Final Submission

I spent the last four days licking the final submission into shape, before emailing it to my tutor today.  This was spent in selecting photos, developing them in Lightoom and Photoshop to best effect and then trying out different layouts on black A5 pages.  I found that assembling several photos on a single page brought up some unexpected issues.  One was that, on a couple of pages, there was inconsistent white balance; leading to an unharmonious result.  I had to return to photo editing to harmonise them.  Another was that the various styles of editing that I'd used, done at different times, showed up, again needing further editing to put right.  So a learning point is to apply similar development settings to photos that are going to be viewed together.  Another learning point is not to flatten Photoshop files too soon in the interest of saving file space.  I had to edit some phos from scratch a second time because of doing this.  However, it was a good feeling to send off the final TAOP assigment, which I would estimate at about 20 man days of work overall in planning and execution.

On Location in France

After the wedding, I carried out a planned tour over 5 days of the key locations in France involved in launching the 1066 invasion.  These were Caen, Bayeux, Lillebonne, Jumieges, Dives-sur-mer and St Valery-sur-Somme.  Each location presented its own challenges and I had to take photos no matter what the weather was. I took some 500 photos overall, looking both for angles relevant to events of 1,000 years ago as well as good photos in their own right.  I was accompanied by my partner, so these days needed to be and were a holiday for her as well as being a photo opportunity for me. I find that it takes time and considerable thought to spot and capture strong and relevant images, so appreciated having a tolerant partner who is also a keen photographer.

Wedding in France

I attended a wedding in France today and, although thankfully not the official photographer, I had the couple's approval to take photos.  I concentrated on not duplicating what the official photographer did, but still finding images that brought out different aspects of the day.  I have since uploaded some 70 of the photos I took on to flickr for the couple to look at when they have the leisure.

Acrobat Pro

I installed Acrobat Pro today, with the intention of using it, in conjunction with Photoshop, to build my final assigment as a single pdf file.  I had already constructed three trial pages in Photoshop, each page consiting of several photos on a black A5 background, with header and footer material togetrher with photo captions.  Acrobat successful merged the Photoshop files together and allowed one to optimise the resultant pdf file for size.

Battle of Hastings Re-enactment

I attended English Heritage's annual re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings in order to obtain some relevant photos for the final TAOP assigment.  It was a pretty impressive scene, with hundreds of actors in period dress with period weapons doing a convincing job.  I took two cameras and four lenses, changing lenses at lunchtime.  One of the problems was finding places to stand that had a clear view through the large crowds without being too selfish about it.  In retrospect, I would take a powerful telephoto on a monopod to pick out key pieces of action, much of which took place several hundred yards away.  As it was, I felt I'd bagged an acceptable set of photos, some of which would be suitable for the final assignment.  The previous visit I'd made to the site a couple of weeks ago paid off, as I knew my way around.

RAW Double Exposure

I used the technique of double-exposing in RAW one of the photos I'd taken of Pevensey beach to get both sky, land and sea looking their best; then merging them in Photoshop.  It worked well, making the final image far more attractive.  I first came across this technique in one of Scott Kelby's books.  I feel that the ideal way to edit photos is to do so as a whole, without the use of masks, which is the way Dan Margulis generally does it.  But in practice I admit to using masks quite a bit to get the results I'm looking for, lacking his exceptional skills.

26 September 2010

I worked on evaluating and processing the photographs I'd taken at Battle and Pevensey. I identified several candidates that I felt were good enough to form part of the final assignment.

I carried out some detailed planning into the October trip to France so as to identify the various key Assignment 5 locations in a number of French towns: Lillebonne, Jumieges, Caen, Bayeux, Dives sur Mer and St Valery sur Somme.

The challenge in Assignment 5 will be to take photographs that evoke the character of the various locations, while recognising that after 1,000 years there are few visible traces of William the Conqueror's passage en route to England.  Nevertheless, the storyline needs to come through in some way. The individual photos need to stand on their own merits as good and relevant compositions.

24 September 2010

I devoted the day to TAOP, first driving to Battle in Sussex to investigate the site and to make plans for visiting it on 9th October for the annual reenactment of the 1066 battle. Doing this enabled me to fulfil Exercise 62: Researching an Event. I spent several hours walking around the abbey and battlefield to familiarise myself with its layout and to find good vantage points. I spoke to staff about the event in order to determine the best time to be there to take photographs.  I looked at the images on the English Heritage literature and booklets to see how they had approached the subject matter.  I also took a number of photographs, one or two of which may find their way into the assignment.

I then visited Pevensey Castle and subsequent Pevensey Bay, both being key William the Conqueror locations and took photographs of those locations with the aim of some of them finding their way into the final assignment. I was lucky with the weather, it being a showery day with some dramatic cloud formations.

21 September 2010

I spent several hours researching William the Conqueror on the web and in books, so as to have a clear picture of the history and the relevant locations in France and England.  This confirmed my feeling that his route to the 1066 battlefield would provide a suitable storyline to be the basis of Assignment 5.

19 September 2010

I did a lot of thinking about the final TAOP assignment and the exercises leading up to it. I considered a number of options for an Assigment 5 storyline, rejecting a friend's wedding in France as being both too hackneyed a subject as well as being too risky, particularly with the deadline of end of October looming. I ended up homing in on the route that William the Conqueror took through France and into England on his way to the 1066 battlefield. This would use the planned trip to France in October to take photographs of the various W the C French locations.