DPP: Exercise 1: Your Own Workflow (time-limited)

Detail from the exercise shoot

The brief for the exercise suggests a portrait session. I've been thinking of whom I might ask to be my subject and feeling uncomfortable about having to do this. I posted to this blog just last week about my lack of interest in shooting people.  

But it's time to get moving on the course, so I decided to go ahead and do what I'm interested in. The course notes seem flexible in terms of being able to build exercises around work in which you're already engaged. I don't think the tutors or assessors are going to care that I've decided to do something other than portraits, as long as I meet the aim of the exercise, which is to create a workflow for a time-limited shoot. (And if I follow the lead of Clarke, I can make an argument for a liberal reading of portrait, “one of the most problematic areas of photographic practice, … fraught with ambiguity.”)

Google Maps

In May of this year (2013) I started documenting my Dubai neighborhood.  One area in particular is underrepresented and with an eye toward this exercise I cycled the area at daybreak earlier this week to see what images might suggest themselves.  I have settled on a parking deck servicing the Exhibitor's Hall of the World Trade Center. What makes it interesting is it's circular shape, like a turret stuck at the corner of a typical rectangular parking deck.

I haven't yet taken any photos of this structure. I plan to shoot Friday morning at sunrise for no more than 30 minutes (in order to meet the requirement of a limited-time shoot). That should be sufficient to get a number of shots from a number of angles (meeting the requirement for refining the composition). The sun will be rising from behind the turret, but I will be there early enough that silhouetting or blown out skies shouldn't be serious issues.

I will be using my SonyRX100;  built-in lens, so no decisions to make there.  Shooting mode will be Superior Auto, since I'll shooting under slightly backlit conditions.  I may try AP to see what results come in.  I will carry a tripod in case light is not sufficient for low ISO.  I will work around the outside of the structure, shooting at average human height and a number of distances from the structure keeping the lens at its lowest focal length.  Images will be reviewed as they are taken.  Key areas of concern in composition are background elements and having sufficient light to maintain high ISO.  

Preshoot checklist

1. Charge battery
2. Format memory card
3. Clean lens and lcd monitor
4. Set AP to maximum dof
5. Auto White Balance
6. Check tripod to make sure camera attachment is not still on second camera

Shooting day

1. Once outside take camera out of bag to allow it to warm to outside conditions (air conditioned interiors often result in lens condensation)
2. Cycle or walk around the structure
3. Find suitable location to shoot wide, taking in most or large areas of the structure
4. Meter with camera:  if low ISO possible, go handheld;  if not, set up tripod
5. Shoot from at least three locations for wide view, at least three for narrow or detailed views

Post-Shoot Reflection

One thing I didn’t plan for is the weather.  Living in Dubai, the only reason to check the weather forecast is to see what the temperature might be.  Skies are most often clear.  But had I checked I might have noted a full moon.  In fact, had I not been on my bicycle, I might never have seen the moon.  But since it was still a little too dark when I arrived at the scene, I took a ride around the block, and on coming back was struck by a big, yellow orb hanging above the skyscrapers.  

It didn’t affect the shoot at all, which went pretty much as planned.  The sun was still low in the sky while I was shooting, which gave me a bit of backlight, but not enough that I had to seriously compensate.  Shooting in Superior Auto pretty much took care of that.  Traffic and pedestrian traffic was minimal and not a bother.  In fact, I think one of the best captures of the morning includes two people in a passing handshake.  I was thinking more of horizontal images, but happened to be in vertical when I saw these two meet and therein lies the photo.  

Perhaps the only place where I veered off-plan was in shooting subjects other than the one for which I had planned and is perhaps the one thing I would have avoided if I had been working with a human model (who might not think kindly of me wasting his or her time shooting elsewhere).  

Edit

77 images were copied from the camera’s memory card to my Lightroom catalog and a folder on my computer’s internal hard drive.  My folder naming scheme is year.month.date location.  Metadata and keywords were included in the copy process.

Of a total of 75 images, 18 were off-subject, leaving 57 images to edit.  I reviewed each image, flagging those I thought had potential.  Two images were deleted as unusable.  After reviewing all images, I sorted by flag, leaving 22 images.  I then began the process of making adjustments. I most often work in this order:

1. Lens corrections - distortion, rotation or crop
2. Tonal corrections - exposure, spot removal, graduated filters
3. Color corrections
4. Detail - sharpening and noise reduction

I did not adjust all 22 images.  Some were quite similar and I flagged these so that I could look at them again before deciding which to work on. In the end, I made adjustments to 14 of the 22 images.  I then looked through these and applied a green color code to those I wished to present as the final product for this assignment.  These images were then exported as jpegs to a subfolder within the image folder on the hard drive.  

The results

Post-Edit Reflection

The process outlined here is fairly typical of my work flow.  The only difference was in making my intentions explicit before the shoot, which I have found in the past to be a helpful exercise in focusing the mind, making clear for yourself what it is the shoot is intended to produce.  At some point in the process you begin to imagine alternatives, which either drives you to try something new, or to clarify why you want to stick to your original approach.  This is not at all unlike the planning teachers put into lessons:  establishing goals, exploring approaches, gathering the necessary resources, anticipating problems.

I also learned something interesting about my camera, which, in order to finish up this exercise and get it posted,  I will save for a later entry.


References
The following are blogs of coursemates I consulted while working on this exercise:

1. http://davebartlettdpp.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/exercise-1-your-own-workflow-1/
2. http://warrenjonesphotography.blogspot.ca/2013/08/dpp-part-1-ex-1-your-own-workflow-1.html
3. http://michaelmillmoredpp.blogspot.ca/2012/06/exercise-1-your-own-workflow-1.html

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