Assignment 3 - Tutor Comments

Here's my tutor's comments on my portfolio:

West Bay 1
It’s a striking image to open with.
In this instance I agree with you about cropping the dog and people out as they aren’t adding anything of particular interest, but with a different configuration of people and dog it would have added a lot of interest to the image. Say a dog on its own looking back at you.It might have been worth hanging around a bit, once you’d covered the original idea, to see if anything more interesting happened as an alternative.

I waited around here for quite a while to see what the dog did...

West Bay 2

You’ve almost got a cowboy theme going here; I remember in the previous assignment you had a fisherman that looked a bit like a Levi’s ad.

The relationship between the signage, the fire hydrant and the cowboy is working well compositionally but, as in the last case, the other figures aren’t really doing much for us. They are interfering with the other elements by pulling the eye to the edge of the frame for no reward. Also the whole thing seems to be running down to the left. If you look at the top of the fence it’s not level and it should be, irrespective of the vertical convergence you are getting.
My submission:

Of course you can use this consciously to create an air of instability in the image but if it’s not intentional then the camera should be level. I’ve corrected for it here with Filter/Distort/Lens Correction, and while I was in that filter, since I was there, I corrected the perspective distortion; which handily cleans up the cropping windows on the left which were a slight distraction. Then I cloned out the distracting people as a comparison to the original image.
Tutor's suggestions:

Eype 1
A very classical rendering that describes the context of the building.
One comment I would make, and this is a general observation on students in general, including the landscape students, they often assume that the optimum conditions are a sunny day for this sort of architectural shot. It would be nice to see some investigation of different times and weather conditions.

Eype 3
This is a considerable improvement, by joining several images together you have effectively increased the resolution; disguising the camera’s short comings since the enlargement required for each individual section is much less.
The fact that you’ve made a ‘joiner’ with visible edges, in the style of David Hockney is appropriate since it’s an arts centre. This image is working really well; you’ve incorporated the technical shortcomings, in a technically difficult situation, into the aesthetic, thereby making a positive out of it.

Beach Huts 2
This is an effective composition and there’s some interesting detailing, ‘Hotel’ and the blue net, but I think the figures would benefit from a little more space to the bottom and the left. Since they’re the main focus of our interest they seem a bit cramped and peripheral.
I think I prefer zoom_0002 for the sense of presence and relation to one another that the figures and activities have; possibly cloning out the figures on the extreme right.
My submission:

Tutor's suggestion:

Beach Huts 3
Again graphically strong but this time with human narrative possibilities and no tricks.

The shot of the assignment so far, with your church joiner coming second. 

Museum 2
Yes this is rather amusing the way one does a double take. Compositionally and technically it has been well handled; apart from the fact that 200 ISO seems to be very noisy on that camera. 

Museum 3

An interesting subject in itself but it’s the leaf and little splashes of blue that make it an image. Well spotted.

Shelters 1

This has an almost Moroccan feel to it. The use of the figure gives it an extra twist that multiplies the interest and narrative possibility. I think the central positioning of the figure works well; making them symmetrical would have been too obvious.

Shelter 3

This was well spotted; the all action wedge of people ‘pointing’ toward the upturned table and parasol with the shadow coming in on the right pointing back in the opposite direction. It’s an interesting composition. You made a good job of moving the parasol; it’s a personal philosophical call on whether you consider that acceptable.

Personally it’s something I’d only do in very exceptional circumstances in my personal work. I prefer to work with what’s there and how it is, but you pays your money and makes your choice. ‘ } 

Again the iPhone is showing its limitations. Its short comings aren’t so distinctive as to be an ‘effect’. The whole feeling is rather crunchy with a dissatisfying lack of resolution and blown highlights.

 

Shelter 4

Leaving aside the aforementioned ethics, this was a good technical exercise that was well executed, apart from perhaps a jog of the mouse right at the end. The bench needed to be nudged over to the right a bit more. You can see a gap to the left of the hood and it overlaps it on the right.

In terms of whether it needs to be there I think it doesn’t. There’s a harmonious relationship in the triangle formed by the two sets of flowers and the pram, set in the context of the formally squared up architecture and the punctuation of the two notices.

When the notices are added in they also make up a square with the pram and the flowers. 

The bench rather clutters the image, undermining these relationships. Also without the bench there’s more of a sense of abandonment.

Take away the bench and this is a contender for the most sophisticated image you’ve made on the course to date.

My submission:

Tutor's suggestion:

 

Conclusion

As I said in my email, your work as gone up a level; your visual awareness of potential subject matter and composition has become more sophisticated in tandem with your technical control. Don’t use the iPhone for assignments though; the quality isn’t good enough, and not in an interesting way. The images just look technically inferior to your other cameras. The joiner was acceptable because it used multiple frames.

Coming on to the images...

Shelter 4 without the bench is my top one, excellent, progressive visualisation with good technical handling and post production, apart from the alignment glitch.

Shelter 3, pace the iPhone, the same comments apply.

Closely followed by Beach Huts 3.

Eype Panorama

My choice for Beach Hut 2

Museum 2

Finally West Bay 2 which was a ‘nearly but not quite’ because of the confusing background behind the cowboy.

Keep refining the vision and control that you’ve developed with these. Good work and good progress, well done!