DPP: Assignment One: Workflow: Tutor Report & Reflection

Financial Centre Station (corrected)

The tutor’s report is in and contains a good bit of useful advice.

Overall a solid first assignment with no major issues and some promising visual approaches to creativity.

At first I thought there wouldn't be much in the way of specific guidance, but the tutor didn't let me down.  To view the original assignment, follow the [link].

DPP: Assignment One: Workflow

The Metro, mirror glass, and me

The Brief

The brief for Assignment One is to construct an effective workflow on a theme of choice leading to the selection of 6-12 images to be presented as an online gallery or as prints. All the steps in the workflow are to be listed and a short comment to be written against each describing what was done. An explanation of how this workflow differs from others' and personal adaptations are to be included. Finally, we are to reflect on how well this assignment meets OCA assessment criteria (essentially, grading our own assignment).

DPP: Exercise 3: Histogram

The brief here is to shoot and present a series of photos in which we display and comment on histograms.  The exercise is intended not "as an in-depth analysis" but to familiarize oneself with "the most basic characteristics of an image."  In preparation I did a bit of research and reading on histograms, which I report on in a separate post here.

The exercise calls specifically for low, average, and high contrast images, each shot at normal exposure, plus one stop up and down for each, for a total of nine exposures.  I decided to shoot these while also shooting for Exercise 2, about which you can read more here.

We are asked to comment on the relationship between the exposure and the data in the histogram, noting especially highlight and shadow clipping.  I used exposure compensation to meet the requirement for multiple exposures (the RX100 does not feature auto-bracketing) which, as you can see, resulted in differing shutter speeds. I may wish to experiment with actual f-stops and see if it produces different results.  My guess is that it will not.

DPP: Exercise 2: Your Own Workflow (time unlimited)

Exercise 2 requires developing a workflow for a project unlimited in time. Exercise 3 requires nine specific images intended for examining histograms.  I plan to complete these two exercises in one shoot.

I have since May been photographing within a 2-block / 3-station radius of my home on Sheikh Zayed Road.  The intention has been to capture everyday objects in an everyday documentary / vernacular style. This ongoing project includes over 375 flagged images among a total collection of over 700.  Most have been collected in the area immediately around my residence.  Areas farther away are less well represented.  It is in one of these I shot for my last exercise, and it is to this area I will return for this. The subject will be the Dubai Trade Centre Hotel Apartments.  I have bicycled around the apartments and seen what might make some interesting images.

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.”)