(Putting It All Together)
Student's Thoughts while on assignment:
Here are my pictures for the last week. I still think that they need a little work, and would love to have the time to go back and do another round to literally straighten the pictures and remove some of the extraneous elements on the edges.
I welcome your feedback.
Final 1
Well, the project can continue on if the piece of architecture keeps compelling you to explore it. It's good to see many of our lessons coming out in your set of 4 images for the final project. One push I would make, while photographing architecture, is to keep returning at various times of day to discover the many ways that light will "paint" and reveal the details of the building. Sidelighting, backlighting, early day, late day, even night lighting will all help to reveal different personalities/expressions. While this first image is shot in daylight, you do get a pretty good blue tone in the sky. The following three images, because you have shot directly into a bright sky, all suffer from a lack of information in the sky itself. Bright white and overexposed. Just a limitation of many digital cameras (even film) where the range of tones from shadow-to-white simply exceed the dynamic range of the sensor. So, you have to seek times of day (or different angles/vantage points) to mitigate the strong lighting. In this image, I appreciate that attention on the run of dormer windows and their graphic relationship to the steeple. A good use of the negative space of the sky, but YES, the cropping and finished image feels a bit awkward.
Final 2
An example of the very bright light completely wiping out any detail in the sky. I don't have the original image on hand (just the low res), but I can see that you could have shot this image much darker and possibly got some information in the sky. The shadows of the brick and black frames on the windows could be much darker. Too compensate an exposure while in A or S or P mode, most cameras have a +/- exposure dial (as discussed in an earlier lesson) that can help override the settings of the meter and exposure. If you already were overriding this shot's recommended exposure, you were moving in the right direction with adding (+) more light, but simply went too far and overexposed the image. You'll note that glass reflects light at about 1-3 stops less power, so you can actually see the blue sky in the glass itself. This image is heavily tilted also, not necessarily good or bad. But, as all the images have a tilt of one kind or another, that is something to reconcile within the context of your larger picture story. Is it purposeful, and if so, why and what is the desired effect? If accidental, you can keep working on keeping your camera level to the horizon, and even making small rotational adjustments (as you suggested wanting to do) in a photo editor.
Final 3
I like the choices in this image the best so far. Taking apart the architecture into smaller, manageable pieces and constructing a composition that really seems to say something about the building! Again, we have exposure troubles and are simply overexpose as the bright sky goes nearly bright white. Shooting into the sun or bright sky as you have in many of these shot can also create a kind of haze or washed-out look in the image. In certain cases, the technique might be used to say something about the power or glow or ethereal qualities of the building. With a stop less exposure, I think some real drama would start to enter the equation. Heavy shadows contrasted with a deep blue sky and those shiny reflections in the windoes. Again, you found some more kindred forms in this shot (akin to photograph #1) in the sharp steeple-like pine trees at lower left. Another nice insight and anchors in the image quite well!
Final 4
Same situation again regarding exposure and just got overexposed in this situation too. As I look at all your images, there is a kind of ethereal glow at the building's edge and perhaps that "story" could be nourished a little further? Maybe a crazy idea, but maybe you keep right on going and SUPER overexpose the images to make the building look even more like a mirage or ghost of some sort. If this was the intent, of course, I'm completely for the experimentation. This image, also, doesn't seem to have any sharpness anywhere in the image? There's a kind of soft haziness to the whole picture. I like the rough use of Rules of 1/3rds in this piece. Like three slices of imagery: sky, tower/steeple, and patterned brick. Nice composition, but the lack-of-focus and attention to the nature of the depth-of-field are both suffering.