kid. The trolley was added into the shot as I everywhere I went there would always be a trolley in the most unsuspecting places.

Things like this were very common while I was growing up, we loved going for walks as a family in the woods, and I would spend a lot of my time off exploring finding places like this with my little brother.

These flowers always used to grow in our garden every spring growing up, I remember that the petals would get everywhere in the fall when the tree’s shed their leaves in the autumn. I saw these while out for a walk and my memory instantly linked them back to that.

Reflection

I’m very happy with the results of this brief, I like the contrast of images I have. I wanted to do some close up and some landscape and I managed to achieve both of this quite well in my own opinion. I’m still very happy with my initial idea of taking pictures of things that remind me of home. However if I could do it again I might try to set up some of the shots a little more, for example the bridge I felt should of been central in the image, however there was no place in the stream I could of stood to get this shot, and in the picture of the Bee I feel like there’s too much negative space and perhaps I could of found something interesting to also put in the image to help balance it out.