DPP Assignment 2: Seeing Like Your Camera: Planning

The title for Assignment 2 is Seeing Like Your Camera and requires a collection of high-contrast images shot in jpg and presented without post production.  The intention of the assignment seems to be to have the camera operator create as close to perfect exposures as possible in-camera under high contrast lighting conditions.  

The assignment is in two parts.  Part one requires shooting three images in four situations (twelve images in all).  Part two requires rethinking one set and reshooting it to reduce contrast. Total images in the assignment are thus fifteen.  

While not required, my plan has been to shoot thematically.  For the past few months I have frequently returned to images of poles - such as light posts and street signs - that punctuate the urban landscape like naked trees.  This has been done as part of my SZR project, documenting the few blocks around my residence on Sheikh Zayed Road, the city’s most well-known thoroughfare, the one lined with skyscrapers, including the world’s tallest, the Burj Khalifah.  My project has been the antithesis of the glamour and glitz as typically presented in travel and tourism images.  I see myself working more in the tradition of Atget, capturing everyday life in my little corner of the city in as realistic and unaffected manner as possible.  My intention is not to sell the city or make it attractive, but simply to record what I live and what I see.  

As for poles, I don’t quite know where the idea originated, but a review of my SZR images reveals an early interest in the concept of verticality as expressed in street signs, advertising, and metal rods. These three images from June 2013 show an interest in capturing collections of poles.

A photo from a month previous reveals an early example of what would become an increasing preoccupation, an urban landscape as an organic diptych.  This image was part of a larger assignment on the Dubai Metro and was taken to accentuate design.  But the idea that emerged from became a design principle.  

The idea came up again during my summer visit to Japan, and again in early October in a visit to an abandoned village in the northern corner of the UAE.

By mid-October I was shooting this idea repeatedly in my neighborhood.  A review of these images reveals compositional issues worth exploring before proceeding to the assignment.

Composition: Vertical Center

Almost all images have the pole in the vertical center of the frame. This seems to work best for creating a diptych out of found elements.  In my collection I can find only one example in which the pole is off center, and since it was shot vertical and includes other poles might not be a good example for understanding how lack of symmetry affects the viewer’s gaze. My hunch is that an off-center vertical adds weight and draws the eye toward the larger half of the frame. Certainly in this example the eye goes straight to the midground pole, but that may also be an effect of focus.  Without question, the off center vertical disrupts symmetry.  

Composition:  Vertical or Horizontal

Most of my images have been composed horizontally for the very obvious reason the wider frame produces a better split-field effect. Shot vertically, there just isn’t enough space on either side of the pole to create the desired effect.  

Composition:  Distance from the pole and perspective

There are two results from placing the camera at too far a distance to the pole:  1) the pole becomes easily identifiable within the larger landscape; and 2) a sense of depth and perspective is created that often minimizes the pole’s bifurcating effect.   The camera needs to be close enough to make the pole a dominant presence, about 1/8 - 1/10 of the horizontal width of the image.  Anything smaller and the pole lacks presence.  It doesn’t disrupt the gaze.

 

Here are recent examples cropped to highlight the difference:

The images on the right have a disquieting effect on the eye. With the ground cropped, it takes time for the eye to adjust to what it is presented.  It searches for a hook, an identifiable feature on which to rest the gaze and from which to build meaning from the rest of image.   Bringing the camera in close enough to disrupt perspective and create the appearance of compressed depth is an important feature of this type of photo.  

Focus: Pole, background, or both 
Another important element to the disquieting effect of the vertical seems to be focus. Foreground the pole and it calls attention to itself. Focus on the background and the pole is just something blocking the view, rather than being a part of it.

    

Background:  Variegated or Uniform

It seems more abstract backgrounds may be better suited to this type of image.  Obvious subjects such as people and automobiles call attention to themselves and become objects on which the gaze finds immediate relief.  

Compare the above with these:

Examples from other photographers

I don’t recall at which point in the development process outlined here that I saw Luigi Ghirri’s beach photo, but I know it was within the past six months.  The image has the desired effect of disrupting the gaze and making the mind do a little work to understand what is happening. More than other any other, this has been an inspiration.

I searched the internet for other examples but found only a couple, including one from Lee Friedlander in which the pole, the sign and the cheerleader seem to vie for the eye’s attention.  The intent here seems to be less playing with the eye than in setting up a comparison between types of verticals, inanimate and animate, light and dark.  

Ken McCown has a lovely image on Flickr of a pole in a rural landscape, the vertical strictly bisecting the imagine but also clearly the center of attention.  And in a recent example from the local press (The National) the pole is lost in the landscape and mostly unremarkable.

The Assignment

The brief presents eight situations from which four must be chosen.  I think the following are best suited for this theme:

1. Street scene in the middle of a sunny day (bright sun, long dark shadows, typical of Dubai).
2. Early morning or late evening with low angle light.
3. Any backlit scene, direct or indirect light.
4. Scenes with objects of different reflectivity.

Regarding settings, I will assume that in-camera processing is restricted to WB, ISO, aperture, shutter, and metering and focus options.  All other variables are to be set to neutral or otherwise disengaged (though they may be deployed as optional corrections in Part Two).  I also assume that the purpose of the exercise is to preserve as much detail as possible at both high and low ends.  

My subjects will be urban landscapes bisected by poles of some kind.  I will attempt to capture using the following guidelines:

• posts only, with no signs attached 
• post to be centered in the image, about 1/8 of the width of the horizontal frame
• backgrounds should be somewhat abstract - avoid people, cars, and other obvious objects;  where hoardings appear, they should be incomplete (or cropped). 
• focus should be as deep as possible to create a plane-like effect 

Shooting checklist

• tripod
• timed release
• RAW/JPG
• WB - relative to shooting conditions
• ISO/Ap/Shutter - relative to shooting conditions
• Single servo 
• AFAuto area 
• AFMatrix metering

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