i should really do this more often...

Armed with a few photographers, I got to research!

Darren Almond, Chrystel Lebas and Bill Henson. These were suggested to me by a tutor at University, so I went and looked them up - and here I am!

Darren Almond

 I ended the last post on the thought of doing formalism, but upon realising how amazing the sky is both at sunset and and sometimes during total darkness, I decided I might go on to shoot at night. This is for my book project, which will contain (hopefully) around 10-20 different images.

Basically, a reallllllly long exposure at night would give me a star trail sort of effect, kind of like what happens when cars go past when you're doing a 10 second exposure. I think though, to acheive this I'd have to get a remote that set the shutter off (because I don't fancy holding the button down for an hour or two!

I'd love to create an image like the one at the top, its just so different and unique that I feel would work           very well in my project. Hopefully I do get the chance

to shoot an image like that. The composition, too - the way the foreground is completely still and peaceful - it almost looks like its day time.

Secondly, shooting from a location where I can create silhouettes would be a good thing to do, too. I think that dark, strange shapes against a bright, colourful sky would work really well. Again depending on the exposure and time of day, the image would either come out looking like this image to the left, or one just below. I think that the sky works a whole lot better in this first picture than it does in the bottom one. The way that all the detail is taken out of the trees and hills in the background really makes you look at the sky.











Chrystel Lebas

 Chrystel Lebas' work is similar to Almond's work in that it features the sky, but in her latest work "Between Dog and Wolf", she tends to focus on the colours and how different colours can compliment each other in a photograph. I intend to apply this to my work by taking images that use a crazy skyline but also using colours that work really well together. In this first image, the blue-tipped flowers really work well against the green of the trees. Again, the silhouette effect is used on the tress - almost as if they're just black lines with just a tiny bit of detail on the trunk.

                    This image, also by Lebas, is one which features almost nothing but sky. There's the odd bit of the hills in there, but the sky dominates the photograph. The colours created by the sky suggest to me that the image was taken around sunset, when the sky produces the most amazing colours, from gold to sometimes even purple. It's these colours that also make me want to shoot

the sky at night.
This image is really great. Silhouetted (...again!) is the foreground of the photograph, with the background of the sea, horizon line, sky and the sun in great detail and amazing colour. The rich blue colours really stand out against the dark black of the foreground.

Here, the sky is creating all sorts of colours, which is really quite beautiful. The way the image is once again sorted into a silhoutte foreground and a bright, colourful background suggests to me that this is Lebas' style - which works immensely. The soft focus works very well, too, leaving out the detail in the edges of the silhouettes is  really quite effective.


  Bill Henson

The winning formula this time produced by Bill Henson. Silhoutte foreground and colourful background. Seems to be the way to go! However, with Henson's images, the detail isn't completely lost in the silhouettes. The edges are still sharp as knives, with each leaf and branch being accounted for. Still, I find them to be really effective, to the same standard as those produced by Lebas.






This one has a slightly darker tone to it, as the colours in the sky aren't so amazing as the others are. The darker clouds, however, work pretty effectively against the duller sky

Again, no detail lost. The power cables coming from the pylon are still clear as anything. The patterns formed by the clouds in the sky - each with a different colour - makes this image look almost like a painting, which is really cool.










oh. and. that's me finished.