Documentary-Cliffside

Contact sheet-

Evaluation-

This is part of my documentary project is called Cliffside. To capture the photos in Cliffside I travelled to Great Yarmouth of the east coast so that I could document the landscape of the coast and try to capture how peaceful and tranquil the environment is. To capture these images I used my Nikon D3100, at first I used my landscape pre-set setting on my camera because i didn't have much time as it was the most relevant setting for these types of photographs I was taking which was around just after noon. However i did change the setting to manual after taking 1 or 2 photos as the lighting was quite varied depending on which was i faced. I think that this collection of photographs are some of my bet because I tried to capture certain aspects like the lines of the sand and the water meeting and how there are leading lines going along the coast. However I don't really like how the majority of the photos have quite a low colour saturation because the cloudy conditions, until the sun did start to come up and I changed my iso settings slightly, which is why some photos have a lens flare. And because there wasn't really any thing along the coast some of the photos look quite repetitive. I would like to go back to where i took these photos, Great Yarmouth, as some of these photos i would like to try and capture them again but at a different time of day so that certain aspects can be more predominate, like the sea of the colour of the sky because then the photos in general would just be more bright, vibrant and saturated. Also i just feel like i needed some more variation in the photos that i had taken, as it quite hard to take more because i only went to one place so there wasn't much to actually capture, but if i had walked furze down the coast line i probably would've capture a few photos that varied from my collection.

Best photos/Straight photos-

For these 6 photos I'm quite proud of how they turned out as I wanted  to try and have a different meaning behind them or what they represent to what you just see in the photo. For example the photo with the road in I wanted to try and get where the road splits then the horizon of the grass and the sky mixed into that which I did capture, however the road wasn't perfectly in the centre so that the spilt is equal which is quite annoying but I still think that the photo came out good. Also the photo with the lens flare I didn't intend for that to happen but I still really like the effect that it has made on the photo as where the sun is coming from that section is all bright and you cant really see it but gradually that effect wears off, also because of the sun the grass has been highlighted in certain areas so the photos has a few different tones. My favourite of the six photos  are the two photo graphs where I tried to have a shallow depth of field so that the closest objects in the photograph were in focus ad the rest of the photo behind it was out of focus. I achieved this by adjusting the aperture levels on my camera to the point were only the grass was in perfect focus in theses images. The first time I tried it was on the photograph of the tall grass and the sea and sand that is blurred. I like the effect that it has had as the grass almost appears as if it has been inserted on top of the sand and sea as there is now a clear distinction between the foreground and background. To overall improve the photos I would have gone on a day with better weather conditions so that I would have had the best lighting for the photos as the natural lighting would have been more direct so it would have given more shadows and highlighted areas in the photos so there would have been more of a range of tones, also I would have gone at a later or earlier time so that I could have the sunrise or sun set in my photos, which would've given my photos better tones too and more saturation in the colours. Or i would've taken photos from a different perspective, for instance behind me where all of the cliffside bungalows were, instead of just the actual beach front. If i had of done that, then i would've been able to compare the photos in terms of what uncivilised and civilised looks like.

Photos that need improving-

I wanted to take this photo because I liked the concept of capturing the wind turbines in the sea as it contrasted with the peace along the beach and how there was nothing insight but nature and people until you looked at the wind turbines. When I was taking this photo I had to use my AF70-300mm lens because I had to zoom in quite a bit to be able to capture the wind turbines as they were far away. However when I was taking this photo it didn't quite come out as expected as the photo is very unsaturated and dull so then the photo isn't very captivating for the audience, and nothing really stands out as everything is morphed into one instead of having one main point of focus. Also if I had shown more sand in the photo then it would add more contrast to the photo, as the sand is a bit brighter than the background of sky ad water which is just grey. Even though the photo does look boring, at the same time its good because the greyness of the photo could link with the manufacturing of the wind turbines by humans which has made the world more polluted which then creates more clouds and greyness. To improve this photo I would either try and edit it on Photoshop to increase the saturation or I would turn it black and white so then it looks more dramatic.

For this photo I wanted to get a deep depth of field so that everything was in focus and so that I could have a long leading of the grass and ending with the sea and the sky, so that i could have a leading line which would then lead the audience onto the sea/sky. However partly because of how the lighting on the day was, the sea and its colour is not very visible as its very unsaturated and grey so it just morphs into the sky. But I would have preferred the sky and sea it to be blue and saturated so that the green of the grass would be separate to blue sky then some clouds so that there would then be about three or four levels in the photo. However this photo is just leading grass to some grey sky. Also the photo would look more professional/cleaner if the houses were not visible in the photo as they make the photo look very untidy and stop the audience from focusing on the grass. But it does show how humans have impacted on some landscapes. However the photo would look better and more appealing if those houses were not there, and to further improve the photo i would edit it so that the line of the dark/muddy grass would appear darker so its more visible as a leading line by using the burn tool, and i would make the area of grass generally a bit darker and the sky more bright.

Edited photos-

(Original)

(Edited)

For this photo I wanted to edit to emphasise on the slight colour that was in the sky because of the sunset, which made the photo have four different levels in it, so originally I just used levels to made the lower section darker so that the sky was more outstanding, then I increased the saturation but it looked too simple so I used the hue/saturation tool to change the colours of the sky but I kept the colours quite natural like a sunset and I increased the saturation of the colour so then it looked more like a painting than a photo. After that I wanted the grass to make the sky look better and more eye-catching, so I selected the area of the grass and darkened it by using levels, then I turned it black and white so that it was plain in comparison to the sky which added contrast. I like this edit because it looks like a painting as it is very grainy because of the saturation, and even though its obviously not natural it still looks like it would be natural. Also I like how the wind turbines in the background break up the section between the sea and sky so that its not just one straight line.

(Original)

(Edited)

For this edit I didn't really know what to do with it but I wanted to edit it like water as its a photo of water. So I used various filters that distorted the photo, like the ripple or zig-zig filter. The filter that I used and kept was the wave filter as it waved the photo like waves would, I only used very minor waves with a low amplitude and frequency as I don't want to be over dramatic with the waves and change the photo too much. Also I would have preferred it if only the sea was waved and the sand was left as it is because then that would be even more natural. To improve this edit I would do something else to it so that it doesn't look so basic and simple, for example it could look better in black and white, however that could make the stones look weird as they are so close and clumped together it wouldn't really empathise on the stones much.