Tuesday 19 March 2013

My work is almost done

It's not often I set out with a photograph in mind, but this afternoon I headed to the quarry hoping to find the skull I'd photographed last time but made a bit of a hash of. It had been a case of looking okay on the back of the camera but suffering from camera shake when looked at critically. I started out trying to replicate the shot using the tripod, but ended up much happier with the simple shot below. I suppose it breaks the rule of never putting a subject dead centre in the frame. I like the simplicity, and the the picture echoes another picture I made of a rock, similarly placed dead centre, the first time I visited the quarry. The two could be used as a diptych. All part of the way I'm thinking about this project in more defined terms than I usually do. It was with other aims in mind I made some more pictures.


As well as the photographs I've been making of the rocks and trees with no obvious subject or composition I've been thinking of making some closer views of things like the skull lying on the ground and the leaf below. I'm sure a lot of people would tidy up these objects. That's not in my nature. I take things as I find them.


There are a few major features that make the quarry what it is. The rocks are obvious, then there are the birch trees, and finally there is the gorse. I have some pictures of the gorse which don't quite fit with the feel of the rock and birch pictures I have made. If the sun had stayed out today I might have made some progress in that direction. I did discover that the fisheye works well for enhancing the tangled nature of the twisted gorse stems. A blue, or even slate grey, sky would have been helpful. Still, I can try again some time.


Not everything went to plan. I had the tripod set low and was making some pictures of birch trunks by a pool when somehow or other I made what I thought was a blank frame. Why I didn't delete it in camera I don't know. On the computer some detail was evident so I messed around with the file pulling out all the detail I could. It's far from being a straight photograph. In fact I wouldn't class it as a photograph at all. It does have something mysterious and almost spooky about it as an image that I like though.


Although this hasn't brought the quarry project to a close it has lead me much closer. I now know the sort of pictures I need to finish things off. I've also realised that for some of the pictures I've tried to make more different equipment might have been a wiser choice. I can't help but think that the ability of a tilt-shift lens to give a greater depth of field might have been beneficial, and maybe more pixels to get greater detail in prints than A3. Although I doubt the pictures will ever get printed that large and in 'book sized' prints what I have will be perfectly acceptable.

http://www.dlst.co.uk/quarry3/index.html

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